Shikanoko Koshitantan Anime - I’ve Done Enough Deer Watching
Written by Rei Caldombra 8/12/24 Video: https://youtu.be/Kin2bWc0Yx4
Do the deer live up to the hype? Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan or My Deer Friend Nokotan is not a bad show, but it is not doing enough for me. Simply put, this is a pure comedy that is not super funny often enough for me to keep sitting through the full thing. The main duo alone is not enough to carry the lackluster side characters, slower-pace, and tropey aspects. I have enjoyed it but it does not work as well for me as I had hoped going in. There will be spoilers.
I will be using Nichijou as a recurring point of comparison- not just because the community had already been doing that but also because Nichijou is my favorite pure comedy anime. This show suffers a bit from overhype, I think the blame is split partially between itself promoting the memey aspects and the community getting very wrapped up in these individual moments. People were calling it the second coming of Nichijou, which is an EXTREMELY high bar to encourage people to compare it to. Nichijou consistently kept me engaged and laughing so often my stomach got sore even on rewatches, but Shikanoko does not do this. It has some moments that are Nichijou level, but there are not enough of them with too much time in between. I will admit to sounding pretty harsh here but I promise I do not think Shikanoko is an objectively bad show and that you aren’t allowed to enjoy it. It is just not good enough when there is so much other purely comedic content available.
Pure comedies need to be extremely funny to be worth watching for me. I’m talking about the types of shows that are entirely focused on telling jokes. I enjoy comedy but I generally need a good story, characters, and other strong aspects alongside it. Some pure comedies I have loved over the years are Nichijou, Asobi Asobase, Azumanga Daioh, and Daily Life of High School Boys. It’s also worth noting when it comes to the consumption of funny content that we have a wealth of it available to us constantly now through sources like Youtube and social media. I can get my funny fix when I just want something to make me laugh pretty easily by going on Youtube. Speaking of Youtube, that is also one way to enjoy parts of anime without watching the full thing. For a comedy to be worth sitting through in its entirety, you need to keep the great jokes coming at a fast pace or have the slower jokes be worth it in the end. This is not a new thing, Nichijou accomplishes this incredibly well, pumping out funny joke after joke sometimes at a ridiculous pace and the slower moments being well worth the wait. With Nichijou, I feel like you’d miss out on a lot of great stuff by just looking for the best of the latest episode on Youtube or another social media platform. With Shikanoko I don’t feel there is enough in between the great moments. I will give it props for the great moments. If every scene was on the level of moments like the classroom entrance, getting kicked out of heaven, and the exploding horn then we could compare it to Nichijou. But the comedy is not nearly as fast-paced as Nichijou. with there being a lot more time between each top-tier bit.
Characters are the most important aspect of a story for me, and Shikanoko does not have a great cast outside of the main two. Torako and Noko are a great comedy duo.
The comedy is at its best when it focuses on them and their solid boke and tsukkomi routine. Torako being a ex-delinquent with a reputation to uphold gives her more to fuel her actions and reactions. Noko is super silly and random with a strong endearing quality to her. Her absurdism bounces off Torako well and allows for plenty of shenanigans for Torako to react to. The voice acting for both of them is also excellent and important for the hilarity of their scenes. But these two can only carry so much of a full season of 20-minute episodes. And when it brings in the other characters the quality of the comedy nosedives. Anko has a sister complex. Meme likes rice and is gung-ho about the deer stuff. That’s all the first 2 characters to be introduced after the main duo have. And I think the staff knows this too, they barely do anything after their introductory episode. And what they do have is not very funny for me. I just don’t find the siscon stuff funny and that is Anko’s entire character based on the first 6 episodes. If you don’t find siscon jokes funny then she is a nothing character. And with Meme I don’t get what she does other than enable Noko and eat rice. She isn’t bringing enough to scenes with her involved just like Anko. The other characters are the student council members who feel a lot more average and bland. The stuff involving Neko and the student council members is decent but doesn’t carry the more unique energy of the main duo. None of them are characters I haven’t seen before. This applies to the siscon stuff too, over the years I’ve seen these tropes plenty of times. Maybe earlier in my life I would have enjoyed it more. A younger or newer anime viewer who hasn’t seen siscon characters before may find the sister really funny. If people are enjoying this as much as I enjoyed Nichijou when I watched it for the first time then props to them. I’m all for people enjoying things, even when I don’t.
To continue the Nichijou comparisons with the characters, imagine watching Nichijou but you only found Yuuko and Mio or Hakase and Nano funny. It would be so much worse and you’d feel inclined to just look up their moments online rather than sitting through all of it. Nichijou has a wide cast of hilarious characters and recurring jokes that keep it fresh and keep you laughing constantly. But every time Shikanoko deviates from Noko and Torako it just isn’t very good. A lot of this may come down to the longer runtime of anime compared to the manga leading to scenes being stretched in ways that do not help the comedy. Nichijou was able to navigate this well, but Nokotan does not to me.
Some people can try to make this about short attention spans ruining longer-form comedy, but this is an overgeneralization that does not work well as a defense in my case at the very least. If you haven’t seen enough of me to tell, slice of life is my favorite type of anime. I love shows that take their time to build up to things with no bright flashy keys jingling in my face to keep my attention constantly. These series that aren’t constantly funny or flashy in some other way are doing other appealing stuff in between the big moments that are building to something- they’re telling a story, establishing characters, or expanding a world. Shikanoko doesn’t have any of that for me. So when the show isn’t being funny, it genuinely feels like it’s accomplishing nothing. The Toshi Torako Championship in episode 2 is an example where things felt drawn out. Torako being exposed and embarrassed worked for a bit but then it went on for 4 whole minutes. It was not funny enough to be dragged out like that and felt very repetitive. Based on gags going on too long, you’d think episode 6 would work better for me as it is a lot of short gags. But I just didn’t find those all that funny either. Nichijou felt perfectly paced, every gag lasting exactly as long as it needed to in order to be as funny as possible. Shikanoko does not feel as well balanced.
So to close things out, I will be dropping the Shikanoko anime. It does succeed at being funny through its solid main duo, but it is not funny as often as I need for a pure comedy. The other characters are pretty bad, not being particularly funny or providing anything I have not seen before. I do still have some liking for it and want to see it succeed, but I’ll be sticking to watching clips instead. I think I’ll check out the manga and see if the comedy works better for me there. I may return to writing about it if I have strong feelings on it again later. I’m glad a lot of people are enjoying it, and all the power to you if it is your Nichijou. Thank you for reading!
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