"Yuru Camp" drama: Season two, special episode recap

 

 Air Dates: April 1st to June 18, 2021 on TV-Tokyo Friday nights at 12:30 am

This special aired on April 1st, the regular season began the next day.

Main Cast: Same as season one and the city where the gals live is Minobu that's in the prefecture of Yamanashi though Rin often goes off to other locations for her camping trips. This will be taking place in the girl's final semester in high school, all are 22+ in real age but are still playing eighteen year students. 

Haruka Fukuhara as Rin Shima.... Could be considered this drama's 'Heroine' as most of what's taken place to now has revolved around her. Rin is such an avid camper but prefers to go out on her own but in season one for the first time she went on a trip with her four other friends, plus she did have a pair of trips with Nadeshiko who kind of pops up out of nowhere.

 Yuno Ohara as Nadeshiko Kagamihara.... Is also into camping but had never gone on an overnight trip until the first season with Rin. Nadeshiko is such a bubbly girl and is a glutton when it comes to food, don't where she puts it! Near the end of season one Nadeshiko joined the Outdoor Club.

 Momoko Tanabe as Chiaki Ogaki.... Could be considered the president of the Outdoor Club which had only two members until Nadeshiko joined. She too had never gone on a camping trip until the end of the first season.

 Yumena Yanai as Aoi Inuyama.... With Chiaki the other original member of the Outing Club. In the first season the pair had accumulated much camping gear but had never taken a trip, until Nadeshiko joined it appeared the club would be discontinued for lack of members.

 Sara Shida as Ena Saito.... Rin's best friend and is such a lover of dogs. Though such good friends with an avid camper Ena had never taken a trip either until the final two episodes.

 Links to the final two episodes of season one if you're curious on how it ended, also a few screenshots from the final show when they were on a Christmas camping trip.

 Episode eleven     Episode twelve

 

 Though it's not a 'must watch' did enjoy the first season quite a bit. Know I'm late with these recaps but that was also the case for the first season. Am not going to recap the entire second season as just seven episodes and this special were subbed but still holding out hope they'll be completed. The first season ended off a few days before Christmas, this picks up about a week later or I'm thinking December 28th. All five were working temp jobs during the school's Winter break and of course for Rin the money was going to another camping trip! So she was on screen 80% of the time in this first show and we didn't see much of the other main characters until the final five or so minutes. Regular episodes are 24 minutes in length, this special was 43. For today will also have a recap for the first episode, then after will have a pair for the next three weeks. The subs for the regular episodes were fine but for this special after the twenty minute mark the dialogue went out of sync and could never quite get it perfectly lined up. Think it was because the original video is long gone and had to use a backup.

 So as mentioned it's Christmas break for our five gals, all are working temp jobs such as delivering cards, working at a liquor store(!) and in the case of Rin at some sort of outdoors shop. While everyone's jobs were going to last until the first week of January Rin's ended on December 29th and if you read the recaps for the first season you know what her plans were! That's to take a camping trip and a solo one, though Rin did have a Christmas trip with her four friends nothing beats going on a trip alone. That's made her friends a bit jealous and especially Nadeshiko who quickly became a camping fanatic and she did go on a pair of trips with Rin in the first season. That's Rin's mother in the fourth screenshot above, she's asking her daughter was Izu her destination and it was!

 That's a very popular tourist spot and in dramas so many vacations are taken there but it's claim to fame for us Americans is that's where much of the first "Ringu" movie was set. It's right along the ocean as you can see above and it was the first time Rin had ever seen a lighthouse, obviously the Izu region lies along the Pacific Ocean. So after a bit of sightseeing Rin's first order of business was to pick up some rare tea from the region only sold at a shop in Kakegawa. However Rin's mother didn't tell her which tea to get and as you can see below she was baffled to no end, to her the cheapest is always the best! But at this tea job of all people was a woman named Sachi, she was a fellow camper Rin met in the first season and she helped her out immensely unlike her drunken sister!

 Sachi is very much like the younger Rin as she was just working as a waitress during the Christmas break to pay for her next camping trip. As you can see above she recommended staying at a place in Iwata that's southwest of Rin's current location. Her itinerary is to spend a night in Omaezaki, then go on to the Shizouka region for perhaps a night and then Rin will end up meeting her friend Nadeshiko in Hamamatsu which will happen in the next recap. The date is currently December 31st, Rin travels by a scooter so it's not like she can travel all that far each day. So the date means it's New Year's Eve and Rin's dream was to celebrate the new year near the ocean to see the sun rise.

 First however it was time to set up camp in Omaezaki and you can see Rin starting on that above. She really prefers camping in the Winter time as there's no bugs but more importantly there's so few other campers around! You'd figure with it being Winter and so few campers just needing a small area to set up a tent would be cheap. That's not the case as for a one night stay it was 3,140 yen or about $26.60 which to me seems kind of steep though the site is near the ocean. Rin is far from being an exciting person, to her it's hard to top quietness of Winter camping and most viewers would consider her activities to be rather boring. But that's not the case for me as Rin does visit all of the local sites such as the lighthouse mentioned and she did stop at a few shrines, also that teahouse and spent a few hours in the cold breeze on the waterfront reading. Not an elaborate meal this time around for Rin compared to season one as her New Year's feast was just a simple bowl of Soba.

 Do have to say this is one the harder dramas to post about as it so quiet and have to stretch things out a bit. The New Year has arrived and we can see why Rin picked that location in Omaezaki to ring in the year. Her dream was to see the first sunlight of a year over the ocean which did take place and the beach where Rin was staying went from having just a handful of people to well over a hundred local residents who make this sunrise part of their yearly tradition. So Rin's mini trip was certainly a smashing success but what about her friends back in Yamanashi or more specifically the town of Minobu?

 They too were all eager to watch the first sunrise of 2021 though they didn't have the spectacular view that Rin did. That's the foursome above and while Yamanashi is nowhere near the ocean it does have many mountains to enjoy watching the sunrise, the quartet tried to watch it rise twice but were just a bit late making it to Diamond Fuji which Chiaki suggested above. So that wraps up this simple story and it is a lead in for the next episode as Rin will remain on the road and meet her newish friend Nadeshiko in the Shizouka area. Biggest positive of this series is the locations and it's a nice break from regular dramas where 95% seem to be set in Tokyo. It's odd that the next episode is twenty minutes shorter yet to me it seemed so much more happened, that's the next post.