Yuru Yuri Nachuyachumi!+

The Cute Girls Doing Cute Things (CGDCT) formula reportedly found its roots in shows such as Azumanga Daioh. The concept was simple enough: Introduce a group of girls that are going to some school and give them all unique character traits, using their day-to-day interaction as the basis for light-hearted hilarity and possibly some drama. After noticing the warm reception some of these prototypical CGDCT shows were receiving, many studios decided to make their own tweaks to the formula. Some ideas included marrying the Slice of life (SOL) style of show with another concept, giving rise to such variations as Cute Girls in Pop Band,and Cute girls in Purgatory. Another idea was to tweak the aesthetic, further popularising the ‘moe’ art style. Over time, the formula was further refined, as each trope and character trait which initially reflected some aspect of the human condition was slowly twisted into something artificial and sinister. Shortcuts to human emotions were found and exploited, and soon the CGDCT formula hit critical mass: Yuru Yuri was born. ‘Nachuyachumi! +’ is a pair of extra episodes for the Yuru Yuri addicts; a bone thrown to those eagerly waiting for a third season of the franchise, made to follow up from the movie (Nachuyachumi!). Suffice to say, if you want an introduction to the series, there’s no real reason for you to start with this couple of episodes instead of with the first season: it comes across in the writing that it’s generally expected you have seen the series up to this point, such as when characters reference past gags. The plot is straightforward enough. True to its title, a significant portion of ‘Nachuyachumi! +’ is spent reflecting on and building upon the events in Nachuyachumi! Now back from their camping trip, the main four cast members spend the remainder of the summer vacation creating fun memories. After an impromptu session taking funny pictures of each other, the main cast spend time looking over photos they had taken during their camping trip. Misunderstandings, physical comedy, and hints of romance between characters make up the bulk of the content. Kyoko is as mischievous and arrogant as ever, Yui cracks a smile, and Chinatsu is at least half as scary as you’d expect her to be. The opening and ending songs are light hearted and energetic, but stand out entirely differently from each other. The opening is a strange and arguably corny slap-bass mishmash, while the ending is a very well balanced composition that totally fits the mood of the show. There is a simple joy that can be found in the achievement of simple goals, and a theme that makes itself known through ‘Nachuyachumi! +’ is just that: the creation of something tangible from the summation of many trivial things, or to put it another way, the achievement of many seemingly irrelevant and simple goals leads to the creation of a joyful memory: a personal piece of history that can be looked back upon with nostalgia. The cast set out to have fun and create good memories, and they achieve this through the completion of many simple and arbitrary tasks, whether it’s staging a sumo wrestling match, playing catch with water balloons, or even conspiring to take a picture of Kyoko while she’s asleep. One disappointment was that too much of the second episode was spent watching the cast play various video games with each other, which wound up feeling stale almost immediately. Seeing the characters interact with each other in person is a strong suit of the show, so having them sitting still in a room only virtually interacting meant there was an even stronger reliance of previously established relations between the characters for such events to be engaging. N!+ is not profound. It’s not a leap forward or change of direction for the Yuru Yuri universe. What it is, is a cute and enjoyable stocking filler fit to tide over Yuru Yuri fans as they wait for the third season, and at the end of the day, a worthy addition to the franchise.

These two episodes are sequentially after Yuru Yuri Nachuyachumi (no plus). Consider them part of the same arc, since they all follow the same theme. Story: 7 To say that these two episodes topped the first would be disagreeing with my opinion. Not saying that's wrong, but I believed the first was much better in the fact that it was well executed and somewhat of a new idea. While these two episodes ride the wake of Yuru Yuri Nachuyachumi, the only real connection is the theme about pictures of the camping trip. While they weren't a bad watch, I can't say I enjoyed them more than themovie. It was fun watching all the connections and the character interaction, but they simply aren't as powerful as the movie was. Art: 9 What can I say? I don't find anything wrong with the art. It's cute, simple, and consistent. Personally, I find the art to fit perfectly with the show. The only reason it isn't rated higher is because it doesn't stand out to me. Sure it's great and cute and all, but there's nothing incredible about it. Sound: 8 Same as above. New opening and ending music if I recall correctly, no problems here but it didn't improve nor decrease in quality. Character: 9 I like the character interaction of this show, and on a whim I'll say that the switching between different groups was a good idea because it helps break the tension and keep things from getting stale. Even though I could never get enough of Kyouko. Enjoyment: 9 Not as great as the movie, but not bad either. I'll take it, because I don't find anything wrong with this show except the fact that it didn't blow me away like the movie did! Overall: 9 All in all, it's worth watching if you liked the camping trip arc. If not, this show has a little bit of content you might enjoy, but it's going to be connecting back to the camping trip and if you don't like that, you probably won't enjoy it. Otherwise, there's never enough Yuru Yuri, right?

Even with a 1 hour OVA, the creators knew that it simply wasn't enough for us Yuru Yuri fans so they gave us 48 mins. more! [Story]: (7/10) Extra episodes of Yuru Yuri Nachuyachumi! The extra episodes takes place after the summer camp in Nachuyachumi. All they did was pretty much typical stuff that you'd expect in summer time like water balloon fights, playing video games, and etc. Compared to the 1 hour OVA, the extra episodes actually made me laugh more than the OVA but the comedy is still lacking compared to the Second Season. The atmosphere is roughly the same as the OVA. ______________________________________________________________[Art/Animation]: (9/10) If you have seen the OVA (I'm sure that you did) then the animation is nothing different. The animation still looks amazing. ______________________________________________________________ [Sound]: (8/10) Ohh, the OSTs that plays when they look back at their summer camp memories. It's just beautiful. The rest of the soundtrack are the same so they're not worth mentioning. Now the OP and ED theme song(s) The OP theme song is "Yurishurashushushu" by Nanamori Chu?Goraku Bu and the ED theme song is Ohirune Universe" by Nanamori Chu?Goraku Bu. I'm beginning to suspect that TYO Animations is slightly better at producing Yuru Yuri openings than the previous studio because this is better than the 1st season's OP. Better than the 2nd Season's OP...Ehh, no. The ED theme song is decent. ______________________________________________________________ [Characters]: (8/10) I'm just going to go down through my checklist here first. Main characters returns from the previous seasons, yep..some of the side characters returns from the previous seasons, yep. The character interactions are great and the show focused on a 2 groups of characters doing things instead of focusing on only 1 of them fooling around. ______________________________________________________________ [Enjoyment]: (9/10) This was a nice additional 48 minutes episodes. There also seems to be more funny moments here than the OVA. To conclude, I definitely enjoyed the extra episodes. ______________________________________________________________ [VERDICT] "Yuru Yuri Nachuyachumi+" is a great addition to the series. Even with the extra episodes, there never seems to be enough Yuru Yuri. I demand more NOW!..Just kidding, they can take their time. Aaaand this concludes my Yuru Yuri 4 days review marathon. [OVERALL]: (8/10) Pros: +More Funny moments than the OVA +Great additional 48 minutes of Yuru Yuri OVA. +Great Soundtrack Cons: -

Aren't we a spoiled bunch. Tokyo T.V. once again gives us two more OVAs. That's 40 more minutes of Yuru Yuri and the cute cast. Were the cookies put into the oven for too long this time? Let's find out. JAPANESE LEARNERS (2/5 Easy to Understand) Do Ieven need to explain this anymore since I've reviewed Yuru Yuri three separate times already. Honestly, if you are at the intermediate or advanced level, then you should have no problem watching this anime without subtitles. Once again, you newbies can use this OVA as an excellent resource for your studies as the phrases and vocabulary are easy to learn. STORY It's summer time again which means we must be going to the beach, right? No. Okay, maybe we will go camping again. No. You said water balloons. Oh my, there is nothing better than cute Yuru Yuri chicks wearing bikini's throwing water balloons at each other. Wrong! They are still wearing their clothes. Okay, that was my ecchi side. Let me get straight to the point. Over 13 minutes of the first OVA episode took place in the club room where they looked at pictures from the camping trip and there were no parodies present at all. It was dreadful, and had I not been an anime reviewer I would have turned off my computer right away, but I must bring you anime otakus high-quality reviews. The second OVA had a much better story. The girls haves a sleepover together in two separate groups. The group with Kyouko wanted to get a picture of her negao (sleeping face). The nice thing about the second OVA was the Super Smash Bros. and Animal Crossing parodies, which were a welcome treat. Unlike the first OVA, this OVA was much funnier and entertaining. ANIMATION If there was one thing that went well with the OVAs, it was the animation. Once again, I loved how the characters were presented and how the environments looked, even if that time was short. Don't let me forget that you can see Kyouko's...... SOUND Let me just say that Yuru Yuri doesn't exactly have the greatest OST in the anime universe. Even while writing this review just after 5 minutes of watching the OVAs, I can't even remember any music. The opening and ending songs are also not that great either. CHARACTERS There really isn't much to say about the characters since they all maintain their previous personalities from the original anime. No new characters are added. Kyouko and Akari still are my favorite characters. FINAL VERDICT/ENJOYMENT We all like cookies when they first come out of the oven. They are sweet and chewy. That is how the first and second season of Yuru Yuri are presented. Unfortunately, the first OVA was left in the oven for too darn long and it left a burnt taste in my mouth. The second OVA was much better. Here is the gist of it, skip the first OVA and watch the second OVA unless you have some kind of OCD where you have to watch every anime episode (like me). Like my reviews? Want to learn Japanese? Stop by my profile and leave me a message. As always, hope you enjoy my review and thanks for reading until the end. Don't forget to hit that like and follow button!!!

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