Rei Ryugazaki

"#9a359f"

- But, it's not beautiful!

Rei Ryugazaki (竜ヶ崎 怜 Ryūgazaki Rei) is one of the main characters of the anime series Free!. He is the butterfly swimmer and a 1st year high school student at Iwatobi High School. Rei was once a member of the track team of Iwatobi High School before he joined its Swim Club.

Appearance
Rei is a tall young man with short, dark blue hair and purple eyes. He wears red-framed glasses. His usual school uniform consists of light brown trousers, a white shirt with a red necktie, a dark gray buttoned up jacket and black and white sneakers. During the spring and summer, he wears his summer uniform that consists of gray trousers, a white shirt with short sleeves and a dark gray collar, a red dotted necktie and the black and white sneakers.

While swimming, he wears black long leg swim pants that have blue patterns on them.

Personality
Rei is considered handsome and intelligent because of his looks and good grades. He also has a penchant for beautiful things and the thought of exuding anything but beauty through his actions, causes him to dramatically lose his cool.

Rei may initially seem like a calm and composed character, but he is in actuality quite comical in a sense that he sometimes lets his confidence get the better of him. He is however, depicted to be a hardworking and determined individual, unwilling to relent to his inability to swim despite several failed attempts.

Rei has a theoretical approach when it comes to sports, as he usually calculates distance, angle, and other factors in his mind before actually making an attempt. Because of his rigid nature, he has a tendency to overlook the fun and enjoyment that comes with the activity. As Haruka told Rei, he needed to be "free" in order to swim properly, because he is constantly calculating and underestimating the water.

Relationships
Iwatobi High School=

With only three members on the swim team, forming a medley relay team was impossible, so that’s why Nagisa sought out Rei. At first Rei exclaimed “If people evolved to walk on land then it makes no sense for them to return back into the water!!!” but because of Nagisa’s persistent persuasion, he entered the Swim Club. Trying his hardest to catch up with the others along with Nagisa who follows with all his might, the two make an uneven combination, but only they can eventually calm the tides of the Swim Club.

At first, Nagisa was someone Rei could barely stand because of the way he talks, changes topics very often, is very pushy, super greedy, spills things, doesn't do his homework, messes with other people and drools when he sleeps. Even so, Rei's very thankful to him because Nagisa was the one who invited him into the swim club, and because of that he was able to meet Haruka, Makoto and Rin. He's the reason why Rei was able to notice the beauty of swimming and was the one who "changed his world". In one of the interviews with Rei, he admits that, even though Nagisa is pushy at times, he has an aura that Rei's attracted to and that he has him completely wrapped around his finger.

They both belong to a same class in school and take the same train line to go back home. Nagisa often goes to Rei's home and hangs with him most of his free time. They're often seen doing things together. Rei easily gets manipulated by Nagisa for some reason.

Like all other members of the Iwatobi High School Swim Club, Nagisa calls Rei "Rei-chan", adding girlish suffix "-chan" to his name.

Haruka and Rei have a good senpai-kohai relationship. When Haruka saw Rei practice pole-vaulting for the very first time, he was amazed by how amazing he looked doing so. When Nagisa told Haruka and Makoto that Rei didn't join the swim club, stating that Rei might hate water, Haruka gained a big dislike for Rei, saying that they don't need someone like that. When Rei finally met Haruka in person after running to school with Nagisa, he asked Haruka if he was Haru-chan-san Nagisa was talking about. Haruka cut him off telling him not to use both '-chan' and '-san' on his name. After Rei saw Haruka swim at the joint practice with Samezuka Academy, he realized that he wants to have the kind of freedom Haruka is. Haruka told him that it's not freedom that he has, but freestyle.

Makoto and Rei have a good senpai-kohai relationship. Makoto tends to act towards Rei as an older brother and often draws him away from Nagisa's constant hyperactive activities. Makoto was ready to risk his life in order to save Rei from the storm.

Samezuka Academy=

Others=

Creation and Conception
Hiroko Utsumi said in one of the interviews that Rei initially felt cool like Haruka did, but as soon as he opened his mouth and started to frolic, that similarity ended immediately. She added that he was the type of person girls would complain “he looks so cool, but it’s such a shame he had to open his mouth…”. He’s said to be a quibbler in the theory side of things, but he has a problem in the heart of things. His face immediately expresses whatever he feels, so he’s easy to read. He loves beautiful things, so his appreciation of beauty is very high. His sense of beauty overdoes it to the point where he always tucks his shirt in. Utsumi said to look closely and you will see he does everything properly, even ensuring the straps on his backpack are perfectly tight around his uniform.

Trivia

 * Like all members of the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club, Rei has a female name.
 * During a field trip in fifth grade, Rei accidentally left his underwear in the bath.
 * Rei is the only member of the Iwatobi Swimming Club that has his body hair shaved (done by Nagisa).
 * Rin described Rei's stroke pathetic.
 * Rei owns a black and white mobile phone.
 * Rei likes eating sushi.
 * Rei likes reading, running, calculating and pole-vaulting.
 * Rei's best subjects are Math and Chemistry, while he's bad at Art and Music.
 * According to Rin, Rei has horrible English pronunciation.
 * According to Rei, the Ryugazaki family has been pairing melon bread with barley tea since his grandfather's time.

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