With 48 days until the prefectural tournament, the Iwatobi Swim Club needs to train to build up stamina. Gou finds a training regimen from the old swim club that involves swimming between deserted islands. The Club has no budget, so they have to rough it. Makoto provides camping equipment, and Sasebe agrees to take them to the islands with his squid fishing boat. They aim to complete the 4-kilometer circuit three times, but only get halfway there on the first day. In the middle of the night, Rei goes out by himself and gets caught in a storm, and Makoto swims out to rescue him…
Sometimes it’s not enough to just go through the motions. Sometimes an adventure is called for. If you can’t afford to train at a 50m pool, then why not make things interesting by traveling to an island chain and training there on the cheap? That’s what Iwatobi does, and for the record, it looks a shitload more fun than Samezuka’s regimen in the stuffy-looking indoor pools. Leave it to Free! to make swimming between islands, which isn’t easy, look like one of the most fun things in the world…especially if pizza and mackerel is waiting for you on the shore! It’s not all shits and giggles, though. Makoto clearly has an unpleasant past with the ocean.
Someone must’ve died, and Makoto was either traumatized as a result, or feels responsible for that death. and when Rei is caught at sea in a storm, it’s as if Makoto is being tested again. Rin almost accidentally makes Gou privy to that traumatic event. When she bumps into him, sees that he cares about Makoto, then heads back to the other four guys, Gou wonders about why the five of them aren’t together, and why her brother says he cares more about beating Haru than swimming with his old friends. Maybe he’s moved on, or maybe he’s trying to renounce those old bonds as relics from a life when he was weak and unaccomplished.
Rating: 8 (Great)
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