Yuru Camp△ 3 – 08 – Activate Pizza Mode

Going in I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about “The B-Team Goes Camping, Part 2”, but a silly overdramatic episode preview and flashback-within-a-flashback later, their trip gets to the good part: the tomato-forward food. The episode takes great pains to show you all the steps needed to make a pretty dope tomato sauce, which is used in all the other recipes.

The first dish is tomato yakisoba (which actually has a much more verbose name) made from a recipe posted by Nadeshiko’s dad—turns out her whole fam posts recipes to the same cooking site, and so she’s at this camping trip in spirit. The girls also decide to portray Toba-sensei as more classy and sophisticated than the usual messy lush she actually was, which is kind of them!

As foreshadowed last week and reiterated in the aforementioned double flashback, Aki is feening for pizza, and I can’t blame her (One of the best pizzas I’ve ever had was at a modest little spot in Ebisu, Shibuya). Aoi and Ena actually tease Aki a bit by making some elaborate but delicious okonomiyaki with the first two crusts, but the third and final one is used to make actual pizza, employing  a clever method that utilizes a covered pan as a mini-oven.

Aki makes use of an easy-to-set-up cardboard smoking box to smoke everything from nuts and cheese to potato chips and the Mark II version of her DIY sausages. Aoi and Ena are weary of their return and Aki would be well within her rights to exact revenge upon them for their pizza-teasing, but turns out the Mark II version are quite tasty. Failure is the best teacher!  I am a little disappointed Toba-sensei didn’t try to smoke some of her booze—smoked booze rules.

After the leftover tomato sauce is thinned and used to make a hearty minestrone to cap off the tomato feast, the episode takes a turn for the surreal when everyone notices that Chikuwa, who wasn’t actually on their camping trip, is nowhere to be found. Aki ends up finding him on the other side of a portal to Ena’s house, likes how warm it is in there. She’s soon joined by Aoi and Ena, and finally a very tipsy Toba bowls herself and all of them through the portal, which then closes like a tube TV switching off.

The fourth wall having been literally, thoroughly, and irrevocably broken, the remainder of the retelling of the camping trip is told by the YouTube-famous dog Henpen (in a variation of the usual narrator’s voice). Clearly, the production staff had some fun coloring outside the lines of typical Yuru Camp narrative structure. Next week a new arc begins: one in which the whole cast will go on a cherry blossom camping trip.

Yuru Camp△ 3 – 02 – How the Sausage Gets Made

This week starts with Nadeshiko’s childhood friend Toki Ayano (Kurosawa Tomoyo) trying out “mini-camping”, riding her moped to a pretty spot to enjoy some hot cocoa. When her thermos doesn’t keep it hot and a more substantial stove costs too much, she buys a mini stove that makes the cocoa nice and piping hot. She’s in her own little serene paradise on the beach.

The Outclub camps in Ena’s yard, basking in Chikuwa’s cute (but not cheap) little camping setup. After Ena gives Chiaki a respectable haircut, everyone whips out sausages to cook on their DIY alcohol stoves, but Chiaki ups the difficulty level by trying to make sausage herself.

The process itself is easy, but the finished product’s flavor is impaired by lack of attention to detail: not only the pork, but the casings, stuffing gun, and mixing bowl must be well-chilled to ensure proper distribution of meat and fat. While sausage making may not be practical while camping, bringing already-made sausages works out just fine.

Nadeshiko and the Outclub plan to do a flower-viewing somewhere secluded, while Ayano suggests a trip with Rin and Nadeshiko to Ooigawa. Nadeshiko was feeling like it might be time for a solo trip, but in a way she’ll get one as it will take her longer to meet up with her moped-riding friends.

As should come as no surprise, this Yuru Camp was extremely cute and cozy. Ayano is trying to camp on a shoestring budget without getting burnt by poor quality, while the Outclub are always on the lookout for DIY camping solutions. Rin was all on her own these past two episodes, but looks like a warm reunion with Nadeshiko and Ayano is in the offing.