It’s a typical sports anime set in high school with all the expected tropes and male character archetypes: the cool character, the childhood friend/neighbor, the friendly upbeat spritely character, the calculating glasses character, and the rival character. The tone is realistic with touches of meta observations and light hearted gags. There is some tension as one of their childhood friends moves to another school in order to become a better swimmer and they find themselves suddenly rivals with someone they haven’t seen in years.įree is kind of like a mix of Ookiku Furikabutte and K-on!. The animation is completely gorgeous.įree revolves around the members of the Iwatobi High School swim club. Free! has gained cult status for good reason. It originally started out as an animation short and animation exercise but it gained such a cult following that it became a full fledged anime. One of the most talked and shipped about animes this summer is Free! Iwatobi Swim Club.
