On My Deer Friend Nokotan

Seven Seas Entertainment debuted the first collected volume of manga-ka Oshioshio's My Deer Friend Nokotan in 2020. Despite the series running for eight volumes and leading to an anime adaptation, I had not heard of it until comics critic Tegan O'Neil mentioned it in passing, somewhere around the time O'Neil had written about Maid to Skate. The book's appeal is fairly evident from its cover and pun title: It's a comic about a high school girl who might also be a deer. That premise is, of course, an insane one, but, given that this is a highly silly, slightly surreal comedy, that insanity is more of a virtue than it is a detriment.Our point of view character is Koshi Torako, a seemingly perfect, model student. Her image as such has been carefully curated and diligently maintained, as she seeks to distance herself from her unsavory past. She used to be a delinquent, you see.Her facade of perfection is challenged one day on her walk to school, where she happens to pass the title character, who has somehow found herself hanging by her antlers from utility wires, snot dripping from her nose, birds pestering her and dogs and cats barking and hissing at her.After the two girls make eye co...