No comfy camping this time of year, we have a deer left to dispose of, so to speak, by following up my first impressions with a full lenght review on the anime adaptation of My Deer Friend Nokotan.
Might as well do it now, it’s about as timely i might care to review an anime series, and since City The Animation isn’t out yet, people might still be talking about this with posts on social media comparing to Nichijou, gotta get that engagement up in spite of reality, as in both “Nokotan” and “Nichijou” are similar in the sense they are both comedy slice of life non-sense anime series.
I’m gonna have to repeat this later too, but i feel it’s worth making this extra clear because people that like Nichijou and will be misled into watching this by Twitter dimwits and grifters that really want to make bank after letting people know they do pay for using Twitter.
(not calling it X, since at the time of writing and posting there’s an exodus from Twitter to Bluesky going on and “Muskardini” basically invites people to fuck off his SNS if you’re not a nazi, pedophile, and affiliated-adjacent garbage)
I already discussed why some people might have gotten that feel, especially by how memetic the “deer VS principal” fight was and still is, but My Deer Friend Nokotan (based on the manga of the same name by Oshioshio, also behind Sakura Mai Mai and the design of VTuber Amane Kanata) is NOT Nichijou in any shape or form, especially given that show’s unique brand of nonsense humour, that immediatly made it an explosive memetic trend online when the trailer for it was released, they knew what they were doing and got it perfectly, i’m not here to discuss again of the excellent marketing done for the series or why it resonated so strongly in online spaces.
Just a look of the people involved will make things quite clear, since it’s directed by Masahiko Ohta, whom also directed the animated adaptations of Yuru Yuri, Gabriel Dropout, Himouto Umaru Chan, Sabagebu!, among others, and previous to this series, his last work was on something called Onipan.. which i heard of but didn’t watch, to be honest.
So yeah, he’s more than expert at directing slice of life manga comedies, and My Deer Friend Nokotan anime does have most of the typical isms, from his penchant for the terminal siscon girls, the rival or supposed antagonist that’s actually just the bullyable, cutest thing around that should be protected from the protagonist.
The premise is actually kinda “tame”, all things considered: Koshi Torako is the perfect image of a class representative, beloved by all, but trouble arises when a new student joins the school, Noko Shikanoko (immediatly dubbed “Nokotan” by the class), a girl with deer antlers, that immediatly sniffs out Torako’s past as an ex-delinquent, in spite of never telling anyone about it.
So she starts approaching and is basically forced into befriending this weirdo in order to avoid her secret coming out, dragged into a world full of weirdly accomodating weirdos that just accept Nokotan many and aplenty uses of her antlers, be it a pouch of sorts, weapons, skull-holder, sensor-like receptors, pocket sand repository…
Koshitan is the straight-man of the situation, more than the duo, as everyone and everytning in this world is skewed into an absurd elective worship (sometimes literally) of the deer stuff and everything Nokotan adjacent, she ends up playing along with these benign weirdos, there’s no character treating her like shit for a cheap laugh, even her “enemy/rival”, Nekoyama, is so cute and goofy Koshitan can’t take her seriously, because she is basically an anti-Akira from Lucky Star, she looks tiny and cute with the overlong sleeves and she is too nice to actually go through her desire to dethrone Koshitan from the school referee place.
I had some issues with the strange penchant for “virgin!” jokes seen thrown at Torako by Nokotan at the beginning (as i pointed out in the first impressions article), but that thankfully fades out pretty fast and it’s mostly a lot of non-sense that doesn’t go for that kind of low hanging fruit.
Speaking of weirdos, there are the various expected archetypes, with the creepy yandere siscon, the silent timid one with the frigid face, the panicky klutz always on the edge of apologizing for existing and being hypernegative about the smallest hurdles, and then there’s Meme.
Bashame Meme, to be precise, which i think it’s called such for a reason, as she has a singular obsession: rice. Eating rice, cooking rice, planting a fuckin rice field, and in 90 % of her screen time, she’s eating rice or bringing around a rice cooker so she can eat rice, doesn’t give an absolute shit about anything else. Sasuga Meme, indeed.
It’s a series that knows perfectly/is in touch with the audience tastes as demonstrated by the references it opts to do, how it break fourth wall via the character or the narrator’s butting in, the latter i wasn’t so sure about but ultimately it works with the overall tone and uncaring nonsensical attitude that often borders on the shitpost feel. But then it does some pretty neat and far from expected nods such as referencing Total Recall and frigging Full Metal Jacket.
it does manage to work off its main themes and main comical cores provided by the series premise, while also doing the typical slice of life topoi of the sports festival, the new year’s shrine visit… actually mostly school related, we both do and don’t the beach episode (there’s the summer theme, but no beach), so yeah, it’s far less predictable than expected on this front.
it’s pretty fun, the jokes hit fast, manage to have variety while logically mostly deriving or feeding off the deer theme, the voice acting is great, the animation by Wit Studio is consistently good and up to the task to enhance the intensity of the absurd stupid shit going on, direction is consistent and demonstrates Ohta has got down the rhythm and pacing for a slice of life non-sense comedy down pat.
For the final episode, we have the series try to do a “The Disappearance Of Shikanoko Noko” as everyone seems to not know who Nokotan… as in, it’s an obvious fake out that immediatly gets pointed out and discarded because the actual plot of the final episode is also a farce involving “deer assassins” and battle shonen plot points pulled out of the deer’s bum.
I was surprised to notice that there’s no real fanservice for its own sake, the series really doesn’t care about that at all, so it’s just silly, cute and fun nonsense. Great opening and ending too.
I feel it could have been even better if they went the extra mile, it’s not as willing to experiment like Asobi Asobase, for example, or even Bocchi The Rock’s anime many out-there gags, nor it has a truly unique style that you can’t get somewhere else, but overall My Deer Friend Nokotan it’s a good fun comedy nonsense slice of life that i recommend to fans of the genre, even more if they can actually enjoy for what it actually is and divorce themselves from the kinda forced comparison to Nichijou that it might have been drilled into them by social media.
Good, not great, but indeed good, and i think it will be remembered due to how many memes it immediatly spawned.
Notsu
Wise Cafe (International) 