Notes of Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club Episode 2

• Last week we were introduced to the team, Rin and Haruka almost gave themselves concussions by diving into an empty pool (which was luckily prevented), and Kou (Gou?) introduced herself as the voice of many who watch this series by spending most of her screen time fawning over hawt fujoshi bate. 

  

  BEST. IDEA. EVER!

• Summary of Ep 2: Of course if you’re going to have a swim team, you gotta have a swim club right?  Nagisa uses his shrewd business skills to set up a swim club at school with their foreshadowed advisor, Ama.  There’s lots of planning, recruitment and rebuilding that has to be done – and all these activities give us a great opportunity to learn a bit more about our the team.  We get to learn a bit more about Kou and find out that her brother Rin has yet to join the swim team at his school.  There’s also a really nice character building moment with Makoto and the team’s childhood swimming mentor, Coach Sasabe as they reminisce about the pool and the relay team: Sasabe relays a story of a previous race between Haruka and Rin that happened shortly after Rin left for Austraila. (Which I will talk about more later.)  Episode starts and ends with the viewer being able to experience the race (which actually occurred during the events of the last episode) between Haruka and Rin from the perspectives of the racers with color commentary by Makoto and Nagisa.

  Cue pool cleaning montage!

  

  Does Haruka sleep in that thing?

• My Take: My favorite part of this episode?  The scene with Makoto’s little brother and little sister at dinner ( I like ham!) and meeting their former coach, who looks a lot like one of the guys from Eureka 7.  I’ve often thought about how crazy it is that a lot of the issues in this anime seem to be from a lack of communication.  I know it’s a “loud and crazy Westerner” mindset to just assume that people talk to each other when they hurt their feelings but is it that crazy?   During this week’s episode, we hear about how Rin left to become a better swimmer.  Rin returns to the swim club with Haruka and insists on having a race, which he then proceeds to lose which of course upsets him.  I understand that.  If I went to another country to train and was still beaten by my friend who didn’t seem to be driven by results, just the “solitude that swimming” gives him, I’d feel dejected too. (I assume this desire for solitude is due to some incident that we will find out about later.)  But I feel it’s a little silly on the part of the show’s writers to assume that we could all relate to someone throwing away a friendship like that over something that could be talked out between the two parties involved.  I mean, think of all the time that Haruka has wasted feeling bad about the fact that he hurt his friend! I admire his kindness and sensitivity for those he cares about but that just feel like so much time wasted, especially if he loves to swim so much. But…I could also be imprinting my frustration with living in the “passive aggressive capitol of the United States,” but I digress.

Obviously. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have a show.

It’s like Kou understands me!

• Fandom is funny.  Fandom spurned by a not-yet-to-be-confirmed-anime-that-does-become-confirmed is funnier.  Many people seem to be either upset about having a show devoid of girls or experiencing a euphoric high because of all the amazing triceps.  Many people have opinions of Kou. My opinion of her is that she’s funny and a pretty honest reflection of our own reactions.  Seriously!  I know a lot of girls (and guys) who watch this for the fanservice and that’s OK.   This is exactly what guys (and some girls) have done with other anime shows for years – so there’s one show that doesn’t have a ton of boobs in it?  It’s not the end of the world, I promise.  And look, Kou is adorable so you can sit in the corner and goggle her from afar.  I won’t judge, I swear.

Yeah, neither can I Kou. Neither can I.