Yuru Camp△ 2 Live Action Adaptation: Whole-Series Review and Reflections

“There’s no WiFi in the mountains, but you’ll find no better connection.”

Worried about Chiaki and the others, Minami drives over to Misaki Camping Grounds at Lake Yamanaka and is relieved to see everyone’s alright. She reminds the girls about the importance of letting others know of their travel plans, before partaking in food and drink with the Iidas and Outdoor Activities Club. Later, Nadeshiko asks Rin about solo camping, having been inspired by Rin’s remarks at Hamanatsu. Rin offers five critical suggestions, and encouraged, Nadeshiko heads over to Fujikawa’s Nodayama Health Green Space Park. Meanwhile, since Rin has a break of her own, she decides to visit the Hayakawa valley, where she runs into Sakura. While Nadeshiko enjoys shigureyaki, Rin and Sakura share a conversation before parting ways. However, Rin eventually grows worried about Nadeshiko after noticing she’d not received any new messages. She heads over to Nodayama Health Green Space Park and finds Nadeshiko’s been doing well; Nadeshiko had decided to try roasting vegetables over charcoal and befriended two children. Relieved, Rin prepares to head back and runs into Sakura, who had the same idea. They head off for dinner and allow Nadeshiko to enjoy her solo camping. Later, the Outdoor Activities Club prepare for a trip to Izu Peninsula on suggestion from Minami, who’d been itching to go and give the Iidas a visit. Readers familiar with Yuru Camp△ 2 will need no reintroduction to the events from the drama’s second half, which are largely faithful to Rin and the Outdoor Activities Club’s adventures from the original series. While Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live action drama covers familiar stories from a new perspective, the decision to conclude the drama’s second season with the Outdoor Activities Club gearing up for Izu following Nadeshiko’s solo camp adventure dramatically alters the story’s flow, and with it, the central messages. Whereas the Yuru Camp△ 2‘s second season had been about gratitude and appreciation owing to where the ending occurred, Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama presents a different perspective on things.

By having the series wrap up with Nadeshiko’s solo camping adventure, and the Outdoor Activities Club preparing for their trip to Izu, the live-action drama for Yuru Camp△ 2‘s places an emphasis on the idea that being open to approaching one’s interests from new directions opens one up to the joys of their own preferred modes of enjoying something. In other words, Nadeshiko’s favourite way to camp is with a group of friends. When she enters a campground on her own, however, rather than sharing Rin’s experience with solo camping, she is able to befriend some children and ends up enjoying a meal with them. This is Nadeshiko’s own brand of camping; solo camping ultimately confers a completely different experience for Nadeshiko, who rolls with things with her typical manner. Unsurprisingly, even on her own, Nadeshiko’s camping entails meeting people and having fun with folks of different backgrounds, mirroring her extroverted personality and natural ease in speaking with people around her. Even when she’s on her own, Nadeshiko is so engrossed in her world, so busy having fun that those around her cannot help but desire to get in on the fun, as well. Yuru Camp△ 2 had done a particularly good job of showing this, but in the drama, the decision to have Nadeshiko’s solo camping adventure wrap up the travel means that for viewers, the focus is on the fact that Nadeshiko has come a long way as a camper and is now familiar enough such that she can go on her own adventures if she so wishes. The implications this has on Nadeshiko’s skill as a camper is one of reassurance: as she and the Outdoor Activities Club go on increasingly exciting adventures, viewers can be confident that Nadeshiko knows enough to keep out of trouble and have the best time possible. Changing where the series wraps up changes the emphasis, and while the message in the drama might not be at the same scale as what was seen in the anime, it remains an important theme for Yuru Camp△ as a while; having the drama focus on this thus provides viewers with a slightly different perspective on the same story to appreciate how Rin’s influence on Nadeshiko is a decidedly positive one: much as how Nadeshiko’s fun with the Outdoor Activities Club convinces Rin to try group camping, Rin’s contemplative solo adventures encourages Nadeshiko to see what camping alone is like.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Last I wrote about Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama, Chiaki, Aoi and Ena found themselves in trouble after being unprepared for the cold at Lake Yamanaka. Continuing on from that point, a serendipitous meeting with the Iidas save the three from trouble. When Minami arrives, she imagines that the three are caught up in some sort of racket upon seeing their tents deserted; like the manga, this vision entails shadowy, cloaked figures surrounding the three and chanting T A B L E C L O T H. While Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama differs from the anime considerably, some elements from the manga are faithfully reproduced.

• Par the course for Yuru Camp△ 2, closeups of food are always welcome: the anime already does an exceptional job of rendering food, but there’s nothing quite like the glisten of fat and the sparkle of juice from a given dish’s real world equivalent that only live action works can capture. Nabe is indeed perfect for a cold winter’s night, and for me, it’s a bit of a New Year’s Eve tradition to enjoy homemade nabe (which I know best as 打邊爐). I am reminded of the fact that a Chinese bistro near my place actually does individual-sized hot pot, and while I prefer their sizzling plate meals, I should at least try their hot pot at least once.

• I’d love to try kiritanpo at one point, as well: it hails from the Akita prefecture, and the rice is pounded into a tube shape for consumption after being roasted over an open fire. I imagine that cooking over an open fire would impart a slightly smoky outdoorsy taste to things, which drives my interest to see what kiritanpo is like. The closest Cantonese equivalents I can think of is 糯米饭 (jyutping no6 mai5 faan6), a delicious sticky rice with shiitake mushroom, 臘腸 (jyutping laap6 coeng2), sometimes chicken and a healthy helping of soy sauce, or zongzi, which is sticky rice and a variety of toppings wrapped in bamboo leaves.

• As with the anime and manga, Chiaki, Ena, Aoi and Minami spend the night in Minami’s vehicle, and the next morning, Ena awakens to a gorgeous sunrise before whipping up some tempura for breakfast. Whereas Yuru Camp△ 2‘s anime overlaid the end credits over the breakfast scene, the live-action drama chooses to showcase the cooking and enjoyment of fish tempura in all of its glory. This had been a scene I’d been looking forwards to watching animated after reading it in the manga, and I’d been a touch disappointed that the presentation of breakfast in the anime had precluded screenshots. Because there was no equivalent frame in the anime, I’ve chosen to skip over the moment in this post, but readers have my word the tempura looks delicious.

• After putting so much mileage on her moped, Rin decides to give it a good cleaning to get all of the accumulated dirt and grime off its body. Because the pacing in the live action drama and anime differ so dramatically, the live action is actually able to present moments from the manga that were not shown in the anime: in one of the drama’s post-credits scenes, Rin has a nightmare in which her bike takes on Hermes’ traits from Kino’s Journey and asks to hang with Rin inside her tent, where it’s warmer. The differences in what Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama presents is why I conclude that the old debate between source material and adaptation is irrelevant.

• To gain the most complete experience, one simply needs an open mind and check everything out, or at the very least, allow others to enjoy things differently. Back in Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live-action drama, Nadeshiko and Ena pray to Rin, feeling her to have transcended into being a deity of safe travels. The idea that Rin’s portable grill is an offertory box makes a return, a clever reference to the first season, and one surmises that Rin’s particularly fond of this little grill if she’s bringing it to school with her. Eventually, Ena heads off, and Nadeshiko is able to ask her about solo camping. Once Rin shares with Nadeshiko five essential elements (tell someone where one’s going, keep an eye on the forecast, pick a site with cellular reception, research a campsite’s facilities and plan to do an activity of some sort), Nadeshiko is geared up for her first-ever solo camping trip, inspired by Rin’s words back when they were at Hamamatsu.

• While Nadeshiko travels south for Fujinomiya, Rin heads deep into the mountains for Akasawa, about seventeen kilometres from Motosu. By road, it’d take Rin about twenty-five or so minutes to make the drive here from her place, and upon thinking about this, I grow a little envious because this happens to be how long my commute is. I’ve now been back to the office for two weeks now, having gotten both doses, and while it’s been great to work in a focused environment where I have a dual monitor setup again, the office remains quite quiet.

• In fact, I’ve been feeling a little down of late: work’s been keeping me busy, but the fact was that the whole of July saw the skies over my province covered with a noxious layer of forest fire smoke. There’s no end in sight for the unnaturally hot weather and lack of rainfall even as we enter August, so it looks like the forest fires all around are going to continue burning: having seen footage of the fires, I ended up making a donation to the fire recovery efforts the province over. The smoke and dry weather is demoralising, but it is nothing compared to the tragedy these wildfires are causing, so I figured any help I could give would hopefully be of use.

• The weather during this long weekend is looking a great deal like it did last year, except it’ll be a lot smokier and hazier. I vividly recall the decision to explore Blackrock Depths in World of Warcraft on my private server then. The heat of this dungeon was particularly visceral for my decision, and the temperatures this long weekend have proven to be what they’d been last summer. This stands in contrast with the brisk spring morning Rin gets to enjoy: like the anime, Rin comes across the Shimizu-ya Café, asks whether it’s open and then in minutes, finds herself seated at their kotatsu.

• Rin begins to melt from the warmth of the kotatsu, feeling the cafe to  The anime has Rin’s entire head becoming round whenever she grows comfortable, and more so than Yuru Camp△, the second season really showed Rin’s adorable side. There is an Amanchu and ARIA-like character to these moments; in both series, penned by Kozue Amano, individuals take on a distinct art style when flustered or surprised, unique to their character. Yuru Camp△ appears to have inherited some of these traits, as well: although nowhere near as noticeable as Amano’s style, it is visible enough to denote to viewers how a character is feeling in a given moment.

• The live action version is able to capture the same feelings without use of the same exaggerated facial expressions, using timing to convey Rin’s feeling of comfort. However, thinking about warmth now is to make things a little uncomfortable; the hot weather back home is a world apart from the cool of Akasawa, and while mamemochi and amazuki would be bliss on a brisk spring day, my thoughts turn towards that of an ice-cool lemonade or freshly-cut watermelon. While such days usually invite hikes or walks, the smoke from forest fires across the country has left the skies a noxious orange-brown.

• While Rin relaxes at a quite mountain café, Nadeshiko kicks off her Fujinomiya adventure. The sheer amount of gear she’s carrying is even more apparent in the live-action; it is impressive that Nadeshiko is able to move as swiftly as she does despite carrying upwards of what must be forty to fifty pounds of camping gear with her. Here, she stops by Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha Shrine to pray for a safe and fun trip. I’ve covered most of the major locations in Yuru Camp△ 2 in an earlier post, so folks looking to learn a little more about Yuru Camp△ 2‘s locations can do so, and this leaves me free to focus more on the moments, as well as the composition of each scene.

• When Nadeshiko notices the pleasant smell of yakisoba wafting from Fujinomiya Yakisoba Antenna Shop, a place near Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha Shrine, she is tempted to stop and have lunch here. There is a great deal of visual clutter in this scene; the anime frames Nadeshiko so she’s quite visible, whereas in the live action drama, the moment is presented so that Nadeshiko blends in with the crowd. The anime always tries to ensure the main characters are distinct from the background, but the drama consciously places the characters as a part of each scene to create a more natural moment.

• For this discussion, I’ve skipped over the part where Ena invites Chiaki, Nadeshiko, and Aoi over to check out Chikuwa’s doggie-tent and cook up sausages. Rin arrives later and runs into Ena’s father, who seems to be a bit of a trickster: there were no equivalent moments in the anime, and therefore, no corresponding comparison screenshots, but I enjoyed the divergence all the same, since it demonstrated that the Yuru Camp△ drama had enough creativity to fill in the holes resulting from minor changes to the order of events. The observant reader will note that in my original location hunt, I wasn’t able to find this spot owing to a lack of patience, but this time, armed with the Oculus Quest and a bit of determination, I was able to locate the little policeman statue Rin passes by on her way deeper into the mountains.

• Rin subsequently spots Sakura’s Nissan Rasheen and decides to tail her for a bit before she’s burned by a stray notification from Nadeshiko. The difference in framing between the drama and anime creates a different feeling; the anime indicates Rin’s discomfort with tailing Sakura by means of facial expressions, but since Harka Fukuhara can’t be reasonably expected to change her eyes, her feelings within the live action needed to be conveyed differently. Framing Rin’s smallness in the environment does the trick here.

• Watching the chef at Okonomishokudō Itō whip up their legendary gomuku shigureyaki in the live action drama was every bit as enjoyable as the anime, and a side-by-side comparison shows just how faithful the anime is to real life – it is clear that the staff had actually gone to this restaurant in Fujinomiya and watched the chef cook it: this unique dish combines the crispy fried noodles of yakisoba with the savoury bacon, shrimp, mushrooms and fried egg of okonomiyaki. Nadeshiko becomes antsy watching the dish being made.

• While a tough-looking sort of fellow, Yuru Camp△ shows the chef smiling at Nadeshiko’s expression of pure joy. In the live-action drama, the chef is kindly looking and reassures Nadeshiko her meal will be ready in a few moments. One aspect of the Yuru Camp△ drama I was particularly impressed with was that the secondary characters managing campsites and running restaurants and shops were surprisingly close to their anime appearances. One wonders if Yuru Camp△‘s drama ended up just featuring the actual staff at these restaurants and shops, and similarly, it is possible that the secondary characters in the manga were based on their real-world counterparts (albeit modified slightly to avoid issues surrounding likeness).

• Sakura and Rin share a somewhat awkward meeting, but the instant Rin recalls that Nadeshiko had mentioned Sakura as a fan of Moped’s Journey, Sakura’s demeanour immediately changes. She becomes a lot livelier, and surprises Rin with her energy. Sakura is portrayed by Yurina Yanagi, and as with the rest of the characters, Yanagi is styled so she closely resembles her anime counterpart. Here, I will note that I was mistaken about Moped’s Journey being an in-universe equivalent of Kino’s Journey – it turns out Sakura is referring to the Gentsuki no Tabi, a Japanese reality show that I would liken as being similar to Rick Steves’ Europe or Great European Railway Journeys, albeit done on a Super Cub rather than by rail or other modes of transport.

• While Nadeshiko tucks in to the shigureyaki, I’ll share a story; I’ve had okonomiyaki at a local Japanese culture festival some five years earlier while checking things out and while it was tasty, it was in Osaka’s Kansai International Airport where I had authentic Japanese okonomiyaki while awaiting a flight to Hong Kong. This okonomiyaki blew me out of the water and was the dish I’d been longing to have ever since watching Tamayura. In a hilarious turn of events, my brother was resolute on finding a good yakisoba joint, having been inspired by Mugi’s love of yakisoba in K-On!. After lunch was over, we linked up and boarded our flight. To my surprise, Your Name was playing, so I immediately set about watching the movie en route to Hong Kong.

• It soon becomes clear that besides their enjoyment of solo adventures, Rin and Sakura also care greatly about Nadeshiko. To their pleasure, both Rin and Sakura receive a message from Nadeshiko, indicating she’d arrived at Fujikawa Station and, having done her shopping, is ready to head to her campsite. While Yuru Camp△ mainly had Sakura act as Nadeshiko’s driver, Yuru Camp△ 2 would expand her role more greatly and show that she’s quite similar to Rin, which in turn would explain why Rin would come around with Nadeshiko; from regarding her as a nuisance of sorts in the first season, to being worried about her well being by season two, it becomes clear that Nadeshiko also helped Rin to have new experiences, and for this, Rin is grateful.

• Onsen scenes in the Yuru Camp△ drama are much more disciplined than their anime counterparts, and for this reason, I would count the drama as being a bit more family-friendly than the anime, where the studio has no qualms about showing how stacked Sakura, Minami and Aoi are. I imagine that because of the optical properties of water in real life, certain considerations (e.g. camera angles) needed to be considered in order to ensure the onsen sequences were appropriate for all viewers; in a given anime, artists can alter the opacity of water at will and side-step the challenges that real life imposes.

• Back at Fujikawa, Nadeshiko’s begun her ascent to Nodayama Health Green Space Park, and like the anime, Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama has Nadeshiko enjoying the scenery on her way to the top. The side-by-side comparison emphasises just how much attention was paid to detail within the anime: the through-arch visible here is a part of a pipeline, and a paper mill can be clearly spotted in the city below for both the anime and live-action. Nadeshiko worries that admiring the view here would diminish it, and covers her eyes before proceeding with her hike to the summit.

• Upon arrival at Nodayama Health Green Space Park, Nadeshiko realises she more or less has the entire place to herself and sets about exploring the facilities, saying hello to the other group (a small family) and prepares her campsite. Like Rin, Nadeshiko makes the mistake of damaging one of her pegs in the anime, but experiences nothing of the sort in the live-action: she’s ready to go in no time at all as a result of her experience with the Outdoor Activities Club.

• Earlier, Rin had mentioned that unlike group camping, solo camping requires one to find something to occupy her time. While I’m not a camper myself, I do appreciate how to fill my time up when I’m on my own: exploring places is something I’ve always been fond of doing when on my own, and wandering trails or pathways is a fantastic way of losing an entire afternoon. This is not unlike something Rin would do, whereas Nadeshiko sees solo camping time as a chance to experiment with different recipes. She decides to go with a simple foil-roast to see which vegetables would be good to pick, and has brought everything from tomatoes and yams, to carrots and potatoes.

• Curiosity leads Sakura to wonder what preparing bear paw would be like, but the process is as complex as brewing a batch of felix felicis, and upon hearing the fact that the ingredients need to be stewed for several hours before one can even begin removing the hair off the paw, after which the paw must be stewed again, Sakura decides to go for a simpler deer meat. Compared to beef, deer is leaner and has a gamier taste to it; folks count it as being tastier than beef when properly prepared. On game meats, my personal favourite is probably moose or elk; several years back, I had a cookout with the extended family as thanks for having helped with a project, and on the menu was grilled elk and moose. It’s not often I have the two, so I can’t really say which one I prefer over the other, but I do know that game meats like these are extremely delicious.

• Finding the tunnel Rin is stopped by proved to be a fun exercise; while I’d initially thought it was a mountain pass and looked on the eastern side of the Haya river, I ended up spotting a few tips in the surroundings and concluded that Rin was still in the river valley, near a bridge of sorts. This lead me to search the bridges on the Haya river: by narrowing the size of the search area, I eventually found the spot. I’ve heard that some folks who specialise in anime location hunts flat-out refuse to share their techniques and addresses/coordinates of the locations in things like Yuru Camp△ 2.

• I’ve never been one to believe in acting like this towards readers: while keeping some locations undisclosed makes sense if they’re residential areas or in private spots (thereby preventing visitors from disrupting the locals), the places in anime like Yuru Camp△ 2 are attractions or otherwise unremarkable, and there should be no problems in showing people where they are. This is why I always aim to share the location of different scenes from the anime via Google Street View, allowing readers to gain an idea of where everything is. This is helped greatly by the fact I have Wander of Oculus Quest, where having full immersion in the space really helps from a spatial standpoint.

• For completeness’ sake, I ended up buying Yuru CampΔ: Virtual Camp‘s Fumoto Campsite chapter a few days ago. Like Lake Motosu, Fumoto Campsite impresses from an aesthetic perspective; Gemdrop’s games completely capture the look and feel that defines Yuru CampΔ. This time around, there are several hints to suggest that the VR experiences presented occur some time after the first season, since Rin and Nadeshiko reference their first-ever camping trip together at Fumoto Campsite. Both Yuru CampΔ: Virtual Camp experiences capture an entire day’s worth of camping and feature conversations that give insight into how Rin and Nadeshiko’s friendship grows over time, and at Fumoto, players see things from Rin’s perspective.

• Having now had a chance to play both Yuru CampΔ: Virtual Camp chapters, there are some minor things I noticed. Firstly, some translations of the Japanese into English aren’t 1:1, but this doesn’t detract from the overall experience. Similarly, there’s no anti-aliasing, and some elements (like shadows) look quite jagged, but overall, both games look very good. At Fumoto Camp, embers from the campfire and steam effects demonstrate good use of particle systems. One aspect I was fond of was the fact that Rin can spot a shooting star; the night skies look quite gentle, and I definitely see myself returning to enjoy the night scenery in the future using the game’s viewer mode.

• Altogether, Yuru CampΔ: Virtual Camp was worth the cost of admissions. Both together cost around 48 CAD before tax, and while offering much less content compared to something like DOOM Eternal (which I got for 40 CAD, including The Ancient Gods DLC), the offset is that it allows VR headset owners to really immerse themselves in Yuru CampΔ‘s two most iconic campgrounds. While Nadeshiko enjoys a roast tomato here, I’ll share with viewers the Swiss Melt Dogs I made for lunch earlier today. I ended up trying them with both Dijon mustard and BBQ sauce, both of which conferred a great experience. The natural flavours of the Swiss cheese and white mushrooms complement one another nicely, and next time, I’ll give the onions a little bit more flavour by sautéing them with some brown sugar and a sprig of Worcestershire sauce.

• After Nadeshiko invites the two children to try her cooking, the older sister is impressed that something like roasted vegetables could taste so good and takes on a newfound interest in camping. Even in her solo adventures, Nadeshiko has a knack for meeting new people and sharing her joy with them. This is an integral part of Nadeshiko’s character, and back during Yuru Camp△, Rin notes that Nadeshiko has a talent for making anything look tasty. Ayano echoes this sentiment in season two, attesting to how Nadeshiko’s got Adam Richman’s skill for really selling food. Even more so than heading her own outdoor equipment company, Nadeshiko feels like she’d excel as the host of a travel show about local eats.

• After making the lengthy drive from Villa Amehata to Nadeshiko’s campsite (62 kilometres, requiring around an hour and a half’s drive), Rin is relieved to see Nadeshiko is well. Earlier, Rin had begun to grow extremely concerned after realising Nadeshiko hadn’t sent a single message since arriving at Fujikawa Station, and worried that the worst had happened, she sets off to check up on Nadeshiko. It turns out her fears were unfounded, but Rin herself suffers a shock when Sakura shows up, as well. The anime is able to utilise exaggerated facial expressions to convey Rin’s panic, but both drama and anime alike has Rin crying out in terror in a squeaky manner that leads the two children wonder if it’s a deer or similar.

• It turns out that Sakura had been similarly worried about Nadeshiko and drove a similar distance to check up on her. This really accentuates the similarities between Rin and Sakura. This moment was particularly touching; despite rarely spending any time together, Rin and Sakura get along just fine and share a mutual love of quiet time that is balanced out by the energy Nadeshiko brings into both their lives.

• Since Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live action drama ended its main story with Rin and Sakura checking up on Nadeshiko, the resulting theme in the drama differs from what the anime and manga conveyed: the drama speaks to the joys resulting from enjoying one’s hobby from a different perspective. Yuru Camp△‘s first season had Rin slowly come around to the idea that group camping had its merits, so in Yuru Camp△ 2, it makes sense that Nadeshiko, who started her camping journey with a group, would become curious to see what solo camping was like.

• Watching Rin and Sakura together was remarkably heart-warming; fans have long seen the similarities between the two, and having now established that both share a mutual respect for one another, as well as the commonality of being worried about the carefree and happy-go-lucky Nadeshiko, it is possible that with the upcoming Yuru Camp△: The Movie, one could see the largest camping trip the Outdoor Activities Club goes on; perhaps Ayano will join them, and the large group means that Sakura might be asked to help drive people around, too.

• If this were to be the case, it would be most appropriate for Yuru Camp△: The Movie; the series has been steadily expanding the scope and scale of the Outdoor Activities Club’s adventures, so it makes sense that the film would take things to the next level. Here, after Rin and Sakura receive a message from Nadeshiko, who’s found a spot where she’s got a single bar of reception, Sakura decides to treat Rin to dinner. One of the key visuals for Yuru Camp△ 2 had Rin and Sakura eating okonomiyaki together during the evening. I imagine this is Okonomishokudō Itō, the same restaurant Sakura had suggested to Nadeshiko earlier, and while I would’ve loved to have seen this happen, I imagine that the suggestion to eat dinner together alone demonstrates the closeness that’s developed between the two to a sufficient extent.

• Whereas the live action drama cannot have access to the same array of facial expressions as the anime or manga might, the actresses do a fantastic job of conveying the emotions seen in the anime and manga. Here, Ena smugly points out that she knows of Rin’s excursion to check up on Nadeshiko. Rin is left speechless, confident that she’d never told anyone of this side trip. The anime adaptation of Yuru Camp△ 2 shows how this came to be in a post-credits sequence, and the drama has this as a part of the main storyline: while out at a convenience store, Nadeshiko’s mother runs into Rin and shares the story.

• Rin looks shocked in the drama at this revelation, whereas in the anime, her head becomes rounded and she pouts. I’d always been fond of this scene; while Rin might be a stoic character, she is quite expressive in her own right, and as Yuru Camp△ 2 wore on, this became increasingly apparent. Haruka Fukuhara’s portrayal of Rin is spot-on throughout the live-action drama: she is faithful to Rin’s characterisation, and the fact that the characters so closely resemble their fictional counterparts serve to remind viewers that the events of Yuru Camp△ could very well happen for real.

• With the Izu trip now a reality, Minami and the Outdoor Activities Club begin laying down the groundwork for their largest trip yet. Unlike the anime, Rin is absent from the proceedings, a consequence of the changes the drama made, but I imagine that the drama will similarly show that it won’t take much effort to convince Rin to accompany the Outdoor Activities Club on their trip. Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live action drama closes off with the Outdoor Activities Club and Rin heading home together ahead of the Izu trip, signifying that this group of friends is now at a point where they’re ready to travel together.

• The drama ends at what corresponds roughly to the halfway point in Yuru Camp△ 2‘s ninth episode. I’m not sure if the ongoing global health crisis may have affected principal photography of the Izu segment, but I do hope that viewers will have a chance to see the Izu trip in the live-action format, too: Yuru Camp△ 2 had indicated that the food and destinations were next level, and consequently, I had been especially excited to see the alfonsino burger and shellfish fried rice that the Izu Peninsula saw. Having said this, Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama nonetheless picks a good place to conclude for the present: I will be returning later this month to write about the second Yuru Camp△ 2 OVA which I imagine will be the last bit of Yuru Camp△ I write for, at least until Yuru Camp△ : The Movie in 2022.

Because this dramatic change in where the series wraps up, Yuru Camp△ 2‘s drama tells the same story over a longer timeframe compared to the anime. In spite of this, however, the drama never seems to drag on, and when spaces are introduced, elements from the manga are utilised to fill in the void. The tablecloth scene from the manga, so noticeably absent in the anime, makes a comeback as Minami imagines that the worst has happened to Chiaki and the others on the shores of Lake Yamanaka, as does a scene where Chiaki becomes excited to pick up inexpensive firewood for the Outdoor Activities Club’s stockpile, only to learn that all supplies are out by the time she arrives. The drama also has an all-new scene where Nadeshiko, Chiaki and Aoi swing by Ena’s place to check out Chikuwa’s doggy-tent and fry up sausages together: this moment is unique to the drama and not seen in either the anime or manga. Despite the changes, however, Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live-action drama continues to successfully capture the look-and-feel of Yuru Camp△ during its runtime. I certainly enjoyed this series and what it adds to Yuru Camp△; a slight change in the execution led me to see the series from a different angle, and for me, this is a reminder that the old debate between source and adaptation materials is a largely irrelevant one. Various perspectives on a work allow one to fully appreciate what the creators thought to be important, and it is by appreciating both source and adaptations that one gains the most complete experience. Similarly, because Yuru Camp△ 2‘s live-action drama ends with the preparations and anticipation for the Izu Peninsula trip, I’m left wondering if there will be an adaptation of the Izu trip: the anime had portrayed Izu with a high degree of precision, and admittedly, I had been hoping to see the delicious alfonsino burger everyone enjoys on their first day. For now, I have no news of whether or not a continuation of the drama is in the works, but if it turns out such a continuation is going to be made, I’d have no objection to picking things up and seeing how the live action drama chooses to adapt one of Yuru Camp△ 2‘s biggest adventures yet.