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:
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and wanting to be “ordinary”
to this:
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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:
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To feeling like this:
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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:
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Episode 2: sure they didn’t actually interact during the episode, but it brought us this:
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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:
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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:
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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
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They run into each other and there goes their cool:
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And then once "you’re going to swim for me” happens and Haru goes sparkly eyed,
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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?
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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:
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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.
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And then there’s of course the moment where Rin makes Haru’s world go dark. Literally.
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“I won’t get to swim with Rin again”
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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:
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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?)
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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:
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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
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