Free! Iwatobi Swim Club

Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club is a Japanese anime television series directed by Hiroko Utsumi and produced by Kyoto Animation and Animation Do. The anime is based on the light novel written by Kōji Ōji, High Speed! (ハイ☆スピード!), which received an honorable mention in the second Kyoto Animation Award contest in 2011 and later published in July 2013. The anime premiered on July 4, 2013.

Free! revolves around members of a high school boy's swimming team. Four boys—Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin—all participated in a swimming tournament shortly before graduating elementary school and later parted ways. Years later, they reunite when Rin challenges Haruka to a race and wins. When Nagisa mentions creating a swimming club, Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and then later on Rei, form the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club.


Characters

Haruka Nanase (CV. Shimazaki Nobunaga, Matsumoto Megumi (young))

Haruka is a second-year boy in high school who loves swimming and being in water. He is a strong and quiet person. His style captivates many and he has a strong fixation towards freestyle swimming His love for water is so strong that he often strips down to his swimsuit at the sight of water. Due to his girlish name, he is often mistaken for a girl at first, and his friends call him Haru. After his first year in middle school, he quit competitive swimming after hurting Rin by beating him in a race, but regains his passion after racing him again when they reunite. He is vice-captain of the swim club.

Tachibana Makoto (CV. Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Yukino Satsuki (young))

Makoto is Haruka's best friend, and is also a second-year in the same class as Haruka. Unlike Haruka, he is more outgoing and often speaks up for him. He is nice and considerate to others. However, he is weak-hearted and gets scared easily. He is captain of the swim club. His swimming style is backstroke.

Hazuki Nagisa (CV. Yonaga Tsubasa, Satou Satomi (young))

Nagisa is a first-year boy who also goes to Iwatobi High School. He is very strong and not afraid to speak his mind. He has admired Haruka's swimming since elementary school and enrolls at his high school hoping to swim with him again. He comes up with the idea to start a swim club at Iwatobi High, and he is the treasurer of the club. His swimming style is breaststroke.

Ryugazaki Rei (CV. Hirakawa Daisuke)

Rei is Nagisa's classmate. He is handsome and intelligent, but is often manipulated by Nagisa for some reason. He used to be on the track team because he only cared about sports that involved beauty and calculation. He refuses Nagisa several times when asked to join the swim club, because he did not think swimming was beautiful and it is revealed that he cannot swim. He later joins the swim club because he admires Haruka's beautiful freestyle swimming. Out of all the swimming styles, Rei can only swim butterfly.

Matsuoka Rin (CV. Miyano Mamoru, Watanabe Akeno (young))

Rin is Haruka's rival and his former teammate in elementary school. He comes back to Japan after studying abroad in Australia during middle school and becomes estranged to his former teammates due to a change in his personality, which came after he suffered a tough loss in a race against Haruka during their first year of middle school. He goes to Samezuka Academy, but did not initially join the swim team at Samezuka. His swimming style is freestyle and butterfly.

Matsuoka Go (CV. Watanabe Akeno)

Gō is Rin's younger sister. She is a first-year at Iwatobi High School. She prefers to be known by the more typical reading of her name, Kō, due to Gō being a boyish name. She joins the swim club as a manager, in hopes that she can help change Rin back to his old self. She has a tendency to blush around men when admiring their muscles.

Amakata Miho (CV. Yukino Satsuki)

Miho is Haruka and Makoto's homeroom teacher. She teaches classic literature. The students nicknamed her Ama-chan. Rumors among Iwatobi students suggest that she had gone to Tokyo to pursue her dreams, but failed and became a teacher instead. Although she has a quirky and upbeat personalty, sometimes she uses old, confusing literature phrases to make a point. She becomes the faculty advisor for the swim club after Nagisa found out her work in Tokyo involved swimsuits.