|
“ | Nun! | „ |
~ Nokotan's catchphrase |
“ | Notsu! | „ |
~ Nokotan's typical greeting (localised as Nroh in English) |
“ | I'll do anything for deer crackers! | „ |
~ Noko proclaiming her love of deer crackers to Anko |
Noko Shikanoko is the titular deuteragonist of the comedy manga and anime series My Deer Friend Nokotan, or also known as Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan in Japanese.
She is a hybrid-deer girl who was saved by a high school student Torako Koshi from hanging on power lines. However, this would cause Torako's life to take a bizarre turn as Noko's unpredictable and nonsensical antics cause chaos and mayhem in her attempt to keep a respectable image.
It's later revealed that she's an ex-trainee of the top secret cartel Deer's Den, causing her to be pursued in the finale by their agents, deer-themed Japanese mascots, for leaving the organisation out of laziness.
She is voiced by Megumi Han (who also voiced Gon Freecss in Hunter × Hunter and Atsuko Kagari in Little Witch Academia) in Japanese and by Trina Deuhart in English.
Appearance[]
Noko is an innocent-looking teenage deer girl with neck-length brown hair, standing at a shorter height than Torako. She is usually dressed in her standard female white Japanese school uniform consisting of a white sailor-style blouse with blue accents and a teal neckerchief, paired with a navy blue pleated skirt. She is also wearing knee-high socks and brown loafers. The interior of Noko's skull is completely hollow, and she has green irises in the anime and totally black irises in the manga. Noko later gains some slight toning around her arms after training with Torako to fight Sento. It's also revealed she has a tiny deer-like tail when she wears wrestling tights for the match.
Personality[]
Noko is a naive and mischievious girl with a humoristic nature. She can appear as a negligently sympathetic, leaving a mountain of deer crackers on Koshi's desk at school. Her innocence and cuteness easily entice others to observe her as if she was a real deer, with the exception of Torako who is the only questioning her weirdness. She has no sense of embarassment to conduct herself strangely, as a deer. Noko appears to be also an honest girl, shouting outloud Torako's secret as a former yankee in front of the class and declaring that Torako is a virgin and questions if she is not. Noko also tends to be somewhat arrogant as she frequently prides herself to be a master of things she has no credentials for, though people are awed by her regardless of performance. At times, she frequently shows Torako gratitude by offering either a mountain of deer "deer crackers" or her antlers to eat. Noko also cares appears to care for Torako, shielding her from getting hit by shurikens.
Despite this, Noko often hurts Torako unintentionally, blinding her with the "gamer horn", filling the club room with antlers and has at least once seemed intentionally malicious after replacing her straw with a horn. It also appears that Noko is actually more intelligent than she lets on, cunningly taking advantage of Torako's perfectionism and strive to be the best to get her to comply with her wants, as well as offering genuinely helpful advice and displaying an expertise in teaching others. This seems to be supported from how the town of Hino seems oddly deer-centred only after she arrives, making it possible that Noko has been gaslighting Torako into seeing things she never noticed before. She also seems unnecessarily vindictive when faced with struggles or suffering, threatening to burn down every cedar forest in Japan after their pollen causes her to suffer from hay fever. Noko also shows an unscrupulous side in the final episode as she's willing to cheat to beat Sento, though to be fair the stakes are high to prevent herself from being deported. Despite these flaws, Noko is overall a kind and cheerful person who is liked by almost anyone who meets her, even if begrudgingly.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Deer-Hybrid Physiology: As an alleged human-deer hybrid, Noko has various nonsensical abilities, few having anything to do with her deer side ironically. Instead, most of Noko's powers enhance her abilities to superhuman proportions, along with some select ones that reference her deer-like nature.
- Supernatural Antlers: Noko is endowed with a detachable pair of deer antlers that have numerous powers which seem to activate situationally. Powers aside they are apparently edible when cut thinly and used as rice seasoning, being noted to be quite tasty. Noko also sneezes and blows snot bubbles from her antlers, implying that they could function as a breathing apparatus.
- Explosive Antlers: As shown in Torako's battle against the delinquents, Noko's antlers can produce a devastating explosion when thrown, blowing up the entire school gymnasium and producing a shockwave powerful enough to knock everybody nearby off their feet. She can seemingly change their explosive power at will, making smaller ones that only lightly damage the arena she fights Sento in, though they do blow back the audience.
- Rapid Antler Regeneration: Noko can regenerate her antlers nearly instantaneously, constantly using them as tools despite being seen with a full set of them. If she thinks about antlers growing really hard, the antlers will rapidly grow and droop, even growing into a writhing mass that filled the clubhouse on one occasion.
- Control over Antler Composition: Noko seems to be able to create variants of her regular antlers, being capable of generating antlers made of solid gold and silver, as well as a "gamer" antler that shines in blinding RBG lighting. She also unconsciously turns her antlers into moose antlers when playing a board game, which instantly healed Meme when she was choking on a piece of mochi. Furthermore, Noko's discarded antlers self-animated into a sentient ball of antlers named Tsuchi, which as far as can be seen is a living creature. During her fights against Soichiro and Sento respectively, Noko converts her antlers into dual-wield lightsabers and nunchucks, showing that she can change their function at will.
- Antler Storage: Occasionally, Noko's antlers are shown to empty, allowing her to store snacks, often a banana, inside. They're also hollow enough to be made into novelty stamps which are worth quite a lot.
- Antler Sensors: Noko has a sense of clairvoyance that has something to do with her antlers which light up red when she senses something. By this, she deduces that Torako was once a delinquent and is a virgin.
- Independent Antler Movement: Noko's antlers can move by themselves while asleep, as shown from how they slapped Torako's hand away when she tried to wake her up.
- WiFi emanation: Noko can emit a WiFi signal from her antlers which others can subscribe to for only $9/month.
- Hollow Head: Noko possesses no brain at all, allowing her to remove the top half of her head with ease. She tends to use this for storage, mostly to keep more deer crackers on herself.
- Blending Apparatus: Noko appears to have a coffee making machine installed into her skull as when she offers Torako some coffee, she pours beans into her head and begins to dribble it out of her mouth, with grinding noises being heard.
- Skull-Swapping: Noko can swap the top half of her head with another skull with ease, seeing as after posing as the Deer Goddess of Hino Shrine for a New Years' Greeting, she retrieves her skull with her normal hair on it and puts it on, causing her to revert to her usual carefree demeanour.
- Flight: Noko can rotate her head at incredibly fast speeds akin to a helicopter's propeller, allowing her to take flight. This ability is revealed in the first season's finale, with Meme correctly deducing this was how Noko got stuck on the power lines in the first episode.
- Inhuman Strength: As shown from the first episode "Deer Meets Girl", Noko has strength surpassing that of most humans, able to effortlessly ram down two metal doors, crumpling them in the process, as well as break through rebar-enforced concrete simply by power-walking forwards. The resulting debris from this incident hit several students hard enough to make them bleed, though they seemed completely unfazed by this, likely a result of her charisma.
- Inhuman Agility: Noko is incredibly agile, being able to dodge a barrage of kunai sent at her by Anko not only from launching apparatus but thrown at her point blank, only getting hit in order to save Torako from a stray one. She also manages to outrun helicopters piloted by the Hunters' Association through a jungle and escapes them off a cliff in a fashion referencing Rambo, displaying her speed and dexterity.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Noko seems completely unfazed by any sort of attack thrown her way, laughing off an antler piercing her head that spewed blood and allowing herself to be boiled alive for three days so as to create some sort of sacred soup without any detriment. The only attack that seems to have had any effect on her was when Anko threw a kunai into Noko's heart, but even then she self-revived as the kunai barely penetrated, with Noko's spirit also getting kicked back into her body by the deer analogue to Jesus.
- Supernatural Regeneration: Noko can recovery from seemingly any injury without suffering long-term damage, returning to normal in a couple of scenes after impaling her own head with an antler and recovering in a matter of minutes after getting blown up into the sky by her own explosive antler.
- Elasticity: As shown from when Torako brushes her, Noko is exceptionally elastic, having a jiggly flexibility similar to jelly.
- Supernatural Senses: Noko appears to have some sort of clairvoyance, along with extraordinary smell and possibly X-ray vision, seeing as she sniffs out Torako's delinquent past and correctly deduces that she's wearing a white bra, much to Torako's horror. She also somehow knows a lot about Torako's personal life and is on a similar level to Anko in terms of this knowledge despite only knowing her for a day in episode 2 where this knowledge is tested. Furthermore, she senses Soichiro's presence as he steps foot into the school.
- Cartoonish Shapeshifting: Noko can manipulate her size and shape at will, assuming a muscular, masculine form referencing Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star whenever she gets serious about Torako's safety, as well as frequently assuming a chibi form that's small and light enough for Torako to pick up with ease. She assumes an abstract form with a simple face and limbless white body in the intro as well as when she contracts hay fever, though this could just be the pollen covering her. Noko assumes a Buddha-like form once when she's posing as the Deer God for one of Hino's temples and a shōjo-styled form whenever she talks about romance, showing that she likely has a great variety of forms she can take. Seeing as her clothes are apparently a part of her body, it's likely that Noko's abrupt outfit-changing is also her shapeshifting to an extent.
- Deer Communication: Noko can fluently speak Deer, working part-time with them in the zoo and apparently having a senior, being a deer named Mr. Tsunoda from the Hino Zoo. She is adept at commanding them to carry out elaborate performances and seems to be able to summon them as deer randomly appear anywhere she goes.
- Bioluminescene: Noko can radiate a yellowish-green light from her body, as shown as when she performs an act walking over the deer at Hino Zoo.
- Vision Projection: When tutoring Torako into becoming an adequate trainer for Deercon, Noko projects a vision of her idealised training into Torako's head. She also seems to summon a disembodied deer head which turns the landscape red as she prepares to face off Soichirō, which disappears as soon as he leaves to buy groceries for his wife.
- Molting: Assuming that she follows the coat patterns of regular deer, Noko sheds her skin every summer and winter, with the shed being durable enough for Meme to wear as a skinsuit. Only Noko's summer moult has been seen so far, though it's likely her winter moult is her default appearance.
- Elastic Mucus: Noko can generate a comical amount of snot that is surprisingly durable, being able to stretch down from the power lines she's stuck on all the way to Torako's head in the first episode, as well as creating a snot bubble large enough to refract Torako's face in the eleventh episode.
- Animal Summoning: Noko seems to summon animals wherever she goes, always being accompanied by a bunch of deer in the background, being covered in butterflies during the spring, having swallows nest on her head when she sleeps and even attracting the attention of hyenas and vultures, which aren't native to Japan at all, when getting stuck on power lines. Whether she has conscious control over this power is still unknown.
- Toxin resistance: The mushrooms that Noko illegally grows in the school gym and eats are fly agaric, a species of mushroom known for its incredible toxicity. Thus, it's very likely that Noko is resistant to various botanical toxins just like real deer.
- Supernatural Antlers: Noko is endowed with a detachable pair of deer antlers that have numerous powers which seem to activate situationally. Powers aside they are apparently edible when cut thinly and used as rice seasoning, being noted to be quite tasty. Noko also sneezes and blows snot bubbles from her antlers, implying that they could function as a breathing apparatus.
- Extraordinary Pain Resistance: Noko is completely unfazed by any sort of damage dealt to her, frequently hemorrhaging uncontrollably from attacks with no visible discomfort. So far, Noko has only been bothered by hay fever, which causes intense itchiness in her bones and body.
- Intelligence: While appearing air-headed and idiotic, Noko is actually rather talented, being a skilled teacher at things she's actually good at, seeing as she managed to coach Torako into becoming such a good deer trainer that she lured in Noko herself when trying to get rid of the deer. Noko also seems highly skilled at psychological manipulation, convincing Torako to rescue her by appealing to her conscience and frequently taking advantage of the latter's desire to keep up her model student persona to get her to do certain things.
- Incredible charisma: Noko is unnaturally charismatic, with people all around her getting charmed no matter how much damage she causes. She can make friends easily, charming Ms. Ukai into letting her form the Deer Club on the first day of school and even managed to convince the school body to set up a whole game show in order to duel with Anko for Torako's affection. For some odd reason, people always assume that Noko is a master of various crafts and talents even though her acts are rather idiotic and counter-intuitive. In the final episode, Noko uses this power to convince the crowd that she and Sento are both winners in their fight as she tried her best, despite resorting to cheating and being defeated every match, allowing her to remain in Hino as the Deer Club's resident deer. In the latest chapter of the manga, Noko seemingly manages to get herself hired as a first-rate dentist at Hino's dental clinic despite her idiocy and total lack of experience, showcasing her ability to manipulate others.
- Musical and Dancing Skills: Noko is a talented singer and choreographer, composing a song about deer crackers all on her own and choreographing the deers' moves during the Sports Festival performance. Despite this, she is terrible at the guitar and has no rhythm.
- Botanical knowledge: Noko is skilled at horticulture, growing a healthy family of venus flytraps and mushrooms.
- Supernatural Luck: Noko is supernaturally lucky, seeing as she constantly evades dangers that could hurt her, one example being how she dodged death by somehow blocking Anko's kunai with a batch of deer crackers.
- Chlorokinesis: By playing a rhythmless set of notes on the guitar, Noko can animate plants in a floral arrangement into moving about, even attacking people.
- Teleportation: Noko has been noted to warp from one location to another at extremely fast speeds, such as when she appears from the other side of the street despite posing as a Deer Goddess in a temple earlier. The show's theme song seems to confirm that this warping is teleportation and not Noko breaking the flow of logic as usual.
- Levitation: As shown from her time modelling for an art class, Noko can levitate without the use of her antlers.
- Logic defiance: While unconfirmed, Noko seems to alter reality in a way that makes things work in her favour so long as they're funny. This is shown by how she manages to block a kunai using deer crackers despite their flaky texture, and manages to inspire a whole crowd with her terrible speech and flawed arguments. In the manga she often clips through comic panels such as when she throws up in one panel, with her puke ending up on Torako's umbrella in the next.
- Fourth Wall Awareness: Like most of the other characters in the series, Noko is aware that she's in an anime and frequently makes references to this. However, she takes this one step further and manages to access the series's content in-universe, reading the first issue of the manga the anime's adapted from and streaming a clip of the third episode on a tablet.
Trivia[]
- Naturally as a "hybrid deer" and the focus of deers around the show, Nokotan has the deer kanji "鹿" shika in her last name.
- Her name, when formatted with the surname before the first name as is typical for Japan, spells out "Shikanoko Noko". This comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia "nokonoko", used to describe an action or behaviour that is nonchalant and brazen, perfectly reflecting Nokotan's boldly idiotic behaviour.
- Nokotan's greeting "Notsu" is localised in English to "Nroh", likely referencing her antlers as it's literally just "horn" backwards.
- Nokotan's antlers has caused many viewers to speculate online that she is actually a male or transgender rather than being born female since only male deers have antlers. However, since this is a gag anime it's likely she just has antlers to make it obvious she's a deer hybrid.
- This oddity is noted when Torako first spots Noko, making it likely that they were first added for a gag and then kept it for consistency.
- The visual Noko uses to explain her status as a hybrid shows her as a human being fused with a male deer, making it possible that this was the actual way she was created, hence her horns.
- Noko is likely homeless as she remarks that she just wakes up near school or in random spots whenever she goes to sleep, additionally never being seen going home before.
- Despite this, during her song in Episode 4, there is a scene depicting Noko in pyjamas in an apartment, which could mean that she lives in an undisclosed location or that said apartment was just a part of the visual effects.
- It appears that Noko's uniform is actually a part of her body as it gains spots during the summer along with her regular hair and even comes off when she molts, with Noko having an additional uniform underneath.
- As noted by Torako after she rescues Noko from the power lines, Noko is unusually heavy for a schoolgirl her build and age.
- As the two frequently blush around each other, have a close bond and are often paired together in scenes where the aesthetic changes to a shojō-esque one, it's implied that Noko might have some romantic interest in Torako, especially after she boldly proclaims that Torako is "her girl" to Anko in episode 2. She also "guesses" that Torako's thinking about her love for her and that she wants to buy gifts for her, even blushing after saying that.
- Noko suffers from an extreme version of hay fever, causing her to shapeshift and even sneeze out of her antlers.
- Seeing as Noko is apparently worshipped as a deer deity's avatar in Hino, it's been theorised that Noko is in fact of celestial origin seeing as her bizarre charisma, outlandish abilities and odd first appearance could be explained by having divine powers. Furthermore, the extended theme song also refers to Noko with celestial titles, making it possible that she actually is divine in origin.
- Teasers for the coming finale for the anime's first season show that Bashame and Anko have seemingly forgotten who Noko is, making it possible that Noko was just a figment of Torako's imagination or an even more enigmatic entity. This however, was later debunked as the twelfth episode was released, revealing that it was a gag.
- As Noko tells Kyun-chan that she's embraced her new life as "Shikanoko Noko of the Deer Club", it's possible that this means Noko Shikanoko isn't her real name but just an alias.
- Seeing as the season finale was the only episode of the anime that didn't use any of the manga's material, it's unknown if Noko Shikanoko is a member of the Deer's Den in the manga as well or if this is exclusive to the anime.
- As revealed in Chapter 34 of the manga, Noko apparently is licensed as a dentist, with her rank being very prestigious as well. However, as the license card is noted to be very dubious and Noko's procedures are rather illogical, it's unknown if she is actually qualified.