The Izu arc concludes in the ninth volume of Afro’s Laid-Back Camp manga, but not without plenty of delicious food and amazing sights. In other words, a pretty typical volume of Laid-Back Camp, and that is a very good thing.
This volume contains chapters forty-seven through to fifty-two.
The Outdoor Exploration Club continues its excursion in Izu! Between walking up Mount Omuro, seeing capybaras bathing in a hot spring, and cooking up some spiny lobster, the girls have plenty more to enjoy. But there’s also something extra-special about this camping trip: Nadeshiko’s and Inuko’s birthdays! Can the rest of the OEC successfully pull off a surprise party, or is the secret already out…?
In true Laid-Back Camp form, this volume starts with absolute food porn. It only takes a a couple of pages, and already you may find your mouth watering. This entire volume is like that, though; it is made up of everything that we have come to expect from Laid-Back Camp. We have camping, of course, but also incredible food, stunning scenery and fun interactions between the girls of the OEC.
Afro manages to squeeze so much detail into the manga, whether it comes to food or scenery. A most excellent job is done on conveying just what the girls experience as they are camping; it is probably the closest you’ll ever get without heading out to Izu yourself.
Laid-Back Camp is a fantastic manga series, and the camping trip in Izu might just be some of the best content it has to offer. We actually have all the main cast together (though Rin does manage to get some alone time due to an early morning and everyone else sleeping).
There’s excellent chemistry between the characters, too, which makes their interactions a joy to read. Rin even realises that she and Nadeshiko are actually quite similar, particularly when it comes to worrying about each other.
All good things must come to an end, and that is what happens with the Izu camping trip. I’m sure the OEC came away from it with many fond memories, and it was certainly a joy to read.
Afro continues to deliver a compelling experience with the Laid-Back Camp manga, especially with the fantastic Izu camping trip.
Rory Muses 
The sense of community this manga’s wonderful cast has established and shared with us readers is amazing. They’re not facing particular hardship or anything, which might come across as too idealistic to some people, but nonetheless they help and support each other in a very convincingly sweet way that doesn’t go so far as saccharine. I personally think that is best exemplified in a tiny scene where Nadeshiko took a photo of Rin just before she left for her way home taking different roads during their return trip to Yamanashi. I just can’t put this scene’s greatness into words as what I say starts sounding like a crude rationalisation the harder I try to describe it but the thing is Nadeshiko’s taking a photo of her GF felt like as though that was meant to be a farewell gesture even though it wasn’t obviously the case. Technically every goodbye could very well be the last, which is probably why I got so moved when all Nadeshiko did was just to take a pic and say an ordinary goodbye. It’s not like they did something dramatic or anything but to me that spoke volumes about how much Nadeshiko cared for Rin in a subtler way than her usual. It was such a tiny, almost trivial moment between close friends that it so effectively capped this longish arc that was OEC’s biggest ever club trip so far. Somehow I liked those couple of panels even more than the proper ending where they had a convo that same evening after Rin’s presumably long and tiring moped ride home on local roads.