I know I can’t be the only one who is sort of frustrated that kyoani rarely let rin&haru interact with each other through the course of the anime but
in retrospect, I can’t blame them at all. I mean, there is plenty of RinHaru in every episode; from the shota flashbacks to scenes that are obviously meant to be taken as them thinking about each other, or other characters bringing up the effect they have on each other, so on so forth.
But when it comes down to it, Haru and Rin actually were in the same place and actually interacted, what? Three or four times?
And yet, let’s look at what happened each time:
Episode 1:
Haru goes from this:
369Please respect copyright.PENANARDqaN9hshn
and wanting to be “ordinary”
to this:
369Please respect copyright.PENANA5gsDTuOCHT
and thinking that waiting three more years to become ordinary “won’t hurt"
pretty much at the sight of Rin.
Meanwhile, Rin goes from this:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAVErjJMTRQq
To feeling like this:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAoQixPG3VEB
After just one race with Haru.
In other words all it took them as being around each other for about ten minutes for their respective motivation and enjoyment of swimming to come back full force.
Not only that but the moment they saw each other they got so caught up in their own little world that they ditched poor Makoto and Nagisa without even realizing it:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAHXcs1pe5yv
Episode 2: sure they didn’t actually interact during the episode, but it brought us this:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAM1vmxn8MzX
Episode 3: while this is probably the only time where they’re aware that they’re int he same place and nothing really happens, we still got Rin with his eyes trained on Haru:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAnJKwlw84GM
369Please respect copyright.PENANAB0oAYfESEI
369Please respect copyright.PENANAE9cehwF7Qc
369Please respect copyright.PENANA6O8Rm8K4s4
and while Haru made sure not to look at Rin, he isn’t fooling anyone because just the thought of Rin talking about him alone made him make this face at the start of the ep:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAfP5QJFc6wR
THEN there was Episode 4, and I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone of what happens there but I’ll do it because revisiting those scenes is always worth it
369Please respect copyright.PENANAnrjwt03ood
They run into each other and there goes their cool:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAGzUPQV0Rnf
369Please respect copyright.PENANAwg6SrNnQCn
And then once "you’re going to swim for me” happens and Haru goes sparkly eyed,
369Please respect copyright.PENANAw2ADLLB90F
369Please respect copyright.PENANAwet9VBJfEt
Haru is suddenly all fired up about the prefecturals. He checks Rin’s old regime, starts running again, gives it his all and actually gets out of breath while swimming, so on so forth.
Then comes Episode 7 and this one alone goes to show pretty well just why KyoAni felt it necessary to keep these two apart.
I mean, boy where do I even begin?
369Please respect copyright.PENANAhFq1jNFmQl
369Please respect copyright.PENANAfHXz3ofrOj
Haru literally spends the whole time since he gets to the prefecturals looking for Rin. I mean look at the expression he has when Rin doesn’t get there with the Samezuka team:
369Please respect copyright.PENANAxsCkO1GPDq
AND then once Makoto tells him where Rin might be, Haru just goes straight over there without wasting a single second, in a way that is very similar to how Rin and Haru got caught up in each other back when they met in Episode 1.
369Please respect copyright.PENANAI5e4AKb2r9
And then there’s of course the moment where Rin makes Haru’s world go dark. Literally.
369Please respect copyright.PENANA4l8xDBNij9
“I won’t get to swim with Rin again”
369Please respect copyright.PENANAmMKGD64HA3
369Please respect copyright.PENANAmp1EAYWp1f
Episode 8: is another good example of why even just them breathing the same air might get to be too much
because then things like these may happen:
369Please respect copyright.PENANA9QUdwQyL0H
369Please respect copyright.PENANAKvBRuTHZwz
The last instance so far is Episode 9: they were in the same place for a moment and yet Haru’s Rin senses turned out to be nearly as or just as sharp as Rin’s Haru one (“smells like mackerel”, anyone?)
369Please respect copyright.PENANAqievNtgGsl
369Please respect copyright.PENANAQM8glgi0IZ
That was close, Haru!
So, yeah.
BUT there’s more, because the same applies to promotional artwork, too. I mean I get why they keep Rin away and have him throwing looks at Haru. Because apparently if they look the other way they’ll find Rin getting pretty comfortable:
369Please respect copyright.PENANA27PDjWfkQa
369Please respect copyright.PENANAzWa0pHDPej
And they can’t have that happen because the show isn’t over yet.
Conclusion: if KyoAni lets Rin and Haru anywhere near each other they won’t only cause ripples that will affect one another; they’ll outright create a tsunami or get all close and personal. And get too caught up in each other while they’re at it.
It’s either one or the two or both. So I guess I can understand why it’s being saved for the finale lol
ns216.73.216.166da2