I love festival episodes.
- Recap of Episode 8 – Haruka lost his race, and Rin gloats like a jerk. Makoto, Nagisa and Rei attempt to redeem the club in their individual events but none of them manage to make it past the prelims. Kou reveals that she signed the guys up for the 4×100 relay, without telling anyone so they have another shot at the regionals. Everyone freaks out about it and Haruka is nowhere to be found. Haruka finally shows up and agrees to be part of the relay team and everyone rejoices. At the tournament, we are left with a cliffhanger at the final stretch of the relay as Haruka gets ready for his leg of the race, and again, a large part of the internet breaks their keyboards and squees.
I love Kyoto Animation so much, they even got the back splash and air bubbles from his flip-turn right. So awesome!
This is was me while watching this.
I…uh… Do you ever feel like the writers for the show are trolling us? Anyone?
- Summary of Episode 9: Haruka jumps in the water, passes everyone by and wins the event. After the race, the team is honored by their school for their achievement and Kou reminds everyone that they still need to focus on regionals and then nationals – always “aiming higher.” Haruka is still mopey about Rin after losing to him during the tournament and Nagisa decides it would be a good idea to go to the Squid Festival to get Haruka’s mind off of swimming for awhile. Meanwhile Samezuka Academy’s captain, Seijuro Mikoshiba, tells Rin that their team will be attending the festival as well since there will be a shrine to the Water God at the festival and they should pay their respects before regionals. Rin and Aiichiro Nitori (Rin’s roommate and teammate) are spotted by Nagisa and Rei at the festival. “Detective Rei” is dispatched, hijinks ensue and Haruka tells everyone to calm down. Afterwards, Haruka and Makoto talk about swimming and the relay and Haruka tells the team he wants to “swim with them again.” At the next practice, Kou reveals that Rin is now part of the relay team for Samezuka Academy, thus pitting him against the Iwatobi Swim Club once again.
So cute! I love festival episodes!
Nagisa? Are you having a stroke?
You all thought Rei was dorky when actually, he’s an ice cold detective. And dreamy…. **sigh***
I feel like he just kinda asked them: “will you accept this rose?”
- My Take: As someone stated on the Crunchyroll forums, this may be the longest time that none of the guys have been in swimsuits and while I find them entertaining either way, I understand that **ahem** some people may have shorter attention spans.
- I was really happy to see the character growth of Haruka and Rin, each in their own different way. Haruka going through the motions of why he swims and what motivates him, finally coming to the conclusion that it’s the bonds he has made that make swimming important to him. Rin was on the other side of the spectrum – running after success for so long, he realizes how lonely and isolating having success can be for some people. These are both very real and surprisingly deep reactions to any event so I was very happy to see that kind of reflect from both characters, even though I still think Rin is a jerk. And on the completely superficial side of things, seeing everyone in their yukatas was just lovely. I’ll admit it. They were just so adorable! I think I got a toothache from it all.
- The twist at the end, with Rin joining his school’s relay team was pretty expected. I mean honestly, how else would they have kept Rin in the story besides moping around on the sidelines? Hopefully that will be interesting too. We only have three more episodes to go…
