Anime: Odd Taxi

Oh no, I’m finally talking about an anime everyone who watched it says it’s amazing and yet I don’t like it much. I know this is not going to end well, but I’m doing it anyways.

The thing with Odd Taxi is that it’s not too much of something specific. You are not going to like it if you are in a mood for only comedy or only slice of life. It’s a holistic type of show, very good for what it’s doing as a whole, but not very good at attracting a big audience with what it’s about on a moment to moment basis. And I’m saying that because I had dropped it several times as it was airing. I didn’t care about the certain episode I was checking out; a sentiment that was shared in the anime community. Despite the constant shilling of many bigshots Odd Taxi was never popular or hyped or talked about compared to your run of the mill action shonen. I mean, what is there to say if you are a casual viewer who checks out the first episodes? It’s a bunch of animals that are talking while looking very bored. There is no action or suspense or fan service or any of the usual shit that keeps people watching.

Obviously the show is rewarding you if you watch all the way to the end and you see how every character ends up connecting with the others, but what kind of an excuse is that for the average viewer? Every episode has to be exciting or captivating. Nobody can say the show gets good once you finish it. It has to be good as you watch it. Which wasn’t the case for most people. Me included.

The problem starts with how visually unimpressive it is. You cannot claim it stands out because it has talking animals, since there are a lot of shows that did that already. And you can’t say it’s beautiful to look at for long because the animation and the character designs are average at best. There is nothing for maintaining your interest and since it was deliberately made to look like it’s for little kids it further made sure almost nobody who recently finished Jujutsu Kaisen will bother to watch more than 5 minutes of it.

The next problem is how there isn’t much of a plot to speak of. It’s just animals talking about their first world problems. 80% of the show is just people sitting and talking, and it’s not even a sitcom. Most of what they say is unfunny. Sure, it’s a slice of life, it can’t have tension by default. It’s more about what the characters are doing, and how you gradually learn more about them and the setting. Unfortunately it has the same effect as listening to a podcast about two people sitting down and talking about random topics for hours. At the end of it you will have learned a lot about them, but it’s not like there was anything going on in the meantime. And I have to say, none of them are oozing with depth. They are one-note and have a one-track mind. Real people are not doing only one thing and are not defined by one thing either, thus the setting comes off as cartoony as the talking animals.

Also the only reason you have for looking at the screen is for reading the subs. If you could get your hands on the transcript or listen to the dub if there ever is one, there would be no point in watching the screen at all. What’s the point of this being a tv series when you don’t need a tv? It doesn’t make use of its medium.

There is also some mystery about a girl that disappeared but you are not going to be biting your nails while waiting to find out what’s going on. The pacing is so slow and it’s brought up in an almost casual manner like it doesn’t matter. There are a few scenes that can be considered high in stakes, but they end up being anticlimactic. People survive or don’t get punished enough even in situations that seemingly deserve it. The setting doesn’t come off as realistic as it wants to because of it. As for the great answer to the mystery of what happened to the girl and who did it, it happens in the last episode when the perpetrator casually reveals it while talking to the phone. Nobody exposed that person or somehow tricked it to reveal the truth. It just blabbered about it like it didn’t matter. Worst mystery plot ever.

There is also a plot twist of sorts, since it turns out none of the characters are actually animals. They are all people than the mind of the taxi driver was making them seem like they are animals. How does that change the plot of the show? It doesn’t, therefore it sucks as a twist. Just like the perpetrator it happened in the last episode and didn’t amount to anything. It was just a gimmick for masking the completely dull human character designs.

Adding to all that, despite its attempts at being down to earth, Odd Taxi is still up the ass in plot conveniences that don’t feel natural. The reason everything connects at the end comes down to people accidently finding someone or something exactly when the plot needed it. It happens all the time and comes off as artificial as the force in Star Wars that magically makes people who are related to each other, meeting up accidently in a vast galaxy.

In conclusion, the biggest mystery regarding this show is why did anyone consider it being amazing. It doesn’t have any action, the production values are average, the characters are one note, the plot is talking about a mystery that is solved when the perpetrator talks about it out of nowhere, a twist that has no effect on anything, very small negative consequences, and lots of plot convenience. It’s so obviously a bad show, it’s not a hidden gem or even something worth recommending. I have no idea why some of you liked it so much and I will never revisit it.

You are now free to try explaining why I am wrong and why Odd Taxi is the GOAT.

Once in a while out of nowhere comes an original anime that renews my dying interest in the new stuff from the medium. 2020 had a bunch of them but they were either quite basic or couldn’t end in a good way for being either too ambitious or rushed, or incomplete, or having bad writing near the end. This year’s pleasant surprise was Odd Taxi which unlike those managed to wrap up things in a satisfying way. It was made by the Pokémon studio and another one which I never heard of and had no previous hype before airing whatsoever, the premise isn’t amazing by any means either, just an anthropomorphic walrus driving a taxi, big deal. I checked the first episode out of pure boredom and by pure accident I found the title I liked the most from this year full of sequels of stuff I didn’t watch and new stuff I don’t care about.

Before moving on with the actual show I’ll just talk about the stuff I care the least about in a hurry, the visuals aren’t very good, the setting is just your more or less known Japan by any anime watcher with anthropomorphic animals thrown in but it looks good. The rest, not so much, the furries’ designs are simple and kinda generic but at least they are not sexualized, they don’t quite match with the backgrounds at times, the motions aren’t very fluent and the CGI cars clash a lot with the rest of the visuals.

As for the sound, both the effects and the music are fine, neither of them are nothing special but they do their work just fine, I don’t care about the ending, to me is just idolish crap which I always skip after the first episode but at least it fits a little with the show, on the other hand the opening is amazing, easily the best of the year for me, and it’s accompanied with catchy visuals too. The voice acting is very good to me, far more mature than what I expected and I was surprised by the performances, given the voice actors behind them, aside from a few of them, the rest gave an unexpected and refreshing performance, good stuff, Odokawa and the rapper were the best.

With that out of the picture, Odd Taxi is initially nothing really special, just a comedy about talking animals on a taxi, but the dialogue is pretty good thanks to the forty year old cynical Odokawa passively aggressively questioning everyone else about how futile the stuff they do or worry about actually is. From there, in a way, the series makes fun of modern things such as a guy whose whole life is literally dedicated to the idol group he’s fan of, another who dropped out of the university to seek quick bucks and fame by spreading lies and scamming people on the Internet and being obsessed over being relevant on social media.

It also deals with a gatcha addiction theme, a very relevant topic today, but I have to say I don’t think it was explored very well, since the character suffering for it has a very unbelievable tragic background, lost his cellphone in a kinda contrived way, and has very composed internal monologues reflecting on his own life for a character that is supposed to go completely insane. I know that his episode is among the most populars of the show but I couldn’t buy the whole thing.

But it’s not a boomers anime with a millenials are a lost generation type of message, the older cast deal with their own issues and are flawed as well, from an easily manipulated woman caught up on drugs traffic because of a naive love to a literal monkey desperate to marry with whoever he finds and just like the younger idiots he posts his income on the Internet. Heck there’s even a comedy duo where the older guy can’t catch up with the modern society, constantly complains about it and can’t up his game and is jealous of his younger more succesful partner, he is the pure boomer of the show and look how he is portrayed.

It also deals with dark topics within the idol industry being in shady and illegal business but I can’t go into details regarding that. If the series would stop at that it would be a kinda funny and unorthodox slice of life comedy with interesting themes in the background but decided to go further by becoming a crime adventure, an internal battle within two mafia guys which ties its seemingly at first unrelated stories kinda like the “Go!” 1999 movie which starts as a teen comedy and turns into a crime adventure midway. All the characters end up being caught in the main conflict and are somehow connected with the others by the end.

As for the characters, everyone is kinda colorful and has something that makes them stand out a little, such as the capoeira practicer nurse, and eventually most if not all of them have their background revealed and face the consequences of their actions and are affected by the events, going through their own character arc.

Despite all the good things I said about the show, I don’t want to oversell it as a kind of hidden masterpiece or something, since there are definitely contrivances to make the stuff happen and simple and convenient resolutions, such as characters appearing out of nowhere to save someone else or stuff like that, and whenever there’s action it’s hardly exciting, the choreographies are not very good and as I said the visuals are not very good to back those scenes up. Also things go Odokawa’s way quite easily, you almost feel like he can play around with gangsters and cops however he wants without much struggle and tension. Plus, despite dealing with different stories and characters coming together, it lacks the interwoven narratives used by those late 90s and early 00s movies such as Go! and of course those made by Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, or even Baccano! within the same medium, it’s much more straightforward in that regard. I can at least say that this title has better characters, as memorable and fun as those other casts may be, they lack the character arcs and kind of depth found here. Compared to those titles, Odd Taxi is nothing special and memorable and lacks the same level of refined style, but within the anime medium is kinda unique and definitely worth the watch.