Best Free! characters

Rin Matsuoka leads with an ELO of 1,359, ahead of Nagisa Hazuki (1,265) and Haruka Nanase (1,263). Ranked over 894 duels between 6 contenders, last updated August 24, 2026.

Rank your favorite swimmers from the anime Free! Find out which character is the community's fave: Haruka, Rin, Makoto, Rei, Sosuke or Nagisa?

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.