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*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.