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Dated 22 January 2018: Yuru Camp△ takes an early lead as Winter 2018's best show

Rin
Make a left at the fork and keep going straight. If you pass Mount Fuji, you've gone too far.

Yuru Camp△ is a blatant attempt at promoting camping and campsites. The show provides accessible instructions and guidelines to make camping attractive to neophytes and gorgeously depicts obviously real-life locations in transparent efforts to transform viewers into visitors.

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Dated 26 March 2018: Sora yori mo Tooi Basho and Yuru Camp△ are the best shows of Winter 2018

Rin
There's also the matter of Rin's excellent hair.

Yuru Camp△ finished its 12-episode run last week with an open-ended conclusion to its deeply satisfying season. As far the actual narrative goes, I can't exactly claim Laid-Back Camp was particularly eventful, but the show's real strengths came from its pleasantly relaxed mood and its freakishly endearing lead character, Rin, anyway. I do like the other characters as well, though, and I'm particularly relieved Nadeshiko turned out to be a lot better than I initially feared, but Rin basically carried Yuru Camp△ for me. She did, after all, clinch the Girl of the Quarter crown in week 10 by racking up most of my Girl of the Week awards. If you place any stock in B.S. numerical ratings, I did score Yuru Camp△ in first place for most of the season before Sora yori mo Tooi Basho passed it.

Hinata
"When angry count four; when very angry, swear."

There's actually one episode of Sora yori mo Tooi Basho left, but I'm all but certain to subjectively regard it as this season's best show regardless of how it actually plays out. Sora yori mo Tooi Basho (see this post for more about the show's name) is exceptionally well done. I'm particularly impressed with how it pays off the numerous little heartfelt investments it made during the course of the series. Also of note is the astute directing which has juggled comedy, drama, and even a little horror with skillful touches of emotional resonance in the right amounts and at the right times.

Violet
Mission top secret, destination unknown.

Speaking of emotional resonance, compare Sora yori mo Tooi Basho with the much hyped Violet Evergarden for example, which turned out to be a hot mess of wildly disparate levels of quality depending on the episode. I felt nearly all of them were clumsy and overwrought, with the exception of two episodes (both of which credit Sawa Shinpei as the episode director, incidentally). In particular, Sora yori mo Tooi Basho has made much better use of its music than Violet Evergarden has, as I've mentioned before. All in all, I'm very impressed with Sora yori mo Tooi Basho, and I'm looking forward to its creative team's future projects.

Dated 31 December 2018: Shima Rin from Yuru Camp△ is 2018's Girl of the Year

Rin
Best job ever.

I haven't consistently awarded a Girl of the Year title in quite a while, mostly for the same reasons why I only seem to update the world's longest-running English-language anime blog once per week these days. I actually tried regularly posting a Girl of the Week award on the Twitter this year, but fell behind once the Autumn 2018 season began. I did continue to keep track, though, so I can at least pretend I have objective metrics that I use with my made-up competition.

Akane
At least the weather's nice.

Just to recap, Shima Rin from Yuru Camp△ was Girl of the Quarter for Winter 2018. The Spring 2018 award went to Mishima Hitomi from Hinamatsuri. In a somewhat unexpected development, Hanesaki Ayano captured the Girl of the Quarter award for Summer 2018 despite not having the most Girl of the Week titles for that season. Girl of the Quarter for Autumn 2018 goes to Shinjou Akane from SSSS.GRIDMAN of course, one of the best shows of the year.

Hitomi
It's Hitomi's world; we're all just living in it.

Actually, all of the Girl of the Quarter winners are associated with the year's best shows. That's probably not much of a surprise. Likewise, those of y'all who watched Yuru Camp△ are probably unsurprised that Rin boat raced the Girl of the Year category. What is sort of surprising, though, is that Shinjou Akane from SSSS.GRIDMAN placed runner up. I fully expected Mishima Hitomi from Hinamatsuri to take the number-two spot, but her totally objective numerical rankings suffered because there were many episodes in which she had few or no scenes.

Dated 3 March 2020: Heya Camp△ needs more Rin and more △

Nadeshiko
Nadeshiko is okay even though she maintains boundless optimism in the face of adversity.

I enjoy Yuru Camp△ and its mini-sequel Heya Camp△ quite a bit, but really I'm in it for Rin doing Rin things. This is not to say that I don't appreciate the other characters or the show's antics as a whole, but I definitely have a substantial bias in favor of the One True Camper. Because of this, my viewing experience so far for the Heya Camp△ shorts consists of solidly favorable reactions punctuated with the occasional, "Where in Hell is Rin, God damn it?" outbursts.

Aoi
Aoi fills a gaijin tourist's head with lies.

Rin actually is in Heya Camp△, just sort of infrequently. I don't know that this is enough to tie me over until the proper second season actually starts (whenever that is), but it will have to do. In the meantime, I suppose I had better start warming up to the rest of the cast. I could also go for some more scenes of their alcoholic teacher, but I have the feeling the few seconds we've gotten so far are all we're gonna get. She is a bad influence on impressionable campers, even when they are not camping.

Dated 2 March 2021: Yuru Camp△ SEASON 2 is the best anime of Winter 2021 not featuring self-harm

Nadeshiko
I appreciate Nadeshiko's apparent immunity to fatigue.

Surprising no one who watched the first season, Yuru Camp△ SEASON 2 remains fantastic. I don't actually watch a lot of shows that I would expect to be similar in terms of tone and content, such as Yama no Susume (Encouragement of Climb), or Non Non Biyori, but perhaps I should, considering how much I enjoy Yuru Camp△. Then again, the majority of my interest in the show unmistakably centers around Rin specifically, and her various camping-related efforts. I mean, I like all the other characters too, but significantly less so, and I'm fairly sure this perspective is nearly universal among fans of the show.

Rin
So what happens if you do the suspension bridge thing alone?

Actually, there is one other character I know some Yuru Camp△ fans seem to like a lot: Nadeshiko's older sister, Sakura. For years now, Yuru Camp△ fan art has featured a lot of Rin x Sakura 'shipping. (Admittedly, it is one prolific artist who dominates this scene.) I found this pairing a little peculiar, since the two characters interacted basically not at all in the first season. Best I could figure, it was either in reference to something that developed later on in the source material, or ardent fans fabricated it whole cloth.

Sakura and Rin
You know, people would have lost their minds if Sakura
had been Nadeshiko's older brother instead.

Presuming the anime is adapting the original manga (as opposed to inventing stories to bolster the anime-tourism economy), it seems we've at least reached the genesis of this particular movement. I don't actually expect Yuru Camp△ to expand this meeting into a genuine romance, though. Fan enthusiasm aside, I really don't think it's that sort of show. Sorry, 'shippers, I'm pretty sure Sakura and Rin aren't going to be tearing each other's clothes off in a tent anytime soon. Besides, Rin wears a million layers even when she's napping by a space heater while she's ostensibly working in a library; she's probably wearing two million layers when she's camping in the winter.