Free!
| Free! | |
|---|---|
| genre | Sports , drama, comedy |
| Anime television series | |
| title | Free! Free! - Eternal Summer Free! - Dive to the future |
| Country of production |
 Japan
|
| original language | Japanese |
| Year (s) | 2013-2018 |
| Studio | Kyōto animation , animation Thu |
| length | 24 minutes |
| Episodes | 37 in 3 seasons |
| Director | Hiroko Utsumi |
| idea | Kōji Ōji |
| music | Tatsuya Kato |
| First broadcast | July 5th, 2013 on Tokyo MX |
| Light novel | |
| title | High speed! |
| Original title | ハ イ ☆ ス ピ ー ド! |
| transcription | Hai Supīdo! |
| country |
Japan
|
| author | Kōji Ōji |
| illustrator | Futoshi Nishiya |
| publishing company | Kyōto animation |
| First publication | July 2013 - July 2014 |
| expenditure | 2 |
Free! is an anime - TV series of the studio Kyoto Animation and Animation Do from the years 2013 and 2014. It is based on the previously accumulated, but only subsequently published Light Novel High Speed! by Kōji Ōji, who appeared in Kyoto Animations' novel imprint KA Esuma Bunko. The work, which is about a swimming club for high school students, can be classified into the genres of sport , drama and comedy .
action
In elementary school he was still active and successful in the swimming club, but as a high school student, Haruka Nanase ( 七 瀬 遙 ) had not been active as a swimming athlete for a long time. He is still good friends with his former teammate Makoto Tachibana ( 橘 真 琴 ). At school they meet Nagisa Hazuki ( 葉 月 渚 ), the third in their relay team who would like to swim with them again. Suddenly the fourth appears, Rin Matsuoka ( 松岡 凛 ). He was in Australia for a long time to become a better swimmer at a special school there. Now he goes to a boarding school nearby, which is known for training swimmers. He competes against Haruka and, to his disappointment, only just wins.
A year after Rin went to Australia, he faced Haruka. Despite his year abroad, he lost and was therefore desperate. Haruka has since blamed himself for injuring him and stopped swimming. Now that Rin is back in Japan and is swimming again despite his defeat at the time, the three of them want to found a new swimming club at the Iwatobi High School. With their class teacher Miho Amakata ( 天 方 美 帆 ), Rin's little sister and classmate of the three, Gō Matsuoka ( 松岡 江 ) and fourth club member Rei Ryūgazaki ( 竜 ヶ 崎 怜 ), they successfully found the new club. Rei, who is actually a track and field athlete, first had to be persuaded and taught him to swim.
Eventually the four swimmers compete in the regional tournament, but all lose in their respective swimming styles. In freestyle , the only thing Haruka wants to swim, he loses to Rin. From then on he never wants to compete against Haruka again. In order to qualify for the next tournament, they compete in the tier relay and can win. Rin decides to swim in the layer relay in the regional tournament in order to compete with Haruka again. Everyone is preparing intensively, the Iwatobi school group is now also supported by their primary school trainer. In a conversation with Rin, Rei learns that he hadn't stopped swimming because of Haruka, but because he was unsuccessful and without friends in Australia.
Shortly before the regional tournament, Rin learns that he is not part of the relay. He was often not in the best of shape recently because he thinks of his old friends. The fact that he cannot compete against her relay demotivates him so much that he also fails in freestyle swimming. Desperate and angry, Rin wants to stop swimming for good. Since the four from Iwatobi realize that their main priority has always been to swim with each other, they let Rin compete in their team instead of Rei. This way you win the tournament, but you will be disqualified for the participation of a student from another school in your own team.
In the following school year, the team plans to get to the state championship. But first they try, unsuccessfully, to win new members. At Rin Matsuoka's school, the oldest students have left the team after leaving school and young club members are moving up. Sōsuke Yamazaki ( 山崎 宗 介 ) also comes to school, with whom Rin swam in elementary school and with whom he is good friends. Sōsuke soon becomes jealous of the good relationship between Rin and Haruka. When the competitions begin after a long training period, it becomes clear why: Sōsuke has a chronic injury to his shoulder and has given up his dream of a swimming career. He hides it from his team in order to be able to swim with Rin again in competition. In the regional tournament, this wish is fulfilled and he speaks to Rin and Haruka.
During the training, Makoto struggles with his plans for the time after graduation. When he joined the Iwatobi swimming club as a temporary worker, he became enthusiastic about teaching children to swim. Finally, he decides to study in Tokyo and become a swimming instructor. Even Haruka cannot decide for a long time what to do after school. He always swam for joy and not to win; he sees no point in that. After he lost his motivation to swim because of these doubts and had an argument with Makoto, Rin took him on a trip to Australia. Haruka found new courage there and now, like Rin, wants to become a professional swimmer. Finally, the two teams of Rin and Haruka compete in the national tournament, before Makoto, Haruka and Rin go their own way after graduating from school, whereby you can see in the final scenes that Makoto and Haruka are still neighbors and Haruka is now competing against Rin in professional sport .
After finishing high school, Haruka and Makoto go to Tokyo to study together. There they meet Asahi Shina, whom they know from middle school and with whom they now spend a lot of time. They learn that Ikuya Kirishima is also in Tokyo, who was with them in the middle school swimming club. However, his dreams of competing together disappointed the three when they moved away or gave up the club. Ikuya still suffers from the disappointment from then and avoids contact with them. His friend Hiyori Toono, whom he met in the USA, keeps the three friends away from him so that they do not harm Ikuya and who can concentrate on his success as a swimmer. Ikuya also has a distant relationship with his older brother Natsuya. While the three friends try to get in touch with Ikuya again and to convince Hiyori, Makoto learns the joy of training children and aspiring swimmers. As a trainer, he resolves to accompany existing athletes to the top of the world. In the Iwatobi High School, the club now run by Nagisa and Rei has new members who are preparing to take part in competitions. And Rin is back in Australia, where an eccentric trainer and former top athlete becomes aware of him. He prepares him for the upcoming national championship in Japan - just like Haruka has now found his own trainer who wants to promote his potential.
In qualifying for the championship, Haruka and his friends can finally reconcile. When they compete against each other, Ikuya can draw new strength and joy from swimming. Rin and the swimming clubs from Iwatobi, who compete in the youth championship, will come to Tokyo for the national championship. So all friends meet again and get to know new friends and rivals. Rin qualifies for the World Cup, while Haruka's first attempt fails. Qualification for the 100m freestyle the next day, in which Haruka, Ikuya and Rin will participate, is still pending.
Production and publication
The series was produced in 2013 under the direction of Hiroko Utsumi at the Studios Kyōto Animation and Animation Do - a daughter of the former. The concept comes from Kōji Ōji, who submitted the story of four primary school students and their swimming club as a light novel to the Kyoto Animation award 2011. Author Masahiro Yokotani designed the anime as a continuation of the light novel in the high school days of the four friends. He also wrote the episode scripts with Reiko Yoshida . The character design was designed by Futoshi Nishiya and the artistic direction was Jōji Unoguchi .
The 12 episodes of the first season of the series premiered on Tokyo MX from July 5 to September 27, 2013 shortly after midnight (and thus on the previous television day ) , followed by TV Aichi , ABC , BS11 and AT-X . From July 4 to September 26, 2014 at midnight, the second season with 13 episodes was Free! - Eternal Summer aired. The streaming platform Crunchyroll shows the anime as a simulcast in subtitled versions in various languages, including German and English. A dubbed version of Animax was broadcast in Korea and Nolife in France . On August 1, 2015, the publisher Peppermint Anime announced that they had secured the license rights to the series. On January 13, 2016, the speaker cast of the German version was announced. The synchronization was created in the Oxygen Sound Studios in Berlin, under the dialogue direction by René Dawn-Claude . Rieke Werner wrote the dialogue book for the series .
On July 12, 2018, at midnight, the third season Free! - Dive to the Future with another 12 episodes. When it was completed on September 26, 2018, a continuation for 2020 was announced. Wakanim streams the season with German subtitles as a simulcast, Crunchyroll released the season internationally with German and English subtitles.
With Free! - Timeless Medley ( 劇場版 Free! -Timeless Medley ), the first and second seasons were cut into two movies and new scenes were added. They were released on October 21 and November 18, 2017 as a one-time film event in selected German and Austrian cinemas. The film High Speed! Was released in Japan on December 5th, 2015 . Free! Starting days in the cinemas. It is based on the second volume of the light novel template and tells of Harukas and his friends' time in middle school (in German he is in 7th grade) and thus the history of the first season. On January 16, 2016, Peppermint's film was shown in German cinemas as part of a festival. In addition, another movie Free! Was released between January 27 and February 11, 2018 . Take Your Marks ( 特別 版 Free! -Take Your Marks- ) will be shown in selected German and Austrian cinemas as part of the Akiba Pass Festival, which will address the events after the second season in four short stories. A German synchronization of the third film was released on October 26, 2018. The German synchronization of the third season Free! Dive to the Future was published in two volumes on July 26th and October 4th, 2019.
The sequel, announced at the end of the third season, will be created as an anime film and contain a completely new plot. The film should hit theaters in summer 2020. Kyōto Animation announced in November 2019 that the release of the film had been postponed indefinitely.
synchronization
| role | Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) | German speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Haruka Nanase | Nobunaga Shimazaki | Ricardo Richter |
| Makoto Tachibana | Tatsuhisa Suzuki | Asad Black |
| Nagisa Hazuki | Tsubasa Yonaga | Christian Pointer |
| Rei Ryugazaki | Daisuke Hirakawa |
Jan Makino (Series + Film 1) Henning Nöhren ( Films 2-4) |
| Rin Matsuoka | Mamoru Miyano | Tim Knauer |
| Sosuke Yamazaki | Yoshimasa Hosoya | Marios Gavrilis |
| Aiichiro Nitori | Kōki Miyata | Vincent Borko |
| Momotaro Mikoshiba | Kenichi Suzumura | Dirk Petrick |
| Go Matsuoka | Akeno Watanabe | Julia Foelster |
| Miho Amakata | Satsuki Yukino | Tanja Schmitz |
| Seijuro Mikoshiba | Kenjiro Tsuda | Nick Forsberg |
| Goro Sasabe | Hiroshi Yanaka | Fritz Rott |
| Chigusa Hanamura | Satomi Sato | Rieke Werner |
| Kisumi Shigino | Chihiro Suzuki | Konrad Bösherz |
music
The music in the series was composed by Tatsuya Katō . The song Rage on by Oldcodex was used for the opening credits . The credits were underlaid with Splash Free by Style Five, consisting of the speakers for the five main characters. The last episode ends with Ever Blue , also from Style Five.
The opening credits of the second season are Dried Up Youthful Fame by Oldcodex and Future Fish by Style Five was used for the credits .
The third season used Heading to Over by Oldcodex in the opening credits and Gold Evolution by Style Five in the credits .
more publishments
The Light Novel High Speed! ( ハ イ ☆ ス ピ ー ド! , Hai Supīdo ), written by Kōji Ōji , formed the template for the series. It was submitted for the Kyoto Animation Award 2011. The first volume, illustrated by the character designer of the series Futoshi Nishiya, appeared on July 8, 2013 at Kyoto Animation for the start of the television series. A second volume, which tells of Haruka and his friends' high school days, followed on July 2, 2014, parallel to the first film.
The series was advertised with an internet radio broadcast. Iwatobi Channel ( イ ワ ト ビ ち ゃ ん ね る ) started on June 17, 2013. Produced by Lantis and hosted by Nobunaga Shimazaki and Tatsuhisa Suzuki , the show ran every Monday. In August and September 2013, the episodes of the show also appeared on two CDs.
Under the title Iwatobi Kōkō Suiei-bu Katsudō Nisshi ( 岩 鳶 高校 水 泳 部 活動 日誌 ) a radio play was released on two CDs in August and September .
In the run-up to the movie, which is based on the second volume of the light novel, a manga adaptation of the light novel was also released in August 2015 . The two-volume series was drawn by Shiori Teshigori .
reception
The series was particularly popular with female viewers, including the German fan scene. The series picks up on those from the studio in previous series like Haruhi Suzumiya and K-On! tried high school club comedy formula, but it is not just an infusion of old success concepts, according to the Animania . Well-known character types and action elements are “placed dutifully and with a lot of love” and varied, and such clichés are dealt with with humor. The sporty male protagonists would particularly appeal to the girls, but thanks to universal sports and friendship themes, the anime also gives other viewers a reason to watch the series. Although it is essentially "a feel-good show", the conflicts between the characters' ambitions and their past provide enough explosive and drama.
Web links
- Anime Official Website (Japanese)
- Official website of the novel series (Japanese)
- Entry at Anime News Network (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Animania 3/2016, p. 10ff.
- ↑ sumikai.com peppermint anime secures Free!
- ↑ Burak Dogan: German speaker cast of "Free !: Iwatobi Swim Club" known. In: Anime2You. January 13, 2016, accessed August 15, 2018 .
- ↑ Free! Timeless Medley - theatrical release. Peppermint Anime website. August 25, 2017, accessed on January 23, 2018 (German).
- ↑ Free! Take your marks. Akiba Pass Festival website. October 6, 2017, accessed on January 23, 2018 (German).
- ↑ German clip for »Free! Take Your Marks ”. Message on Anime2you. October 13, 2018, accessed on April 19, 2019 (German).
- ↑ »Free! Dive to the Future «: This is what the second volume looks like. Message on Anime2you. July 14, 2019, accessed December 9, 2019 .
- ↑ Robin Hirsch: New "Free!" - Film postponed indefinitely. In: Anime2You. November 11, 2019, accessed August 15, 2018 .
- ↑ TV ア ニ メ 『Free!』 WEB ラ ジ オ 「イ ワ ト ビ ち ゃ ん ね る」. (No longer available online.) Kyoto animation , archived from the original on April 14, 2014 ; Retrieved July 4, 2013 (Japanese).
- ↑ TV ア ニ メ 「Free!」 WEB ラ ジ オ 「イ ワ ト ビ ち ゃ ん ね る」 特設 サ イ ト. Onsen, accessed July 4, 2013 (Japanese).
- ↑ 「イ ワ ト ビ ち ゃ ん ね る」 vol. 1. Lantis , accessed July 27, 2014 (Japanese).
- ↑ 「イ ワ ト ビ ち ゃ ん ね る」 Vol.2. Lantis , accessed July 27, 2014 (Japanese).
- ↑ 岩 鳶 高校 水 泳 部 活動 日誌 1. Lantis , accessed July 27, 2014 (Japanese).
- ↑ 岩 鳶 高校 水 泳 部 活動 日誌 2. Lantis , accessed July 27, 2014 (Japanese).
- ↑ Animania 5/2014, p. 58.