Yuru Camp△ Season 2

Yuru Camp is basically the most wholesome and agreeable thing I’ve ever watched. But lots of anime are cute and wholesome. But very few have the moments of sheer beauty that fill Yuru Camp. It also offers generous lessons on how to enjoy life to the fullest - delicious food, friendship, the wonders of nature, the satisfaction of accomplishing tasks and relying on yourself, etc. Also, the realism of the actual locations and the practical aspects of camping make you really respect the work and take it seriously. If after we died, we entered the world of Yuru Camp and lived there forever, that would ... be heaven.

tl;dr a slice of life masterpiece. No reason not to give this a shot unless you really dislike this genre. And I stand by that statement even if you're too lazy to watch the 1st season first; S2 is miles ahead of what was already a very strong first season.

I've been wondering for a while what a slice-of-life show would have to do to garner a 10, and Yuru Camp S2 just might be it. This show is the "healing anime" genre polished to a mirror shine. Sure, it doesn't deliver on plot, but if you weren't already scared off by the slice-of-life tag, you're ... not gonna care. This really is a landmark show in terms of the Cute Girls Slice-of-Life genre that really shows what happens when you give great source material like this the budget and the love it deserves. There is just so much extra effort and attention to detail here that really shows the production team's passion and love for this show.

There are so many things I could talk about, but I'm just gonna pick a few standout things, so you can quit wasting your time and go watch the show.

First, we gotta talk backgrounds. I don't even want to KNOW how much time both in and out of the office it took to draw all these backgrounds. By nature of this being a scenery/tourism focused anime, we're talking DOZENS of new backgrounds per episode, and they are all painstakingly location accurate. While we've seen Japan a billion times in other shows, instead of it being a "Japanese high school #237", in Yuru Camp these are all REAL places, and the attention to detail in the backdrops really makes me feel like I'm right there next to the characters.

Second, I need to talk about the really stellar character animation. I can speak Japanese so I watched without subs, and I really had a lot of leeway to nitpick every frame. However, as of the time of this writing (episode 7), I've been pleasantly surprised that Yuru Camp is ALWAYS on model, which is impressive as the original author's style has a lot of quirks that takes a learning curve to start copying. And on top of that, instead of skimping on motion at every turn like most seasonal slice-of-life fare, the character's arms are always moving to emphasize what they're talking about and hair and clothing move appropriately to match.

Finally, as someone who read the source material, I was mainly looking forward to seeing the cast in color. But the score in S2 surprised me with a lot of variety that was absent in the 1st season. While retaining the calm, peaceful BGM tracks from before, there are a series of tracks scored specifically for certain scenes, which really help sell some of the emotional high points and comedy relief. A lot of SOL shows don't do this, using pretty much the same BGM throughout, so it's clear there's a lot of attention in areas not usually paid attention to in anime production.

An honorable mention before I close is the stellar VA work, carried by big name actresses like Toyosaki Aki (Yui from K-on!), Touyama Nao (Yui from Oregairu), and Takahashi Rie (Emilia, Megumin). As a result, even the episode focusing on the characters outside of the main Rin and Nadeshiko are funny and engaging.

Yuru Camp S2 perfects the comfy formula that helped its S1 explode in popularity, but this time it brings some unprecedented quality within its genre. I've held off reviewing this show because I wasn't sure that the quality would continue, but at episode 7, it's really proved its worth to me as something that I will come back to when I'm sick of all the mediocre slice-of-life coming out recently.

The truth is that it left me empty not to continue watching this, anime with the Slice of Life genre are few valued and this is undoubtedly one of the best that exist today.

Without a doubt it is better than the first season since here they show more than just a camp, they show what are the things of outdoor life and travel more than anything.

It is as if it were an advertisement from Japan for us to spend vacations in that place but it also gives you a beautiful message from time to time leave your house and spend it at ease with friends ... without so much confinement, internet or technological things.

This purifies my soul but it breaks my soul that we do not have anime of this style and the closest thing would be Non Non Biyori.

Without more to say, this is very much based on our reality, it is a teaching of life and you should take advantage of it.

I can't fathom how this series makes a typically plodding genre so spellbinding, but it does and continues to do so to an even more wonderful degree in this second instalment. Yuru Camp has always touched on themes of coming of age, adulthood, bonds and identity with remarkable subtlety and nuance, but it delves into even more heartrending layers of these topics in this second season. I have always loved how Rin and Nadeshiko influenced each other to open up their respective worlds while still holding true to what makes each girl them, and this is even more clear in this season. The segment where ... Nadeshiko, inspired by Rin, tries solo camping for the first time, is just so, so beautiful—it's a small yet amazing thing to be pushed into trying new things thanks to someone you love, and Yuru Camp illustrated the impacts of that so beautifully and naturally, without fanfare. And oh my God, the way RIn's boundaries are depicted in this anime—ugh, I really wished I watched this when I was younger. The club happily accepting Rin's desire to ride alone to the camp while they're all in the van is so incredible and I wish that, when I was younger, I was taught the same—that it's OK to want to enjoy something by yourself, and that you won't be "killing the mood" by doing so.

All in all, this is a heart-warming, feel-good series I, and clearly many others, will be going back to over and over. I'm so glad this anime exists!

If someone told me that exists an anime that the story is about some girls that like to camp by their own or in groups just to have fun I wouldn't believe it.
I couldn't imagine before that an anime with this premise would be so interesting.

Yuru Camp is an anime with a simple and practical story.
Girls that decide to start camping on peaceful and beautiful places.
When they're not camping, we just see what they normally do on a daily basis.

The story itself doesn't matter much because it's not the main focus.
So you ask me: why I would watch this anime that is just about camping?
And ... my answer to you is: because this anime is not only about camping!
It's about life that can be lived to the fullest in many ways.

It's about feeling joy and having fun, about enjoying the things around you, enjoying the company of your friends and also your own company, about enjoying nature, about loving and respecting animals, about getting to know yourself better, about wanting to live life as completely as possible.
About being productive and making the most of everything.


Art/animation:

Absolutely gorgeous, the nature and all the landscapes were always beautiful.
The animation is very well done and the design of the characters is amazing.
Not a single flaw or issue about this area. 10/10
.
Sound - OST's, VA's and Opening/Ending:

The soundtrack fits perfectly well with all the scenes, places and also the overall mood of the anime. All of the OST's are calm and smooth. They give a cool feeling.
The opening is full of hapiness, very exciting. The ending is wonderfull and relaxing.

So I give a 10 out of 10.

Characters:

They are all cute, sweet and lovely girls.
Nadeshiko is the personification of happiness.
Always with a smile on her face and excited to do everything.
Rin is the personification of tranquility. She is responsible and organized.
The other girls are kind and friendly in their own ways. I loved them all. 10/10

Enjoyment and Overall:

All the episodes filled me with joy and excitement.
It's a fun anime that has always left me calm and peaceful,
Almost a treatment to remove all my sadness, make me forget my problems and also make me feel good and happy. I could never be more satisfied with this anime.
Actually is more than just an anime, it is a very exciting, well balanced, magical and inspiring audiovisual work. Extremely fun, relaxing and very exciting, too.
It brings valuable lessons and makes us reflect on important things in our life.
Truly a masterpiece! 10/10 It deserves more recognition. I will miss it a lot. <3

Have fun and live life to the fullest. o/

This is my first review so I'm sorry if I sound unprofessional :P

I'm really enjoying this series boys, I love it, I love it way beyond what I expected.
Let me tell you about a very famous legend I hear all the time, a story passed down through generations by word of mouth: The legend of the people whom enjoy nature and the small things in life.
Have I ever seen one of these creatures? Of course not, but I have a friend of a firend who knows this guy who has, indeed, seen one.
Yuru camp is all about these misterious beings everyone knows but nobody has ... ever seen.
Now, all jokes aside, I'm the tipe of guy that in general doesn't like "cute girls doing cute things" shows, but this is different. Most of these shows are "empy" and have no substance whatsoever, but Yuru camp does what it wants in a very effective way. It combines the art style, the animation and the sound design with it's laid back story and characters almost perfectly*, giving the show the power to convey what it wants to convey: How wonderful camping is, the greatness of friendship and how life can be awesome even if taken slowly.
There is no semi-nude fan service, the art is very high end for anime in general, the animation is perfectly fine for the tipe of show this is, I really like the soundtrack and I think it suits the show very well, the sound effects are very good.
The characters are pretty good, although they seem one dimentional, as the show goes on we keep learning new things about them little by little. Given the slow pace of the story I would say that the slow character development is fine for now.

In conclusion this is a slow paced and relaxing story about girls living their life with their friends. It revolves around camping (Trust me, thanks to the show I want to gather a couple of friends and go camping right this istant), it has decent comedy and absolutely no tension.
I recommend you give it a try even if you think you might not like it.

*The CGI vehicles throw me off every once in a while but it's such a minor problem that you should just ignore this asterisk.

Hold it right there! Why not take a break from those intense action, tear-jerking drama, comedic romance anime and take a look at this masterpiece.

If I were to use a word to describe Yuru Camp, it is comfortable. Watching Yuru Camp feels like sipping a cup of tea, enjoying your favorite book over a smooth music with your night lamp turned on.

The most captivating part about Yuru Camp is definitely the art, the scenery. If you are a huge fan of beautiful scenery and always an enthusiast for scenery hotspot during your travels, you are definitely in for a treat. The sceneries were well ... drawn and almost similar to what you can see in real life to the extent that I lost count on how many times I mentioned "Wow, I want to visit there right now!". I did not personally went to those well known places but there are some comparison online!

That's not it, you can also learn a thing or two from Yuru Camp about camping. It feels like watching a cute documentary on how to camp and some decent "Did you know?" moment. I'm not much of a camper but its definitely an eye opener for me to feel and understand how camping is like. Heck, they made it felt so fun!

Do not get fooled by "its just gonna be some girls doing things they like" from the pictures and description. The characters are not that dull but still don't put too high hopes that the characters have deep backgrounds or shocking personalities. Nonetheless, the characters are still fun to watch and the voice are pretty well done too.

The music and songs are great in the sense that it fits the theme of relaxation. There's no overly sad, emotional music. All you hear are relaxing, exciting and happy BGMs. If its not a mood booster, its definitely not a moody one.

Overall, I really enjoy Yuru Camp and I understand its not for everyone but hey, if you are exhausted from those thrilling anime, why not give Yuru Camp a go? Get yourself a cup of tea, sit on your comfy sofa, and enjoy the smooth and relaxing ride that Yuru Camp has to offer.

*This review contains minor spoilers*

At a cursory glance Yuru Camp may be seen as your typical seasonal “cute girls doing X in a cute way”, where X is camping, show. In addition, with all the places and food presented, this anime may be seen as a hollow travel advertisement. With a more thorough examination… the first impression does not fail. However, it does not matter. Despite its shallowness, Yuru Camp is perfect the way it is.

Imagine this. Schoolgirls decide to go on their greatest trip ever after a midterm exam. As always, one girl is no good at studying. Now, what do you ... expect? As for me, a failure at the first try, getting better and eventually strengthening the bonds of friendship. Well, Yuru Camp does not care.

Finally, the show which considers its place and masterly performs when it matters. Why does camping matter? Long car rides, stuffing a face at roadside eateries, occasional photos at landmarks, outdoor cooking, boozy campfire songs, bedtime horror stories, gazing at the night sky and sunrise. Or, probably, do you prefer lone moped rides and solitary relaxation with a book on a cliff? That is the thing that Yuru Camp does: it discovers the enjoyment of camping. And it invests so much love and soul into unwrapping this idea, that no one could leave untouched.

First of all, the art design. Landscapes are extraordinarily beautiful and filled with details, composition is always top-notch, and transitions are just in time. The thrilling feeling of reading a remarkable illustration book smoothly morphs into the overflowing feeling of physical presence. Of course, it could not be achieved without proper ambient music. And the score of Yuru Camp perfectly conveys the right emotions at the right time: solemn music with picturesque hill views and soothing naughty motives while chit-chatting by the campfire. All the compositions fade out in ambience, but instantly emerge when you try to recall them. Hell, I still sometimes hum the waggish “next episode preview” song.

With the absence of drama, seiyuus finally don’t have to vocalize cringey little gasps and moans that cover the lack of facial animation. And since the plot in Yuru Camp is irrelevant, artists have full freedom of expression to entertain viewers. Okay, an exemplary scene. Shimarin, one of the girls, turns her head to check the price of the delicious eel she just ate… Boom! Eyes pop out of sockets! Camera takes weird angles in split seconds! The eel was expensive… God, I genuinely laughed at that scene. No wonder I personally think that one of the strongest advantages of Japanese animation is unconstrained and sometimes exaggerated depiction of emotions. And voice acting in Yuru Camp does match this attitude. Actors perfectly fit into the character design and all the girls feel… um, like real schoolgirls. Isn't it the best compliment? Perhaps, all the magic charm of the characters lies in the chemistry of their personalities. And the trick here is that there is not much of character development in the show.

What may be considered as the colossal drawback in any other show, turns out to be an advantage in the case of Yuru Camp. As I already said, this anime tries to tell the story of “why camping matters”. In my opinion, it matters because of close friends. Not only people with whom we go camping together, but the ones who inspire us to go camping, the close ones who get up at the crack of dawn to wish us luck, people who would rush over to the woods if the phone is dead… The moments we spend camping with our closest friends are unforgettable. For me, the sweetest scenes in the show were the ones that sparked the thought “Ah, that is so Nadeshiko” and thus gave me the feelings of those precious moments.

And everything could fall apart if not for smart pacing. In the first season it was kind of off, probably because of the character's introduction. Although the second season never made me bored, it made me die of its sweetness.

I know that a reviewer has to scold an anime at the end. However, I cannot do that. The second season of Yuru Camp is perfect. Period. This show is an outstanding example of how to make an anime: not only each frame of Yuru Camp is filled with love and passion, but also with incredible technical skills, clever design and wise direction.

Season 1 turned out to be a surprise hit. Practically no one knew about C-Station until a super wholesome anime with impeccably-researched artwork, a sublime soundtrack, and some of the funniest gags of the year inspired anime fans to try out the great outdoors (including yours truly). It also featured one of the best epilogues in anime, bookending the first episode and portraying a friendship truly worth having. Yuru Camp was neither a soaring epic tale, nor was it a rapid-fire comic strip adaptation, it was just good old fashioned fun that happened to feature a bunch of high school girls.

So how do you top ... that performance?

In many ways, more of the same. Same director, same composer, probably same animation and research teams. Because this is meant to lead up to the movie, and because they have tons of material courtesy of Afro's manga, staying the course is the right move. With some good sequencing and editing, they were able to work in a bit of a prologue at the beginning of the show (with plenty of camping lessons and easy pitfalls for noobs), then proceed onwards with the manga chapters following the Christmas camp, with a few extras thrown in here and there. While the aftershow shorts are not as regular as they were in series 1, there was plenty of room for Afro's potpourri of gags.

This time around features a more serious episode about the dangers of winter camping, similar to the dangers of climbing a challenging mountain in Yama no Susume season 2. While the show actually avoids anyone getting seriously hurt (since that would change the tenor of the show entirely... call it thematic armor if you would), you do get a sense that our intrepid heroes narrowly dodged a nasty bullet. That doesn't stop any of our characters (usually Aki) from landing in a messy situation.

Visually, the animation is either on par with series 1 or with a bit more polish, with some shots looking like colored or animated manga frames with the anime character designs. Sunrises are, as ever, an epic and breathtaking coda to an episode. While there are a fair number of panned still shots, it's not like they needed to be animated, and the sheer detail in many of these frames is a testament to the artists drawing them. While the featured dishes aren't nearly as detailed as in, say, Koufuku Graffiti, they still made me want to set up camp in Izu on New Year's Eve for the traditional soba.

The opening title sequence not only previews the final camping expedition, it also highlights the central role the girls' smartphones play in the storytelling, from the shared photos to filming one another doing camping activities. I also loved the map motif, the tent-flaps-as-curtains idea, and the stylistic cel-shaded+ look of the opening and closing bars. The credits aren't universal this time, but that's all right, it should be fairly easy to localize.

That leads me to one of this series' strengths: the soundtrack. Asaka's new song is a little less Jackson Five, a little more J-Pop, and it brings a lot of charm to the show. Akiyuki Tateyama added a bunch of new tunes to the already outstanding soundtrack of series 1, this time adding textures and atmosphere rather than dedicated campsite themes (if there were dedicated themes, they either melted into the background or were reprised often). There's a few themes that run through the production, one of them is a flute and violin duet used for the next episode preview at the end of each episode. This time around it's more folk with a pinch of Celtic flavor rather than the bluegrass feel of the first series, and it's led by a violin, flute (or tin whistle?), and piano, the occasional guitar and the noisemaker set from the radio dramas of ages past. You could set up each episode as a segment of A Prairie Home Companion and it would fit right in. The ending theme is just as chill as the first series. The voice cast, led by Yumiri Hanamori and Nao Toyama, are well-directed and deliver a solid performance.

That's not all of the charm this show has to offer. There's still the "How to" mini shorts with a number of hilarious twists (there's one with an NHK "3 eggs" in-joke), and the texting where the avatars always happen to be dressed the same as the characters. Once again, Yuru Camp demonstrates that you don't need gory violence, gratuitous fan service (other than Aoi), or over-the-top humor to make an enjoyable experience.

I'll be covering Yuru Camp Season 2, and basically Season 1 while I'm at it and I'll be very blunt: it'll remain the best anime in my heart until and overcoming the day I keel over and die. Very simple. But here's the preamble before I actually get into the exact reasons why I enjoy this little slice of life as much as I do.

I think Yuru Camp is the anime-equivalent of chicken noodle soup for the weary soul, and I think that's why I've rewatched the series over and over again. Season 2 just adds more episodes for me to rewatch now and in ... the future. It accomplishes what I seek in a slice of life anime, and I think it covers what people tend to gloss over and miss whenever they look for and think of a slice of life anime.

Ask anyone to define a slice of life, and the general answer should be: make a bunch of characters, put them in a setting, and let them interact. I don't think that's wrong, but it's too general. I believe a slice of life is relatable and grounded above all, and a slice of life has those moments where you feel a sense of deja vu, or you can point it out and say: "Hey, I've had this happen to me before." I think for that reason, the general feeling it should give you is... nostalgia. There's a certain familiarity in these 2D waters that you're crossing, and a good slice of life—like Yuru Camp—should achieve that.

Anime has always been an art, another platform, another medium for escaping to another world. I think most people, and especially the studious and more anxious people are often overwhelmed and when overwhelmed, feel the need to escape or distance themselves. Yuru Camp, an anime about girls camping... is a bit more than that. Yuru Camp believes in something, or at least I think it believes in something. It believes that we need to slow down and appreciate the smaller things in life, and it delivers that indirectly to those who need to slow themselves down. When you're going so fast and anxiously leaping to the next goal in life, everything else in life passes by in a blur. In Yuru Camp, what you miss in that blur is... relaxation, reconnection with friends and family and nature... and for the older folks or for those graduating high school or those moving onto (and maybe they're already in) college, it's the feeling of your golden days that maybe you haven't stopped to appreciate.

With that in mind, I can actually talk about Yuru Camp and why it holds such a dear and special place in my heart.

STORY (10/10)
"You just gave a 10/10 to a slice of life, you absolute buffoon." Yeah. I did. Here's why. A slice of life does not have a massive plot about saving the world or defeating a definitive bad guy or changing the universe. It's about characters living their day-to-day lives and cherishing the moments among themselves. I think for this reason, Yuru Camp accomplishes its goal as a slice of life. Surprise surprise, it's not totally about camping. My heart is thoroughly warmed as the cast might stress on something as mundane as exams, a flashback to my high school days, making out the different approaches to an exam: either "let's wing it," or "let's not sleep for the next few days just to study." It brings me back to my days of constantly jobhunting, or what I spent a paycheck on, or understanding the freedom I have as I mature and become an adult. The camping sequences, whether it be the solo-camping Rin, or the group outings, made me feel nostalgic as I thought about loneliness and how comforting it is at times or how oppressive it is at times. The group outings made me appreciate my time with friends more, and that our time spent together is proof of our friendship and mutual love and respect. And the dynamic between characters and how they all interact with each other feels like a genuine relationship that you'd find in any friend group or inner circle. There's a bittersweet feeling instilled as the anime goes on and you remember... "at some point, this anime ends." These girls are in high school. At some point, they'll all graduate, each taking their own career paths and in time, their time with each other becomes more and more sporadic and uneven. With how grounded Yuru Camp is, you also remember... "at some point, my own fun ends," and the same applies to you. At some point, you'll be growing up, hunting for jobs, maybe moving out, getting your license and the like. And that's why Yuru Camp teaches us to appreciate the Present so that we may sooner embrace the Future. It teaches us that life in the moment is all that matters, so we should pay mind to the small things that surround us: our friends, our family, and nature. We need to spend our time wisely, so as to appreciate and love the Present and what surrounds us, while also preparing for the harsh, blunt reality of the Future and in that darkness, search for the opportunities it holds.

ART (9/10)
Art is usually not something one thinks about when they're searching for a slice of life, but considering the ground that Yuru Camp covers, it feels like everything went into conveying a certain aesthetic, a certain warmth and feel, and above all, to appreciate the environment. You'll find plenty of lovely landscapes in Yuru Camp (both seasons 1 and 2) and maybe it'll teach you to look for those early morning sunrises and those late afternoon sunsets. It'll teach you to, whenever you look or step outside, really take in what's around you: rain or shine, snow or hail, hot or cold... it really is a beautiful world we live in. I have very minor, nitpicky grievances with the way that some CG looks, but it hardly ever comes for you to be super annoyed with it. In a slice of life like this, the visuals lend itself very well. There's a certain, somewhat faded and healthy palette that the anime and art style uses to instill an emotion of warmth and wholesomeness. The characters are all unique and distinguishable from each other in their own styles, and there's a lot that goes into the environments. Very good, certainly eye candy at some moments during the anime.

SOUND (10/10)
A substantial chunk of this rating comes from the music and ambient sounds throughout the anime. Music was done by Akiyuki Tateyama, and I most certainly enjoy the direction with the genre used frequently. Almost all tracks in the Yuru Camp OST could be considered folk music, and folk music portrays a feeling of family, of friends, of good times and a certain welcome vibe. It feels... "local." It really calms you down and some of the slower pieces go well with just embracing the outdoors or even just vibing indoors, ambient music to go with thinking about yourself and how far you've come. The ambient sounds are very heavy on trying to paint the feeling of the outdoors. The fire crackling, the gentle winds blowing, the rustling of leaves, the thwack of wood being chopped and broken apart... it makes you feel like you're camping with the girls yourself. You're right there with them, enjoying your own mug of hot cocoa and talking about your day and destressing.

CHARACTER (8/10)
Each character in Yuru Camp has their own distinctive personality and appearance. All of them are very relatable in their own ways. Rin's mature and distant yet caring and intellectual character, Nadeshiko's carefree and energetic demeanor, Aoi's caring and hardworking attitude, Chiaki's drive to leadership with her own shortsighted imperfections, and Ena's sleepy and slow-paced feels—all of these assorted personalities provide interesting dynamics. Although you aren't gonna be expecting romance, you certainly feel their relationships deepen with the time that they spend with each other. All in all, with their characters so grounded and feeling so real, it plays into the genre well enough for you to identify yourself with a character or being able to point out and have a sense of familiarity with the relationships that these characters have.

All in all, it's 3:44 AM at the time of review, and I love Yuru Camp. 'Til the day I die. Watch Yuru Camp, sit back and enjoy. You're not supposed to watch it all in one sitting, but you totally can if you feel like it. Take life one step at a time, because if you rush yourself trying to get ahead, you're gonna miss a whole lot of stuff that you would've loved in the blur that passes by you. Love life, cherish the time you spend with friends and family, and don't get so caught up and entangled. Stay safe, fellas.

Loved the iyashikei plus foodie vibe of Yuru Camp△ so I went into this with high expectations

Story 7/10 and Character 8/10
It's about a girl whose grandfather loves camping, and handed down camping gear to his grand daughter, who frequently goes solo-camping, in the winter. This is peak Iyashikei anime, feel-good slice of life, with a heavy focus on camping and food, way more so than in Season 1. Normally I'm not into Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, but here, it was wholesome. Even the dog is adorable.

The friendships felt real, not forced and evolve from Season 1. Rin, the introvert loner, is slowly integrating into ... the friend group. She still needs "me" time and will go solo camping. Nadeshiko, the most extroverted of the group, has aspirations to work in the camping industry and begins her own foray into solo camping. Loved how realistic it was that all of them work part time to be able to afford their honestly, expensive hobby. Their interactions feel natural, and the friendships seem to be getting stronger even if they have different lives outside of their shared love of camping and good food. And On-sen, let's not forget that.

Art 10/10. Sound 10/10.
The art is as good as season 1. You can tell they based many scenes of real life pictures and they're accurate too. Some are so beautiful they make us virtual tourists wish we could see those things in real life. Someday I will do a Japan tour. Unlike Season 1, Yuru Camp 2 has obviously gotten more budget to make a better OP, ED and sound effects. I don't know how they did it but the puttering of Rin's moped even sounds more realistic.

Enjoyment 10/10
This was really fun to watch. The friendships naturally unfolding over beautiful scenery and tasty food, and there was even MORE tasty food this time around. Even desserts!! If this is something you like you'll enjoy this anime.

Foodie Rating 6.0/10
08/10 Visual appeal of food - way more food than Season 1 and it looks mouth-wateringly delicious.
05/10 Reaction of characters to food - laid back reaction. Characters enjoy the food and make moe faces. Nothing over the top.
03/10 Difficulty or complexity of food featured - none this stuff is too hard, due to equipment restrictions.
06/10 Preparation or Cooking Instructions - there's some instructions of how to cook this food in a camp setting, and in one episode they actually say "If you follow instructions, you can do it", which will give viewers the confidence to do this in real life.
08/10 Desire of viewer to cook or buy dishes featured after watching show - Will make you want to go camping and try to cook those dishes. Especially if you have the gear, and friends and a spot to go camping at.

Overall 9/10
Loved it and am eagerly hoping for Season 3. Desire to go camping in Japan intensified, especially considering the organized nature of camping, plus I would definitely camp where they have an Onsen nearby just because Yuru Camp has trained me to look for that now. Alas, my wallet is cringing as they ARE realistic about how camping is not a cheap hobby when you consider all the gear required.

I love watching anime. I have a deep passion for watching, discussing and critiquing anime. Nuancing my opinions, sharing love for shows and discovering new experiences is what keeps me continuing to watch anime. It is a passion that is hard to really express to people who don’t watch anime, but I sure try to share that deep-rooted passion with others who are willing to listen. I can see this sort of passion in Yuru Camp.

Yuru Camp is a show that means a lot to me. Back in 2018 Yuru Camp was one of the first anime that I watched and I loved every second ... of it. I listened to the soundtrack on repeat, I tried to let my friends watch it, you could almost say I was obsessed with it. But as the years went by and I watched more and more anime, I started to forget that love that I had for YuruCamp. Now that Yuru Camp season 2 is done, I did not only relive that feeling of love for the anime that I forgot for a time, but also have that love amplified by a thousand. I fucking love Yuru Camp, and there are so many reasons why.
Firstly, the anime is just genuinely great. It is Iyashikei at its best. With a simple premise as “Girls go camping”, the anime really gets a lot out of it. It not only shows multiple ways how to camp, but also shows the dangers that come with it and the extra work you have to do for certain trips. The creators of these anime definitely know what camping takes and you see that back in the anime.

The characters are great too. Rin and Nadeshiko are the definite highlights of the cast. Both have amazing designs and personalities that work well off each other. Rin, the cold but sweet camping fanatic, interacting with Nadeshiko, a bowl of marshmallows and hot chocolate, are some of the best moments of the show. The rest of the character cast is not as strong but still really enjoyable. Aoi is a nice onee-san type that loves to tease others. Ena might not have much as a personality but she compliments Rin well and her dog is adorable. Chiaki is probably the weakest character with how she is often a comedic relief and her comedy tends to have lots of hits & misses, but she still has some great moments. The rest of the characters are mostly made up of chill adults. What makes this character cast work so well is that these friendships feel real. They joke with each other, but also look out for each other and help each other when needed too. They don’t suddenly fall in love, they don’t have exaggerated manners, they don’t go through significant emotional arcs, they are all friends/family that bond over love for camping.

What really sells this anime for me and loads of other people are the production values. The art of this anime is gorgeous. The animation may not be impressive, but the character designs are great and the backgrounds are jaw dropping. Some of the composition also enhances the experience a ton. One of the best things about this anime is the OST. This OST makes me melt into my chair of comfort. It is quiet and meaningful when it needs to, jolly and upbeat when the scene is funny and during down times the relaxing sounds of string instruments make you feel at ease. Even if you decide to not watch the anime after reading this post, please just listen to the OST on Youtube. It is amazing.

Those aspects are already great, but after watching all 25 episodes of this anime, I finally realised why this anime means a lot to me: the way it conveys its passion for camping. I am not a camper and the times I have camped have all been a mixed experience, but I can still feel what joys camping can bring in this anime.

Without any lazy running gags, without any distracting drama, without any sort of moe yuri-bait, this anime shows that camping is about enjoying the quiet beautiful nature. Reading a book while eating self-made dinner in the cold is a healing experience that is hard to get anywhere else, but camping isn’t just solo. You can share this experience with multiple people. With that, even if you screw up, you screw up together and fix things together. Watching the sunset go down or staring at the night sky full of stars becomes an experience you can share with the ones you camp, an unique experience you then only have with those ones.

I mentioned that I have a deep-rooted passion for watching anime, but it is a hard passion to really share with others. While not really that equivalent, camping is also not a hobby that is easy for people to really get, but this anime knows how to let people get what camping is all about by combining all these amazing elements I mentioned previously in a passion-filled 24 minutes 25 episodes total. Watching people that I love doing things that they love in a fashion that doesn’t challenge me and just wants me to have a good time is an amazing healing experience. This experience especially hits hard after going through an exhausting 2020 which brought me enormous distress and loss of motivation, so the comfort of an anime about people doing what they love brought genuine tears to my eyes with the first episode of season 2.

Also, regarding how season 2 compares to season 1, from my perspective, I think it improves enough on things to make it a great second season. With how in season 1 introduced the characters and the setting, this second season now puts its focus on the girls going camping instead of learning and preparing for it. You also see some genuine progression in the series: In season 1 most of the girls were really amateur and had to discover a lot of things, and now in season 2 they already are more experienced and you see that by seeing them enjoy camping more instead of having to deal with the difficulties of it (but don’t worry, there is still a good amount of problem solving in season 2). It is also nice to see the relationships between characters thicken: They get more comfortable with each other and can comment more on each other's personalities.

I fucking love Yuru Camp. It is an anime that I can recommend with all my soul, especially after how heavy 2020 was.

So yeah, watch Yuru Camp you dingus.

The first season of Yuru Camp was remarkable for two predominant reasons – its authoritative and confident audio-visual direction, and the clear intersection of its activity/subculture as a point that directly relates back to its main characters, a technique that enhanced both aspects of the production. However, in many areas, its second season does not feel like an extension or even a sequel, but a step backwards, foregoing any points of interest to retread the same iconography but without approaching any significant ideas in doing so.

Nebulous concepts notwithstanding, it is at least consistently competently made, and never outright generic. The direction displays an understanding of ... the slice of life genre, what makes it work, and how to condense its motifs efficiently into the confines of a 25-minute episode. But when it comes to the issue of addressing its own concepts, that is where it can end up feeling less refined. Specifically, one point that the first season of Yuru Camp was able to make use of was interconnectivity, whereby the act of camping was its central (and viewed in a wider context, seemingly arbitrary) conceit, but one that was always purposeful, and managed to provide emphasis in relation to its two main characters. Although not parabolic or even necessarily conventional in its underlying intentions, it was able to accentuate its characters via the camping, which manifested itself as an extension of its two protagonists, exhibited through their behaviour and dialogue. As for the second season, this aspect seems to have been foregone, which is also seen in its reduced focus on its two main characters, utilising the wider cast more frequently, providing less opportunity for them to have a sense of poignancy or importance. The idiosyncrasies that were once present have been diminished, and its dialogue feels a lot less particular to the ideas that it initially presented, and more in line with the conventional character types and character conversations that could have perhaps come from any other writer, or any other series.

This lesser focus is apparent in other areas, one visual difference being that far less of the series is set during night or early morning, and of those scenes that are, the impact on the lighting is less pronounced than in comparative scenes from the first season. This also lessens the level of immersion, as the characters do not occupy as prominent of a position within a particular frame, being one object in a wider area, rather than the focal point that the lighting is specifically framed around. As a furtherance of this, using the opening scene of each episode as a reference, the average shot length of the first season comes in at 5.38 seconds, whereas for the second season, this ended up being reduced all the way down to 4.59, from which it can be inferred that the visuals manage to diminish the immersion and significance of the characters through the use of lighting, and through the editing, the environment and atmosphere are simultaneously diminished in turn.

It is more often the case that sequels fail to accentuate the points of an original work and provide an overall better experience, and to this end, the second season of Yuru Camp performs as expected, wherein the problem lies. It is not a bad series by any means, but it performs as expected – it has a large cast of archetypal characters, moments of manzai-style comedy, points of drama, and every other element that typically comes out of a slice of life series. But with a prior season that went beyond expectation to provide moments of true clarity, and a more consistently detailed sense of place, emphasised by a soundtrack that is this time around used more sparingly, it is a series that feels restrained, which while never ineffective, is also never as effective as it has previously demonstrated it has the capacity to be.

THE MOST RELAXING SERIES OF ALL TIME? WE'RE SEEING HISTORY BEING MADE!

OOOOH, i get excited when i talk about Yuru Camp. Maybe you too. I’m a trully fan of the series and for me, was a long wait for the 2 season. Rin, Nadeshiko, Aoi, Chiaki and Ena finally back! The quality of the anime hasn't changed compared to the first season and the music, scenario, characters...everything is amazing. Is a trully enjoyment watching this anime.

The comfort that this anime generates is something incredible. Who knew that camping characters would be so relaxing, I don't even know how to explain how I feel watching this.

Basically ... this anime have 3 principles: WATCH, RELAX and HAVE FUN. In the first episode i achieved this goal.

Not forgetting to say: this is a healing anime. Cure stress, sadness, and recharges your energies. Happens to me.

10/10.

+ One of the best visual scenery in anime, it really gives a serene atmosphere using wide and silent shots of the natural landmark

+ The series can serve as a guide for tourism in Japan, especially in Yamanashi Prefecture and the surrounding area of Mount Fuji (camping or not)

+ It also depicts rural Japan in a great way, with their small town and its vast public and tourism infrastructure

+ Arguably the most wholesome and laid-back (of course) anime ever released, with no conflict or drama with an "always positive" attitude characters

+ Every character has their own distinct trait and it also elevates how they all ... interact with each other. It also develops the characters nicely from strangers to camping buddies, and finally to best friends

**Reviewer's Note: The review valid for Season 1, 2, Room Camp, and all of its Specials

Yuru Camp△ Season 2, just like Season 1 is a beautifully crafted and visually stunning love letter to the beauty and culture of Japan.

Watching girls going camping in unbelievably beautiful settings from the comfort of my bed is always a treat.

The story is pretty typical. Rin does her typical solo camping with Nadeshiko and the gang doing their own things, but wait, Nadeshiko wants to try out solo camping as well. She experiences the beauty of loneliness that Rin had found in solo camping. Rin and Sakura ensuring her safety from afar. Aoi, Chiaki, and Ena try to camp and neglect to check ... the weather and find themselves amidst a dangerous cold but are rescued by a heated yurt and diligent friends. The finale group camping arc on the Izu Peninsula was a great end, with the birthday and geospots being great moments.

The art is always stunning. If you're going to watch Yuru Camp△ but don't care about camping, watch it for the art. You won't regret it. This show is such a pleasure and comfort that I'm sure a majority of people would enjoy it. Who knows maybe you might get interested in camping or the outdoors through this show.

Who knew Capybaras would be an excellent finale to an amazing season?

Yuru camp is the definition of "comfy".

Ever since the end of first season, Yuru camp has never left me. I went to Japan in end of 2019 til the beginning of 2020 before Corona (Gooooooood old time). I visited Motosuko, where everything started. The kawaii kanban oneesan allowed me a mini camping (my photo shoot actually). When I was on those exact spots, I was so overwhelmed by happiness. I travelled to Kawaguchi (featured in Heya camp) and took the cable car. When I later watch the girls had taken the same trip, I was so happy too.

I genuinely envy these girls. They can so ... much "mankitsu" (満喫 enjoy to their hearts' content) all that nature has to offer in Yamanashi and Shizuoka (Hamamatsu and Izu). Nadeshiko is always THE best cute eating girl, hardworking, genuinely caring and she could find fun and wonder in everything. She is the best companion in travel. Rin is still the inner thinking traveller with the best attire. With the solo mindset and yet not shy away from group travel, she is not only my close ally, but many viewers find her also relatable.

The second season has a visual upgrade. Scenes are background paper materials. The music from Akiyuki Tateyama is still the best.

What's more, the second season puts some more very nice touch on the human "relationships" from the manga. Between Rin and Nadeshiko, Rin and her family, Rin and the Outdoor Club, are just heartwarming. Their caring and thankful altitude toward each other is not exaggerated, such as going extra miles to check out on friends or bowing to express their gratitude, is just all too normal in the Japanese society and this human side of the human interaction is the exact thing that makes me love this country so much.

This season is, as some critics say, more monotonous, and more focused on various sites and landmarks. The girls are forced to grow up due to having an expensive hobby and having to manage the alcoholism of their supervising teacher, which is just sad and pathetic, though the show tries to show it in a comedic light, which pretty much fails. It's just tragic if you give it a closer look.

It's good that the show included some depiction of Rin's fatigue, as she crammed a lot of activity in one day, though I understand that it would limit what they could show.

There is less actual ... camping, and more sightseeing. Setting up camp is now rarely seen, and that's a bit annoying.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this show as a comfy CGDCT show. It's basically just more of season 1, which I remember enjoying a lot more than I was enjoying this. As for why, I can't really say. Maybe it's because I need something more engaging to keep myself interested with anime these days. Maybe it's because this season is actually just less interesting and truly is a step down in quality. Maybe it's because I'm now a 30-year-old man watching high school girls go to tourist sites and talk about how tasty the food is and Jesus fucking Christ I get it they love ... camping, you don't need to say it every episode.

All I know is that I watched almost half of the season, put it on hold for a while, came back and couldn't care less. I watched season 1, I guess I just didn't realize that's all the Yuru Camp I really needed to see.

It's like Laid-back camping season 1, but all over again. In a good way.

This by all means is not a sequel that flops compared to the original, that couldn't be further from the truth. The forever changing nature of the humour in the series kept jokes funny instead of sticking to a single joke. (That wasn't the case in the first season either, but some other series do that.)

The background art is even better with thinner brush strokes and more detail. Don't get me wrong, I liked the first season as well but the mountains and distant city lights resemble real places even more than ... the more rough artwork.

The audio is still kind of good and at least they don't place obnoxious music and use a more calm theme instead. Though I think I liked the first season with it's less sharp shouting character voices. They seem to talk louder at some parts now.

With that being said, I hope they don't stretch this out to boring lengths afterwards with endless spin-offs or sequels.