I made a poster with a random selection of seabird courtship rituals!

how the heck did this post do so well?!? anyways as i said if it got popular i would slap it on redbubble i did that, thank you all for all the notes and comments! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/154720777?asc=u

Northen gannet by Andy Parkinson

Free! Spirit animals for all characters now have

Free! event with Ep0 and Ep1 that happened June 23 had special goods. Among them is a pouch bag with the spirit animals of ALL the characters.

Smaller pic only before the event could make out that Ikuya is a Beluga whale (only whale of the whole group too as Orca or Killer whale (Makoto) is actually in the dolphin family), Hiyori is a Polar bear (excellent swimmers but not the backstroke ^^), Natsuya some kind of shark, Asahi some kind of seal and Nao’s is something.

A posted pic by denkimouse where can see all the animals clearly now have:

Can tell that Nao is a sea bird, one that dives into the water (from body shape), so likely a tern (NOT a sea gull). Asahi is a Ribbon seal.

RIbbon seal is known for being in the Arctic as are Beluga whales and Polar bears. Do we have an Arctic theme going? If so, then Nao could be an Arctic Tern.

That leaves Natsuya... are there sharks in the Arctic? Google search found a page saying 8 kinds of sharks known in the Arctic. A tiger shark is NOT one of them (tiger shark does have pattern like see in the image and fans have guessed that for him). Out of the 8 sharks in the Arctic, the Salmon Shark (a top predator too), matches the fin shapes and size and body size. Don’t readily see the “pattern” as do in the KyoAni depiction though... still KyoAni likes it’s themes, and bunching all these related (High Speed and Take Your Marks) characters makes sense. Ne?

JUNE 29: EDIT: Whelp, Arctic theme for the 5 that didn't have animals is a bust. 3 of 5 only are: Ikuya, Asahi and Hiyori.

Nao is a Northen Gannet (diving sea bird still) and Natsuya is a Tiger shark. denkimouse tweet which is info from the Free! Starter Book which came out today in Japan...