Free! Eternal Summer Episode 10--I'm Not Crying

It's just raining on my face. Really!


And I thought that last week's episode was brutal... This one was just a punch to the gut all the way through. Everything that we guessed about Sousuke was right. He got the injury from overtraining, and wants to spend what little time he has left in the sport swimming with Rin. But even though the point of most of the episode was just to confirm what it's been heavily implying for a while now, what made it so fantastic--and heartwrenching--to watch was how it finally dug into Sousuke's character and his motivations.


I mentioned a few posts back that Sousuke's arc felt very similar to Rin's--almost too similar to really be unique. But now we have the distinction that was desperately needed. Both Rin and Sousuke had the same dream--to become internationally famous swimmers and go to the Olympics. But while Rin was overly concerned with his past, thinking that it was dragging him down when it should've served as his inspiration, Sousuke's problem is that he lost his future. He pushed himself too hard too fast in pursuit of his dream, and now it's lost to him permanently.


There were never any scouts, or plans to continue his career through college to keep pushing to the top. It was all over for Sousuke before he transferred.


And it wasn't until he hit rock bottom that Sousuke remembered the real reason why he'd pushed himself so hard--so that he'd see Rin again. He'd messed up all those years ago when they were kids, putting more emphasis on victory rather than swimming as a team. He defined himself as Rin's rival, yet Rin had already turned away from him to find it in someone else--in Haru.

That's because you weren't written into the show yet.

I love how Sousuke was written into the drama from the end of last season, although it was hard to see him have that reaction to Rin's pity party. I remember being really mad that Rin acted physically injured, since that's not something you mess around with, and Sousuke underscores that reason. Without context, it probably looked like Rin was injured in the same way as him, and that Haru and Co. roped Rin into the relay despite that. Maybe that's why he got upset at Haru.


That aside, I also love how Sousuke realized his new dream, which in a way was his real dream all along. He just wanted to swim with his friend again and find that "something" he'd been missing. He stopped caring about winning and progress, and focused on what really mattered to him, even if it meant never swimming again.

No cherry blossoms this time, but these parallels to the first season are killing me

But as amazing and emotional as this all is, it struck me a few hours after watching this episode that believing that Sousuke could achieve his new dream requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I've never been on a swim team, but I find it hard to believe that the people running the event would let Sousuke swim with such an obvious injury. I mean, the rest of the Samezuka team even noticed it all the way up in the bleachers. Also, wouldn't the school have to know his medical records and review them before letting him on the team? In fact, where is Samezuka's faculty advisor? They make it look like Rin runs the whole thing, but there has to be a teacher somewhere. Even Iwatobi has Ama-sensei.

Eat your heart out, shounen protagonists

That probably sounds nit-picky, and I'm not trying to be. I'm just impressed by the fact that I didn't think of this at all while I was watching the episode. I was completely immersed in Sousuke's story instead. And that's the kind of writing I've been waiting for from Free!. In real life, a swimmer with Sousuke's injury might never get the catharsis of a final race. But in fiction, and on a TV show, he certainly can.


On a final note, I hope that Haru overhearing Sousuke's explanation to Rin will make him realize how enviable his position really is. It seemed like he got the point a little bit--telling everyone that they needed to "respond to his wish with all we've got"--but what's going to happen in the finals when he doesn't have the Samezuka rivalry to focus on? Will he freeze up under the eyes of the scouts again? And he still hasn't made any concrete decisions about what he wants to do when all of this ends...


But we've still got three episodes to wrap that plotline up, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. For now, I'm going to add Sousuke to the "characters who make me cry" list. Tears seem to be the theme of this season.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.