August 14 is “Swimming Day”.

The anniversary was established by the Japan Swimming Federation to spread and develop swimming, and prevent water accidents.

Swimsuits are the necessary items for swimming and popular costumes for the characters in anime and games. During summer, many episodes featuring a swimming pool and swimming tend to be released, offering you an opportunity to enjoy the characters in swimsuits. There will be many fans that have a memorable scene featuring a character in a swimsuit.

Therefore, Anime!Anime! conducted a reader survey titled “Speaking of “swimsuit”, which character comes to your mind?”. During the survey period from July 28 to August 4, a total of 169 responses were received. For the gender ratio, the females were the majority with about 70% while the males were about 30%. For the age distribution, we received the majority of responses from the young readers: about 45% were from teens, and 30% were from those in their 20s.

In this article, we will introduce the result for male characters.

■Nanase Haruka from “Free!” topped the list by a huge difference to 2nd place!

1st Place

1st place went to Nanase Haruka from “Free!”. The support rating was about 45%, which is a remarkable win.

The readers said that they had an image of him being picky about swimsuits with the comments like, “The anime itself is about swimming, and I think I watch more scenes featuring characters in swimsuits than any other costumes or casual clothes”, “I always get enchanted by his amazing abs”, “He is always wearing swimsuits even when showering. The swimsuit apron as well……”, and “It was funny that he was caring about the tightness of his swimsuit”.
While the expectations are rising for the latest work “Free! The Final Stroke”, the protagonist of the popular series topped the list.

■Let’s introduce other comments!!

Detective Speedy from “KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops”
“Speaking of impactful male characters in swimsuits, he is the one.”
“His name is just enough for the reason to choose him.”
Gray Fullbuster from “FAIRY TAIL”
“Since he has a terrible habit of taking off his clothes and he is usually naked from the waist up, he doesn’t look that different in a swimsuit.”

Tokugawa Shigeshige from “Gintama”
“It was just one episode, but I cannot forget the episode, in which he got into a pool with his briefs.”
Akai Shuichi from “Detective Conan”
“I was drawn into his matured vibes when he wore a swimsuit in ‘The Magician of the Waves’. His physical beauty was outstanding as well.”

Swimmer from “Pokémon”
“He is an enemy character in CPU. His visuals and swimsuits are all different in each series, so I remember him well.”
The character from a game also won some votes.

For the male characters ver., the characters from the titles featuring the ocean or swimming and those who are always wearing swimsuits stand out. Summer has just begun. The result will make you excited about which character appears in a swimsuit next.

■Ranking Top 5

[Speaking of “swimsuit”, which character comes to your mind? Male characters ver.]
1. Nanase Haruka “Free!”
2. Detective Speedy “KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops”
3. Kitahara Iori “Grand Blue”
4. Franky “One Piece”
5. Tachibana Makoto “Free!”
5. Matsuoka Rin “Free!”

（Survey Period: July 28 – August 4, 2021）