2018-12-16
The moment when Laid-Back Camp's Nadeshiko won me over
In the beginning of Laid-Back Camp, Nadeshiko comes across as mostly your typical progatonist for these sorts of shows; an energetic but ditzy newbie, all full of both enthusiasm (to drag us along) and ignorance (so we can have things explained to us). She had her moments, but in the beginning I was worried that I'd get tired of her.
In the fourth episode, Nadeshiko and the other two members of the Outclub head off to a campsite in what turns out to be a longer walk than they expected. The other two turned up at the starting point with reasonable modest amounts of stuff, but Nadeshiko had a significant load and as they started walking, what I was expecting was the obvious cliche that Nadeshiko had made a newbie mistake in her enthusiastic loading up.
Laid-Back Camp didn't do that. Instead, Nadeshiko walked the other two into the ground; as Chiaki and Aoi were slowing down, she was still cheerfully going along, load and all. Nadeshiko hadn't made a mistake at all. Instead, she was just that strong, untiring, and capable. That was the moment that sold me on Nadeshiko as a great character, not at all the genki maniac airhead that I had expected and been afraid of.
Looking back, there had been flashes of that even before the fourth episode. For instance, in the first episode Nadeshiko had biked all of the fairly decent distance from her home to the campsite, and didn't seem any the worse for it. But the fourth episode was where it became clear to me, and that moment in the fourth episode is what clinched it.
(This is part of the 12 Days of Anime 2018.)