My Deer Friend Nokotan

 My Deer Friend Nokotan (しかのこのこのここしたんたん) is a 12 episode comedy series based on the manga of the same name by Oshioshio.  The anime originally aired during the Summer of 2024.

    Koshi Torako is the ideal high school student.  She's well liked by everyone, exemplary academic abilities, proficient in sports and is the president of the student council.  Yet this is just a cover, a desperate attempt to hide her past as a delinquent.  She desired to turn her life around and become such a dazzling display of perfection in high school that no one would ever suspect she was shady in the past.  The carefully crafted world she now lives in comes under threat with the appearance of a strange new student...the deer girl hybrid Shikanoko Noko.  Not only does everyone gloss over the oddity of Nokotan being a girl with antlers who loves deer crackers, she is welcomes with open arms by everyone around her.  Nokotan has extra sensory perception and knows a multitude of Koshitan's secrets.  Unwilling to be foiled by this strange girl, she relents to her 'demands'.  This leads to the student council president being made the head of the newly formed Deer Club, who's only really responsibility is to care for any deer in the area.  Given that Nokotan is the most local deer around, this means that Koshitan is now responsible for the weird girls safety and security.

    The Deer Club is only the start of Koshitan's difficulties.  As the next year dawns, her younger sister Anko joins the club along with another first year weirdo Bashame.  Bashame is entranced by Nokotan's aura, fully willing to go along with any insane plan the deer girl concocts.  Anko joins the club to be as close to her older sister as possible, harboring thinly veiled desires for the ex-delinquent.  Nokotan does everything she can to contain the absurd realities around Nokotan as she drags the Deer Club into one bizarre situation after another.  To complicate things even further, the vice-president of the student council, Nekoyamada, desires nothing more than to downfall of Koshitan, wishing to usurp the student council.  Nekoyamada drags the other members of the council into her plans only to see them fall victim to Nokotans glamour as well.  What is really going on with this weird being that shouldn't exist in a normal world and why is she hell bent on making Koshitan's life as hectic as possible?

    I set this up to fail it seems.  I was incredibly hyped for this show starting with the first preview, before it was even translated into English.  It just felt like the new insane comedy classic, akin to Nichijou or Lucky Star.  Non stop, intensely bizarre visual gags.  But that's not what the show delivered.  It wasn't bad, it was still weird and funny and unreasonable.  But...I really wanted something to be break neck comedy.  One episode delivered that desire, in that it spit out a serious of 20+ non-sequesters in a manner of 10 minutes.  Which was brilliant and incredibly entertaining.  Then something happened and the writing lost all of its steam.  It recovered near the end but a lot of damage had already been done and the show failed to deliver the quality product I and apparently other anticipated.

   Honestly though the show wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.  The characters and story telling is ridiculous.  The animation is solid with a lot of well delivered sight gags.  The show is peppered with a lot of fun references and lambasts but it doesn't rely on them to carry the comedy.  But in the end the comedy wore thing quicker than it should have in a 12 episode series and I don't know if there is any point in checking out the manga, other than curiosity to see how close the anime followed it.  The strongest thing in the show was the plentiful acts of breaking the fourth wall and that it fully embraces not taking its self seriously.  Its not the best anime of the season, and its not the best comedy over the past few years.  People will probably mostly forget about it in a year or two but it was mostly enjoyable while it lasted.

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.