Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-174.101.116.82-20130729125737/@comment-188.222.173.126-20130826031418

Yes but communcal bathing is pretty common in Japan. Besides which Makoto and Haru have also been friends since the age of 4. What is normal to them probably does look super suspicious to "outsiders" but they probably don't even realise what they are doing is anything surprising or super gay or anything like that. Because you know, they have always done it since before puberty.

But seriously, while Free! does have homoerotic subtext it is just that subtext. Sports anything has a lot of homoerotic subtext. However, bromance does not equal romance. But yes the show is designed to bait the fans into "shipping" the characters because that hooks fans, gets them to buy merchandise etc, etc.