The Simplicity of Yuru Camp that Breaks Boundaries (Yuru Camp Review)

The concept of Slice of Life moe blob anime is pretty much dying. Sure every year we get two or more shows like this lane but what I mean by dying is lack of ideas in these type of show or they just running out of ideas and pick the most absurd one (I'm looking at you Slow Start although you're not bad). And furthermore, these type of shows rarely gets a lot of attention by anime fans that are put off by the art styles which yes it's an acquired taste at best. But lately Slice of Life or Moe art style has been really popular lately with the likes of Made In Abyss, Girls Last Tour, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, and to lesser extent Blend S and New Game. All of these shows are not just successful commercially but some of them are getting critical acclaimed and that got me thinking, for much of these genre has been in stagnant before 2017 people who created them are thinking the same and so they uses the moe art to told their stories. Whether it's tragedy like Made In Abyss or philosophical like Girls Last Tour. 

Why am I bringing this up? Well I don't think Yuru Camp will be as successful as it is thanks to these shows. And yet I'm still baffled this got popular at all. And it seems like it would tank because the anime studio C-Station isn't well known with making good anime just by looking at their MAL. But also the director of this anime Yoshiaki Kyougoku has only key animated Batman anime and directed one episode of Blood-C but at least the voice cast they were promising with Takahashi Rie (Megumin, Emilia and Takagi-san) and Aki Toyosaki (Yui Hirasawa, and Chitose Ikeda). But surely this couldn't be working right?

Well I think I know why it got this successful and it's all positive because I think this is one of the best anime of the season or even this year. And all of it has to do with how simple the premise is. This anime starts out with our two main characters, Rin and Nandeshiko meet when Rin goes to bathroom after sets out her camping gear but she didn't mind her but she seems to lost after slept through the day. And after they met at the camp ground Nandeshiko excited with camping and decided to go to the outdoor activities where she meet Aki and Aoi while Rin and Saitou as the outsider.

Now on the surface this seems like a cute premise and the one that kinda generic but what makes this anime worked so well is how simple all of this. And sure simple isn't exactly the perfect quality to judge a show, even being used as a negative. But for anime about camping and just that it needed to be simple and down to earth or else it would be jarring if this anime added drama into the mix. More of this also thanks to the writing and the script, this anime wouldn't worked if the character even just one are bratty or hot headed. But they decided to go to more realistic route showing that even though they are in a different background but camping is what makes them bond with each other. And I gotta give props to Shima Rin because she could be easily be that character that decline everything and wanna be alone but she's not like that, sure she wanna be alone when camping but whenever there's someone wanna camp with her she doesn't declined and that's a net positive.

Speaking of the characters let's talk about them shall we? We got Nandeshiko aka the dense one of the group... or is she, because from the series we see her actually cooked for Shima Rin so she's actually very helpful, Nandeshiko is very energetic and I love her innocent tendencies. Aki is acting like Ritsu oblivious to all the things but still competent, Aoi is the smartest out of the group and also the bustiest of them all, slight tangent but how the hell did she got that juggs. She's looked like 14 but hey look can be deceiving. And Saitou with her pet dog and she just there but does have a good banter with Rin and others. I especially love the inclusion of the narrator as the exposition reader so that we still focus on the character while being informed on how to make camp fire and it's pretty helpful actually. Each characters has their own unique design and even the objects had more personality and charm than most anime these days.

Another key aspect on how this show worked so well is the sound design. As a music guy myself I'll appreciate when anime can blend the soundtrack and even enhanced the nuance of an anime, and this is one of those case. For a camp anime you'll get your typical acoustic instrumental with some hints of jazzy drum progression but I was stunned by how it can be soothing while making the scenes more lively. I do love the inclusion of some traditional Japanese instrument like Koto and flutes with hints of Shimasen very nice touch against the acoustic guitar and harmonica give it a glee vibe to already gleeful anime. Of course no great anime is without a good Opening and this is no exception. Insipired by the Jackson 5 of all people SHINY DAYS is probably the perfect way to start this anime, cheerful, happy and most of all comforting. But I'm more impressed by the Ending song of this anime Fuyu Biyori which is remain one of my all time favorite by being simple acoustic song that's very much like the show.

But at the end of the day this anime in it's core is simple. It doesn't need big grand stories or drama or even some kind of adventures. Like the title suggested it's just a laid-back anime in the same vain as most KyoAni shows it delivers what it's intended to and I'd argue that this might succeeded in trying do so. What it reminded me most of this anime ambitions is not from other anime but a little movie called Paterson (played by Adam Drivers) and Niall Horan debut album Flicker. Both of those aren't gonna challenged you and it's very simple and very conventional, but they all using that as their advantage to make something that's not only compelling but downright beautiful especially the latter.

Look I know these type of shows probably isn't gonna be for you if you don't like Slice of Life or Moe stuff but as the slice of life anime goes this is one of the best and I'm glad that it got a critical acclaimed it deserves so for me it's a strong 9/10 and definitely a recommendation. So with this show ended I might wanna check the manga or watch this over and over because hey when it's this simple how could I not?

Girls Last Tour Review

There's no denying that there's a lot of war pieces or post-war movies out there whether it's Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, Apocalypse Now etc. I think the reason why we love to make stories about war is that many people fantasize about war and how it's gonna altered humanity as we know it, especially when it comes to how people are gonna survived this war and if they did survived how they gonna rebuild the world that has been devastated by this catastrophic events and even then how different it is to the civilization before the war. These are the question that the answer are still speculation because such an event hasn't even been closed to wipe out humanity as a whole or even matches it.

Now why am I talking about this you may asked. Well I went and watch Girls Last Tour, a post-apocalyptic or war anime about two girls, Chito and Yuuri trying to survive in a world where it's only just a ruin. And I found this anime to be quite fascinating for a number of reasons that we will be discuss but before we do it, let's talk about the technical side of this anime and what do I think of it. Honestly the fact that this anime is both fluids and static at the same time is really impressive especially when it comes to the character design that's very cutesy moe blob juxtaposed with the gritty dark and ominous the world around them with it's ruined building and the lack of soil makes this anime feel grandiose and well thought out. The soundtracks here is perfect with the ambient and lo-fi orchestral sound that's really cinematic and really moving, speaking of moving the OP here is top notch and this is a thing I guess

Trust me this is a good anime.

Another thing I wanna highlight about this anime is that it doesn't reveal itself too much of a story on what happened before the world is in ruin. It's pretty much subtle in a way of the world building and in a way it told the story through the dialogue, interaction between characters and even the technology of this world. there's actually some nuance in the writing, while it's not as deep as White Fox's other works like Steins;gate, but they do sounds intriguing with Yuu asking philosophical questions as what is cheese? what is chocolate? to what is god? all of which still taken as granted but since they live in a post war scenario they just asked that question and giving some vague answers to that question because the environment and the fact that they just want to survive so stuff like cheese or the concept of god is just not crossing their minds until something brought that up.

And that leads us to why this anime worked so well as it is. Most post war or apocalyptic movies or shows doesn't really resonate with me mostly it doesn't sounds so realistic and how they managed to make something for this situation is off-putting like I get that after the war you really need a healing but to me it just came across as desperate. With this anime I feel like the characters are desperate but it's beyond that because they kinda detached to this world that what matters the most are themselves. They still have empathy but since they're the only one in this world they still fighting for survival. It highlighted very well on the first episode where they found some food from abandoned plane but there's only five of them so what they do for that last bar, Yuu took it and straight up threatened Chi if she took it away from her by a sniper. That's surprisingly dark but understandable move from Yuu since the word "war" isn't associated with big battles between two opposing side but in this world it's more of a hyperbole of fight or argument which is added more weight to the world they lived in and without delved into spoilers but at the last episode we do get to see what happened and it genuinely moving while also shows the bad side of human that we're all just a person who wanna survives in some ways.

It also helped that the atmosphere of this anime is matching the tone of the anime which is wishful hope in a shitty situation. In most post-apocalyptic films or shows it really feels depressing and dower because so much of it focuses on the idea of the world after the war will be bleak and unpleasant because duh there's no happiness about this you just survived a big war now tough it up and live this way. In this anime however they still want to find some place to stay or saw some glimmer of hope that they lost. it is uplifting in a way that no other films or shows can captured that. But damn it did in a way that's feels genuine with the best atmosphere you'll see in anime I mean the combination of the background, the animation and the soundtracks it's just works.

So with that I'll give this show a 10/10 and the highest of my recommendation, if you are an anime fans you really need to check this out and for those who are put off by the character design, just so you know that the director of this anime has also directed Persona 5 The Animation and has the writer of most Jojo series and Claymore. So even though they still alone in their world at least they still have themselves and I approves this anime.