Rin Matsuoka

Rin Matsuoka (松岡 凛 Matsuoka Rin) is a main character in the anime series Free!, beginning with Free!, and the light novel High☆Speed！ written by Kouji Ohji. He is a freestyle and butterfly swimmer for the Samezuka Swimming Club. He is made team captain after Seijuro Mikoshiba graduates from Samezuka Academy. He is currently training with professional coach, Mikhail Makarovich Nitori and has qualified to compete on the global level during the All-Japan Invitational. He hopes to become an Olympic swimmer.

Appearance
Rin is a muscular young man with semi-long, maroon hair, red eyes and shark-like teeth. His fall and winter high school uniform consists of white trousers, a black t-shirt, a buttoned up white jacket and black shoes. During the spring and summer, his uniform consists of white trousers, a black polo with a pink collar, and black shoes. When swimming in competition, he wears black, long-legged swimskins with a red pattern. His school bag is a red messenger bag with the word "shark" printed on the outside. He is often seen wearing a baseball cap.

Personality
He displays great passion and competitiveness for swimming, as well as teamwork. As years pass, his ideals about swimming drastically change and he doesn't care much about the relay trophy he won during elementary school. Instead, he becomes obsessed with competing and winning against Haruka Nanase.

As a student at Samezuka Academy, he observes the Iwatobi High School Swim Club practicing and having fun together, and is notably morose when he sees how happy they are together while he stands alone. His isolation, however, is self-imposed due to his taking on the goal of meeting his deceased father's dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer. At times, Rin displays a softer side, showing concern for his friends' well-being and acting as a mentor towards his younger sister Gou Matsuoka and teammate Aiichiro Nitori. Following graduation and beginning his training with Mikhail Makarovich Nitori in Australia, Rin seems more relaxed and playful, bringing his friends souvenirs from Australia and sharing jokes with best friend, Sosuke Yamazaki.

History
Childhood= When Rin is very young, his father Toraichi Matsuoka is a fisherman by trade who dies during a storm that claims his life and the lives of his crew while only three kilometers from shore. Rin states that he has few memories of his father and can not even recall what his father looked like, as he would be gone for days while at sea. Rin wants to become an Olympic swimmer because he believes that by following this path, he will be able to remember his father's face. He also puts his swimming goggles on in the same way his father used to do, by pulling the strap back and letting it snap onto the back of his swim cap. Rin joins the Iwatobi Swimming Club in elementary school because it was his father's old swim club and where his father and his teammates won a relay. Rin wants to win a medley relay in order to emulate his father as he starts down the path to becoming an Olympian. Elementary= In elementary school, Rin is in the same community swimming team with Haruka, Makoto Tachibana and Nagisa Hazuki and is instrumental in motivating the group to swim a relay. After winning the tournament, he leaves Japan to attend a school in Australia known for their strong swim program. Junior High= Rin enjoys swimming, but finds attending school and living in a foregin country to be a difficult adjustment. His homestay parents, Russell and Lori, are kind people who care for him and help him, even buying him a dog they name "Winnie" to ease his loneliness. High School University= Rin graduates from high school and returns to Australia to continue training with a multi-national team there. He begins working with Mikhail Makarovich Nitori, a former professional swimmer and current professional swim coach. He meets and gets to know Natsuya Kirishima, who informs him that he should watch out for Haruka and his brother, Ikuya Kirishima, as both are potential rivals for swimming glory. Rin returns to Japan to participate in the All-Japan Invitational, a competition that determines who will move on to compete on the global level. Rin qualifies by winning the 100 m butterfly event.

Skill
Stats (season one) :

Expected stats:

Trivia

 * Like all swimmers associated with the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club, Rin has a feminine name.
 * His motif animal is a shark.
 * Rin cannot sleep without his pillow.
 * Haruka once said Rin accidentally called his coach "mom" during elementary school.
 * Gou has admitted that Rin shaves his body hair to reduce water resistance.
 * Rin's best subjects are English and Math; his worst are Literature and Old Japanese.
 * Rin's favorite food is meat; his least favorite is sweet food.
 * Rin likes sports that he's good at doing.
 * Rin's best stroke is the butterfly, but his obsession with beating Haruka (who usually swims freestyle) leads him to focus on that stroke and whatever distance Haruka is swimming in competition.
 * In the same series, Akeno Watanabe (Rin's child voice actor) also voices his sister Gou Matsuoka.
 * Rin inherited his shark-like teeth from his father.
 * When younger, Rin would introduce himself to a group by pointing out his girly name, but adding that he's a boy.
 * Rin loves survival games.
 * He has a pet cat named Steve.
 * When they were kids, Rin slept together with Haruka in his bed for a sleepover because he forgot his special pillow.
 * When Haruka is looking for a Tokyo apartment, Rin says, "Tell Haru it won't matter when you are asleep."
 * Rin likes both cats and dogs, though cats never seem to like him.
 * He owns a diary.
 * At a staff talk event for Free!–the Final Stroke–, one of the character designers discussed the main characters' body types in terms of musculature. Rin was listed as being "type 3:" definitely above average muscles, with more noticeable definition. It was also specified that despite similar builds, Rin's muscles were "soft" compared to Rei who has "hard" muscles.

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