Free! Dive to the Future

With the seniors having graduated from high school, the determined swimmers eagerly take on their futures with a dream to fulfill.

Now attending Hidaka University in Tokyo, Haruka Nanase unexpectedly runs into Shiina Asahi, an old teammate and friend from his middle school days. Consequently, the troubling memories regarding his middle school swim team resurface, as it was a time when Haruka's views on swimming became negative and led him to quit the team. Haruka later reconnects with his other middle school classmates; all except for Ikuya Kirishima, who still resents Haruka for quitting the team, resulting in its disbandment. Aware of the issues between them, Haruka resolves to improve his friendship with Ikuya. However, he quickly realizes that making amends with an old friend isn't his only obstacle.

Facing the reality and challenges of encountering higher calibre swimmers, Haruka must work hard to establish himself if he dreams of competing on an international level.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Matsuoka, Rin Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Tachibana, Makoto Main

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Nanase, Haruka Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Kirishima, Ikuya Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Shiina, Asahi Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Hazuki, Nagisa Supporting

Yonaga, Tsubasa Japanese

Ryuugazaki, Rei Supporting

Hirakawa, Daisuke Japanese

Yamazaki, Sousuke Supporting

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Matsuoka, Gou Supporting

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Shigino, Kisumi Supporting

Suzuki, Chihiro Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Hatta, Shinichirou Producer

Kawanami, Eisaku Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Tsuruoka, Youta Sound Director

Reviews

Sep 26, 2018

Zerity

Recommended

Free!: Dive to the Future is an amazing sequel to an already amazing series. We get to see Haru and Makoto lives after finishing high school, which we don't see a lot of, as they face new challenges and problems that come with the higher competitive world of swimming.

This season we get introduced to Ikuya, a childhood friend of both Haru and Makoto, and he is shown to be very cold to others at the start for certain reasons which are then told later into the series, Haru, Makoto and everyone else has to help him get over his past trauma and worries so he ... can become the lovable kid he once was. Now that is pretty much how the first half of the series is in simple and non spoiler-ish way.

Now the second part is Haru training for the All Japan invitational Tournament. We get briefly introduced to some other competitors to see what kind of opponents Haru and Rin will have to face in this tournament. Although it's not has drama heavy as the first part it is more intense and exciting, and then we get to the tournament and then the final episode were it leaves off finishing the qualifiers (kind of) and then teases us with sequel to come soon.

Overall to say if this was better then season two I would have to say no as season two was was absolutely fantastic. Compared to last season this was a little bit rushed at some parts and some things just sort of worked out for the sake of it having to work out but it didn't happen to much so it did not degrade my love for this season at all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Oct 7, 2018

Veronin

Mixed Feelings

If Free's second season was an improvement for the series, its third season is its all-time low.

Free, in its best moments, may not have been anything more than mildly enjoyable (if teetering the line between 'fanservice' and outright pandering), but in this case it has fallen below even being tolerable. Nonstop, incessant melodrama, focused not on the main characters but split between the dozens of irrelevant side characters around them who nobody watching the show actually cares half a dingdong about. Any humor or relaxing little moments are gone, with an endless barrage of melodrama from opening credits to ending credits. Yes, if that sounds ... interesting to you, by all means, have yourself a blast.

There are so many bloody characters in Dive to the Future that you will often forget who is who. KyoAni also assumes that everyone who watches Dive to the Future has also watched the prequel movie, High Speed, so you're also expected to care for characters you have probably never seen, or hardly remember. Depending on the way you divide things up, there are at bare minimum three different sets of characters, all largely doing their own thing for most of the season (one of these groups even living on a completely different side of the damn planet), with few important, and mostly minor connections holding them together. The high school group in particular is almost entirely irrelevant to the rest of the plot, them still existing only to appease fans of their characters who wanted to see more. Even by the final episode, there were still new characters being introduced, and by that point I had long since lost my patience. The ludicrous amount of subplots going on between Dive to the Future's seven million characters means there is so little time spent on each character that the viewer cannot get emotionally invested in any of them. It's like being given fifty dishes to sample, except all you get to taste from each of them is a tiny, minuscule amount on the tip of your tongue: would anyone actually feel full after that?

To say I had any fun at all watching Dive to the Future would be a lie. Whereas most anime at least try to intersperse the drama with a light-hearted scene here and there, the melodrama in Dive to the Future is all there is. It is the entirety of the show, with not a single moment to breathe. By the time I had finished watching even one episode, I would already be fatigued enough to want a damn break. While the first and second seasons of Free also had plenty of the 'ol melodrama to go around, it was nowhere near the onslaught it is here. Ikuya is waxing philosophical about not being able to see the stars, and I think, well, gee, you live in the most urban country in the world and somehow the word 'pollution' doesn't exist in your head. Hey, maybe I'm just dead inside, but I think it has more to do with how it is impossible to empathise with any word the characters utter. Dive to the Future is processed through your ears and your eyeballs, but never through your brain or your heart.

Some of the characters (Nagisa, for one-- boy, would I love to strangle this little dickweed at times) are infuriating as hell and do not even behave as actual people do. There's the flashback with Ikuya in the hospital, for example, where he smiles and giggles like a little schoolgirl whose mommy just bought him a new dollie. I suppose KyoAni believes that male characters should act 'moe' in the same way that female characters do, as if men and women in Japan somehow have the exact same mannerisms and behaviours (breaking news: they don't). Oh, and the white-haired foreign-dude's voice actor was such an awful match for his character that it was actually laughable. I think KyoAni had a grand slammin' total of one English voice actor available, and just handed him the job as their token foreigner, because, well, to be fair, Japanese people have no clue how white people actually speak.

I guess if you like gay stuff, Dive to the Future is pretty gay. There are scenes like when Hiyori tells Ikuya to forget about other dudes (and look only at Hiyori), as he towers over a submissive Ikuya laying on his back. Cue rockin' dupstep. Buuu-wuu-wuu. Everyone in this show is rainbow-ass-coloured gay, but KyoAni is only interested in teasing and playing pretend, for better or for worse, depending on how you prefer your gayness served.

Unsurprisingly, there is no real conclusion to the story, with your sole reward for watching the show being a "See you again in 2020!" announcement in the final few seconds. Um, thanks, but rather than more seasons, I'd have been much happier to see an actual ending to this one, which would have been possible if the show just focused a wee bit more on Haru's and Rin's central struggles and rivalry with one another, rather than all the superfluous rubbish surrounding the other forty-billion characters.

I fail to see the purpose in Dive to the Future, in 2018, five full years after the first season, when hardly anyone except the most hardcore of fans still care about Free. And another sequel in the works? For what purpose, exactly? They cannot do anything of value with such a massive cast of characters by throwing another measly twelve episodes at it. Surely there's better creative and monetary endeavors that could be pursued instead, and, well, I guess there are, what with the coming of their next fangirl-friendly series, Tsurune, this fall.

KyoAni always envisions these grand ideas on paper, but then give up midway when it comes to actually realising said idea. Were there twice or thrice as many episodes, a decent story might have been feasible, but with a cast this large and only twelve episodes, it makes you wonder if KyoAni is only capable of thinking in dreams, with reality somehow a distant concept to them. As long as they give the appearance of being something, so too do they believe they will truly become said thing. It's a bit like cosplay: if you're pretty and you act the part well enough, some who don't know any better might just assume you are the real thing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 20, 2019

11chadwick

Not Recommended

Free!: Dive to the Future is a big disappointment. It is much gayer than the previous seasons that it becomes intolerable. It has far worse animation and relies on cheap CGI too often. A lot of interest characters are pushed to the sideline with the college setting. The new characters for this season are uninteresting and feel far too tropey to be believable characters. If you were a fan of the previous seasons, don't watch this one. There is a lot of unnecessary drama that would never happen in male circles. It is woman-level drama that does not belong in a sports show.
Avoid this ... show, it will make you angry if you like the franchise.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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