Free! Eternal Summer Episode 08 - The Locomotive of a Twist!

Ah yes, the changing of the seasons, that lovely time when your sinuses don't know whether to shrivel up like prunes or explode all up in your face. When there's a forty degree difference in temperature from midday to evening, when pumpkin flavored everything becomes a thing for a month and a half until everyone gets sick of it again.

It's been a fun few days let me tell you. But hey, we do what we must I suppose.

By the way did I ever mention that I have a Twitter account? Blah blah shameless plug whatever but hey I sometimes do live-watch tweets too or say amusing and/or embarrassing things, so why not give it a look? Hell sometimes I even talk about anime that isn't complete ass.

Speaking of ass, and shamelessly plugging stuff, it's time for Free!. Not a bad segue today huh?

We begin today's episode with that one guy who I am still not convinced should be anywhere near little children, telling them to gather 'round and listen to ol' Mako-chii.

Given the unique personalities of each of these kids, based
purely on character design alone, I wouldn't be
surprised if they became the new main cast someday.

So Mako introduces himself as their new coach, and they're all "OH HI BIG GUY." Cue that beautiful intro baby aww yeah.

I'm allowed to like a good intro. Seriously, this is way better than last season. It's much more... down to Earth I guess? Not to mention a far better indicator of what the show is kinda like. Even though it's still just about bros swimming almost constantly.

Sports anime, whatcha gonna do?

Of course then the episode begins, the title is stupider than ever (seriously why can't they just come up with some normal damn titles instead of trying to be clever it's really not working well at this point!), and we see that holy shit someone has been hitting the 'roids.

Has nobody noticed that Mako's shoulders are wide enough
to land a fucking jet plane on???

So Mako tells them that he's helping out at the swim school while still doing his training thing, so there's no big deal it won't affect the Regionals. But why is he doing it? Well, because of soemthing that happened during practice. Flash back to them still practicing handoffs to save time, and Gou is busy looking at times and stuff, and mentions creepy pizza dude hasn't been by in awhile due to the school thing.

But hey, Mako decides to check in with the old guy for the heck of it, and finds out that he is busy as hell with all these kids learning to swim.He is, of course, too busy to really listen, and Mako decides to be the nice guy that he is and try to help out a bit.

Wasn't that totally worth an entire flashback sequence? Don't you feel satisfied knowing exactly how that sequence of events played out that totally could have been covered in like, two lines of dialogue?

God you just know they're padding for time at this point. Of course, Nagi refuses to be outdone in the being a human being department, and declares that he and Rei will totes help out, until Mako points out they should spend that extra time practicing. What about Haru?

Eh, he just swims. He's not a teaching guy, he's just a swim guy. It's kind of outside of his character to do anything that isn't cooking mackerel or swimming.

Funny that you're worried about this NOW since you've all
basically been focused on yourselves this entire time.

Nagi announces that he is going to be focusing on his studies and his swim, because he wants to pretend to have some sort of character growth after that episode focusing on his parents being not entirely assholes or something. Rei also has an amazing announcement to make.

We really couldn't tell. /sarcamsm

But he's all just like "I gotta get better, but hey Mako do a thing and be awesome for the rest of us huh?" Then Nagi makes another comment and oh god dude how did anyone think this would be remotely okay?

Even Rei is like "oh what the F**K dude."

Then they do this weird close up of Haru, and that Sousuke douche is walking around at night and sees silver head practicing late at night. It makes him consider being less of a douche, and more of one, hard to tell with him. He straight up is all "you're too tired and look like shit because of it, cut it out."

Of course the kid is all trying his hardest to catch up to the others, being the slowest, and Sousuke is all "look bro, just hang it up for a bit before you wear yourself out and can't swim at all." Sage advice from an asshole I suppose. Are they trying to show us that he too, has a sensitive, caring side?

Nah, he's probably just being a dick.

In a surprising turn of events, he decides to coach the useless turd, because I guess he really has nothing better to do than lord over someone else just how much better he is at everything.

Then Rin shows up to watch the training, and finds his old pal is lending a hand, so he just drops off the stuff he brought and we move on to Mako hanging out with the kids.

Seriously, these kids look like future main characters.

There's that one quiet kid though, who doesn't seem to care about anything, and Mako takes notice through the nice little montage we get. Then things wrap up and that one kid is left behind near the entrance. He's super embarrassed because he had to use a kickboard I guess, and kid is all "I hate swimming. Oh hey bro with a name that Mako recognizes!"

Dude it's like episode 8 you can't introduce new characters now!!

Turns out, these two used to go to school together. Wow, what a coincidence. I can only assume they are going somewhere with all of this. By which I mean we get a nice little flashback sequence after Haru hears the name and we see this dude retconned into their middle school, where they used to do things like play basketball. And... uh.

Oh boy.

And uh, try to feed one another.

... in front of... the class.

Don't mind the entire class watching you, eat up!

Kisumi, another guy with a girl's name, spent a lot of time romancing, antagonizing, and I guess also coming between Haru and Mako for some reason. That dude's younger bro is in Mako's swim class. Hey, Haru should show up for a change too! Eh, maybe he'll show up. By which we mean seconds later here is there bringing Mako lunch.

Okay seriously, are these two in a committed relationship
or what? I mean seriously, who does this?

Oh look it's the coach. Hey why not come and swim? Sure, Haru came prepared. Oh yeah and those kids are doing well, except for the little bro who hates swimming. Oh hey look at the time, the guy in charge has to get to an interview. Looks like they're still trying to get more people.

Which totally makes more sense than what I thought he said at first, which was that he was late for an interview for him to get a part time gig again. Because that would be super weird and make no sense.

Haru can still around though if he wants. So now Haru and Mako talk about this kid, and Haru gets all super deep and shit because that's how he is. "Accept the water. Don't resist." Oh Mako's gotta go teach now.  The kids all run off and that pinkbro shows up to check on his brother. Then Mako has to ask him if there's a reason the kid hates swimming.

They head outside, and he's all "eh prolly my fault". They went out on a boat once, and the kid fell in and almost drowned. It wasn't a big thing, but speaking from someone who had a similar experience as a child, I can tell you that shit can and will scar you for a long time.

Took me about ten years to get over that. So yeah, this kid's got some issues, which makes sense. But why is here here at swim school then?

Oh, it's because his brother is a dick. Gotcha.

Why is this kid taking 'swimming classes' at his school if he is terrified of the water? For what purpose does this serve? Why doesn't he just go "hell no, screw that noise, make me play soccer or something" instead?

Oh right because this is a show about swimming and people are dicks.

Admittedly Kisumi does go on to say that if his brother really hates it so much, he'll let him stop. Doesn't he suddenly seem like such a nice, caring brother?

Oh wait nevermind Mako wants to teach him how to swim. Since he kind of went through a similar childhood trauma once. So go for it teacher Mako, teach a kid to swim. Oh hey it's Haru, time to go and molest him some.

Haru and his "I AM SO HAPPY" face.

Poor guy just puts on the thousand yard stare as he rubs in how sad and lonely Haru was when Rin left, and Mako just doesn't even notice that the kid is now suffering some serious PTSD. He just casually goes "Hey Mako, let's go home", and then tells Kisumi he straight up doesn't give a shit that they're seeing one another again because they will totally see one another again at some point.

... yeah he's acting a bit more cold than usual. I think he just straight up doesn't like the dude anymore.

Then the little brother shows up and the loving couple head off to talk to Gou about how to teach a kid who hates swimming how to swim.

We also learn that Gou can't even swim, so she's the worst person in the world to talk to about this.

But hey, Rei just learned to swim recently so he should be able to come up with some good advice, right?

Nagi why are you looking at him like you want to eat him?
Oh god don't answer that.

Oh wait his problem was totally different so we can disregard what he was about to say. Ha ha comedy options. Whatever are you going to do, Mako?

As he and Haru walk home along the beach in the twilight hours, Haru mentions he should just think back to when he learned to swim for the first time. After all he almost drowned once too right? Well, the backstroke helped with that since he could see the sky so maybe that will work for the kid as well?

It is at this point that Haru gives some surprisingly sage advice. Who cares if learning the backstroke first isn't the normal way to learn? You should just do things at your own pace, in your own way. Which is some really good advice, not even being sarcastic. Not everyone learns the same way. So Mako takes this advice to heart, and decides to give it a try.

The next day, he decides to teach the kids how a relay works, and splits them all up. All of the kids go, and then we're finally down to the last one who seems kind of scared. Which is when Mako brings up the option of letting him try a different stroke from the others.

Backstroke is hard as hell though. Probably explains
Mako's continent-sized shoulders.

Of course the kid is scared, but after some coaxing, Mako promises that it won't be scary and with his brother watching, he teaches the kid the backstroke and suddenly everything is magical. Then a high five occurs, and swimming happens again. And boy is his brother super proud of him.

Won't lie, it's a bit of a feel good moment, and afterwards the kid is all "I'm totally not scared of swimming now, thanks!"

Oh and now the coach shows up to let Mako know that he's filled that part time position and he doesn't have to come back anymore, which makes him kind of sad, but he shows up for his last class, and Haru also shows up with Mako's little brother and sister. I think they're twins? I mean their names are Ren and Ran after all.

They totally want to see him being a coach, so it's all cool. Cue the next musical section where he teaches more people, and tells them that today is his last day unfortunately. The kids are understandably upset, and they totally want him to come back every now and again.

Especially that one who was totally terrified of the water. So they're off or something, and the day is over. Mako is looking over the empty pool, thinking about how fast all of this went by, and then pinky shows up one more time to tell him how disappointed his little brother was that Mako wouldn't be teaching him the swim moves anymore.

Time for them to catch up a little bit, and reveal that regionals is a thing they're going to, and Sousuke is also swimming for that other school.

Wait what.

Oh yeah didn't they know? He ran into Sousuke at the hospital awhile back, presumably for punching something as evidenced by his bandaged hand, and they... didn't really talk at all or something? Oh but he must be better now. Anyways, better head out, see you girls later!

The boys are left in shock to wonder how this will affect the end of the season. ROLL CREDITS.

So yeah. SUPER DRAMA TIME. But seriously, they had to  fill up an entire episode just so they could pull out the "oh yeah his shoulder was injured" right at the end?

Man, they could've used that time so much better. Say, by just writing this episode out entirely?

I know I know, I'm being harsh. I don't care. It had its moments but in terms of adding to the rest of the season, this one was definitely pretty weak in the knees.