Preview screening of Laid-Back Camp Season 3 (Episodes 1 to 3)

Laid-Back Camp Season 3 will start airing in April 2024. A preview screening of the first three episodes was held today in Tokyo with an event that involved three members of the cast. After this screening was announced, it was also announced that the preview screening will be made available to more cinemas in Japan, and the cast event will be streamed live too. So I booked a ticket and made my way to the cinema offering this preview screening.

It was a special screening, so there were no ads or trailers shown before the screening. Everyone was greeted with this screen.

After the first three episodes were screened back to back (including three screenings of the opening, and the three separate endings with the same song), the audience was told to wait for the live streaming of the cast event to commence.

The event itself was about 30 minutes.

Oh, they also handed out a clear file to those who came to watch the preview.

I think they made the decision to have this preview screening to reassure fans. The production team has changed to a different studio, with a different director and such, from the first two seasons. The art style has also changed, and I think they wanted to reassure fans that, while the studio and staff has changed, the art style is somewhat different, the story is still nice and comfy.

In terms of style, the background art is a lot more real-life looking, the characters are a bit cuter (rounder?), and the opening has a nice cartoonish style. While the opening was the same for all three episodes, the ending of each episode was a small recap (slideshow) of each episode with the same song.

For the cast event, we had Hanamori Yumiri (VA for Nadeshiko), Toyama Nao (VA for Rin), and Kurosawa Tomoyo (VA for Ayano, who was introduced in S2 and plays a more central role in S3). A lot of the talk is really to reassure fans that this is still the same Laid-Back Camp that they know and enjoyed. The broadcast date was also announced (4 April 2024) and they also announced two related events on 8 June 2024 in Yamanashi Prefecture.

I think it was a nice gesture to reassure fans, since there was quite a bit of uncertainty when the trailer was first revealed. I am glad I took the time to travel to the cinema for this.