Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club second season release date and new character revealed in new promo
The newest promotional video for the second season of Free! debuted on the Akihabara UDX Vision screen in Tokyo’s Akihabara district this Saturday and revealed the new season’s official title, Free! Eternal Summer, and confirmed a July 2014 release in Japan.
The minute long video featured clips of the characters engaging in moist and publicly acceptable activities in the pool as per the show’s standard, but also revealed an unnamed new character whose identity was later revealed on Kyoto Animations official website as Sosuke Yamazaki a friend of Rin from his elementary school days. According to Kyoto Animation’s website, Sosuke is a strong character who isn’t bothered by most things and has a very tough stance on swimming.
Other small details in the video showed the series’ protagonists dressed in winter clothing which hints that at least part of the series will remain high and dry, but otherwise revealed little about possible plot developments.
Hints about the second season of Free! was revealed at the end of the first season of the show by a “see you next summer” message in the final episode, and were later officially confirmed by Kyoto Animation at a Free! discussion event in January.
There is currently no information about a state release of the second season, however the show’s first season was previously streamed on Crunchyroll while still being aired in Japan.
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club was first aired last July, but received massive amounts of attention throughout social media like Tumblr and Reddit after the reveal of the first promo video depicting the show’s male protagonists. The series is based off a light novel written Kōji Ōji and illustrated by Futoshi Nishiya. The novel was an honorable mention in the second Kyoto Animation Award in 2011, was also published by Kyoto Animation in July 2013 while the first season of Free! was beginning its broadcast in Japan.