Mar 3, 2014
I found Free to be a surprisingly fascinating watch - whether it be because of the lush animation, or the characters themselves, the ultimate result was an enjoyable anime that really managed to capture my attention.
Starting with the art direction, most the scenes in Free! are a pleasure to look at - this is down to the beautiful animation which builds on a clean palette of colours to create a sleek effect that runs throughout the show. As many people have noticed, the way water is animated in the program really stands out as something special. There's a sense of depth to it that I'd
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imagine is very difficult to produce. In addition to this, the characters themselves are well designed, their movements fluid and their images well defined. Personally, I feel that some shows fall into the trap of making their characters look a little too similar. Here, there's no such problem. The five boys that make up the principle cast do borderline on being colour-coded, which does almost add up to being a little too obvious, but they manage to pull back from the brink. Praise should also go to the design of the women in the show - Gou especially, who is almost our, the viewer's, avatar in the world of Free! Nothing in particularly stands out in her design as something great, but I find that there's something pleasing about her look.
The soundtrack was okay, but I ultimately feel that it was nothing to write home about. It's never something that really stands out to me, which I guess to some might be a good thing in that it never feels intrusive. It complements what's going on plot-wise and scenery-wise well, so it's hard to knock it as being bad.
Plot-wise, the show has one clear goal in mind from the outset, and it generally stick with this theme throughout the series. What I personally love so much about the story is how character driven it is. Considering this could be seen as a sports anime, where often the main goal is simply to win a trophy, the goals here seem to be much more driven by the characters' relationships with each other. Often in anime, men's bonds aren't really discussed in the way they are here. Some see this as borderline yaoi bait (there are a lot of pretty healthy shipping communities in the Free! fandom) but I find it refreshing to see a group of adolescent boys talking so openly about their feelings. So many anime go for the angst ridden young male that they almost seem to forget there are others as well (of course there is a character in the show who does follow that stereotype, but I felt that Rin, along with Nagisa, who plays the naive role, to be the weakest character.). As you can probably guess by my username there is one character who really stood out in my book - Makoto Tachibana. I found that his personality so wonderfully permeated all the scenes he took part in, which was wonderful to see. There was a strong sense of character development there which I loved.
Overall, Free! is in my book, an underrated anime. Too many people are willing to write it off as 'that swimming anime with the scantily clad men', but ultimately, the tale it tells is a heartwarming one of friendship and honesty. I highly recommend you check it out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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