If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought Laid-Back Camp ended with the movie. That gave a very logical, introspective, and heartwarming conclusion for the five main characters, characters that I personally grew attached to after two full seasons (and one spin-off series). It’d be a superb note for the show to go on. If the plan was to end with the movie however, the plan has clearly changed as Laid-Back Camp ultimately got renewed for a third season, presumably to adapt more of the manga. It’s a strange move but I’m not opposed to it in the slightest. As it currently stands, Laid-Back Camp is one of my favorite anime of all time. So long as the show is making money and so long as the manga hasn’t jumped the shark, I see no reason not to continue to it. There’s a bit of whiplash with seeing the main cast in high school and with no money again but that’s nothing a couple minutes into this premiere can’t fix.
What is going take some time to get used to is the behind the scenes changes. C-Station is no longer animating the show. Taking its place is Eight Bit, best known for anime such as Encouragement of Climb and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Many of the staff members have been replaced, with one notable exception being Akiyuki Tateyama, who remains as the Laid-Back Camp‘s composer. I suppose if you’re following the manga, you’d have to try and screw things up. Watching this premiere, it does feel like the same old Laid-Back Camp. Even so, I thought C-Station’s run had immaculate direction so it’s sad to see veteran staff members out of the picture. It’s also going to be a while for me to adjust to the new art style. You can argue that the show looks closer to the manga now but after six years, I’m so used to C-Station’s art style so it’s hard to imagine the anime looking anything other than that. At least, the music is the same. I think even the production committee realized how intrinsic the music is so they didn’t dare to find a new composer.
Kind of like with the Season 2 premiere, Season 3 opens up with a flashback starring Best Girl Rin (Nao Toyama). In this case, we see her as a little girl, visiting her grandfather (Akio Otsuka) and learning a little bit about camping for the first time. And yes, this is actually the first time we see these two camping together. It’s not the present-day and Rin only camps with Grandpa Narrator during the day before the two head back home but I’ve waited so long for something like this for so screw it, I’ll take it. Parallel to the flashback, the show cuts to the present-day, in which Rin camps at another spot near Mt. Fuji.
Having the two segments back to back lets you see how past Rin becomes her current self. In the flashback, she shows a little bit of curiosity towards camping but she grows fond of it as the day goes by, to the point that she’s bummed when she has to go home. It effectively sets her up for her first camping trip seen in the Season 2 premiere and all the camping she does as a teenager. The same can be said about Rin’s relationship with her grandfather. Young Rin feels a little intimidated by her grandfather and this changes when the two get to talk about camping. By adolescence, Rin is very close with her grandfather, with the present-day segment showing her looking fondly at the tent her grandfather gave her.
Definitely the cutest moment in these parallel segments is Grandpa Narrator showing Rin how to start a fire, despite never trying this particular method before, and present-day Rin deciding to give that method a whirl. To present-day Rin’s horror and my amusement, this method proves to be really exhausting and Rin realizes how much trouble she made her grandfather go through all those years ago. About the only thing missing here is Rin calling her grandfather to apologize. I would love to see more moments like this. Have Rin reminiscence on a camping trick Grandpa Narrator showed her and try it in the present day to varying results. That could be a great running gag.
There’s an interesting bit of dialogue at the end of these segments where Rin’s grandfather explains to her that loneliness is a part of camping and that’s what makes the next trip exciting. He says this to help Rin feel less disheartened as their camping trip comes to an end. This show then ties this into Rin’s conversation with Nadeshiko (Yumiri Hanamori) at the very end of Season 2, the one where Nadeshiko admits that she feels lonely after the Izu trip (which eight bit redraws for the sake of consistency). The two conversations perfectly explain why Rin alternates between solo and group camping. She is mostly a solo camper but she does camping with company. She does feel lonely after a group trip but the loneliness keeps her excited for the next group trip, hence her continuing her solo adventures. The two types of trips effectively cycle into each other.
Around the halfway point, the episode cuts to the Outdoors Activities Club (Outclub) featuring Ena (Rie Takahashi), who remains an unofficial member. At this point, I think Ena isn’t joining on purpose to mess with her friends. Maybe it’s just me but Ena and Chiaki (Sayuri Hara) look the most different this season. It’s not just the new art style, their hairs are slightly longer this season. While Ena’s hairdo is probably just an aesthetic change, the show acknowledges Chiaki’s by having the character admit she’s been letting her hair grow. Kind of weird to have her hair grow a couple centimeters between seasons and over the span of a couple days in-universe but whatever. Ena offers to cut Chiaki’s hair and the group seems adamant about hanging out at her place so who knows, maybe this hairdo won’t last for very long.
Despite everyone having jobs and making enough dough to splurge, Chiaki insists that the Outclub should return to their “roots”. In other words, they should still do a bunch of life hacks. This is probably for the educational side of Laid-Back Camp. It’s kind of dumb for the girls to cheap out because all of the life hacks they’ve tried so far are dumb and they ultimately never use any of them. That’s not just my opinion, both Nadeshiko and Aoi (Aki Toyosaki) admits this. Still, I suppose this endeavor is still worthwhile. Informing the viewer on some camping tips is part of Laid-Back Camp‘s MO and these girls’ funds keep fluctuating so they never know when these tricks might come in handy.
To Chiaki’s credit, the DIY project this time around is very useful. Here, the girls create some alcohol stoves with aluminum cans that they can obtain from their school’s vending machines. Definitely the cutest and funniest moment is Nadeshiko struggling to correctly puncture her cans, resulting in her using a saw on a steel can. Once Toba-sensei (Shizuka Ito) tests them, the makeshift stoves prove to work without a cinch. That said, Toba-sensei asks the girls to refrain from using the cans as she’s afraid that they might cause a fire with them (having done so herself…). Maybe the club (and Ena) will use these stoves? Maybe they won’t? I’m frankly leaning towards the latter because their track record with these projects has been very lousy so far.
After the ED, we get a cameo appearance by Ayano (Tomoyo Kurosawa). Remember this girl?! She’s back and she has camping gear now so this show might be setting her up for a future adventure. I sure hope so. It can’t be helped since the show is following the manga but it did feel like a waste when Season 2 introduced Ayano and then proceeded to do squat with her. It’s about time that the anime finally rectifies this. I admit that it is hilarious when Ayano texts Rin and Rin responds by asking who she is. That has to be the show being self-aware. It’s so on point.
OP: “Laid-Back Journey” by Kiminone
ED: “So Precious” by Asaka
Watch Laid-Back Camp on Crunchyroll
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