We’re diving straight into the future with this generation of swimmers!
Earlier today, the official Free! Dive to the Future anime website updated with a new key visual, three cast members, and details on the show’s closing theme song. We break the details down below.
Key Visual
The new visual features the major characters, set against a body of crystal blue waters.
Cast
The series will add the following:
- Ayumu Kunikida: Ryou Hirohashi
- Romio Hayahune: Atsushi Abe
- Shizuru Isurugi: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
Theme Songs
Style Five, which is composed of the five main voice cast members, will perform ending theme song Gold Evolution.
The song will receive a CD single, which will ship to retailers on August 22. The CD will also include a duet by Nobunaga Shimazaki and Tatsuhisa Suzuki.
Free! Dive to the Future hits Japanese TV in July. ABC, Tokyo MX 1, BS-11, and TV Aichi will carry the series. A screening event is planned for June 23, which will showcase the first main TV episode along with the “Episode 0” special.
Eisaku Kawanami (Free! -Take Your Marks-, Free! -Timeless Medley-) will return to the director’s chair for Free! Dive to the Future at Kyoto Animation and Animation DO. Futoshi Nishiya (Free! franchise, A Silent Voice) will reprise his role as character designer, while Masahiro Yokotani (Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-) returns to tackle series composition.
Other confirmed crew members include:
- Chief Animation Director: Futoshi Nishiya
- Art Director: Shingo Kasai
- Color Design: Yūka Yoneda
- 3D Director: Yuji Shibata
- 3D Art: Joji Unoguchi
- Prop Design: Seiichi Akitake
- Director of Photography: Kazuya Takao
- Music: Tatsuya Kato
- Sound Director: Yota Tsuruoka
- Sound Production: Lantis
The confirmed team members are all returning from previous installments of the Free! anime franchise.
OLDCODEX will perform opening theme song Heading to Over.
The confirmed voice cast includes:
- Rei Ryugazaki: Daisuke Hirakawa
- Rin Matsuoka: Mamoru Miyano
- Haruka Nanase: Nobunaga Shimazaki
- Makoto Tachibana: Tatsuhisa Suzuki
- Nagisa Hazuki: Tsubasa Yonaga
- Momotarō Mikoshiba: Kenichi Suzumura
- Aiichirō Nitori: Kouki Miyata
- Ikuya Kirishima: Kouki Uchiyama
- Asahi Shiina: Toshiyuki Toyonaga
- Sōsuke Yamazaki: Yoshimasa Hosoya
- Natsuya Kirishima: Kenji Nojima
- Hiyori Toono: Ryohei Kimura
- Nao Serizawa: Satoshi Hino
Kyoto Animation describes Free! Dive to the Future as:
Haruka has graduated from high school, and came to know the joyous bonds that connected swimming to his future. He’s reuinted with Asahi, whom he swam relays with in Tokyo.
It reawakens those memories of junior high in both students… and the appearance of Ikuya from “that time” even awoke in their hearts. Makoto, who came up from afar, is chasing a new dream in Tokyo, and Rin, who left for Sydney, joins up in a truly unexpected place.
Is it a new battle that awaits in their future? Or are they confronting the past that they left behind, instead?
The first Free! anime, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, hit Japanese TV on July 7, 2013. The series was directed by Hiroko Utsumi at Kyoto Animation, with character designs by Futoshi Nishiya. The team of Masahiro Yokotani and Reiko Yoshida wrote the show’s scripts.
Crunchyroll is currently streaming the show on their digital platform. They describe the show as follows:
Nanase Haruka loved to be in the water – loved swimming. In elementary school, Nanase Haruka, Tachibana Makoto, Matsuoka Rin, and Hazuki Nagisa attended the same swimming class together. Time passed, and as Haruka was living an uneventful high school life, he suddenly encountered Rin again. Rin challenged Haruka to a race and showed him how much stronger he had become. Soon enough, Makoto and Nagisa also rejoined the group, and along with a new classmate, Ryugazaki Rei, they established the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club.
Sources: MoCa News, Animate Times, Comic Natalie
