Saturday, September 28, 2013

Free!

Free!:  B+

Kyoto Animation doing their thing, only this time rather than adorable girls we have lovingly animated young men swimming.  You will rarely see so many muscles animated quite this realistically, and Kyoto Animation's stunning animation is in full force.  They also clearly wanted practice drawing a lot of water.

The story itself doesn't slouch either.  While it isn't truly inspired, it is a solid story about motivation, competition, teamwork and loving what you do, I was actually surprised at how well it comes together.

I feel like I should say more about the series, but there really isn't a lot more to say.  It's gorgeous, full of tasteful manservice, but a good, heartful story about sports, in the way where you don't have to love sports to get into it.

Oh, I guess I could talk about the yaoi.  Which isn't really there.  I mean, you don't really have to stretch to say that there's homoerotic undertones, but it feels unfair to the actual good story there to say that it's a major element.

If you want to watch a show with either a lot of really well-drawn muscular young men or a good story that'll make you want to go for a swim sometime, Free! is a good watch.  It is thoroughly grounded in realism and all the tension is emotional, so you won't get much out of it if you're interested in magic or sci-fi or explosions.

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