Anime

Laid-Back Camp Season 3 trailer has WEIRDLY drawn characters and UGLY art style – yeah, maybe not

September 28, 2023
Steve Reynolds

8bit decides Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 needs worse character designs

Unfortunately for fans of the much loved anime series Laid-Back Camp like me, it appears 8bit, the studio that has taken over Season 3 of the camping-theme anime from original animator C-Station, has decided a noticeably more ugly art style and weirdly drawn character designs are the way to go going forward.

So much so, from the new Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 trailer released today, if you didn’t know the characters were Rin, Nadeshiko, Aoi, Chiaki and Ena, you may not even recognize them.

Change for the sake of change is annoying

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Now, I am not too picky when it comes to slight art  or character design changes for a new season of an anime I like. 

I am, however, highly-pissed when the characters I have followed for years are suddenly taken over by a different studio, and that studio decides, just for the sake of change, they can create them “better” than the original studio.

Especially when they can’t.

Such, apparently, is the case with 8bit, the anime production studio that has taken over Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 after original studio C-Station produced the first two utterly superb seasons and the recent film.

A studio that has always had a spotty reputation when it comes to the anime they produce — superb anime like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Blue Lock versus utter garbage like Absolute Duo and Infinite Stratos — yep, 8bit has a real problem with consistency in art style and character design quality.

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Quality that, if the just-released Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 trailer is anything to go by, has likely gone by the wayside again as 8bit has decided putting their individual mark on the anime is more important than creating an anime featuring the same wonderful-looking characters fans have loved since Season 1 premiered in early 2018.

Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 key visual

Sure, the Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 trailer makes it seem as though the upcoming anime will feature the same “comfy” feel of the first two seasons and the film, but the trailer also portrays that feeling being a little forced.

Especially when you look at the faces of Rin, Nadeshiko, Aoi, Chiaki and Ena and realize they don’t look familiar at all.

RELATED: With new director, studio and staff will Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 be as good as previous seasons and film?

From the new trailer then, it seems it is just a case of deciding is worse-looking Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 better than no Season 3 at all (?), or should the anime just have been left with two seasons and a fabulous film for fans to remember our favorite camping girls by?

Guess we will have to wait and see until Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 premieres some time in 2024.

Particularly as the third season also has a different director (Shin Tosaka (director of the incredibly awful IS: Infinite Stratos series) instead of original director Yoshiaki Kyogoku), and features Takanori Hashimoto (no previous experience as a character designer) as the character designer for Season 3.

Fingers crossed then that this one won’t look as horrible as the trailer suggests, but I can’t say I am holding out much hope.

Meanwhile, along with the just-released and very ugly Laid-Back Camp, Season 3 trailer (watch below), we also received an equally ugly Season 3 key visual featuring characters I have to squint at to guess who they are.

You can check that out above.

Steve Reynolds
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