Free! Eternal Summer Episode 1 [First Impression]

First Impression
Free! is back as just as I remembered, humorous, fun, adorable and precious. This season’s theme appears to be focusing more on finding out what they want to do after they graduate from high-school, and whether or not they have any dreams in mind that they would like to pursue. Although the ED theme was fun I understood that it was highlighting the theme of dreams that we all had as a child of what we wanted to be when we grow up. Both Haruka and Makoto don’t really know what they want to do, or haven’t really spent any time thinking about it. Rin, as we know is dead-set on becoming a professional swimmer, and I’m sure still in the back of his mind, he wishes that Haruka in particular would pursue the same.
It was a bittersweet moment to see Seijuurou announce his and the rest of the third-years members’ retirement, and then appoints Rin as Sametsuka’s new captain. I sincerely hope that we will still get to see a bit of him because he is such a precious character, and I would miss him dearly. Rin on the other-hand is a bit uncomfortable about being appointed as the new captain, but is slowly warming up to the role. I must say that his character has noticeably matured and became much warmer and even softer compared to last season’s aggressive attitude. It is such nice to see him be able to talk with his beloved childhood friends again without having some sort of angst fit. My favourite scene of the episode was when Haruka had invited Rin to come to their school and then when he did, they kidnapped him and brought him to their cherry blossoms filled pool which was the SWEETEST THING EVER because it was Rin’s dream as a kid to swim in a pool filled with cherry blossoms and he litterally burst into tears. However unfortunately for Rin, before he even had the chance to swim is rained on them. Ahaha *SOBS* At least he got to see it.
As fun as the premiere was, there is no denying that the entire episode was incredibly rushed to the point it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. It felt like they really wanted to squeeze as much as possible into this one episode so that they can (hopefully) spend more time on the more relevant plot related details. I just hope that next week’s episode will be better paced.
I will admit, I am a bit sad that it appears there will be no new members added to the Iwatobi swim team. Their club promotion during the assembly was absolutely glorious (The Charm Point was naturally Gou’s idea) and it was so funny to watch because Makoto was the only one who was the most flustered about ripping his shirt off.
With the new character Sousuke now added to the cast (and will be joining Rin’s swimming team), I am curious to see what kind of relationship he had with Rin and the others, and what kind of thing he has against Haruka. All I hope is that this won’t be the same old problem that Rin had against Haruka last season, because frankly that would be quite disappointing. But hey, the OP definitely implies some intense drama and is giving us a good heads up that there will be feels bombs dropping and ripping our hearts out! 😀
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