My Deer Friend Nokotan

Episode 11

It's the penultimate episode of My Deer Friend Nokotan this week, and the always-astonishing anime is visibly gearing up for its big finish. Several long-simmering plot points boil over to pay off spectacularly, rewarding loyal viewers who have tuned into Nokotan's braying, bantering excitement. My only concern about this forthcoming finale is that it won't find a proper place to comfortably cap off its storyline, leaving deerly devoted Nokotan fans to read the manga to further follow this epic.

Nokotan's own arc obviously stands out here. While she's been isolated in a B-plot training arc since her defeat at the hands of Nekoyamada and subsequent divorce from Koshi, that storyline hasn't been hurting for thrills and chills. Yes, it took a month of airing and a supplemental augmented-reality game for audiences to see it, but Shikanoko's new Antler Plus Alpha transformation and abilities were worth the wait. Suffice it to say the coming finale will be a television event on par with some of the most memorable Super Bowls, like that one where the Giants beat the Patriots or the other one where the Giants beat the Patriots.

Of course, there's also the question of Koshi's side of this story. Her breakup with Nokotan has thrust her into an illicit affair with her own sister Anko as a wrong-headed rebound. No need to recount that, I know, we all sat through the weeks of discourse on anitwitter between both pro- and anti-TorAnko shippers. For my part, I can see both sides of the debate while appreciating the literary intent behind this work's expression of the taboo (as I could when I favorably reviewed the arthouse classic Citrus). Besides, we must remember the qualifier of alternate-universe time travel that has landed Koshi in this steamy sisterly situation even if the preceding battle between Koshi and Koshi over the fate of Koshi left something to be desired. That was at least the third-most underwhelming time-travel battle I've seen, not counting the four from the future I haven't will not have watched yet by now.

All this leads to that pivotal question: Can the final battle with Shikayamada live up to the hype and wrap My Deer Friend Nokotan on a satisfying note? The venison stakes seem high enough, as Shikayamada merging with Tsucchi has turned her into a godlike being fully capable of achieving her goal of destroying all deer-based life on the planet. This coming deeradication presents problems for many of the characters, least of all the ostensible cancellation of the show, so I can't imagine the story would actually go through with it. Of course, My Deer Friend Nokotan has surprised me before, as in the shocking death of Bashame (she choked on some rice), so it might throw a curveball. Either way, I couldn't confirm where this will go by reading the manga before the ending. I'm a professional anime reviewer, after all, I'm not going to make time to check and compare any evaluations against the source material.

Okay come on, this is My Deer Friend Nokotan, of course, it's not going to go anywhere wild like that for its penultimate episode. This show has been decently funny for, I'd say, an above-average amount of its runtime, but it's not about to pull a Pop Team Epic with absurd ambitious animation crossovers or full-length Kōichi Sakamoto tokusatsu episodes. Simply acknowledging any long-form storytelling will communicate things well enough.

What's funny is that this episode does gesture at some sort of epic pre-finale confrontation, however unmoored from the overall arcs. Shikanoko's scattered stalking by a Matagi plays out like nothing so much as a kinda low-key Looney Tunes confrontation between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, just with slightly more gyaru. Which brings it up in my eyes, at least. Yeah, it feels like a bit of a rip when they build up Shikanoko manifesting an antler-constructed lightsaber bat'leth only to deflate the whole affair, but that's an anticlimax, baybee. Even having Wit Studio on the job for this show will only get you so much action.

The thing I can mostly give this episode credit for is its treatment of the now-persistent relationship between Shikanoko and Koshi that has carried the show thus far. Koshi finds herself realizing she's actually coming around on Nokotan after all this time, noting that in spite of herself, she still always gets swept up in her nonsense (even as said "nonsense" is the waaaaacky excursion of getting lost while going to buy a new tracksuit). There's just enough antagonistic anime chemistry here that I can appreciate the Koshi/Shikanoko connection veering into deer yuri. And be grateful I, at last, have a chance to refer to Koshi's attitude towards her horned homie as making her "tsundeere". I honestly wasn't sure I'd be able to get that one in.

Will those vibes and breezy entertainment carry over into the finale and the gimmick the show's set up for it therein? Hard to say, Nokotan's been nothing if not inconsistent. But it'll probably be at least as good as an expected, overly built-up faux-epic final battle. We get decidedly more of those in anime than we do dipshit deer girls.

Rating: The Deer-Hunting Minigame from The Oregon Trail

My Deer Friend Nokotan is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris doesn't want to burn any decent deer puns in the footer here, lest he need to use them in the reviews over the coming weeks. If you're really craving any extra aside goofiness, why not check out his Twitter or his blog? I think I saw some jokes on there the other day.