Go Matsuoka

Gou Matsuoka (松岡江) is one of the supporting characters of the anime series Free!.

She is Rin's younger sister. She is also a 3rd year student and the manager of the Iwatobi High School swimming club.

Background[]

Go was born on the day of December 25th as the younger sister of Rin. Toraichi Matsuoka (Gou's father) was a fisherman who suddenly died at sea when she was very young. She appears to have been born in Iwatobi and to have moved a short time afterward to another school district. Around the age of ten, her grandmother died and Gou, Rin Matsuoka (Gou's older brother) and Miyako Matsuoka (Gou's mother) inherited the house in Iwatobi where her grandmother lived. At that time, her mother and she became worried by Rin's plan to move to Australia to study abroad there.

Some time shortly before Gou's eleventh birthday, she briefly met Haruka Nanase, Makoto Tachibana and Nagisa Hazuki while delivering to Rin the cookie tin he plans to bury with the medley trophy. Neither Makoto and Nagisa nor herself seem to remember the meeting when they later reunited, but Haruka remembered her identity and name later on and Gou herself remembered Haruka.

While watching her brother compete in the medley relay, she observed his happiness while they celebrated victory, and this memory remained with her after he left for Australia. Although he returned every winter to celebrate the New Year, she worried over the way he no longer smiled and became more withdrawn each year. Eventually, when Rin returned to Iwatobi for schooling at a boarding school and refused to answer her texts, much less visit home, Gou became worried enough to take action to make him smile again.

Personality[]

Gou has an easygoing and refreshing personality. However, despite her friendly persona, she becomes quite annoyed whenever anyone calls her Gou because it is a boyish name for a girl. She prefers being called Kou and she will usually correct those who call her otherwise, but Nagisa Hazuki calls her "Gou" despite her constant corrections, eventually causing her to give up completely.

Gou often worries about Rin Matsuoka (Gou's older brother), as she regularly and persistently checks up on him to see that he's doing well after his transfer into Samezuka Academy. She becomes the Iwatobi Swim Team's manager, knowing that the members were old friends of Rin, in the hope that they could restore Rin back to his old self.

As a manager, Gou can be strict when need be, but at the same time, supportive of the team's decisions and feats. She is efficient in her role as manager and works diligently to improve their training by setting up regimens and organizing joint swimming practices with Samezuka Academy's swim team.

Despite being the manager of the swim club, Gou actually does not know how to swim. She also has an obsession with masculine muscles and a tendency to blush and get overly enthusiastic whenever she sees them.