Rei Ryugazaki

Rei Ryugazaki (竜ヶ崎 怜, Ryūgazaki Rei) is one of the main characters of the anime series, Free!. He is the freshman who joins the track team, but later joins the Iwatobi High School swimming team as their butterfly swimmer.

Appearance
Rei is a tall young man with short, deep blue hair and purple eyes. He wears red-framed glasses.

Personality
He is considered handsome and intelligent. He also has a penchant for beautiful things.

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's constantly calculating and underestimating the water.

Plot
Rei was initially in the school's track team, but was constantly pestered by Nagisa to become the vital fourth member of their newly-founded swim club after Nagisa found out that Rei had a feminine name and believed it to be fate (since the other swim club members have feminine names, too). After realizing not all activities were based off calculations and seeing Haruka swimming beautifully, he eventually accepted the offer.

While training for the upcoming tournament, the Iwatobi Swim Club saw that Rei was able to float in water and his form was perfect. Though said, he couldn't move while performing the needed actions for different strokes, and constantly sank to the bottom of the pool when trying. Gou gave him a week to learn how to swim, with every member teaching him their specific strokes, but always failing. It was until Rei sat with Haruka and talked about just diving in freely, did he find out that the butterfly stroke was the one he could perfect, since it was the only stroke he hadn't tried throughout his training.

Rin Matsuoka
Rei often gets manipulated by Rin for some reason.

Trivia

 * Like all members of the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club, Rei has a female name.

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Rei Ryugazaki