some of my favorite things from ep 13: harurinralia’s effect on Haru and rin + Haru's monologues
Okay, I have to warn anybody who dares to read that I’ve been holding this in since the finale aired, so coherency? Probably none. I’m also going to tackle a lot of things at once because I want to get everything out in a single post lol
IN A NUTSHELL though, what I’ve been dying to gush about is the way you can feel Haru’s and Rin’s effect on each other through the things they do in the finale. And I’m not even talking about this:
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But about how you can pick up the way Harurinralia resonated within each of them through their interactions with others. Of course, this is coming from someone who sees RinHaru (nearly) everywhere; but since I can’t help the way the episode came across to me, I may as well share it lol
(as always - proudly donning my shipper hat so not claiming any of this is anything but personal interpretation!)
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Before I get to the point of this post though, I have to go on a tangent because Haru’s monologue is everything. I could listen to it on a loop and it’d still get a response out of me. I mean, we know how carefully Haru chooses his words; so these moments when he opens up and puts his thoughts into words are just, extremely meaningful. Even more so given that to me, this season actually suffered from a a lack of Haru insight. But I digress!
To me, even the way Haru’s monologue was structured and the progression of his thoughts ended up being very meaningful. He starts by saying what we all (including Makoto, Nagisa and Rei) knew:
Haru: Before now, I never cared about times or winning. I only swam because I wanted to. If I worried about those things, my swimming would lose its meaning. That’s what I thought.
And then comes the first vital insight - something I’m sure a lot of us could feel was the case, but that was kept tightly under wraps in the show itself up to this moment.
That being - just how closely tied Rin was to Haru’s thought process this whole time.
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I feel the order of Haru’s thoughts is particularly important here, because after saying his own feelings towards his own swimming, after saying that before now, I didn’t care about times or winning what does Haru do? He immediately brings up Rin and addresses Rin's own feelings.
Haru: That’s not right. I’m not like Rin. I don’t have strong feelings toward swimming like he does.
And that? That, personally, reminded me a whole damn lot of this:
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Haru began to compare himself to Rin all by himself. And I felt this was precisely because he has been looking ahead at Rin all this time.
Utsumi: Indeed; it’s a path Haruka never would have chosen himself. But despite claims that he doesn’t care about winning or losing or scoring certain times, he’s always been attentive to Rin’s presence. [x]
Rin’s presence and the effect he has on him automatically makes Haru take a second look at a world that he would have, otherwise, been none the wiser about. And it’s not that Haru isn’t instinctively drawn to that world beyond Rin - he is. But Rin awakens that side of Haru; he brings it to the forefront, makes Haru give it conscious thought. Rin is Haru’s after. And I feel this is extremely important - because if Haru weren’t so keenly aware of Rin, if he weren’t impressed by Rin and his unshakable drive, if he didn’t want to keep swimming with Rin, it simply would have been the same to him.
But it wasn’t. And so this bit right here is actually the part that caught my eye the most about Haru’s monologue:
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Because by the way his expression changes, you can see how feeling this way, feeling that he wasn’t like Rin and that he didn’t feel as strongly as Rin did towards swimming, weighted down on him. He literally goes from contemplative to afflicted when he says that.
And so that gives us another thing I love, which is knowing for certain the other face of the anger we saw here:
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Going back to Haru’s monologue though, that “I don’t have strong feelings towards swimming like he does" took me aback. Personally, I found this a perfect example of just how bad Haru can be at gauging and understanding his own emotions lol; but it’s also so, so interesting - because look at what he is saying. He thought that Rin having a dream related to swimming and thus being committed to swimming meant that Rin felt more strongly about swimming than he did.
This reminds me a lot of what Mamo and Zakki said; that to Haru, the world Rin was aiming towards looked bright. It’s like to Haru, Rin’s level of commitment became some sort of benchmark of love for swimming; to me, it’s like holding Rin so high and being so awed by his drive made Haru feel like his feelings towards swimming paled in comparison to his own. That they weren’t cut by the same cloth; that he wasn’t fit to enter that bright world with him. So I feel that’s another thing that made Haru tell himself that he didn’t want to do it; that doing so would make his swimming lose its meaning. But he was torn all thorough because his instincts said otherwise; the perfect example being how he reacts to seeing Rin (Rin, and nobody else) swim in episode 10.
Of couse, what Haru had been missing all along was that certain something that would give him a reason to start caring about times and the likes. That certain sight that would in turn become a dream capable of giving him a drive to match Rin’s own.
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For me this was beautiful because Haru put into words just what it is that Rin did for him - he showed him how wide the world truly is, the very thing Haru has been doing for Rin all along without realizing it. And it is this that allows Haru to overcome his hurdles and find that dream.
Utsumi: […] but even if Haruka chooses that same swimming career as Rin, I feel he’ll do it for his own, Haruka-ish reasons. He wants to swim “in the place”, the whole world, and that’s why he chooses that path. [x]
And it’s just so fitting, because it’s like Season 1 all over again. Iwatobi are always there as agents of Haru’s change - but Rin is always who sets things in motion. By the end of this season, Iwatobi left Haru without anywhere to run; they made it so he would have no option but to take Rin’s outstretched hand, and this alone was tangible proof of their effect on him (notably, Makoto’s).
But it was Haru blowing up at Rin during episode 9 in the first place that essentially showed them that they had to speak up. Makoto says so himself.
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So whether it is directly (by holding his hand out for him to grab) or indirectly (by his effect on Haru alone) Rin is always there as a catalyst at the core of Haru’s development.
So I love that this was said:
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Because it confirms how even during their lowest point (aka: S1ep07) Rin ultimately brought something positive to Haru. That it is the way that Rin made Haru start second-guessing himself that allowed the others to have exert their full impact on him. That it is that, how much Rin shook Haru’s world in more ways than one, that allowed the others to reach him.
And the same thing happens now!
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What Haru found in Australia with Rin - the fact that Rin showed him all those different sights, that Rin showed him that you can find a dream if you look at the world and inside your own self:
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Is what allows Haru to be able to respond to Nagisa’s, Rei’s and Makoto’s feelings at last:
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So that’s why for me, Haru talking about that in this episode out of all times was absolutely perfect.
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But the effect of what Rin did for Haru isn’t something I just felt in these scenes; it goes way beyond swimming, and that’s actually what I loved the most about it. Because it made it all the more powerful.
I can only speak for myself, but when I watched this:
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This immediately came to my mind:
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These are things that Rin taught Haru. These are things that Rin helped Haru see. The Haru that stood before Iwatobi - the Haru that knows that being apart doesn't mean goodbye, doesn’t mean they have ended, is the Haru that came out of that trip to Australia. It’s a Haru that came from ’feeling Rin’s heart’, pun 100% intended.
So what Rin did for him goes so much further than just allowing Haru to find his dream. It helps Haru feel at peace with parting; helps Haru to go from being afraid of change to embracing it and reaching out to others just like they reached out to him:
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You could literally feel Harurinralia in Haru all throughout the episode; and I found that very touching.
But - and here is where my bias is going to shine the brightest, run away while you can - thing is that I didn’t only feel the Rin effect, so to speak, on Haru. I felt Haru’s effect on Rin, too.
To put it shortly, I feel that while Haru found his resolve in Australia - Rin straightened his.
I didn’t know how to put it into words when I watched Ep 12 and I’m still can’t quite put my finger on it; maybe it was just me projecting, but I could feel something different in Rin by the end of the episode.
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Beyond how important it was for Rin to go back there and share everything, both the good and the bad with Haru, I feel that when Rin and Haru swum together in that pool, they probably felt it again. What they felt during their race in the first episode. So I feel that Rin most likely knew that Haru had found it even before Haru told him, hence why he wasn’t surprised.
So I think that bringing Haru there; doing all he could for Haru, letting Haru experience and see the same sights that hold so much meaning for Rin himself, made it so that Rin could do what he has to do [go back to Australia] without regrets.
Utsumi: […] but he wanted Haruka to feel, with his own skin, just how wide the world was. Of course, it was up to Haruka himself to decide how to react to that once he understood it, and if he hadn’t felt anything at all, then that would’ve been fine too. I believe that Rin brought him to Australia, fully committed to that. [x]
But the fact that Haru is going to continue to be there, swimming before him; is going to be sharing this dream with him - I feel that this fired Rin up. So basically; while Rin did come prepared for the possibility of Haru not swimming competitively, so Rin’s decision was already made - I think the fact that things did go well and he does have Haru with him most likely made him feel a renewed drive. Rin is strong on his own; but he is even stronger with Haru there as his pointer.
And this long diatribe is because I feel that is part of what makes him be able to say those words to Sousuke at the end. Because, why didn’t he say that to Sousuke before?
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The fact that Sousuke quitting swimming doesn’t sit right with Rin is nothing new. When Sousuke tells him his graduation plans, Rin brings it up right away:
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It has been bothering him. It is a thought that he hasn’t been yet able to accept, even though he knows it’s happening. And when Sousuke confirms it to him?
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Look at how sad and torn he looks. And not even Sousuke telling Rin that he has found a dream solves the issue:
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Rin remains forlorn; yet he does not say a word, does not complain - and then we casually happen to pan to the letter from Australia. So then, what is it that makes the difference? What makes Rin go from that to this?
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(look, it’s the fist-clenching™ and everything!)
That caught my eye. And to me (and Utsumi or Yokotani may prove me wrong later lol) it was Australia that made all the difference. That trip was very important not only for Haru but for Rin, too. Because Rin revisits both the good and the bad and comes back from it surer than ever of the road that he is going to take; he comes back fired up and without anything holding him back. So now Rin is in a position to tell that to Sousuke - because he has got his will to fight back full force.
And more than that, I think another factor could have been that Rin himself isn’t the only person who has bounced back from a low point. Now Haru has, too; so I believe that seeing it happen may have helped Rin rekindle his hope that maybe not everything is lost for Sousuke. But that’s more a gut-feeling than anything hahah
so tl ; dr the way Rin and Haru change each other’s worlds and their lasting effect on each other is my favorite thing (and probably the thing that made ep 13 easier to swallow on my second rewatch lol).
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