Haruka Nanase

"#b2b7f2"

- I only swim freestyle.

Haruka Nanase (七瀬 遥 Nanase Haruka) is the main protagonist of the anime series Free! and the light novel High☆Speed!. He is a freestyle swimmer on the Iwatobi High School swimming team.

Appearance
Haruka is a tall young man with short, straight black hair and blue eyes. He always keeps a serious expression. He seems to wear his swimming shorts everywhere. As pointed out by members of the swim team on multiple occasions, all of his swimsuits look virtually the same (they're all black swim jammers, but with slightly different patterns of violet), yet he claims they all fit differently.

His usual school uniform consists of light brown trousers, a white shirt with a green necktie, dark gray unbuttoned blazer and blue sneakers. During the spring and summer, he also wears his summer uniform that consists of gray trousers, a white shirt with a dark gray collar, the green dotted necktie and the blue sneakers.

Personality
Haruka is a strong and quiet person who loves water. His strength comes from his confidence in his decisions. Up until Rin beat him their swim race, Haruka never questioned his reasons for swimming.

Haruka is very protective towards his friend, especially Makoto. During the team's summer training, Makoto relived his childhood nightmare in the ocean and felt compelled to tell his team the truth about his fear when the subject was brought up. Immediately sensing Makoto's hesitation, Haruka commanded Rei to drop the question.

Haruka's attraction to water makes him a very comical person; he will swim anywhere and in anything with water (including a fish tank). His style captivates many and he has a strong fixation towards freestyle swimming.

Starting Block of Reunions!
Second year high schooler, Haruka Nanase, reminisces about the times spent with his friends in their grade school swimming club and of wanting nothing more than to be a freestyle swimmer. In the present, Makoto Tachibana, Haruka's best friend, goes to pick him up for their second day of school at Iwatobi High. While having lunch that day, they encounter their old friend, and recent transfer, Nagisa Hazuki. Nagisa then suggests that they go to their old dilapidated Swimming Club and dig up a time capsule containing a relay trophy they had won with their friend Rin Matsuoka. While there, Haruka once again reminisces over a photo of the race, being the last time the group had swam together before Rin had moved to Australia to enroll in a swimming school. Afterwards, the group shockingly runs into a completely changed Rin in the hallways. Rin immediately challenges Haruka to a race, until they discover that the old pool is empty. Next night, Makoto, Nagisa and a scarlet-haired girl, afterwards intorduced as Gou Matsuoka, Rin's younger sister, pay Haruka a visit. Afterwards, Makoto and Nagisa convince a reluctant Haruka to visit Samezuka by tempting him to a swim duel in the school's pool. Upon arriving, they wait until the school's swimming team is done with practice and break into the academy's swimming pool. They are then discovered by Rin who aggressively orders them out. Haruka then steps out of the pool and challenges Rin to a freestyle match.

Memories in the Distance!
After the match, Haruka and the others are once again reprimanded for trespassing on Samezuka Academy grounds. While continuing the restoration of Iwatobi's outdoor pool, Gou, who was still confused about Rin's behavior, asks Makoto about their race and learns that Haruka threw the match. This allowed Rin to win since he was merely content with being in the water, something which angered Rin. Later that night Makoto runs into their old coach Goro Sasabe. Sasabe reveals that Haruka and Rin had a race when the latter made a rare return to Japan, of which Haruka easily won. Rin was exceptionally disappointed that his hard work was for nothing, creating a rift between them, subsequently causing Haruka to quit competitive swimming because he had hurt Rin's pride. When Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Gou finally finished the restoration of the pool, Haruka couldn't help but jump in it and swim, much to his friends' dismay.

Theoretical Dolphin Kick!
Haruka catches a cold from his swim in the newly restored Iwatobi High swimming pool. He, Makoto and Nagisa try to find a fourth member for Iwatobi Swim Club and at the end, Nagisa succeeds to get Rei to join them.

Captive Butterfly!
At the store where Iwatobi Swim Club is buying new swimsuits, Haruka and Rin run into each other and have a short discussion about their differing forms with Rin wanting a race with them both in peak condition, or else he may no be able to move forward from his loss and both decide to settle the score at the upcoming tournament. Afterwards, Haruka takes a turn trying to teach Rei freestyle swimming and fails, greatly disappointing Rei. As the day draws to a close, Haruka laments to Rei that he too isn't compatible with other techniques in that he doesn't swim freestyle by choice; merely because it is all he can swim. The next day, having come to this realization, Rei tries the last technique and finds it compatible with himself: the butterfly stroke.

Trial in Open Water!
Gou excitedly proposes that they use a decades old training regiment and venture to an island for a summer training camp. They all agree and decide to find sponsors. Later, Haruka expresses concern for Makoto since he had a rather scarring experience with the ocean in the past, to which Makoto reassures that he is fine.

Makoto Tachibana
Haruka and Makoto have known each other since elementary school. They are in the same class at school and he is Haruka's closest friend. He always tries to discourage Haruka to not make any stupid actions, but is often unsuccessful. Since the two have grown up together, Makoto has a better understanding of Haruka's emotions compared to the other guys; he is shown trying to help Haruka out whenever his friend looks troubled.

Nagisa Hazuki
Haruka and Nagisa are childhood friends and were in the swim club together. After the swim club was going to be closed down, Nagisa went to a different middle school from Haruka and Makoto. Nagisa admires Haruka's swimming and enrolls at his school to swim with him again.

Rin Matsuoka
The two considered each other as best friends growing up and had a friendly rivalry. When the two meet again four years later, Rin has drastically changed into a condescending young man who sees Haru only as a rival. While Haru is typically distant he is shown to miss their friendly banters as children. Rin has yet to realize that Haruka gave up competetive swimming after Rin's emotional breakdown over not being able to defeat Haru when they had a rematch as thirteen year olds.

Creation and Conception
Hiroko Utsumi, the director of the Free! anime, described Haruka in one word as "cool." "Haruka seems to be equipped with 'coolness'," he says. "One aspect of him is his love for water. He has a bit of an eccentric image; he has trouble interacting with people at a fundamental level. If he’s not interested in something, he won’t do it. Normally his facial expression is very unsociable, but he gets highly emotional when it comes to water. He’s a direct boy who has a strong obsession with the freedom that water gives him." The director said that the audience will get to see Haruka gradually change as he matures throughout the series, as was seen in episode 9.

The animation crew didn't have any troubles designing Haruka's character. They paid special attention to his eyes, that were made to be blue to reflect his love for water. On the close-ups of his eyes, the animators made them detailed and made sure to use a lot of frames. The character designer, Futoshi Nishiya, made Haruka lightly dressed for easy removal, because, when he sees water, he wants to swim in it. The designer also said that when he designed school uniforms for the Iwatobi High School students, they fit perfectly on everyone except on Haruka, so the crew was pretty shocked by that.

The animators named Haruka a "waterdere" (combining the words "water" and "tsundere," a person who is initially cold and hostile towards someone before showing their warm side over time), because water brings out his true emotions, that nothing else can do. "Sometimes it's obvious that he loves water by how much his eyes sparkle when he sees it. Those kinds of actions and glances speak as much as words to help bring out that humanity in him," Nishiya explained in one of the interviews.

Trivia

 * Like all members of the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club, Haruka has a female name.
 * He bathes with his swimming trunks on.
 * Haruka will go anywhere as long as there's a body of water that he can get into.
 * Haruka has exceptionally great art skills, such as drawing and wood carving.
 * The year before, Haruka had been one of 987 entries entered in the Iwatobi Town mascot contest. His entry was named Tobimaru-kun. According to Gou, it wasn't very cute.
 * He has a certain romantical attraction to water.
 * Rin stated that Haruka has said "Tadaima," which means "I'm home," upon arriving to their swimming club during elementary school.
 * If Haruka was a girl and he had to date one of the boys from the Iwatobi Swimming Club, he would choose Makoto because it was the easiest choice. However, his choice was quickly changed to Nagisa when the first year promised to cook him mackerel for breakfast every morning.
 * Rei states that Haruka's decisions all center around mackerel.
 * Haruka and Makoto appear to have a game that consists of Makoto guessing what Haruka is thinking.
 * Haruka once wore a girl's swimsuit in elementary school because he let Nagisa borrow his because the blonde's sister swapped out his swimsuit for a girl's one. He stated that he had no recollection of this memory, but shows that he does at the end of the track.
 * Haruka's best subjects are Home Economics and Art, while he's bad at English.
 * Haruka likes cooking and doing chores.

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Haruka Nanase