Free! Eternal Summer Episode 9

Impression
Without a doubt this is the most emotional and distressed side of Haruka we have seen yet, and it broke my heart. I found it was sad that no one except for Makoto had noticed how low Haruka’s morale was since they entered the swimming arena. Since the beginning of the season, as more and more people began to pressure and talk to Haruka about being scouted, the more suffocating it became. It was far too much to bear alone, and his final straw of patience snapped when Rin took a fit at him for wounding up disqualified after touching the ground and stopped swimming altogether. When Haruka snapped, and he spoke the exact truth: Rin was forcing his own dreams onto him or pressuring him into accepting the offers. Being scouted and being part of a professional swim team is not what Haruka wants. In fact, we have known this since the very first episode from the first season. Haruka had quit the swimming club in middle school because he grew sick and tired of winning and being told that he is a genius that will eventually become a professional athlete. Haruka swims because he wants to, and desires to do so with his friends. That is why despite what had happened today, he had vowed to the team that he will still compete in the relay. This episode was far from ‘Free’ for Haruka, which is precisely why he succumbed to the pressure during the race. For the first time, Haruka didn’t want to swim. He was dreading it.
On the other hand, there was a little bit a positivity in this episode despite the suffocating ordeal we had to watch Haruka go through. I was especially pleased to see that Rin still stayed around to talk with Makoto despite the fact Haruka wasn’t in the room. It only got better when rin had acknowledged Makoto’s swimming abilities, remarking how he should have already received some scouting calls. When he told him that, Makoto’s eyes just lit up. After experiencing that rift in swimming against Haruka, to be acknowledged by Rin (who can swim up to par) is probably a huge thing for him. However before Makoto could tell us anything, Nagisa and Rei interrupted *SHAKES FIST* BAD TIMING GUYS!!!!!! I do hope we will hear what Makoto wanted to say sooner than later. As I have mentioned in the past entries, I believe that Makoto would like to be scouted, but doesn’t have the confidence in himself that he will- or perhaps he has new dreams after teaching the kids at the pool how to swim. Unfortunately for Makoto, he did not make it into the regional finals due to wounding up 4th place.
I am happy that Nitori’s training with Sousuke paid off and that he made it onto the relay team for the regionals. It will be a very interesting competition against Nagisa as we will see how much better both of them have trained harder.
Sousuke is digging his own grave as he keeps quiet about his shoulder injury. It keeps on getting worse, and he needs to rest it properly instead of competing, otherwise his dreams are going to fly out the window. It sucks really because for one we know that one of the reasons Sousuke is keeping quiet is because he wants to take part of the relay, but the other reason is perhaps is related to the scouting issue (which have yet to be confirmed). It was painful to see his shoulder give out while competing and hell, I don’t know how he expects to hide it from Rin when he made it so obvious.
On that note, next week will be Sousuke’s turn for the emotional roller-coaster. Not ready for the feels for this one either, regardless of the fact I do have a love/hate relationship with the guy.