Yuru Camp S2 – 02

「大晦日のソロキャンガール」 (Oomisoka no Soro Kyan Gaaru)
“New Year’s Solo Camper Girl”

This week’s Yuru Camp gives us a little change in scenery with Rin visiting Iwata, a small pocket in Shizuoka by the coast where Rin could get a nice view of the ocean. But while Rin switches it up by spending the New Year gazing at the year’s first horizon by the beach, her friends are near Mt. Minobu, taking in the sight from a vantage point by the snowy mountainside.

Season 02 really kicked things off strong in this episode with Iwata and Kakegawa being two of the more interesting camping locations that Rin has come across. Honestly, it might be my personal favorite because of their regional agricultural specialty in cultivating green tea. Because of this, Rin’s first priority is visiting a tea house, which happened to be run by the camper she came across in the last season. The second floor’s cafe would be a dream spot to visit because the matcha tiramisu sounds magnificent. There was also a visit to a shrine where a dog spirit Shippeitarou is said to reside, but Rin came during a time where the third descendent had passed away.

But the main attraction of Iwata was access to the beach, so much of her visit was tailored around creating an itinerary for getting the most out of her view of the ocean. The lack of any heavily forested areas allowed Rin to experiment with Feather Sticks and gauge if it’ll be better kindling than pine cones. And with her scenic spot near the beach, she was able to get a view of the first horizon of the New Year in all of its glory from Fukuda Beach.

That’s not to say that the other girls didn’t have much to do considering that it was a good time for Chiaki and Aoi to bond with Aoi’s sister and Minami-sensei over by Mt. Minobu where it was far snowier. But while Rin enjoyed warmer weather on the coast, the girls went on a gondola up to enjoy the New Year’s horizon from the mountaintops. They could’ve tried to get a second horizon over by Diamond Fuji, but because of Chiaki’s miscalculation, Minami-sensei pulled off Initial D moves to head to the sight when sunrise already occurred.

The racing sequence brought some good humor to the otherwise relaxing episode. They also snuck in some humorous moments with Rin by the tail-end when she caves in and spoils her appetite for the town’s regional specialty of pigs feet curry by immediately gravitating towards a food truck’s pot-au-feu and pizza. But Rin has a slight bit of adversity when she finds herself stranded there for two more days since her grandpa got snowed in on his way to Iwata. I’d be more than happy to have a few more days in Iwata, but hopefully, she’s able to get by with more than just some cute snapshots of Chikuwa.