But, because I can't keep my mouth shut, even when I should, I'll try anyway.
This anime is rated pretty highly on MAL. And, to be honest, I don't understand why. Now, this may be a fault of mine, but I'll explore that in a bit.
This anime is about a bunch of girls who like camping, and then go camping, sometimes even with each other. We start with a character Rin who likes to go solo camping, and doesn't like going with other people, and a high school club of girls who also like to go camping, and as the series progresses, they go camping a lot, sometimes even together. That's it. That's all there is to this anime. If you want a plot, that's as complex as it gets. We see lots of camp cooking, lots of descriptions of camp equipment and scenery, and real locations all around Japan that you could visit too if you want.
Seriously, there's nothing more to this anime than that.
In this anime, there is no: violence, gore, ecchi, drama, conflict, trouble, multi-dimensional characters, or plot.
Now, as to why my feelings are mixed: it was boring. Just plain boring. As I mentioned, this may be a fault of mine, because I don't like camping. It's boring. I'm the type of person that would go to a campsite, say, "oh look, there's a mountain, it's pretty. Can I go home now?" So the whole idea of camping is just completely and totally foreign to me. I won't go so far as to say I'm a city boy or can't appreciate the outdoors - I can. I once driving through the Columbia River Gorge and I was very much struck by its beauty, or driving past the Medicine Bow Mountain in Wyoming (when my truck wasn't actively flipping over, long story), but spending an entire day or night out in the cold is my idea of a personal hell. So, while many people might really enjoy this anime, I just... well... didn't.
But there are some things about this anime that were just objectively bad. For example, the irresponsible sensei going to a camp as a club advisor, being the only one who could drive, and getting smashed. What if there were an emergency? If they had called that out, I'd be fine, but they just played it for laughs. Also, as I mentioned, the characters are one dimensional. There's very little (but not zero) character growth, and all that growth is entirely centered around camping. All the rest can be excused as being just what the anime is, but there are some things that are required for a good story, and this anime just outright refused to do them.
It wasn't all bad, though. The anime was full of funny moments, mostly related to how the girls interact, and all of them really were very cute. For a CGDCT slice-of-life it really is about what you'd expect, I guess.
This wasn't a bad anime. I wouldn't call it trash, or anything like that. I also wouldn't call it a work of art or masterpiece. It was just your average run of the mill "iyashikei" anime with slightly above average art.
Now, that said, I haven't said anything about the music. It wasn't above average. The OST was mostly awful. And that's because it had jarring musical and instrument choices that occasionally took me out of the story (such as it is) with "wow, that's jarring." The ED and OP were alright, though.
Anyway, if you liked it, great. I can see how someone who enjoys things like the outdoors and camping would. I just didn't. So it's mixed feelings, both because I don't really know how to rate it, but also because I can imagine a certain type of person would really like it. I'm just not that type of person. The odds of my watching seasons 2 and 3 are low at this point, but who knows, I might get bored.
Mixed Feelings from me, and that about covers it.
