Highlights
- The explosive popularity of My Deer Friend Nokotan is due to its catchy theme song, absurd trailers, and solid marketing strategy.
- The anime combines traditional 2D animation with 3DCG, emphasizing the absurdity of the series with sound design and voice acting.
- While the show has standout moments, it relies heavily on absurd humor, leading to repetitive jokes and a lack of depth in character development.
Anyone watching anime during the Summer 2024 season has most likely encountered the highly-anticipated Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan (My Deer Friend Nokotan), an anime series that doesn’t need introduction, mostly due to the indomitable earworm that is the opening theme song, and the absurd trailers associated with the title. The series was already immensely popular before it even dropped, and continues to reverberate in the anime community as what may be its biggest meme of 2024; one animated by WIT, the studio known for producing the first three seasons of Attack on Titan.
What exactly is behind the explosive popularity of My Deer Friend Nokotan this Summer?
What is My Deer Friend Nokotan About?
Plot and Background
Torako Koshi is a popular high school girl who has taken immense care to change her demeanor, behavior and appearance so that no one ever finds out that she was once a delinquent. These days, Torako is a model student, but the image she has worked so hard to develop is endangered when one day on her way to school, she rescues a girl who was hanging from some power lines. The girl, Nokotan, is a bit of an oddball personality-wise, but to make things even stranger, she has antlers like a deer and, for some reason, she’s able to sniff out Torako’s troubled past. Curious about the deer-girl, and desperate to not have her delinquent past exposed, Torako finds herself getting dragged into Nokotan’s ridiculous escapades. My Deer Friend Nokotan is based on the comedy slice-of-life manga of the same name created by Oshioshio and initially serialized in Kodansha’s shonen manga magazine Shonen Magazine Edge from November 2019 before the magazine’s discontinuation in October 2023.
It was moved to Kodansha’s Magazine Pocket manga site in December that year. The anime adaptation was announced in March 2024, and premiered in July, currently airing as part of the batch of Summer releases. The anime is directed by Masahiko Ōta (director, Minami-ke) at WIT Studio, with series composition by Takashi Aoshima (series composition, 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You), character designs by Ayumu Tsujimura (in-between animation, KILL LA KILL), and 3D Animation by Kōji Ichikawa (3DCG, GANTZ:O) from Graphinica. The cast includes Megumi Han (Gon Freecss, Hunter x Hunter 2011) as Noko “Nokotan” Shikanoko, Saki Fujita (Ymir [freckles], Attack on Titan) as Torako “Koshitan” Koshi, Rui Tanabe as Anko Koshi (Nanana Ryūgajō, Nanana’s Buried Treasure) and Fūka Izumi (Lucia Fano, Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start With Magical Tools) as Meme Bashame.
A Collection of References and Memes Rolled Into One
How My Deer Friend Nokotan Embedded Itself Into the Zeitgeist
A lot of anime fans have taken note of the kind of “memeable” series My Deer Friend Nokotan is, and part of this is due to a solid marketing strategy since the initial announcement of the series in March. From various out-of-context snippets showcasing the title’s silliness, not to mention the overwhelming catchiness of the opening theme, which was used as one of the primary vehicles through which the anime would gain its must-watch reputation. The trailers made the series appear to be like the next best thing in the realm of anime comedy, and the premise itself is a prime example of absurdism in a medium that has seen quite a lot of this particular expression. My Deer Friend Nokotan leans wholly into this absurdism through its visuals, its cast of likable characters and general use of non sequiturs as the main ingredient in its comedic recipe. There are also countless moments that are reflections of popular cultural moments; be it memes, references to other anime or even video games, that My Deer Friend Nokotan makes use of to invoke humor.
Visually, the anime combines the traditional 2D approach with copious amounts of 3DCG, particularly when depicting the actual deer that are seen at various points throughout the series. This makes them stand out in a way that is particularly jarring, because when 3D is generally used to augment a scene in an anime, one of the main goals is to attempt to incorporate it in a way that doesn’t look particularly out of place; however, in My Deer Friend Nokotan, it feels as if this disconnection is meant to be emphasized.
The series also makes use of sound design in strange ways, like the constant “SHI-KA, SHI-KA” ad-lib that commonly accompanies the dramatic music in certain scenes. The juxtaposition of seriousness with silliness is something that is emphasized by the sounds made through music, but also the voice acting, which can lean heavily into the ridiculousness of the entire production. Megumi Han and Saki Fujita’s performances are great, and they have a lot of chemistry as a “straight-man and idiot” comedic duo.
Does It Live Up To the Hype?
Perhaps Being Meme-Worthy Isn’t Everything
While there are definitely some stand-out moments in My Deer Friend Nokotan, the type of humor upon which it relies the most is an approach that attempts to catch the viewer off-guard with sheer absurdity, but this quickly becomes one-note. For instance, the first episode had a joke about Torako’s virginity run on for several scenes, and hinges on Nokotan’s lack of tact or social awareness due to the fact that she’s a deer.
The sheer amount of deer jokes, while obviously due to the titular character’s position as a deer-girl, get quite old very quickly, and the other characters we are introduced to, like Torako’s little sister, Anko, are representations of old tropes (like yandere sister complexes) that are set up to be humorous but fall flat. It brings up references to cultural phenomena like games and other anime, but often times just as another “curveball” to shock a laugh out of the viewer. While ridiculousness can be an effective tool to invoke humor, it loses its effectiveness when it is the only tenet of humor used in a certain piece of the media.
Even the occasional fourth-wall break seems to only further the series’ attempts at absurdity, which is unfortunate given the very strong start it had which leaned more on the dynamic between Nokotan and Torako with less of an emphasis on trying to be as out-of-pocket as possible. There’s definitely nothing wrong with recurring gags and a high-tempo approach, but the constant branching from joke to joke with minimal intermission can make a viewer feel just as confused by the developments as Torako herself. It can be the perfect watch for someone who wants to watch something that has pleasant 2D visuals and a great central dynamic between its main characters, but those who have been looking forward to it with the expectation that it’ll be a legendary new comedy to the effect of a KonoSuba; a Nichijou; a Daily Lives of High School Boysor even a Hinamatsuri will most likely be disappointed.
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