Free! - Promotional Image

Free! - Promotional Image

A short promo of a new project by Kyoto Animation and Animation Do caught the attention of anime fans all across the internet back in March. That first video, full of energetic and shirtless swim team members, was dubbed “that swimming anime” by fans and spawned a large number of parodies and plenty of speculation. Many people wondered what the short would become: a series? A short animation?

Kyoto Animation has just confirmed that there is indeed more to the project. The upcoming anime will be called Free! and is based on the novel High Speed! by Kōji Ōji. The novel had previously won an honorable mention in the 2011 Kyoto Animation Award contest.

Free! will be a series about – you probably guessed it – a high school swim team. The majority of the characters are from Iwatobi High School, while a rival swimmer hails from Sametsuka Academy.  The show will premiere on several Japanese stations this July and will also stream on Niconico and ABC Dōga Club.

These are the characters and voice actors that have been announced so far:

Voiced By:

Haruka NanaseFree! - Haruka Nanase

Nobunaga Shimazaki
Hazuki Nagisa
Free! - Hazuki Nagisa
Tsubasa Yonaga


Makoto Tachibana
Free! - Makoto Tachibana

Tatsuhisa Suzuki
Rei Ryugazaki
Free! - Rei Ryugazaki
 Daisuke Hirakawa

Rin Matsuoka

Free! - Rin Matsuoka
 Mamoru Miyano


SOURCE

Angela Hinck
Former Contributor: Content Manager- Situated in sunny Florida, Angela spends plenty of time watching anime and playing video games. RPGs and survival-horror are her go-to genres; but if it's weird or different, she's willing to give a shot. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Creative Writing and now puts her skills to good use writing about the nerdier things in life, including news and game reviews for Operation Rainfall.