My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”: How Deerabolical [Review]

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” just continues the bizarre torment that Koshitan is fated to receive in this anime. All with the bizarre, absurd deer antics to go with it. Truly, this is an anime worthy of Looney Tunes.

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”: Details

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” is the second episode (you can read my review of Ep. 1 here) of this comedy, slice of life anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Oshioshio. Wit Studio (Ranking of Kings, Spy x Family, Suicide Squad Isekai) is the animation studio behind this anime. Remow is the company licensing this anime for its worldwide debut, allowing Amazon Prime Video, Anime Onegai, ADN, and Crunchyroll to stream it.

Production Cast

Masahito Otani is the director behind My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”, with Kenji Sugihara as the writer, and Masahiko Ohta as the storyboarder. As for the My Deer Friend Nokotan anime as a whole: Masahiko Ohta is the director behind that anime. Takashi Aoshima is the writer for that anime, while Yasuhiro Misawa composed the music for it.

Speaking of music: the opening theme song of this anime is “Shikairo Days” (シカ色デイズ, Deer-Colored Days) by Megumi Han, Saki Fujita, Rui Tanabe, and Fūka Izumi. Meanwhile, “Shika-senbei no Uta” (シカせんべいのうた, The Deer Food Song) by Megumi Han and Saki Fujita is the ending theme song.

Voice Cast

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” features the voices of Saki Fujita (Roo Ryder in English dub) as Torako Koshi / Koshitan, Megumi Han (Trina Deuhart in English dub) as Noko Shikanoko / Nokotan, and Rui Tanabe (Sarah Thomas in English dub) as Anko Koshi.

When and Where to Watch

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on July 14, 2024. You can watch this episode on Crunchyroll or Amazon Prime Video. In fact, you can watch the entire anime either on Crunchyroll or Amazon Prime Video.

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”: Synopsis

Alas, My Deer Friend Nokotan is an ongoing anime series. In fact, My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” only made its debut 26 days ago as of this writing. Thus, I will be giving you Crunchyroll’s official synopsis of this episode in place of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that synopsis below:

Koshitan makes herself comfortable in the room of the Deer Club, but her little paradise is quickly destroyed.

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”: The Good

Seriously, the story of My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl” is just pure insanity. None of it makes any sense whatsoever, and even Koshitan lampshades it herself. To the narrator, no less. However, it is because of this insanity that’s why this episode’s story is the best part of it. It’s the maniacal insanity of a Looney Tunes cartoon in all of its hilarity, where absolutely nothing makes sense and reality is at the whims of the characters. Specifically: Nokotan herself. Oshioshio definitely has a bizarre sense of humor, but it works very well here in this anime.

Of course, the story wouldn’t be nearly as good or deranged without the animation. Wow, that absolutely bonkers animation. Wit Studio are really letting their animators flex their animation muscles. The animation style just changes so many times and the characters have such insane animation themselves that it should tell you the animators need a raise. Seriously, when you have Nokotan suddenly go JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure for her face and start doing the wiggling like a chibified worm, then you know you have some seriously skilled yet demented animators at work here. That’s not even going into the hyper-realistic deer that keep showing up, looking like someone photoshopped them into the anime. I feel like those are going to be a constant.

My Deer Friend Nokotan Ep. 2 “Deer Meets Darkness Girl”: The Bad

Alas, even though this episode of the anime does have some action in it, it’s not the kind of action for action junkies. All of it is played for comedy, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. Not at all seriously in the slightest…mostly. If you want high-intensity action, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, Kaiju No. 8, and/or The Elusive Samurai. Those should have more than enough action to satisfy any action junkie.