My Deer Friend Nokotan Episode 3 Review: The Anime Barely Passes the Three Episode Test
----- ADS-----
My Deer Friend Nokotan’s premiere was a dizzying albeit promising affair. Its second episode followed up the first with what can only be assumed to be an amuse-bouche of tasty teases for the rest of the series: more unserious, schadenfreude-abundant, absurd shojo madness, complete with a sweet center. Neither, however, did much to lay the groundwork for a real, season-long story. With that in mind, a lot is riding on My Deer Friend Nokotan’s third episode, “Bashame, the New Student.” The episode itself is fun in a vacuum, but the jury is still out on whether it has enough meat on the proverbial venison bone to sustain the larger story.
If nothing else, My Deer Friend made it clear that it has no interest in wasting the audience’s time pretending it’s anything near normal anime fare. Unfortunately, whether the folks at WIT Studio intend to be beholden to norms or otherwise, Episode 3 will nevertheless be graded by anime fans against the three episode rule. Luckily for My Deer Friend Nokotan, Episode 3 puts some much-needed emphasis and exploration on Torako’s psyche, mostly played against a stoic CGI deer. This helps the episode ace the test with not-quite flying, but still vibrant colors.
Anyone immersed in My Deer Friend Nokotan’s oeuvre undoubtedly appreciated the first act of “Bashame, the New Student.” After its relatively relentless, borderline reckless, jaunt through (or past) plot, character, and other baseline narrative anchors, the third episode’s choice to literally keep still, if even just for a moment, was a refreshing change of pace. Episode 3 opens with what, in essence, is a miniature bottle episode shared between Torako and one of the anime’s trusty, crude photo-realistic deer. Torako arrives at the Deer Club headquarters to find its honored animal raiding the inside for deer crackers and assumes it to be a shape-shifted Nokotan after little investigation. That said, it is, obviously, just a deer.
----- ADS-----
