The art of creating a ‘comforting’ anime is one that seems easy. Just have ‘cute girls’ doing ‘cute things’, and voila, you have an anime. Seems easy, doesn’t it? It might seem easy compared to other anime, but the art of making a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things (CGDCT) anime that has staying power is much more difficult. Even if YOU liked it, how many CGDCT anime that you’ve seen been forgotten to time. That CGDCT anime that you liked when it aired eight years ago is now only known for a blackface scene. Another one you watched five years ago hasn’t been mentioned on your timeline in three years. You get my point. In a niche genre that’s easy to emulate, average CGDCT anime are a dime-a-dozen. It’s rare though that you get one that’s good enough to be remembered for not just being a ‘good CGDCT anime’, but a ‘good anime’ in general. This season of Yuru Camp, like its predecessor, manages to achieve this.
This season changes little from season one, which is good since there’s no need to overcomplicate an anime like Yuru Camp. We do get to meet new characters, like Ayano, who’s Nadeshiko’s childhood friend, and we get to see more of reoccurring characters, like Rin’s cool grandfather. Other than the episodes purely focused on camping trips, we get to see a flashback to Rin’s first-time solo-camping, the girls working at their part-time jobs throughout winter, and them all planning future trips. This season shows them at school less, and them on camping trips more (one camping trip in particular takes up four episodes). While the first season focused on them camping in the Yamanashi prefecture, this season has them exploring the coast, and other ‘geosites’ of the Shizuoka prefecture. These prefectures are near the middle of Japan, and aren’t usually featured in anime. Various people (usually on image-boards) have tongue-in-cheek criticized Yuru Camp for being ‘propaganda by the Japanese tourism industry’. All I can say is that it’s pretty damn good propaganda then. While nature shots can end up looking the same (by nature of it being nature), Yuru Camp does a great job of differentiating every spot and giving it a reason for being shown. These spots are the same in real life, which leads to having the anime tell why THIS place, in particular, is so important that the girls have to visit it. Along with them visiting geosites, the girls also go to various restaurants, onsens, campsites, and even a capybara sanctuary. As I said earlier, Yuru Camp is a pretty good advertisement for this part of Japan, which is rarely seen in anime.
Is there anything better about this season? Not in particular. We do get to see some exciting arcs, such as Nadeshiko planning out and going on a solo-camp, and some of the other girls camping in sub-freezing weather. This season adds little new to the table, but at the same time detracts little as well. My biggest complaint is about how jarring some of the scenes of Rin riding her moped are. I forget if they did this in the first season as well, but her moped contrasts heavily with the beautiful landscapes, and are laughable to see. I get why they decided to go with 3D animation instead of drawing each frame, but still, it doesn’t look good. That’s the most of my complaints — about all of the other complaints I’ve seen have been on image-boards. Complaints about the decline in the quality of the animation and whatever. Although a Google Maps watermark being left in a landscape shot is hilarious, it doesn’t detract that much from the anime. I have a feeling that nine out of ten of the complainers from said image-boards are just trying to rile up Yuru Camp fans. Needless to say, there’s no fatal flaw to Yuru Camp. I don’t care, and I’m guessing most watchers don’t care, if the studio uses techniques to turn Google Maps photospheres into anime landscapes. It’s funny to see a watermark that was accidentally left in, but it isn’t episode-ruining.
If you’re someone who watched and enjoyed the first season of Yuru Camp, and haven’t watched this season yet, you should watch it as soon as possible. If you haven’t watched the first season yet, watch it before watching this. C-Station (the studio) knows what they’re doing. Yuru Camp is a ‘healing anime’, or an anime that is relaxing to watch. While not all scenarios this season are relaxing to see, Yuru Camp still maintains to be a ‘brain massager’, as one of my friends calls the show. To put it simply, Yuru Camp just ‘gets it’. There’s no need to force unnecessary drama between the characters. There’s no need to show fanservice of the girls for the sake of sales. There’s no need to make what’s ultimately a simple anime complex for the sake of complexity. The only reason why anyone would become upset watching an episode is that it might cost thousands of dollars for them to camp at the same places the girls do. Yuru Camp might not be the most thought-provoking anime, but it still has the opportunity to change your life. There’re probably thousands of people who watched Yuru Camp that decided to camp at least once due to the anime. Yuru Camp hasn’t convinced me to go camping, but it has inspired me to do a day trip to state parks with friends. Other than the beautiful waterfalls, the delicious ice cream at a gift shop near the state park, and the exhausting walk down and up the trail, I learned several things about Tallulah Gorge State Park — like how several scenes from the classic movie Deliverance (often considered one of the best thriller movies ever, and could be considered the antithetical to Yuru Camp) were filmed there. If you’re American, there’s more than likely at least one state or national park close to you that you haven’t ever been to. Visiting it with friends, family, or by yourself, can be a great way to spend a day when you don’t have anything to do. If you aren’t American, I hope you have a thing similar to the National Park Service, so you can also enjoy your countries natural beauty, preserved and protected from those whose only goal is to extract resources. Beyond the veneer of ‘cute girls doing cute things’, Yuru Camp reminds us that fun can still be had outdoors. The tranquility and serenity of ‘the great outdoors’ is something that even the biggest basement dweller needs to experience once in a while.
90/100
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