Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-24.23.3.218-20130811062647/@comment-110.54.185.191-20170801052326

From a fan's shipping standpoint, they might have feelings for each other, but objectively speaking, no not really. Rin and Haru are rivals aside from being close friends. The itty bitty reactions they show while conversing with one another in a heated fashion can be caused by all sorts of reasons. The one clear thing the show told us is that they're friends. If the creators wanted crystal clear BL, they would have done it already.

I mean, Free IS, first and foremost, a sports and slice of life anime. The storyline's focus is entirely elsewhere. It was never explicitly put in the BL genre either. But heaven knows there were yaoi undertones everywhere, specifically meant for the target audience's imagination. And for marketing purposes of course. The creators basically wanted the fanbase to use their imaginations and create ships of their own, but storywise, Free struck me as the type of anime that focused largely on super close friendship bordering on bromance, and portrayed life circumstances that required tough decisions. Too fucking real.