Quote:
Originally Posted by Reckoner
All you basically said was that Makoto was able to express himself better to Haru. I don't find that to be a very compelling argument against Makoto being a pretty static character throughout the show.
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Not only to Haru, but in general. The two episodes where he got the most focus started with him pushing down his own fears and concerns in order to do something the rest of his team really wanted to do. Even with Haru, he's unable to talk about his fear of the ocean and how the idea of going there for a training camp might effect him personally. Through the near drowning experience, he's finally able to open up. Not only about his abiding fear of the ocean, but also about how much swimming together with Haru means to him in general. Then, later on, we see him opening up to the rest of the team about how he feels as well.
After that, there are scenes like when he's on the hill with Haru, where he manages to express just how much the relay meant to him once again. In his own way, Makoto is just as bad as expressing himself as Haru is, but it comes from a different place, a place of low self worth as compared to the people around him. (You can see that in his assumption that the team, and, by extension, himself, aren't "important" enough to Haru for him to be willing to swim the relay with after losing to Rin.)
A lot of Free is about communication with the people around you, both verbal and non-verbal. You seem to have wanted Free to be about reaching towards a unified goal, but it was about reaching the people right next to you.