My Deer Friend Nokotan

Episode 10

Alright, I can't be late turning in my review of My Deer Friend Nokotan again. My editor told me one more infraction and I'll have to do TWIA's isekai roundup two seasons in a row. I can't go back. Nope, gotta get this week's story of Shikanoko in on time, even if I've got to skip dinner. What is hunger but the best flavor for prose? That's how the saying goes, right?

Anyway, I'm sure I can concentrate. This week's Nokotan opens by ratcheting the timeline forward to spring and inflicting some allergies on Shikanoko and some of the others. It's relatable! I'm absolutely one of those people who, like Nokotan, will vehemently deny I suffer from allergies, even as I fight back against a runny nose and scratchy throat. It can get so bad I can barely enjoy eating, even with some of my favorite foods. Man, I sure could go for some Buffalo wings right now, you know that spice would clear your sinuses if you were suffering from being stuffed up…

I mean, uh, thematically, it is a little odd to go from Nokotan suffering from pollen allergies to dutifully arranging flowers. Though it was cedar pollen they were dealing with at first, not flower pollen, so maybe there's not that much of a connection. What was I talking about? Flowers? There are edible flowers, right? I bet I could—

Oh, deer god!

Look at those deer crackers! I know they're a staple of the show, but they look a lot more… delectable than usual, don't they? I'm not crazy, right, those are looking seriously snackable.

…aaaand Shikanoko just crushed them and sprinkled them all over her makeshift antler-head-flower-arrangement-sin-against-god. This show can't keep taunting me like this. The Flower Arrangement Club teacher just got vored by a big pitcher plant! How come the plant gets to eat but I don't? I'm just trying to get some work done here.

It's fine, I'll be fine so long as this isn't the tenth episode that the show previously foreshadowed would be when Bashame's rice paddy showed up. I tell you, the doctors had me on this low-carb diet for a while, and I have been dying to have rice again.

…You ever feel so faded from hunger that the bundled-up antler-ball tsuchinoko starts looking like a treat? I'm just staring at the screen trying to get through things so I can get this series reviewed and getting a little light-headed and bnhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

As far as an episode of My Deer Friend Nokotan making me feel things goes, "hunger" has to count for something, right? Real talk, way back in the third episode, I assumed the show's foretold deployment of Bashame's rice paddy was going to be much more obnoxious as a called-out meta-joke. But as it actually works out here… well it's still a blatant meta-exercise, but it's a bit more tastefully clever than I gave it credit for. It's just the writing of the show cracking-wise about the way it lied regarding having a time-frozen status quo, then utilizing that sliding timescale to arrive at what was otherwise a pretty straightforward foreshadowed event. It's fun enough, even as I recognize it means there's still a chance the show loops around to do a Christmas episode before it ends in this not-December month.

This episode finds that effective balance of keeping its humor simple and straightforward, while still indulging in some of that oblique weirdness I think a series like this demands. That opening allergy bit is the best example of making that work, I think. You've got the relatable resonance of recapping how different people deal with having allergies (which I definitely do not!) alongside strange side gags like the way Nokotan fuzzes up when she's going through it. Some of the simplest jokes are my favorites—like the way Nokotan at the beginning of the episode is framed from these visual-novel-ass angles as she grapples with her deer dramatic tears she assumes are caused by seasonal depression instead of seasonal allergies.

Also this episode featured several muntjacs in the little interstitial deer-park segments and I think those little guys are adorable.

Not everything works. Nokotan's middling guitar solo during the flower arranging club section continues this show's even win-loss ratio when it comes to odd musical interludes. At least Cromartie High School understood that when you're strumming on a guitar in the mountains, you call that a non-sequitur immediately and just move on. But the variety of bits in this episode, the quantity of relatable characterfulness, and the surprise fun of the way it uses continuity all mark it as a quality Nokotan entry for me. Or maybe that's the hunger pangs talking.

Rating: The Arby's Big Game Burger

My Deer Friend Nokotan is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.