Yuru Camp is something that has genuinely touched me on a personal level. Beyond the beautiful visuals that act as actual candy for the eyes and the comforting music that makes my ears euphoric lies a sweet character-driven and episodic yet developing narrative that acts as a reminder. There's a certain category of things I've gotten kind of tired of. Heavy drama-driven shows that try to portray meaningful experiences that make us connect to the characters. Yuru Camp does this without the drama It's something that helped me relax every time I turned on an episode of Yuru Camp.
I have genuinely never gone camping before and I barely knew anything about it. Yet, watching the experience of a few girls going out camping and each discovering their own personal connection to nature helped me reach a certain state of realization in a period of time I needed it the most. Yuru Camp's characters are life-like. Nadeshiko's bubbly optimistic nature makes every scene she appears in extremely endearing while creating a very stark contrast to Rin's more reserved, yet positive energy as a person is again complemented by the other members of the camping group. Aoi, Chiaki, and the others have bright distinct human personalities that are all equally as charming. What Yuru Camp gets right is the feeling of a trip. The small conversations that spark the idea, the following confirmation, the anxious waiting and preparation period, the day of the trip as a multitude of possibilities lay bare before you, and the slight overwhelming feeling of loneliness as you return back.
The start of Yuru Camp shows Rin as an introverted person who enjoys the calming loneliness of solo camping. Nadeshiko who's the complete opposite of her in terms of nature helps her learn to appreciate the fun in a group. It's not something I haven't seen before but never have I seen this done in such a relaxing manner while making it personally connect to me. Elaborating a bit, Rin really connected to me as a character. The quiet introvert enjoys the subtle sense of lone time and appreciates it but she eventually learns to grow out of that shell and love the fun that comes along with having a genuine group of people to travel with. People you can connect to.
This growth starts when she met Nadeko as they slowly become a part of each other's activities. You could see Nadeko learn from Rin and appreciate the time that you get for contemplating and a subtle gentle loneliness that feels good when you go solo camping. It's this gentle character growth that makes me love Yuru Camp so much. Yuru Camp does a brilliant job at showcasing the attractiveness of forging new bonds with new people but does an even more amazing job at... appreciating the beauty of the opposite of this and at the very heart of this display is Rin. Rin enjoys the things that come with solo camping. It allows you to unwind while forgetting everything that's a source for eliciting stress in your life. In one particular scene where she was having a conversation with Nadeshiko, she states the beauty of this activity. "The things you see, the things you eat and you get to spend time contemplating at things. I think solo camping is a way to appreciate loneliness." These are simple things that we experience in our everyday life yet the calm, therapeutic nature of solo camping enhances these feelings onto a very different level.
This is something that personally resonated with me. Watching Rin appreciate the time she spends by herself as she contemplates and finds joy in the little things that we forget to appreciate in our everyday life. It made me want to seek out these very things for myself.
Yuru Camp really wanted to make me try out camping for myself. I found myself absorbed in the beauty very world that it portrays. Yuru Camp's production is a marvel of care and you can see the amount of detail put and the time spent in producing this to the best of its capability and it shows brilliantly. Whether it be the beautiful background arts such as the roads, Mount Fuji, or the numerous other places that the characters visit in the show, they're all beautifully displayed with fitting OST that pulls you in the gentle atmosphere that it magnificently creates. The life-like. character expressions whether it be them happy when they're having fun, worry at the breaking of a simple tent or forgetting to bring an important tool, or how they contemplate when they bathe in the calming atmosphere of the nature that surrounds them which makes you really fall in love with all the characters. They all feel really human and people you could relate to and connect to.
Yuru Camp helped me realize a lot of things. Life sometimes burdens you with stress that makes you forget the simple happiness we all could grasp Watching these characters bask away in the happiness and fun they have made me realize that I could and want to do these things myself. It illustrates beautifully that all you need to go past these little struggles is positive energy, people, and surroundings. A simple little time of self-reflection outside somewhere alone or a fun time with a group of positive friends could help immensely. Sure it might not fix everything and that's normal but sometimes a little bit of positive help is all we need. Yuru Camp is at its core, heartfelt warm fluff but its positivity towards nature and life, in general, is what makes it so charming.
