#hence why they thought they could easily pump those dynamics again

[shiningjoy]

thanks for the reply !! it really made me consider things even more

yes, having a lot of characters itself isn’t a bad thing but the way it was executed definitely was. maybe it was even harder for them to seamlessly fit them in bc free always focused more on the core 5 characters than others (they never even pay attention to other teams besides samezuka) (and the reason haikyuu is able to do it well is that they pay attention to other teams from the start? and also give them development when it’s actually relevant lmao) but they definitely could’ve done better at least with establishing the characters that were already given basis in high speed/starting days. like seriously they were already given great source material and they changed so much of it that starting days/s3 had only a shell of the interesting dynamics/plot the characters had in high speed2. esp with ikuya and haru- the dynamic we got in s3 was so shallow bc they really just repeated harus plot line with rin even having hiyori act in as sousuke as u described but with much less buildup and tension. instead the tension was just oddly forced by hiyoris unnecessary protectiveness and the conflict solved easily with a race. without the buildup that conflict makes less sense to me every time i think about it and makes me wish they actually explored something new and created ikuya and harus dynamic based on high speed 2 rather than repeat rin and harus bc their dynamics are fueled by something that they can’t replicate with others and haru and ikuyas past tgt is just so different from the past he has with rin that having the same conflict and resolution makes no sense (esp since ikuyas past wasn’t related only to haru; the whole team had left him but they hyperfixated on haru anyways)

oh yea i didn’t even think about the rin crying thing until u pointed it out- i think what was so powerful about certain scenes in s1 and s2 is that they’d be RARE occasions where the characters are showing extreme emotion and and it increased the impact of rin crying, haru smiling, haru yelling, rin laughing specifically with his eyes closed, etc. i totally agree that what they were also trying to do with making rin and haru so loose in their emotions was to make up for the lack of emotional impact the scenes of s3 had bc like u said they just shoehorned old tropes into the new characters/relationships except without having the build up and development they had in s1&2 so the scenes still felt empty :/

to your second point, god you had me thinking even more how much they did those three wrong esp makoto.

what i’m upset about regarding rin and haru is that haru is still hung up over the incident that happened the first winter rin came back from australia (as shown by how affected he was by hiyori saying that everyone who swims with him gets hurt, which i already explained was dumb in my original post) and they never really addressed that after ? honestly if they were gonna have that still haunt haru despite rei telling him rin’s actual feelings at the end of s1 they should’ve had rin and haru talk about it which would’ve been a nice way to show how they’ve grown and fit in interaction naturally into the season but no they never even had rin meet ikuya and hiyori until the road to the world movie which led only into a comedic scene (i havent watched the movie only clips but i’ve heard that it’s better than s3 at least)

man but i really hate that line hiyori said and also how he said haru was an inferior copy of ikuya when haru is the one ikuya looks up to and based his freestyle on and what a surprise that i found out that those two lines were direct suggestions the director kawanami gave. :/

anyways, i also really wished they kept asahi and rin being childhood friends because of their dads having done the relay tgt back then. that could’ve also fit rin back into the storyline more and would be interesting to see their dynamic

and also why isnt the fact that sousuke/kisumi/rin were childhood friends explored more ?? i feel like they barely even have any interaction

besides rin, makoto and harus relationship really took such a disappointing turn. his character regressed from all the development he had in s2 just to go thru the same development he already went thru but this time worse. and when it seemed like they were going to explore a new dynamic between makoto and haru bc they were going from being next door neighbors to going to different colleges, they like u said put him back as the never changing supportive character. it wouldve been so nice to see how they developed on their own and not being attached to the hip but instead they just made makoto an accessory to haru. im convinced that had utsumi stayed the director we would’ve gotten the interesting “even we change” development we wanted bc unlike s3 she implied in an interview that she didn’t see makoto and haru meeting often tho she didn’t go into the details bc she wanted to keep it open at the moment :( but yea makoto’s role really regressed in the series to being just a shipping item bc tho he appeared pretty often he never really seemed to do anything besides shallowly support haru from the side (and i say shallowly bc he never stood up for haru or even comforted him) which is really an injustice to him and his previous goals

just generally the lack of focus on the core relationships just made s3 feel even more like filler bc the plot is (or at least it used to be) mainly driven by those main friendships. but instead like u said they tried to give everyone even small side characters bigger parts in the story than necessary

What u said also really made me realize that probably most of what happened in s3 was for the sake of more ships. hiyori’s whole existence was really just a whole thing just to be able to neatly give ikuya his own ship. makoto regressed prob to keep the original dynamic that shippers are used to with makoharu. haru acted ooc so that they could force development between him and other characters for more ships. really there’s prob more that i cant think of out of the top of my head

s3 just really was so shallow and even when they had the opportunity to make it heartfelt they never took it. like in the scene after haru lost the first race at the invitational and he confides in makoto and rin and they just laugh off his worries? what the heck was that

offhand but i also really disliked when azuma said that the reason haru slowed in the race was that he was scared that he was feeling himself overtake his limits in swimming. that just made no sense to me that haru would be scared of that when he has a competitive spirit even if he likes hiding it sometimes. the original implied reasoning that the reason he wasn’t doing well was bc he didn’t want to give up his relationships to reach the top just made much more sense since the basis of free is the friendships, even more so than the swimming (though that is what connects many of those friendships together) they could’ve addressed that and have rin appear to tell him that he was going to compete and keep his friends (since in s2 that’s what he fought sousuke on; that both friendships and swimming were important to him and that focusing on his friends wasn’t a waste of time) because what he gets strength from to swim is his friendships so haru could definitely do it too. and also have the rest of iwatobi sc reassure haru that he’d never lose them/they’d always be there for him and thus bring back the point of free! really i think the director forgot what free was about and that’s why the most s3 actually felt like free! was when haru and rin left their training camps and spontaneously ran to see their old highschools compete at nationals

god just seeing what free has turned into makes me so sad. i want to be excited like i originally was for new content esp the movie coming this year but with how bad the writing is now idk if i can bring myself to feel excited anymore bc i feel like i’ll just end up being so disappointed and this just makes me wish they just ended it at s2 instead

so i’ve finally watched s3 of free! and i wanted to put my thoughts in about it and hopefully also get some ppl to reply (respectfully) with their own input? also sorry if my knowledge of free seems spotty or incomplete since i don’t obviously have all free lore burned into my head so pls inform or correct me on anything i’m missing!

anyways before even watching s3, i noticed it was pretty widespread that s3 was rather disappointing or at least fell short to s1&2. and not only that, but i could see that s3 was likely going to be a bit disappointing just bc of how many less ppl were interested in it or even knew about it (ofc popularity=/=good but i doubted that the loss in numbers was just bc time had passed) sadly, the season actually exceeded my expectations of the worst.

first of all, i think way too many characters were introduced without any need of them being there. ofc not all of them seemed worthless to being there, but i think at least half of them didn’t have a need of being there (or at least didn’t need to appear as much as they did) or they could’ve at least waited to introduce them. don’t get me wrong, i loved characters like isuzu and albert, but with how little they appeared or added to the plot, i don’t think they were necessary at all. they introduced so many characters and kind of tried to forcefully endear them to us but it just seemed really shallow and random. i was really uninterested in the new iwatobi hs sc tbh (i love rei and nagisa, but i just don’t feel anything for the new members tho it was funny how the new manager is interested in fat instead of muscles) i don’t think isuzu was worth introducing, but i do get why they introduced albert at least. he was supposed to serve as their first rival introduced strictly from the professional world, and to emphasize there are many people above them not just in japan but the “world stage” but i definitely think they could’ve waited on that until the free 2021 movie tbh. plus i felt that any conflict he brought to haru was resolved within 1 maybe 2 episodes so yea they definitely didn’t really need him bc he hasn’t had much impact (yet) if anything, they could’ve just had him briefly appear at that training camp haru was at to race him and beat him to remind him that he still has a long way to go to get to the top. but all other appearances of albert were so extra and unnecessarily emphasized how inhumanely talented he was (the arcade scene, the thing with the chopsticks,etc) it just felt like really weak foreshadowing

also, the main conflict in s3 was just way too prolonged and solved unsatisfactorily. first of all, i don’t know why the blame seemed to be shifted by ikuya and hiyori almost solely to haru, like yes he was the one who quit first but it wasn’t an attack specifically to ikuya and the rest of them left too, so they should’ve held more grudges on haru makoto and asahi rather than just haru (or if anything at least have more blame on asahi bc makoto at least talked to ikuya beforehand) like did he just forget asahi also made a promise to not move away? honestly from the content they gave us, i’d argue that asahi and ikuya were actually closer than how ikuya and haru were, since i feel like most of the latter relationship was based on ikuya admiring harus swimming.

second of all, hiyori was another character i found so unnecessary and just weirdly protective over ikuya. he repeatedly gets in the way between them and ikuya when ikuya never said he didn’t want to talk to them (and it’s not like talking to them is gonna give him a health relapse) and so he just seemed to be there to prolong the conflict between them which was irritating. not even natsuya, ikuya’s actual brother, was that obsessive over him so i really don’t get hiyori. even sousuke, who was actually friends with rin before haru and the others were was not that possessive over rin, and there was actually pretty good reasoning why he had a grudge against haru (he didn’t see haru taking swimming as seriously as rin and thought that would cause him to hold back rin who looked up to haru, and was jealous that haru who had the talent to swim the world stage with rin wasn’t taking advantage of it when sousuke wanted to but couldnt bc of his injury) and like what right did he have to say to haru that his swimming hurts others when it didn’t even affect ikuya negatively (instead it inspired him and led to him wanting to swim like haru) like how haru originally thought it did to rin and how it did to asahi in high speed 2?

third of all, like i said before the way they solved the conflict between ikuya and the rest made little sense. like yes harus swimming is magical but i don’t get how swimming IM with him could instantly solve all the problems between them. (ik that it was based on the promise they made to race each other but i’ll get into that part and how shallow it felt later) if anything, i think what would’ve been more impactful was something happening to ikuya that made him realize that he can/should rely on/trust others, (maybe a more serious accident?) and enjoy swimming with a team and not just alone since his personal conflict was that he thought swimming alone was better than swimming with others when actually he was lonely (at least it was in starting days). and that wouldn’t even have to be with haru and the others that he learns that lesson. it could be with his own university team and hiyori, which would give hiyori a much better purpose of being there. (or they could’ve just not had him exist) if they were so inclined to have closure between ikuya and the other boys by having them resolve ikuyas personal conflict, i feel like it should’ve been at least haru AND asahi (maybe even makoto too but idk how thatd work when he’s no longer competing) racing him in the same race (if not them doing a relay but i guess they didn’t want to make it too obvious than they already were that they were just recycling the plot of s1 (lol)) if anything i think they could’ve even waited for them to reconcile while they were on the olympic team, but ig kyoani didn’t want to wait that long to reintroduce ikuya and wanted to use s3 to warm ppl up to the idea of ikuya being on the olympic team which they didn’t do very well considering how bad the development was

also what was with ikuya saying he swims his own way while obviously taking sm inspiration fron the way haru swam? it was so contradictory and even as kids haru told ikuya to swim his own way when ikuya told him that he wanted to be like haru and he understood that obviously but didn’t apply that to his actions at all? and i’m surprised haru was ok with ikuya blatantly copying him when i vaguely rmb that he’s been shown to get annoyed with even makoto when he seemed to be doing that?

another fault in having all these characters was that haru’s actual personality seemed to be taken away for the sake of these characters.

they wanted to establish a deeper relationship between ikuya and haru, but it just seemed so off the way they went about it in free! haru promising ikuya to race him just felt so ooc to me and had little emotional impact tbh bc of the lack of reasoning i felt haru had to agree to such a thing besides him promising ikuya that just bc he asked rather than bc he actually wanted to race ikuya. (while it took rin weeks to get haru to warm up to him and then agree to the relay, and seeing the process of haru getting used to the idea then openly enjoying swimming with the others was really touching) i think they just added that to make harus quitting have more impact on ikuya but i don’t think it was necessary at all when they already made plans with the rest to swim the relay again and win. if they wanted to make it seem like ikuya and haru had more of a one on one relationship with each other they should’ve gone into more about how haru saw the same darkness in ikuya that he did in himself like in high speed 2. make them bond over their similarities since i’m pretty sure ikuyas purpose as a character is to give haru a rival that is like how sousuke is to rin is; which is being rivals while being two of the same person. (in contrast to haru and rin who are very different and are rivals that inspire each other) but the way they try to establish the relationship between ikuya and haru pales sm in comparison to sousuke and rin that it’s a bit laughable, even more so in those occasional moments where they try to act like ikuya can measure up to rin’s impact on haru

another much more obvious event where haru’s character is forced to act ooc for the sake of the establishment of another character is with albert. yes, haru has grown a lot from the beginning of the series and has gotten a lot more open, expressive, and friendly, but that’s mostly just to the friends around him, but that’s not even to all of them (he still seems to find kisumi irritating and in TYM tries to leave at the sight of him lol) so him noticing, randomly approaching a stranger he doesn’t know a single thing about to help them order food and then even going far as to have lunch with him was the most blatantly ooc thing in the season. i think he may be polite enough to help him order his food but i don’t get why he even noticed albert in the first place. they should’ve just left him noticing albert to be at the practice race. like i said that scene was just there to emphasize albert’s skill with the chopstick thing but i think saying he was the world record holder and also being way ahead of haru in the race was already enough

besides haru’s character, another character i felt they did wrong was makoto. besides the plot of s1 being recycled, s3 makoto seemed to just repeat the development he went through in s2. by the end of s2, he already establishes that he wants to coach swimmers. and at the end of s3 he comes to that same realization but acts like it’s something completely new to him introduced by nao that he never thought of before?? the only difference was that he said in s2 he wanted to help kids realize how great swimming is, which was sweet and suited his personality, but in s3 he says he wants to do it for athletes on the world stage. tbh i like either way, and the latter one would help him be able to stand with rin and haru who in s2 he was afraid of being left behind by (hence why he swam the free against haru in s2) but saying that being an olympic trainer can also help him inspire kids and show them swimming is fun makes no sense. choose a path you want for the character already and make it consistent does he want to help athletes in the world stage or does he want to help kids fall in love with swimming? bc i doubt any kids pay attention to the coach or trainers in the olympics rather than the actual athletes so that reasoning like i said didn’t make sense.

and after haru lost what i think was the 200m (?) free at the All Japan Invitational, i found it weird that they had makoto there after to talk with haru and rin about the race? idk to me it just feels like it’s tradition for it to end up just being rin and haru talking when they’re struggling with swimming (in s1 was their fight in front of the tree that looked like the one by their elementary, in s2 it was the australia trip) his presence didn’t even feel necessary either, he just randomly interrupted the moment by saying his future plans after haru had that angst yell lol. it felt like just an appeal to mh shippers which is not a good enough reason at all

the last point i can remember at the moment is that the ending was so underwhelming. i don’t understand why they couldn’t have shown the ending to rin and harus 100m free race when the movie trailer already confirms that they’re going to the olympics. why cut to albert watching them on the tv?? all this build up to not even show the results of it? I think this ending really just confirmed that s3 was so unnecessary and just there to warm ppl up to the olympic movie but not actually give us anything good or plot moving

anyways sorry for this dump. besides all these criticisms, i want to say there were parts of it that i enjoyed, i just didn’t go into it bc this post is already so long, and me bagging on ikuya was not hate; i actually like him and the only time i teared up in s3 was in his race with natsuya lol. i’m afraid that at some parts i may have not expressed my thoughts exactly so please don’t be too harsh if you engage, but i’d love to hear other ppl’s analysis of s3 and the characters as well !!