Arabian Love Dream really is very hot indeed. It also is RinHaru with Rin being a power uke who takes the initiative. Got to love that.

I can't seem to locate my figures but I found pictures of them online:





I got them as gifts from the place where I stocked most of the doujin.

I was reading the novels the other day and came across a passage where Haruka is considering a flock of water birds and thinking about they are already born with the proper conditions for flying without having to learn. I had never heard about these birds before, they are tern birds and look like this:

I'd buy a Free! bathing suit!

On that subject, I just got a Iwatobi-chan plushie. It should be arriving soon, I'll share pictures as soon as it gets here.
And I should be ending the first volume of High Speed soon and will be getting into the second one that has a bunch of new characters. Nao looks vaguely trollish.

Snow wrote:

Riri-kins wrote:

I'm starting to ship Makoto/Gou. He's a sweet guy and she doesn't mind it when he calls her Gou-chan. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but I see potential.

I was reluctant to post it but I SHIP THIS LIKE THE PONY EXPRESS. They're both very cute and balance each other perfectly, from the little of Free! I've seen, at least. Plus there are quite a few beautifully written fics for the ship and I do love me a quality fic:dance:.

My justification for shipping this is that it's cute, dammit!

Sometimes you gotta have that one ship that's makes you squeal for no reason. I found this adorable Makoto/Gou vidlet today: https://youtu.be/nIXWn36ZLh4

That's adorable Nocturnalux!

Oh god, the dub just came out today. It was worse than I could imagine. Besides the fact that they needlessly added "man" "bro" and "dude unnecessarily everywhere they could, but Haru was an entirely different character. He kept swearing and he told Rin "don't be a douchebag." I just ??? It feels like they watched some episodes of 50% off and decided they wanted their free dub to be like that. It was funny for the laughs, but I feel bad for the people who are just going to watch the dub and not know that the original script is completely different.

I'm only two minutes in and everything in me is rejecting this Haru.  I could maybe buy Makoto and the others using casual masculine slang, but not Haru.  And his VA is overacting (most English dubs do this for subdued or stoic characters. See; Haruhi from OHSHC, and Levi from SnK), adding sarcasm, annoyance, fucking cockiness and a growly undertone to everything Haru says that just... isn't meant to be there.  It isn't who he is.  Flat affect people.  It's a thing.  Haru's feelings are expressed by his face and the show's visuals, you don't have to punctuate every word with emotion when Haru's defining trait is that he expresses very little.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (06-26-2015 09:29:50 PM)

Hoo boy. I can tolerate dubbers cutting out violence and different sounding English voices, but I draw the line at them changing a character's personality.

It's a shame, because Johnny Young Bosch as Makoto is really good, even with the adapted script, and so are Gou and Rei's voices.  But Nagisa (I can't remember the name of his VA) is that nasally, squeaky and breaking warble that his VA is known for, Rin is whispering one second and blasting Vic Mignogna's typically screeching faux-teenage awfulness the next, and Haru is just such a big part of the show (the main character and fan favorite by quite a margin) that having his character be changed so negatively is really distracting and it fucks with all the other other characters indirectly, because it changes the dynamics of their interactions with him and paints their feelings/reactions to him a different light.

Aki-chan! Aki-chan!!!!

So glad to finally see her. She must feature in the manga as she is actually quite an important character and one I really like. I like it that she is a swimmer herself with her own team and goals as opposed to only gravitating around Haruka.

Text translation:

A classmate of Haruka and the rest, a girl who goes to the same swimming club.
Someone who treats everyone equally and can be relied on.
She watches over Haruka and the others.

Thanks for the translation Nocturnalux! They've released another pic of Aki:


Haha, that's definitely an accurate portrayal of the English dub YamPuff.

Only 18 more days until the mook is released! I'm so excited. ;u;

I watch some clips of the dub - I think the Coach dude sounds really good and Rei is beautiful (possibly because they're not making him insert 'dude' and 'man' into every sentence from the clips I saw, so he just sounds more natural?). They sound like actual characters and not dubbed anime characters, if you know what I mean? Rin is alright, most everyone else made me cringe a little.

They should have just changed Rin's name to Rain if everyone was gonna pronounce it Reeeen.

Mako and Haru's voices are abominations against nature and all that is good in this world.

Plus, somehow I get the feeling they wanted to tone down the bromance and NO HOMO it up yet somehow Rin and Haru's English exchanges seemed even more sexually charged than usual. XD

Last edited by YamPuff (07-10-2015 08:32:33 AM)

Nocturnalux wrote:

YamPuff wrote:

Plus, somehow I get the feeling they wanted to tone down the bromance and NO HOMO it up yet somehow Rin and Haru's English exchanges seemed even more sexually charged than usual. XD

Eh, talk about not knowing their fanbase...trying to de-homo Free! is not only impossible as it's counterproductive on every front.
Also, Haru does have a canon love interest, namely, water.

Totalies

By losing the little nuances of the characters they make them more gay. Whem Rin and Haru interact in the subs, you can see Rin going off the wall because Haru's lack of reaction and emotion pisses him off and frustrates him. But when they are both emoting and snarking, they come across as a stereotypical romcom couple who start off hating each other than fall into bed with each other once they get the chance.

Nocturnalux wrote:

To be fair, virtually all characters voiced by Miyano Mamoru are known for their extreme angst so the moment Rin opens his mouth you know what to expect. Even when he's voicing an apparently cheerful character you can expect that down deep there's a world of seething angst. That's the kind of thing you miss in the dubs.

Btw, I have this Free! official fanbook with loads of juicy info. I've yet to read it, merely glanced at the pretty, pretty artwork (because I'm shallow, yes) but I'd be glad to share some translations with you guys. Translating the whole thing might take too much effort but I can provide a summary, so to speak.
It also contains a lot of interviews with the seiyuu cast (yes, including Angst!Masrer Miyano Mamoru) and the director. Probably with the light novel author, too.

They chose the perfect voice actor for the role, that's for sure.

Share the juicy tidbits, plz. I've enjoyed reading the director interviews I've found translated on Tumblr. They really put a lot of care and attentiom into the serirs and it shows.