Covering My Deer Friend Nokotan in episode reviews is a potentially fun prospect. I think it depends on whether or not there’s enough to say besides, “this show is crazy”. Timing is also a somewhat tricky factor to consider. By EST, Nokotan officially releases on Crunchyroll on Sundays but it does air earlier on Wednesdays. Assuming I cover the show, do I wait until Sunday or try to catch a fansub before then? I guess it’ll depend on floats my boat the best.
Episode 2 opens up with Torako lugging a cart full of stuff over to the Deer Club’s house. My first thought is that Noko requested for a lot of stuff for the clubroom (and by stuff, I really just mean deer crackers) and poor Torako ended up being the pack mule. Instead, everything Torako brings is stuff she bought so that she can better tolerate being in the Deer Club, which is a funnier punchline in my opinion. Unfortunately for Torako, the whole clubhouse gets trashed the next day. Naturally, Torako thinks Noko is behind this but it turns out that the real culprit is her younger sister, Anko (Rui Tanabe).
Whereas Torako is seemingly the only sane person in the show, Anko is borderline psychopathic. She loves her older sister to an obsessive degree, to the point that she completely disapproves of Torako’s friendship with Noko (or romance as she perceives it). She has therefore taken upon herself to kill the half-human/half-deer girl by any means necessary, with her primary weapon being a seemingly endless supply of kunai (I’d ask where she got these but I also know it’s futile to ask). Even though her life is on the line, Noko refuses to refute Anko’s claim that she’s too chummy with Torako. If anything, she makes it worse by saying that Torako is her woman. All this combined with Torako’s disbelief makes the whole setup really funny.
Despite the rather violent setup, Anko and Noko end up duking it out in a more civil manner, by participating in a trivia competition that’ll determine who knows Torako the best. While the concept alone is hilarious, it’s really all the added details that elevate it. For starters, this quiz show completely invades Torako’s privacy, being filled with questions that ask extremely personal details such as what type of underwear she typically wears. I like how you can almost believe Anko knowing everything, what with her creepy complex, and yet there’s no explanation as to how Noko is privy to any of this information. Second, the competition is held publicly on school grounds and is attended by at least Torako and Noko’s homeroom. The homeroom teacher apparently approved the whole thing and she even acts as the host. Despite the event revealing way too much about Torako, everyone is awfully into learning all of it as if Anko isn’t the only creep in the area. I really have to hand it to this show for this scene; the whole concept is weird and the execution fully commits to it.
If you can believe it, the quiz show ends with a draw. Frustrated with the result, Anko decides “screw it” and unleashes a flurry of kunai on Noko. The funny thing is that she set all of this up in the first place, she could’ve just done this earlier rather than go ahead with the competition. One of the kuani accidentally gets thrown towards Torako, leading Noko to shield her friend and take the blow. Although this show has already subjected Noko to some pretty violent injuries and despite the fact that it’s only at the second episode, it actually makes you think that Noko has legitimately died in this scene by having her spirit ascend into deer heaven. Obviously, she’s alive in the end but I do admire that the show committed to this, if only to show us the surreal images of deer angels lifting her up and a deer god kicking her back into the mortal plane. Knowing this show, I can’t help but think that God being a deer in this scene is a pun on “Oh dear God”.
Funnily enough, the show actually provides a logical explanation for how Noko survives taking a kunai to the chest. It’s thanks to some deer crackers that Anko used to trap Noko earlier and that Noko stowed away into her uniform. What’s even more hilarious is that these crackers is somehow the catalyst for Noko and Anko to become friends. Anko feels that her endangering Torako means that she failed as a sister, resulting in her conceding to Noko, but Noko points out that she couldn’t have saved Torako if it wasn’t for the deer crackers that Anko brought. You know, the deer crackers that Anko used to trap Noko and didn’t actually intend to give. It’s all thanks to pure happenstance and Anko’s wallet! I’d call this a stretch but this entire episode has been pushing the narrative’s internal logic to its limits so in a weird way, this is a very appropriate and fitting resolution to the plot. If nothing else, it’s funny.
One humorous implication to this episode is that it technically doesn’t address the fact that Torako’s own sister destroyed everything she brought to the the clubhouse, stuff that she presumably spent her own money on. Anko and Noko becoming friends is the most important thing to address but you’d think Anko would at least tell Torako that she’ll find a way to rebuild the clubhouse. But no, I guess Torako comes out of this episode a couple bucks poorer. I suppose so much so happens that it just slips her mind entirely. I’d love it if the clubhouse is still a mess next episode but I’m also not opposed to the show handwaving it and everything looks fine instead.
Watch My Deer Friend Nokotan on Amazon and Crunchyroll
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