Free! Iwatobi Swim Club

About

Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club is a 2013 Sports anime created by Kyoto Animation, based on a light novel by author Kōji Ōji. After a commercial related to the series was aired in March, 2013, the series gained a large fandom among Fujoshi, especially on Tumblr.

History

The show was originally spawned from a light novel, titled High Speed!, by author Kōji Ōji. The story was entered into the second annual Kyoto Animation Awards, in which it won an honorable mention, before being published on July 8, 2013. In April 2012, Kyoto Animation subsidiary Animation DO advertised a new project based on a swim team composed of 4 boys, and later followed this with a studio commercial in March, 2013. After the commercial rose to popularity, a 12 episode show was announced during a livestream on April 26th and began airing on July 4, 2013. To promote the series, an online radio show titled Iwatobi Channel began airing on June 17, 2013, followed by a series of CD compilations starting on August 21, 2013. As well of this, a series of Drama CDs were created, with the first volume being released on August 21, 2013.

Online Relevance

The series has a large presence among the Fujoshi fandom, on particular sites such as Tumblr^[1], DeviantART^[2]^[3], Fanfiction.net^[4] and Fanpop^[5], as well as a large anti-fandom on 4chan’s /a/ Anime board^[6]. As well as this, sites such as the Free! wiki^[7], Anime News Network^[8] and TV tropes^[9] hold information on the series. There are also a number of videos on both Youtube^[10] and Nico Nico Douga^[11] about the series, and the Facebook fanpage for the show has over 7,000 likes^[12].

Swimming Anime

Swimming Anime is the name fans gave to the original commercial after the video was posted to Youtube by YouTuber CureSumika on March 6th, 2013. (shown below).

After the video was posted, the commercial grew a large fan-following on Tumblr^[17], sporting Fanfictions, Fanart, Shipping, Ask Blogs, as well as it’s own Dating Sim^[13] and Twitter account^[14]. As well as this, Anime streaming site Crunchyroll also started a Change.org petition in order to entice Kyoto Animation into creating a show based of the project^[15]. Despite the large fandom the commercial spawned, it also gathered a large anti-fandom from male Otaku, who believed that the project was too drastic a change for the company, who were known previously for their Moe shows such as Nichijou, Lucky Star and K-On!.

Notable Sub-Memes

Free! Ending Dance Parodies / Splash Free!

Free! Ending Dance Parodies, refers to a number of Anime Ending MADs based of a dance performed by the cast during the Ending animation for the show. The parodies gained notoriety on Nico Nico Douga^[16], with many users replacing the boys with characters from different series.