Odd Taxi オッドタクシー

2021 spring | Episodes: 13 | Score: 8.7 (230015)

Updated every Tuesdays at 02:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Streaming: Crunchyroll | Bahamut Anime Crazy

Synopsis

Eccentric and blunt, the walrus Hiroshi Odokawa lives a relatively normal life. He drives a taxi for a living, and there he meets several unique individuals: the jobless Taichi Kabasawa who is dead-set on going viral, the mysterious nurse Miho Shirakawa, the struggling comedic duo "Homo Sapiens," and Dobu, a well-known delinquent. But Odokawa's simple way of life is about to be turned upside down. The case of a missing girl the police have been tracking leads back to him, and now both the yakuza and a duo of corrupt cops are on his tail. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Hanae, Natsuki

News

Reviews

PLUPSIDUPSI
06/18/2024, 03:52 PM
I have to admit it, this anime was EXCELLENT. At first I had reservations about whether it was made for children. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and complexity of the plot, the compelling characters and the overall quality of the storytelling. The anime's narrative is well written and the characters are well developed, embodying the essence of a well-rounded and engaging cast. Each element of this anime has been carefully introduced, with a clear connection to the central narrative. The viewer is able to understand and follow the intricate story of this magnificent anime. Personally, highly recommended :)
HISQK4
12/24/2023, 07:53 AM
Without a doubt, this anime is a gem, and you will certainly have an amazing time watching it if you don't judge it based on it cartoonish character appearance. Odd Taxi combines between drama, mystery, and humor. I can say it has a pretty unique story with some incredible hints, also features really well-written dialogues, and the connections between the characters seem realistic. The cast of characters is very diverse. Aside from the grumpy taxi driver, you have two failing comedians, a validation seeking college student, a coldhearted idol, a foolish criminal, a nice guy doctor, a corrupt cop, and many other interesting characters who allhave a specific role in the story. And what an ending, definitely one of my favorites.
Renanzinhooo
09/19/2023, 02:46 PM
Odd Taxi is actually GOOD The japanese comedy scenes and soundtrack were the downside, and the slow pace storyline often annoyed me and give me thoughts about dropping the anime. In counterpart, characters and some pretty decent plot twists made a nice experience You are probably going to think about stop watching many times along the show, but the final episode will make it all worth it Odd Taxi isnt amazing but is not bad either, in my opinion the myanimelist score is a little bit overrated, i would give it a solid 8 If you like Mistery with drama and comedy, i would definitely recommend this And remember, watchit until the end, is gonna make sense and the pieces will finally connect, belive me Have fun
chloegc
09/09/2021, 09:32 PM
As someone who loves psychological anime, this show was an utter disappointment. Everyone talks about it as though it is a groundbreaking piece of work, but Oddtaxi is nothing close to that; it barely deserves to be referred to as a Durarara!! knockoff. The main source of praise for this show is due to the plot and characters (specifically the way they interact to move the story along). Despite the amount of reviews stating that Oddtaxi was a slow burn masterpiece, it is nothing of the sort. I am all for a large cast with overlaying stories under one plot umbrella, but that is onlyif it is done well. The amount of characters and their individual plots is too big for any of them to be well developed over the course of thirteen episodes. In an attempt to fit in the numerous characters, motivations, and plots, they all become shallow and bland. We’ve got good-cop bad-cop brothers, a few gangsters, an idol group, a lovesick middle aged man, and a number of other characters. That’s it. There is nothing more to the characters and they experience little growth over the course of the series. Even the characters who show growth amount to nothing. We see a teen fall into the role of an internet personality, and eventually realize his behavior is harmful. What does this have to do with the case of a missing girl? Again, I am completely for aligning multiple plots, but that’s only if they actually align. The only purpose of internet obsessed Kabasawa is to throw another character into the mix. Anyone can write one level, quirky characters and have them interact once to say that their paths have crossed. Had the cast been halved, we could have seen a deeper look into the psyches of the necessary characters, the plot would have been streamlined, and the overall watching experience would have increased exponentially. Other praises I have seen for Oddtaxi include its “slow burn, but high tension” format. Oddtaxi was not slow burn, but subject to bad pacing. Slow burn insinuates there is a buildup of intensity over the course of the show. Oddtaxi, however, remained stagnant for pretty much the entire series. Every turn was predictable, and it felt as though the writers were not even trying to create twists. At the end of the first episode, I got my hopes up thinking there was going to be an aspect of unreliable narrator, or even anti-hero characterization. This assumption was unfortunately incorrect. Odokawa’s suspicious behavior (referring to his constant watch over someone behind his wall) which genuinely intrigued me was summed up in something which felt closer to a comedic relief scene than a long awaited reveal. Speaking of reveals, the focus on the case of the missing girl, which was essentially only prevalent in the very beginning and ending of the show, was thrust onto the audience so abruptly and horribly I couldn’t believe it. After focusing on unrelated side characters for a majority of the show, the plot finally circles back to the idol girl group, and delves into the lives of one of the members for an unnecessarily long amount of time. And, just as suddenly as it began, the missing girl plot again vanishes. Also mixed into the final episodes is the big reveal of why everyone is an animal. This big reveal can be figured out in the first episode with close to little thinking. Overall, Oddtaxi simply does not deserve the unfounded praise it is receiving. If someone who adores this show would like to argue with me, please do so, as I legitimately do not understand what has everyone up for a standing ovation.
PixelB
09/01/2021, 09:06 PM
People thought this was a...masterpiece? Gunna have to agree to disagree on that part. I think people hype up this show because Odd Taxi is able to have separate storylines converge into one culminating conclusion and finale. But seriously, I really don't think this story was intricately woven, and nor are any of the characters compelling. Using the crutch that is the protagonist being a Taxi driver, having "coincidental meetings" happen that spur the story on while exposing our protagonist to trickling information each episode is not particularly difficult or a stroke of genius. This show is pretty slow paced, for better or for worse. Itprobably could have been put into a 2 hour movie without feeling like it was rushed in any sort of way once you cut away the fluff, and trust me, there is. All of these "mysteries" get conveniently put in front of Odakawa in an othrodox manner. Plus, these "converging" plot lines are extremely boring. There isn't anything amazing about tens of minutes of dialogue between two characters that coincidentally met each other that's being crammed into a story in order to progress plot. You're going to love seeing characters talk in a static background. If you're going to cram so much dialogue in, you might as well have something on the screen other than a three frame mouth movement for 30 seconds. In monogatari series, at there was a change of scenery, lots of of movement, just eye candy for the viewer to absorb not only with their ears for the dialogue, but also entertaining their eyes. It's really not that hard to have multiple perspectives of people and having them connect with Odakawa when there are so many forced and fortuitous encounters. For the most part as well, the conclusions of these plot arcs are actually either not even remotely related to the story or are only vaguely connected. Sometimes, they also abruptly end for no particular reason. So many characters with lacking personality due to little to no characterization are being shoved in and out of the story in order for there to be a level of "depth" into a mediocre story. Such examples include lame romance budding between Odakawa and a female interest that have a total of four conversations with each other, both with no particular reason to like each other than the director saying "well damn, we need romance" for some reason. There are also other far reaching ones too. There's this whole plotline with a comedy duo that never comes into fruition, Mystery kiss, which barely has anything to do with the main storyline other than a few forced convergent points and people, and a few others here and there. I really have to ask: "Why???" Having independent events be vaguely or forcibly related to each other does not elevate a story. I also had to ask myself: "are there converging storylines that I can think of that are good?" The list is pitifully small, so I might see why people think this is a novelty. Kumo desu ga Nani ka and Twelve Kingdoms is pretty good in that regard, and the only other story I can think of at the moment is stormlight archives by Brandon Sanderson, which honestly also does not execute this concept very well. But, all of them understand how converging storylines work: their storylines only converge after a decent period of time. In these stories, each character is left to their own devices for a long time until there's a coincidental meeting. You get to understand each character in and out before anyone meets with each other. There's this joy in finally seeing two characters in completely different circumstances that you have been following meet each other. In Odd taxi, you don't get that feeling because no character gets any particular development past their relevance to the plot. Yet, most characters who interact with each other almost never know each other before their "chance encounter." So you have to just drag yourself by the feet when they somehow become related or engaged to each other for no particular reason. The most notable example of this was the romance, where so little time was dedicated to it, but it still ends up influencing Odakawa in a major manner. Why not do something like Butch (Bruce Willis) in Pulp fiction in which his romantic interest is already together with him as a pre-established plot point? This story really wants to shove in your face in how random people meet and have relationships with each other but it just makes everything so artificial. How about Pulp Fiction? I mentioned the film earlier, but Pulp fiction has half the run time of Odd Taxi, yet, it does this converging story line in such a better way. It understands that random characters only have so much chance encounters. It's only in small moments that the main characters meet each other, and it's always a climax scene when they do. When they do not, they are in their own sort of story in which they build up their character and engage in great scenes with other side characters. Why does Odd Taxi not understand this concept? You're really not buying me with the story. Well, if the encounters are forced and singular plotlines are boring, then the converging plot lines and conclusion better be good, right? Hell no. I wish. There's this pretty predictable "plot twist" ending that builds off of Odakawa's eccentricness but it's pretty straightforward and not particularly worth the build up. if you really felt compelled by the characters, I gotta say, you got low standards. What the hell am I watching? Characters only change personality because of a "mystery" that you "figure" about them being "naturally" unraveled, and dialogue is as dry as the characters trying to carry it. I obviously put this story to a higher standard than a movie since, well, it's got 4 hours of screen time rather than the 1.5-2 hours that a movie traditionally has. Time pacing issues that a movie might have is less applicable to Odd Taxi. It's just lazy. There wasn't too much of a focus: the story tried to be bold, but ultimately it failed, and it bites them in the back. While I will forgive a movie for not having characters up to snuff, I really cannot forgive Odd Taxi for the same. Again, there are stories that have used this concept to great success, even in movies, just like Pulp Fiction. This show is extremely weak both in story and in characters.
xwoliex
07/25/2021, 12:44 AM
weebs you better chill. this is hardly something groundbreaking or genial as you'd think. it has a namedrop ffs. overall the narrative is competent, but it doesn't have anything meaningful to say besides being a character exploration thriller/mystery/crime episodic experience. all characters (even odokawa somehow) are one-dimensional and do not grow or change throughout the first season. every single character stays the same from beginning to end. the whole situation is so fabricated that it feels completely inorganic and confusing to some extent. the entire kakihana arch is borderline unwatchable because it feels out-of-place and so unredeemable that i honestly would see benefits to the narrativein killing the character. visually-wise, the characters being anthropomorphic animals did help a lot in contextualizing the plot but i have no idea why they thought it'd be a good idea to explain it in the last episode. it serves as a plot twist moment but it has literally no weight to the narrative (and the human characters look pretty bad). and oh boi the whole mystery behind doors in odokawa's place was one of the dumbest things i've seen in anime in years. the first few episodes were interesting and i could see some of the praise in its novelty and plot, but similarly to wonder egg, it devolves so much the more you watch it (gladly not as bad as wonder egg). a decent 'meh' in my opinion, i don't really see the point in watching a second season, especially if the characters are now human.
BruZZo
07/11/2021, 03:13 AM
When I saw all of the overwhelming praise that Odd Taxi got, as well as its premise and character designs, I got a great sense of excitement and anticipation. I'm very critical of the sameyness and uninteresting generic nature that most modern shows seem to have, and Odd Taxi's vibe seemed so offbeat and interesting that I was excited to give it a watch, ready to be blown away by great stories, awesome charming characters, and all sorts of unique exceptional aspects for this well-regarded sleeper hit. As I watched Odd Taxi however, I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. My brow went furrowed, myhands got clammy, and my face turned to one of concern rather than interest. This feeling of disappointment, and this feeling of missing something was overwhelming, but rather than mull over these feelings and just let them fester, I'm letting them out here because I feel my perspective on this show could be a unique one, so please keep reading if this interests you. I don't know if I'm just an asshole, or some fool who missed how good this show truly is, but Odd Taxi just didn't deliver. Odd Taxi consists of our Walrus main character Odokawa interacting and getting caught up with multiple strangers and acquaintances that put him in different circumstances, only for all of these separate stories to come together in interesting ways and forcing Odokawa to try and fix everything so everyone comes out of it okay. In trying to understand what was the standout and exceptional aspect of this show, I read multiple reviews, and most seem to cite the sheer number of interesting plots and how they're woven in with each other as an aspect of this show that is truly masterful, but I'm not sure if I agree. There certainly are a lot of stories going on here, but not all are equally interesting or developed as would be ideal in my eyes. Kakihana's story is one of a hopeless romantic getting involved with a girl who turns out to be into him for the wrong reasons, but there isn't a lot of interesting interplay between him and the girl for the twist to feel like a neat subversion. There's a big blue hippo fella who is obsessed with online popularity and makes it his goal to go viral, eventually getting people to rally behind him in his efforts to find and apprehend a dangerous criminal, but the way his story is developed doesn't feel super natural - we don't see why he's taken such an interest in Dobu, we don't see the depths of just how much he needs or wants online popularity enough to be effective, and we don't follow his story consistently enough for it to always be in the back of the viewer's head. There's a story of two comedians who start out as radio show comedians and slowly drift apart as one gets more high-profile opportunities, but again these two and their chemistry isn't great. They only ever act abrasive towards one another, and it isn't clear why either of them need the other one to do comedy, or even why either of them like each other enough to want to do comedy together in the first place. One of the more interesting ones is definitely with Odokawa, seeing this hapless misanthrope who can't help but get involved and do the right thing try and balance everything going on is pretty interesting, but you'd think he'd show some kind of exhaustion or something to illustrate the toll that all this responsibility is taking on him, but there is very little of that, and it's pretty nuts that such a socially distant individual is able to get on everybody's good side with such ease. The fact that all these storylines are being told parallel to one another in any capacity is impressive, and the way they come together is neat, but at some point Odd Taxi cared more about making the stories line up and end rather than the emotional content of each of the stories. There are very few poignant, emotionally resonant moments throughout this story, instead choosing to put most of its dialogue into exposition and elaboration between characters reiterating what is already happening, and as a result this show was a very dull watch. No jaws dropped, no smiles, no frowns, but a generally apathetic viewing experience that left me empty and unsatisfied. The writing of Odd Taxi has also been praised as Tarantino-esque, with personality and flair indicative of each character's personalities, but the voice actors here aren't exactly churning out top-tier performances and never blindsided me with a particularly exceptional line delivery. Comparing Odd Taxi to anything Scorsese or Tarantino though is ultimately a fruitless and shallow venture, since stacking Odd Taxi up against some of the greatest cinema ever made simply isn't a fair comparison, as Odd Taxi doesn't have the directorial expertise as either of the guys I've stated above, nor the fantastically varied writing that their best works have either. Plus, an anime such as this should be showing more than it's telling, and as is typical with plot-heavy anime, there is a whole heaping helping of exposition and elaboration here, which is never delivered with any unique characterful style. A vast majority of these lines, along with the way they're delivered, feel interchangeable between characters, and since there isn't much in the way of outstanding visual storytelling here, Odd Taxi's story and sequence of events is not nearly as engaging to follow as I was expecting. Technical aspects here are also very dull and not very noteworthy. The setting and character design is above average here, with very realized and detailed areas and very evocative character designs, but not much in the way of great facial animation or emoting. Shots are framed very rudimentarily, and there is little in the way of compelling direction to get some interesting ebbs and flows in how scenes play out. The soundtrack here has its moments too, and some nice sound design bits as well, but they are very few and very far between and just aren't much to write home about. All of this and a bit more piled on top of each other, episode after episode failed to amaze, and I've come to my conclusion that Odd Taxi didn't click, and it's kind of fucking with me since one look at the reception to this show across the internet shows overwhelming, well-worded and well thought -out positively ASCENDANT praise for this show, but all of the aspects of the show that should have mixed together to make a bona fide stunner of a 2021 anime made, for me, an above-average show with some good twists and fun moments that, while certainly a good attempt at a story of this kind, ultimately fell short of the mark, and I couldn't help but feel that familiar sense of disappointment and discontent writing every word of this review. I think on paper, there's a recipe for your quintessential sleeper hit masterpiece here: Unique character designs, a cool title, flew under the radar, has an interesting plot and story in comparison to what's usually offered, a great twist ending that recontextualizes the series, but in my eyes, after fully taking in all of what Odd Taxi had to offer, tackling the show on its own terms and assessing its quality based on my own taste and standards, I'm still at the same conclusion - disappointment. If I'm a complete fool and have got it all wrong, feel free to leave a comment letting me know your thoughts, I'd love to have some dialogues surrounding this show, especially given how disillusioned I feel with the general consensus. Thanks a bunch for reading this far.
megumun
07/10/2021, 01:05 PM
I swear this anime just looks like it's really deep and the story and characters are going to be developed good. But it's really just shallow show. Is it really that simple to trick you guys? I love how all the stories of different characters converge at the end. The last twist with the main character is also cool. I really like the main idea of this anime. But it was just boring to watch. Dialogues are not that important, it's not Tarantino movie, it's more like dialogues are needed here in order to remind real life, because anime is for an adult audience. The disclosureof the characters is not very interesting, they show why they are and how they came to this, but I have already seen this in other anime and I would not say that here it is something interesting and done with greater depth than I have seen somewhere else. Well, I think the new anime is just not for me. :)
jiji7878
07/10/2021, 03:57 AM
Odd Taxi is an odd case. I watched in recommendation of Gigguk's video, and seeing as I was already watching the most underrated "anime" of the season, I saw it as a challenge to the fantastic manhwa called Link Click. And so that's how I binged 13 episodes in one sitting. Let's start with its best aspect: the dialogue. People have compared this anime to Tarantino movies quite a lot, and just by the first few episodes, it's easy to see why. Tarantino likes to give people unique dialects (sometimes switching dialogue styles between interactions) and sometimes add in quirky topics to "bring" a lot ofcharacter out. This gives the dialogue a next level of authenticity, with the drawback that not a lot of story will happen. Odd Taxi replicates this style well. Since this style is not commonly used, it does give a unique feel to the anime. However, it might've done it a little too well. For the first half of the series, Odd Taxi tries to set up its characters with Tarantino dialogue, while ever so slowly building the story. It's so slow that I claimed nothing was really happening. And while the dialogue is good, it's not engaging or charming enough to really see into the characters, much less engage you for five episodes straight. When the story actually gets going, it's very clear from the start that the writer had an end goal in mind, and everything is set up to make the end goal work. In that sense, the story is quite good. However, some of the storylines were not as interesting or even fell flat for me. It takes so long to get the story to even start, and trying to juggle so many story arcs... sadly some of them were going to fall flat. This goes for the characters as well. I binged all 13 episodes in one sitting. And now that I have, I can finally see the flaws in recommending this anime after the runtime is done. Odd Taxi is a mystery anime to those that take its time to learn the mystery. The faster one gets through the anime, the less time one has to figure out the mystery before it is revealed. By the time Gigguk uploaded the video and recommended the anime, I was already too late. Overall: 6/10. Decent end and decent dialogue, but the pacing is quite slow, mediocre story, and meh characters. It is in an ironic spot where you want to binge it to get through the slow pacing, but you shouldn't binge it too quickly so that you can figure out the big mystery.
mrlordsaif
07/02/2021, 02:49 AM
I hope I don't say anything too silly, this is my first time reviewing a series and I'm also stupid, please bear with me. Characters; I'll get to the point, This anime may have one of the best characterizations I've ever seen, the characters feel genuine and their actions no matter how small, constantly have an impact on the overall story while also managing to be grounded in reality. IT ALL MAKES SENSE, and it's so satisfying to see it all come together. The dialogue is fantastic too, it feels like they're actually talking instead of trying to shoehorn stuff to try and accelerate the plot. If it'snot clear by now, CHARACTERS ARE A 10/10. Story; 10/10 The story gives you just enough information about Odokawa's past to keep you invested until the amazing payoff at the end. I really can't say much about Odokawa because I want you to go completely blind into the anime, I want you to find out about all the twists and turns because It's all subtly hinted at from the start. About the others, they're just as well-written with their backstories encompassing Lots of different themes. This story is so cohesive that I don't know what the story would be like if even the most minor characters didn't exist. I also wanna mention that theorizing about Odokawa's story and what the hell is going on was very fun for me, each episode changed my theory bit by bit and it was a delight. Sound; 9/10 The OST is amazing and fits the story, as usual. I can't stop praising this anime. The opening song is probably the second-best after Houseki no Kuni which is saying a lot. It's so relaxing and sounds good too. Art; 9/10 The character designs are very good, you can almost guess what their personalities are just by looking at them. Well-defined silhouettes, colorful and saturated color palettes which are in nice contrast to the darker themes this story presents, and everything is very consistently animated. 10/10 series, just watch it, bro.
ohkaekay
07/01/2021, 12:25 PM
By episode 7, it became hard to stay interested in. After hearing that Odd Taxi was just as good as Beastars I decided to give it a chance and watch it and I'm a little disappointed. The storyline was grew increasingly complicated to keep up with as the episodes continued. Between the multiple confusing and pointless side plots, it makes it hard to retain what's actually happening which made me less interested in watching this series. Pretty much what I'm trying to say is the actual plot continuously gets lost when all these other side plots and characters keep being introduced. The art and sound wereboth pretty good, I don't have anything in particular to say about them. The characters were honestly mid af. You have the mc a lousy, underwhelming taxi driver and the rest of the characters were literally just caricatures of the kinds of stereotypes you might find in any society today. Some of these stereotypes include the college graduate in debt, kpop stan, street thug, loan sharks, dating app scam artist, and the list goes on. The ending wasn't as terrible as I honestly thought it was going to be. Although the ending was definitely a plot twist overall I still kind of found this anime hard to keep up with. I think that the ending definitely is what kept my overall rating of Odd Taxi at a 6. Overall I rated Odd Taxi a 6 , because it's not that I didn't enjoy this series it was hard to keep up with and I feel like there was a lot of things in that just weren't necessary to include, which could've made it a lot better.
nazsa
06/30/2021, 11:24 AM
This review is in both English and Bengali. -----English----- In a word, a modern masterpiece. There is no reason not to watch this. It will always be a jewel in the mystery genre. Brief introduction: The story takes place in Tokyo, Japan. The protagonist of the story is a middle-aged taxi driver named Odokawa. His nature is to speak less and speak in a cynical tone. In each episode of the story he serves different passengers. In the story, he happens to be involved in the kidnapping of a high school girl. He gets chased by two members of the Japanese mafia. Will Odokawa be able to save himselfand go back to normal life? Story: 10 Great plot. As unpredictable as it is fun. Many seemingly isolated plot points continue running in parallel here. In each episode, viewers are given small clues so that they can take part in solving the main mystery of the story with Odokawa. With great direction and scriptwriting, the story has come to life. And the twist of the last episode of the story has taken it to the heights of a masterpiece. Characterization: 10 This anime provided the best characterization that was expected from a story centric show. Although the number of episodes of the story is low, there are a lot of characters. Nevertheless, one can easily connect oneself with the characters, understand their mentality, guess what they might do at a point in time. They seem to be real life characters. The side characters have also been carefully portrayed. Art and animation: 8 Somewhat unique art style and character design has been used here to complement the story. Although it was not dazzling, there was no deviation in the enjoyment. Sound: 9 Opening songs, ending songs, background music - everywhere the sound has been used in the light of the city pop theme. It fit perfectly with the thrilling story happening in the city of Tokyo. The director did not hesitate to use different sounds according to the mood of the story. Enjoyment: 10 As a fan of the Mystery genre, this anime was my best gift this year. I used to wait eagerly for it every week. I will remember for a long time the characters of the story, the cynical talk of Odokawa, the very real issues that come up in the story, and that strong twist at the end of the story. Check it out without delay. Watch it again and again. Because there are many clues scattered in this gem! -----বাংলা----- এক কথায় একটা মডার্ন মাস্টারপিস। না দেখার কোনই কারণ নেই। মিস্টেরি জানরার সর্বকালের একটা রত্ন হয়ে থাকবে এইটা। সংক্ষিপ্ত পরিচিতিঃ গল্পের স্থান জাপানের টোকিও শহর। গল্পের নায়ক ওদোকাওয়া নামের এক মধ্যবয়স্ক ট্যাক্সি ড্রাইভার। তার স্বভাব হল কথা কম বলা আর বললেও সিনিকাল টোনে কথা বলা। গল্পের একেক পর্বে সে ভিন্ন যাত্রীদের সার্ভিস দেয়। ঘটনাক্রমে সে এক হাইস্কুলের ছাত্রীর কিডন্যাপিং এর ঘটনার সাথে জড়িয়ে পড়ে। তার ওপর জাপানী মাফিয়ার দুই সদস্য ওর পিছনে হন্যে হয়ে লেগে যায়। ওদোকাওয়া কী পারবে নিজেকে বাঁচিয়ে আবার স্বাভাবিক জীবনে ফিরে যেতে? গল্পঃ ১০ দারুণ প্লট। যেমন আনপ্রেডিক্টেবল, তেমনি মজাদার। অনেকগুলি আপাত বিচ্ছিন্ন প্লট পয়েন্ট এখানে প্যারালেলি চলতে থাকে। প্রতি পর্বে দর্শকদের ছোটবড় ক্লু দেওয়া হতে থাকে, যেন তারা ওদোকাওয়ার সাথে গল্পের মূল রহস্য সমাধানে অংশ নিতে পারে। এর সাথে দারুণ ডিরেকশন আর স্ক্রিপ্টরাইটিং-এর জোরে গল্পটিতে প্রাণ প্রতিষ্ঠা করা হয়েছে। আর গল্পের শেষ এপিসোডের টুইস্টটি একে নিয়ে গেছে মাস্টারপিসের উচ্চতায়। চরিত্রায়ণঃ ১০ মূলত গল্প নির্ভর এই আনিমেতে যতটুকু চরিত্রায়ন আশা করা যায়, তার সবই আছে। গল্পটির এপিসোড সংখ্যা কম হলেও অনেকগুলি চরিত্র আছে। তা সত্ত্বেও চরিত্রগুলির সাথে সহজেই নিজেকে কানেক্ট করা যায়, ওদের মনমানসিকতা বোঝা যায়, ওরা কখন কী করতে পারে তা আন্দাজ করা যায়, ওদের বাস্তব চরিত্র বলেই মনে হয়। সাইড ক্যারেক্টারগুলোকেও যত্নের সাথে ফুটিয়ে তোলা হয়েছে। আর্ট ও এনিমেশনঃ ৮ গল্পের সাথে তাল মিলিয়ে কিছুটা ইউনিক আর্টস্টাইল আর ক্যারেকটার ডিজাইন এখানে ব্যবহৃত হয়েছে। চোখ ধাঁধানো কিছু না হলেও এঞ্জয়মেন্টে কোনই ব্যত্যয় ঘটেনি। সাউন্ডঃ ৯ ওপেনিং গান, এন্ডিং গান, ব্যাকগ্রাউন্ড মিউজিক - সব জায়গায় মূলত সিটি পপ থিমের আলোকে সাউন্ড ব্যবহার করা হয়েছে। টোকিও শহরে ঘটা থ্রিলিং গল্পের সাথে এক্কেবারে খাপে খাপ মিলে গেছে। গল্পের মুড অনুযায়ী ভিন্ন ভিন্ন সাউন্ড ইউজ করতে ডিরেক্টর কার্পণ্য করেননি। এঞ্জয়মেন্টঃ ১০ মিস্টেরি জানরার ফ্যান হিসেবে এই আনিমেটা এই বছরের সেরা উপহার ছিল আমার কাছে। প্রতি সপ্তাহে এটার জন্য সবচাইতে বেশি মুখিয়ে থাকতাম। গল্পের চরিত্রগুলি, ওদোকাওয়ার সিনিকাল কথাবার্তা, গল্পে উঠে আসা এক্কেবারে বাস্তব ইস্যুগুলি, আর গল্পের শেষের সেই জব্বর টুইস্টটা আমার অনেকদিন মনে থাকবে। দেরি না করে এইটা দেখে ফেলুন। বারবার দেখুন। কারণ খুব চাতুর্যের সাথে নানা ক্লু ছড়ানো আছে এই রত্নটির মধ্যে!
fishpun
06/29/2021, 02:25 PM
Genuinely a masterpiece of a show, and I don't use that term lightly. I'm not a "tough" reviewer for the most part - I'm actually quite generous compared to other people it seems, but I'm very tough on what deserves a full 10/10 and this meets ALL the criteria. This anime is so refreshing. No, the genre isn't entirely "unique", but the level of quality in execution sure is. If you often find yourself bitterly disappointed by seinen, especially of the thriller or mystery variety - you're really gonna love this. If I were to have one slight gripe with the show, it would be that Ithink more discerning viewers are able to see quite far ahead with the story telling. Trust me, there are some plot twists you are NOT going to see coming but overall, I felt like I could see the writers setting up the dominoes as well as exactly where they were going to fall... The strange thing is though, this show has a kind of magic that made that process feel extremely satisfying, rather than boring and predictable. I guess it's all in the writing and planning? Everything about Odd Taxi is a feast for the eyes and ears: amazing animation and art style, a SUPER catchy OP (on top of it cementing itself as one of my favourite anime, it's also earned the extremely rare title of "OP that I never skip or get sick of"), an awesome OST... as well as a great cast of characters whose lives intersect in such a complicated but always clearly well-written way... I could honestly sit here and write an additional ten paragraphs praising this show. Watch Odd Taxi.
Isacorn8
06/29/2021, 12:02 PM
I can't believe I'm actually writing a review for this anime but it was That good! I thought about it for a while and I cannot really find a flaw at all. maybe some nitpicks here and there, but not enough to drop it down to a 9. I absolutely loved how everything tied together and fit like a glove. All the pieces of the puzzle falling together in the end was super satisfying! I had no idea how they would end it but I could not have asked for a better ending. That's why, in my eyes it deserves a 10.
literaturenerd
06/28/2021, 04:03 PM
Odd Taxi is one anime that certainly lives up to its title. It is very odd indeed. The director is a complete unknown and this is his first project. The writer is another rookie and this is literally his first work as a professional writer! Odd Taxi was not based on a manga or LN or game. It's a completely original IP. To make things even stranger, it's being animated by Oriental Lights and Magic, the studio responsible for the 1997 Berserk, the first seasons of Pokemon, and a bunch of 80s and 90s anime. I had no idea they still existed! I thought theyhad gone bankrupt eons ago! So what is Odd Taxi about? It's about a cynical, smartass Walrus who works as a taxi driver in a city filled with anthropomorphic animals. So this is like Crunchyroll's attempt to compete with Netflix's Beastars right? WRONG. Despite the fact all the characters are animals, they never act like animals. They live in Tokyo and not some Zootopia city like in Beastars. Culture and technology is just like in the real world. Beastars completely revolves around the predator vs. prey dichotomy. Odd Taxi is not focused on that kind of stuff at all. Instead, it's actually a mystery/crime drama. One thing people will immediately notice about Odd Taxi is the sheer number of characters and simultaneous sub-plots. These 13 episodes are as densely packed as a neutron star! Yet this isn't because the studio was rushing to cram a bunch of manga into a limited episode run. It was written like this completely on purpose! Some people have compared this to Baccano, but that isn't an accurate comparison. Baccano only confuses people because it skips around in time. The LN is more complex, but Bacanno's anime only has 2 main plotlines, 1 sub-plot, and a frame narrative. It can be simplified down to: The fight with Szilard, Flying Pussyfoot, The search for Dallas, and Gustav with Carol. If it was told sequentially, people wouldn't think it was complicated. Odd Taxi is an entirely different animal! Pun intended. It has about 13-15 different sub-plots depending on how you're counting. This makes it very difficult to keep up with if you're watching on a weekly basis and not discussing it with other people. I would definitely recommend watching this show in a few sittings. There are some anime that are great because of the feels or how they tackle a certain topic or how they capture some theme. That's not really what Odd Taxi is about. This is a mystery/puzzle anime. That sadly means the more I talk about it, the more I risk spoiling something. There are some series where spoilers don't matter. I went into Ashita no Joe already knowing almost everything that was going to happen and it didn't make a difference. Odd Taxi is a bit closer to the film Memento. Spoilers would definitely have made a negative impact. That's also one reason I'm not sure how well this will hold up upon rewatching it. It has some really strong aspects like the dialogue, but I'm not sure the mystery will have quite the same punch the second time. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the art is not great. The animal character designs are fun, but the actual animation is fairly cheap at times. The CG cars also look straight out of 2007. I think Killer Bean might have better looking cars. At least the soundtrack makes up for this. The OST is genuinely pretty darn good. Odd Taxi very well might be the best new anime of spring 2021. I haven't seen "To Your Eternity" because I don't like to watch shows that are THAT hyped while they are airing. Despite that, my feelings on Odd Taxi are honestly a little mixed. I think it's one of the most unique modern anime I've seen in quite a while. I think it was an incredibly laudable first effort for both its writer and director. However, it's not a series that I'm instantly adding to my extended favorites. It's so densely packed and confusing that there was never one single moment or episode where I thought "BOOM! this is getting added to my faves!" It still might be added at some point because it is very good, but I'll have to re-watch it again. It's unfortunate MAL only allows you to review an anime once. I'd actually love to review this title again after sitting through it a second time!
suzuyakenn
06/28/2021, 03:27 PM
The whole anime community should now rejoice and plunge in the sea of pleasure and gratification considering the long-awaited and looked-for modern magnum opus of the entire anime industry has finally been brought out from the brilliant mind of the potentially next Satoshi Kon, Kazuya Konomoto, and painstakingly produce it at such utmost dedication—from the aptly cartoonish style of art and animation by which complements the utilization of anthropomorphism to strive for giving a truthful real life depiction in a cutesy way, the copybook voice acting performances that accurately express the persona's countenance, and especially noting the extant actual tweets from the characters circulating theinternet, the canonical weekly podcast series, and extras outside of the show so as to provide additional details to polish up the enthralling obscurity enveloping the whole setting— to give a much remarkable existence to this gripping mystery show that would undoubtedly be carved in the entire history of anime as one if not the most well-thought-out shows to ever exist. Akin to a notorious film noir, Odd Taxi flawlessly handled the entanglement and amalgamation of these deep and rare set of features for an anime: dementia, crime, mystery, cynicism, heavy plot — you name it, and Odd Taxi impeccably mastered it. This show here is a classic in the making. The new decade may have only just begun, but the new king has already been crowned.
NebulousNeon
06/28/2021, 12:47 PM
Many people will pass on this anime simply because of the design and art style. Do NOT let that keep you from giving it a try. You'll watch the first episode and think to yourself "Okay, I gotta see how this ends." and watch the rest of it. The writing is some of the best I've ever seen in an anime, the dialogue is snappy and realistic. It doesn't sound manufactured like a lot of typical shounen anime. The characters are interesting and there are several aspects to them you are left to wonder about throughout the entire show. It all comes together to createa near perfect storyline. Even at it's lowest points, it's still impressive. Do yourself a favor and watch this. The chances of you regretting it are slim to none. I've never watched a seasonal where the wait for the next episode was so difficult. That is how good this anime is. You have nothing to lose giving this anime a shot. This is truly a unique anime, one that was unfortunately somewhat overlooked this season and one that will likely top many "10 obscure anime you should watch" lists for years to come.
Atlos
06/28/2021, 12:07 PM
(TLDR at the bottom, thanks for reading.) Odd taxi is good. TLDR: Anime of the season.There is this issue I have with anime, especially dialogue-heavy light novel adaptations, where the dialogue feels like it was written by a robot. Very by the book statements that don't really feel like they were made by humans and were made by a computer program, at best the writers might try to add some personality to by having the characters insult each other and then pass it off as sarcasm. So when the first episode of odd taxi started with two radio comedians having an organic conversation it immediately hooked me because this isn't something you see in anime. In a show like odd taxi this authentically human dialogue is extremely important, not because of its plot but because of its characters. When you think of well-writen anime characters you might this of characters that develop and change but most characters in odd taxi are adults who have already grown because this anime isn't about people growing and changing, it's about society and the connections people make and in this massive web of connections Odakawa is in the centre of all of it. This is why a place such a big importance on dialogue because odd taxi leans entirely on its characters, it's a show that relies completely on its characters. The actual plot of the show isn't anything to write home about, a heist with some corrupt cops and a missing high schooler, all pretty standard stuff but since it has such strong character writing it can get away with it. When people are talking about plot in anime they often just talk about the events in the plot of the characters and how they develop, but one thing that often isn't discussed is structure. Most anime approach their story in a fairly linear fashion, event A happens then event B then C you get the idea, but not odd taxi. Odd taxi's story happens by a group of random characters living their life and one small event leads to another which leads another, which leads to another. The story then unfolds in an organic, and realistic, way. One of the main benefits of this chaos theory like structure is that it constantly keeps you on your toes, it is kind of easy to predict if you know anything about general storytelling tropes, but the main trope odd taxi applies is an absolute rejection of traditional writing styles and trope and therefor it constantly keeps you on your toes. All these little things build up, the lofi music, Odakawa's dry yet eccentric behaviour, the visual aesthetic, the structure, the dialogue everything comes together to make one unique whole. While each of these individual parts may not make a show good on their own the way the coalesce forms a truly unique whole. At this point saying anything more won't add much to the review, the visuals are constant on-model and memorable, the music is chill, the delivery of the plot and dialogue is good and you get the general idea of things. TLDR: Odd taxi is good
SingleH
06/28/2021, 10:28 AM
Odd Taxi is really good, but its reception is a little warped, as it seems to have found itself in this weird situation of being fairly obscure, but also highly overrated by those who actually know about it, and this is dangerous because it leads to a hugbox where no one is willing to offer negative critique. Odd Taxi is a refreshing and clever mix of genres and styles, and it tells a complex but ultimately grounded and human story steeped in its well-construed mystery. Many have compared it’s conversational tone to that of Quentin Tarantino films, and as long as they’re referring exclusively toReservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight, and perhaps just a tiny bit of Pulp Fiction, I might have to agree, and much like those movies, this was seemingly written by a prodigy. It’s not often you see something like this, but the person behind Odd Taxi’s incredible dialogue and pacing is a writer with no other credits to their name, so either they’re a genius, or their beginner's luck is working insane amounts of overtime. With all that being said, however, Odd Taxi is no masterpiece, and it’s ironic too, because some aspects of the show are so strong, they’re almost held back by other elements which don’t quite pull their own weight. It’s themes of self-esteem are very mature and perceptive, but they’re almost too ingrained in seemingly irrelevant and thereby misleadingly innocuous visual symbols, so one would hardly be at fault for assuming this show had nothing to say at all until the very end when it clearly explains itself to anyone not paying close enough attention. It’s subpar voice acting almost undercuts how good the dialogue is, and visually, the ugly CG cars make the otherwise perfectly constructed atmosphere of the show feel less complete then it had any right feeling. And speaking of the mood, the music is often some of the best around, but then during some casual conversations, it’ll play this obnoxious semi-comedic track which just kills the realism the script worked so hard to instate. But these are borderline nitpicks. Forgive me for feeling the need to selfishly impose my worldview like this, but personally, I believe that while idiots who call dog shit a masterpiece are just funny to laugh at, people who call quality entertainment a masterpiece when it doesn’t quite deserve it are worth challenging, because we owe it to the creators of good and thoughtful anime to offer their work good and thoughtful critique. Provided this, it’s time to gush. Odd Taxi is great, and personally, I found it shockingly compelling. It’s comedy is not only genuinely funny, but it never overstays its welcome and is weaved through conversation naturally. It has a real sense of wittiness, and constantly capitalizes on its ability to establish unique and diverse character personalities one after another. The main character, Odokawa, is this autistic, jaded, contrarian, middle-aged asshole, and having realized this was a show which was actually going to have real-feeling characters, I immediately knew it’s praise was warranted, because as basic of a feat as this may seem, little TV can achieve even one character who is this well-realized, and Odd Taxi has countless. It’s just so good at capturing subtle fluctuations in awkwardness and intimacy in conversation that every personality feels well-balanced and sensible, and despite its ostensibly silly character designs (which scream their thematic relevance), the actual characterization is nothing if not lifelike. The art design and backgrounds aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re far better drawn, more detailed, and more aesthetically adherent than 99.9% of anime airing these days, and overall, it remains a lovely little show throughout all its twists and turns. While I hope this review can distinguish itself from the mass of overtly unbridled praise many of its fans are showering this show with, I must admit I very quickly began to adore this show, and I believe anyone who can appreciate a script which is honestly too good for its own good will feel the same way. Thank you for reading.
KANLen09
06/28/2021, 10:28 AM
THIS IS A HIGH AND TALL ORDER PSA: Aside that this will be a VERY HEAVILY NON-SPOILERY review, go figure out things yourself if you truly want to enjoy Odd Taxi to the fullest. And I highly swear by my guarantee: the rewarding payoff is much better that way. This is a criminally underrated, underwatched/overlooked hidden diamond gem of an intrically made complex and gobsmacking show YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON! In my very honest-to-marvellous-greatness, this show a.k.a Odd Taxi has been far in the way, the most frustratingly challenging review of all time for me to pen down a non-spoilery review ina very long time (that gives me headaches of the absurdly mind-boggling kind), simply because: - It not just joins in the fray of 2021's setting of "ridiculously, notoriously high standard" bars of original anime of the likes of Wonder Egg Priority or even Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song; - Not just because it's gonna be a modern-day cult classic of a masterpiece through and through; - Heck, not even its subverting setting and themes which encapsulates everything about an ARG-like film noir; BUT BECAUSE IT'S HEAVILY SLEPT UPON by the anime community which gives no two flying Fs about anthropomorphic "furry" shows that Odd Taxi is one, but not at the same time. It's a devastating shame that only those of us (like me) whom have watched this show can appreciate that Odd Taxi is NO DOUBT THE BEST ANIME of the Spring 2021 season that no one is watching, BAR NONE! And it's massively thanks to the production staff at P.I.C.S (for the most part with director Baki Kinoshita and scriptwriter-cum-series composer Kazuya Konomoto) and OLM's Team Yoshioka for giving us such a tightly compact, outstanding, pièce de résistance masterpiece of a brillantly thought-out mystery thriller of a show that's unlike anything ever seen in anime before (lest if you count Durarara!, Baccano, or even "Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei" in that sense). You know me: If you're reading this review, you know that like many others outside of MAL in Reddit or even in a specialized Discord group have been discussing and sharing potential theories for the last 3 months when this show was airing, I might not be the first to jump into that gun. But not just in the very elaborate episodic discussions (that I felt like I was the Sensei dishing out those answers to everyone who are lazy in being detective sleuths, which I say: "Why the hell are you lazy-bums?"), the real joy of enjoying Odd Taxi to the fullest is to be like Sherlock Holmes, going in-depth with people who are like-minded and try to figure out the 5W1Hs of how everything came to be from the very beginning. It's very low-key in wanting to accomplish its "Inception" like thematics, and both Baki Kinoshita and Kazuya Konomoto really did use all of the mixed media mediums to corporate all of the "occult"-style hidden juxtapositions that is meant for the audience to truly be Odd Taxi's version of Holmes, both in and out of the anime. The film noir we didn't know we needed, and it was a total blast from start to finish. Just for context, let me give you the preface of what Odd Taxi is about: "41-year-old Hiroshi Odokawa is is an eccentric, reticent talking walrus of a taxi driver, who has no relatives and does not have much to do with others. He does have conversations with his customers, including a college student who wants to go viral, a nurse hiding a secret, an unsuccessful comedian, a street rough, and an up-and-coming idol. These conversations lead him to a girl who has disappeared." If you're thinking that this premise does sound "Odd", given its very aptly named title, that's because it purposefully meant to be a subtle and covert message that everything that happens within this show, NOTHING happens out of coincidence: everything is intertwined together, one way or another, even in the smallest of ways that brings the setting and characters together for such "idiosyncratic" events like this. Don't blink, or you might miss a beat and rewind 10 seconds to see the untold messages. So strap in your seat belts, folks! We're going where the night is right, the city lights are bright, and the conversations are tight in this very strange and peculiar world named Odd Taxi. Before that, I would also like to preface what is the company P.I.C.S all about from the debut director Baki Kinoshita himself (most of which was taken from the ANN interview and changed for nuance, so plagiarism issue solved); P.I.C.S is a production company that handles all kinds of visual works, including advertisements, music videos, live footage, dramas, and films. Serving the role of a character designer and animation director, Kinoshita's impetus for working on TV shows is his desire to create an entertainment work with dramatic elements that depict character growth, which sadly can't be gotten out of a commercial or a oneshot comedy (his inspiration being influenced by Studio Ghibli and Satoshi Kon's works, which it all finally clicks). Working together in the amazingly tightly-packed script for Odd Taxi with writer Kazuya Konomoto (his other work being a hidden gem of a manga: Setoutsumi), I'll just slot a PR for this: Go and read Setoutsumi (which I did before penning this review down), the story itself is conventional to the tropes and clichés of the modern age, but what the hell that Konomoto did was to flip it entirely on its head, giving a whole new rhyme and feeling to his creative inventiveness that "nothing and everything made sense". After watching Odd Taxi and reflecting back on Setoutsumi, it is very clear on its succinct approach to creative storytelling that will blow the minds of people. Back to Odd Taxi, Kinoshita is the character designer, and Konomoto is the scriptwriter and series composer. He had the loose idea for things like an individual taxi driver, but Konomoto was the one who fleshed out the characters and plot beats, as is the story with juxtapositioning ironic and enjoyable comedy elements with the darkness of society with the tight refines with the sense of balance is very tonely refined (which I can firmly say that I've really been taken aback each and every episode). The narrative structure, the meticulous foreshadowing, the characterization…every element is superb in his view, as is the script for the show (AND YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT WAS!). The key to Odd Taxi's eccentricness was the decision to go anthropomorphic with animals instead of humans, a realistic story about the human condition with cute animal visuals. If a heavy story has a cute-looking surface, it mitigates the feeling of gloominess and expands the scope of the story. Both him and Konomoto had confidence that the dissonance brought out by the contrast would be compelling, and that's not just to say about the foreshadowing weaved throughout the entire story. There will be mysteries right to the very end, so the elements are quite strongly pronounced. At the point when the mysteries are being solved, you can see the backbone of the characters, then feel the drama...it's an anime that juggles both its mystery and its human drama elements to an equal (but insane perfection of a) degree. Another key element of Odd Taxi, was getting the voice actors that are a complete un-hoax of an unorthodox (aside from the famous ones), that along with the entire mystery of Odd Taxi, brings another compelling reason why this show is SO doggone perfect. Casting Natsuki Hanae as the cynical 41-year-old Walrus, you've heard his voice go around a lot recently thanks to his massively successful role as Kimetsu no Yaiba's lead MC Tanjirou Kamado. So for Kinoshita to cast him (which does not sound like Natsuki-san's voice at all), it was an interesting choice nonetheless to potray the kind of character who became an adult while dragging along his childlike heart. To be frank, Kinoshita didn't want to make him the typical middle-aged guy with a gruff and austere attitude, but wanted to express his internal youth and purity of his heart. Odokawa may have a cold side, but he makes witty retorts and his conversations bring out his youth as not just an older guy who has given up on various aspects of his life. And as such, Natsuki Hanae's portrait of Odokawa as the middle-aged guy, while also bringing out his cool and collected side, has energy and vigor in the depths of his voice, and is a perfect suit for Odokawa. Also, the comedic conversations and verbal exchanges are a very important part, so Kinoshita wanted to get professional comedians involved for those (the comedic duo of the Homosapiens: rhino Shibakagi and horse Baba, voiced by entertainers from the Yoshimoto Kogyo talent agency: Yuusuke and Atsuhiro Tsuda respectively). In order to bring out the feeling of reality when it comes to the gaps in conversations and the warmth, the pre-score voices are recorded ahead of time and afterwards made the images match them. This unorthodox approach follows up to the cast for some examples (who are complete unknowns): the Daimon brothers with Kousei and Asei, Taichi Kabasawa with Takashi, heck even rapper METEOR got in the fun being the "Handshake" porcupine-rapping Yano. These so-called pseudonym-but-real VAs are not what you typically expect of the anime industry, so to see Kinoshita going far as to recruit actual real-life prominent figures makes the icing on the cake much sweeter. If you wanna understand how much Odd Taxi is playing hooky with the audience, let me direct you to these references (again, NON-SPOILERY): - First and foremost, is the YouTube MV for the OP of Odd Taxi. Sure, as is every full-length song that you could find on Spotify that you can hear if it's your favourite songs of the season, even with the cool anime OP visuals, Baki Kinoshita goes one step further into integrating the anime scenes with the MV, making it look like a sneaky, non-canon of a foreshadowing sequence of events. There are a lot of scenes to take in, because as you constantly watch the anime and go back to the MV, that is where the sublime mystery all clicks up. Even to the point of getting famous rappers such as OMSB, METEOR and VaVa, as is comedians Yuusuke and Atsuhiro Tsuda, along with typical anime VAs Riho Iida and Saori Terai, all of them are a teaser to what the anime has going for its progression. Other than that, Odd Taxi's OP by Wataru Sawabe (Skirt) and PUNPEE is a total blast of a catchy, laid-back, low-fi, city pop of a juggernaut song that gives the whole anime a peace vibe of a mood. Honestly though, the Spring season has a lot of good (and few amazing like Vivy, 86, Megalo Box 2: Nomad) OSTs, but Odd Taxi knows how to hit with full cylinders pumping, and as such, it's the No. 1 spot of OPs for me this season, NO QUESTION. I just love this song to bits, and only Odd Taxi watchers can follow up with that vibe. The ED with Suzuko Mimori and the insert songs with its pseudonymly named "Mystery Kiss" group, it can take a while to get used to the various idol songs, but it's all good as well. - Secondly, it's the official YouTube channel, which also has a non-canon hidden story about normal objects, which is intricately placed in the anime in full hidden view, and used as devices to snively record normal day-to-day conversations that would have been otherwise classified as an "Extras" of sorts. Hey y'all, these are MORE than just your typical "Extras", they are also integral to piecing the smaller puzzle pieces with the main plot. By the time this review is up, most (if not all) of the audio drama would've been fully translated and posted on YouTube or even the compact Fandom page (which I DO NOT recommend to go in the early stages because of heavy spoilers lest you searched for something else, only go there once you're 3 episodes deep into it). - Thirdly, is the official character cast graph. I'd highly doubt that most of you would've made the effort to scour the official Japanese website when the anime started airing for the character cast (and some that actually caught on), but a few wittingly apt people have already made the translations to the big picture of the character connections, so the information is readily available at the places you will expect. Again, please DO NOT spoil yourself by referring to it early on, you're doing a major disservice to yourself (unless you're watching it and need some help). - Last but not least, it's a rando Twitter account that is also non-canon to the story, AND YES, you're hearing it correctly. I've already hidden that link in the discussion forum (you should be able to identify as much from my shared topic), so please check that out also. You should already get the gist that it's also a small integral part to the Odd Taxi story. I understand why you'll want to get a studio such as OLM, popular for the Pokémon series, to create such a kiddy feel of a show that doesn't detract the visuals amidst a film noir-like mystery thriller masterpiece show in the making. OLM's Team Yoshioka having only done a few shows and films made for kids, and Odd Taxi lends that abstractness to the team's unique calibre. It's definitely an unique piece of media, made by a unique production team, crafted by well thought-out people, that only the people who watch Odd Taxi (like yours truly), will find this to be a modern day triumph of a sensational showpiece figure of a cult classic for the 2020s. If Quentin Tarantino had a side job that he would've like to produce an anime for, Odd Taxi would be one to fit within his brilliantly crafted mindset that will always aim to play mindgames with the audience, and you'll be seeing twice or more with the "Inception" like feel that will never get old. Nevertheless, I BEG ON MY KNEES (even with a Dogeza) to ask you to watch Odd Taxi, this is THE one show where nobody gives a crap about "furry" shows. But laying deep within the rabbit hole, is a thriller story beyond anything you could ever imagine to come out of the anime spectrum. An abnormally peculiar rare show that you won't find anywhere else (that I'll ever swear until my time has come), and a tremendously ironic, yet surrealistic monumental classic for the ages. That said, GO WATCH ODD TAXI! STOP SLEEPING ON IT! This is unanimously easily my absolute favourite AOTS, even down to being an undisputed AOTY with a double-confirm plus chop with so many big hits registered in 2021 alone.

Odd Taxi オッドタクシー

2021 spring | Episodes: 13 | Score: 8.7 (230015)

Updated every Tuesdays at 02:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Streaming: Crunchyroll | Bahamut Anime Crazy

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Hanae, Natsuki

News

Reviews

PLUPSIDUPSI
06/18/2024, 03:52 PM
I have to admit it, this anime was EXCELLENT. At first I had reservations about whether it was made for children. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and complexity of the plot, the compelling characters and the overall quality of the storytelling. The anime's narrative is well written and the characters are well developed, embodying the essence of a well-rounded and engaging cast. Each element of this anime has been carefully introduced, with a clear connection to the central narrative. The viewer is able to understand and follow the intricate story of this magnificent anime. Personally, highly recommended :)
HISQK4
12/24/2023, 07:53 AM
Without a doubt, this anime is a gem, and you will certainly have an amazing time watching it if you don't judge it based on it cartoonish character appearance. Odd Taxi combines between drama, mystery, and humor. I can say it has a pretty unique story with some incredible hints, also features really well-written dialogues, and the connections between the characters seem realistic. The cast of characters is very diverse. Aside from the grumpy taxi driver, you have two failing comedians, a validation seeking college student, a coldhearted idol, a foolish criminal, a nice guy doctor, a corrupt cop, and many other interesting characters who allhave a specific role in the story. And what an ending, definitely one of my favorites.
Renanzinhooo
09/19/2023, 02:46 PM
Odd Taxi is actually GOOD The japanese comedy scenes and soundtrack were the downside, and the slow pace storyline often annoyed me and give me thoughts about dropping the anime. In counterpart, characters and some pretty decent plot twists made a nice experience You are probably going to think about stop watching many times along the show, but the final episode will make it all worth it Odd Taxi isnt amazing but is not bad either, in my opinion the myanimelist score is a little bit overrated, i would give it a solid 8 If you like Mistery with drama and comedy, i would definitely recommend this And remember, watchit until the end, is gonna make sense and the pieces will finally connect, belive me Have fun
chloegc
09/09/2021, 09:32 PM
As someone who loves psychological anime, this show was an utter disappointment. Everyone talks about it as though it is a groundbreaking piece of work, but Oddtaxi is nothing close to that; it barely deserves to be referred to as a Durarara!! knockoff. The main source of praise for this show is due to the plot and characters (specifically the way they interact to move the story along). Despite the amount of reviews stating that Oddtaxi was a slow burn masterpiece, it is nothing of the sort. I am all for a large cast with overlaying stories under one plot umbrella, but that is onlyif it is done well. The amount of characters and their individual plots is too big for any of them to be well developed over the course of thirteen episodes. In an attempt to fit in the numerous characters, motivations, and plots, they all become shallow and bland. We’ve got good-cop bad-cop brothers, a few gangsters, an idol group, a lovesick middle aged man, and a number of other characters. That’s it. There is nothing more to the characters and they experience little growth over the course of the series. Even the characters who show growth amount to nothing. We see a teen fall into the role of an internet personality, and eventually realize his behavior is harmful. What does this have to do with the case of a missing girl? Again, I am completely for aligning multiple plots, but that’s only if they actually align. The only purpose of internet obsessed Kabasawa is to throw another character into the mix. Anyone can write one level, quirky characters and have them interact once to say that their paths have crossed. Had the cast been halved, we could have seen a deeper look into the psyches of the necessary characters, the plot would have been streamlined, and the overall watching experience would have increased exponentially. Other praises I have seen for Oddtaxi include its “slow burn, but high tension” format. Oddtaxi was not slow burn, but subject to bad pacing. Slow burn insinuates there is a buildup of intensity over the course of the show. Oddtaxi, however, remained stagnant for pretty much the entire series. Every turn was predictable, and it felt as though the writers were not even trying to create twists. At the end of the first episode, I got my hopes up thinking there was going to be an aspect of unreliable narrator, or even anti-hero characterization. This assumption was unfortunately incorrect. Odokawa’s suspicious behavior (referring to his constant watch over someone behind his wall) which genuinely intrigued me was summed up in something which felt closer to a comedic relief scene than a long awaited reveal. Speaking of reveals, the focus on the case of the missing girl, which was essentially only prevalent in the very beginning and ending of the show, was thrust onto the audience so abruptly and horribly I couldn’t believe it. After focusing on unrelated side characters for a majority of the show, the plot finally circles back to the idol girl group, and delves into the lives of one of the members for an unnecessarily long amount of time. And, just as suddenly as it began, the missing girl plot again vanishes. Also mixed into the final episodes is the big reveal of why everyone is an animal. This big reveal can be figured out in the first episode with close to little thinking. Overall, Oddtaxi simply does not deserve the unfounded praise it is receiving. If someone who adores this show would like to argue with me, please do so, as I legitimately do not understand what has everyone up for a standing ovation.
PixelB
09/01/2021, 09:06 PM
People thought this was a...masterpiece? Gunna have to agree to disagree on that part. I think people hype up this show because Odd Taxi is able to have separate storylines converge into one culminating conclusion and finale. But seriously, I really don't think this story was intricately woven, and nor are any of the characters compelling. Using the crutch that is the protagonist being a Taxi driver, having "coincidental meetings" happen that spur the story on while exposing our protagonist to trickling information each episode is not particularly difficult or a stroke of genius. This show is pretty slow paced, for better or for worse. Itprobably could have been put into a 2 hour movie without feeling like it was rushed in any sort of way once you cut away the fluff, and trust me, there is. All of these "mysteries" get conveniently put in front of Odakawa in an othrodox manner. Plus, these "converging" plot lines are extremely boring. There isn't anything amazing about tens of minutes of dialogue between two characters that coincidentally met each other that's being crammed into a story in order to progress plot. You're going to love seeing characters talk in a static background. If you're going to cram so much dialogue in, you might as well have something on the screen other than a three frame mouth movement for 30 seconds. In monogatari series, at there was a change of scenery, lots of of movement, just eye candy for the viewer to absorb not only with their ears for the dialogue, but also entertaining their eyes. It's really not that hard to have multiple perspectives of people and having them connect with Odakawa when there are so many forced and fortuitous encounters. For the most part as well, the conclusions of these plot arcs are actually either not even remotely related to the story or are only vaguely connected. Sometimes, they also abruptly end for no particular reason. So many characters with lacking personality due to little to no characterization are being shoved in and out of the story in order for there to be a level of "depth" into a mediocre story. Such examples include lame romance budding between Odakawa and a female interest that have a total of four conversations with each other, both with no particular reason to like each other than the director saying "well damn, we need romance" for some reason. There are also other far reaching ones too. There's this whole plotline with a comedy duo that never comes into fruition, Mystery kiss, which barely has anything to do with the main storyline other than a few forced convergent points and people, and a few others here and there. I really have to ask: "Why???" Having independent events be vaguely or forcibly related to each other does not elevate a story. I also had to ask myself: "are there converging storylines that I can think of that are good?" The list is pitifully small, so I might see why people think this is a novelty. Kumo desu ga Nani ka and Twelve Kingdoms is pretty good in that regard, and the only other story I can think of at the moment is stormlight archives by Brandon Sanderson, which honestly also does not execute this concept very well. But, all of them understand how converging storylines work: their storylines only converge after a decent period of time. In these stories, each character is left to their own devices for a long time until there's a coincidental meeting. You get to understand each character in and out before anyone meets with each other. There's this joy in finally seeing two characters in completely different circumstances that you have been following meet each other. In Odd taxi, you don't get that feeling because no character gets any particular development past their relevance to the plot. Yet, most characters who interact with each other almost never know each other before their "chance encounter." So you have to just drag yourself by the feet when they somehow become related or engaged to each other for no particular reason. The most notable example of this was the romance, where so little time was dedicated to it, but it still ends up influencing Odakawa in a major manner. Why not do something like Butch (Bruce Willis) in Pulp fiction in which his romantic interest is already together with him as a pre-established plot point? This story really wants to shove in your face in how random people meet and have relationships with each other but it just makes everything so artificial. How about Pulp Fiction? I mentioned the film earlier, but Pulp fiction has half the run time of Odd Taxi, yet, it does this converging story line in such a better way. It understands that random characters only have so much chance encounters. It's only in small moments that the main characters meet each other, and it's always a climax scene when they do. When they do not, they are in their own sort of story in which they build up their character and engage in great scenes with other side characters. Why does Odd Taxi not understand this concept? You're really not buying me with the story. Well, if the encounters are forced and singular plotlines are boring, then the converging plot lines and conclusion better be good, right? Hell no. I wish. There's this pretty predictable "plot twist" ending that builds off of Odakawa's eccentricness but it's pretty straightforward and not particularly worth the build up. if you really felt compelled by the characters, I gotta say, you got low standards. What the hell am I watching? Characters only change personality because of a "mystery" that you "figure" about them being "naturally" unraveled, and dialogue is as dry as the characters trying to carry it. I obviously put this story to a higher standard than a movie since, well, it's got 4 hours of screen time rather than the 1.5-2 hours that a movie traditionally has. Time pacing issues that a movie might have is less applicable to Odd Taxi. It's just lazy. There wasn't too much of a focus: the story tried to be bold, but ultimately it failed, and it bites them in the back. While I will forgive a movie for not having characters up to snuff, I really cannot forgive Odd Taxi for the same. Again, there are stories that have used this concept to great success, even in movies, just like Pulp Fiction. This show is extremely weak both in story and in characters.
xwoliex
07/25/2021, 12:44 AM
weebs you better chill. this is hardly something groundbreaking or genial as you'd think. it has a namedrop ffs. overall the narrative is competent, but it doesn't have anything meaningful to say besides being a character exploration thriller/mystery/crime episodic experience. all characters (even odokawa somehow) are one-dimensional and do not grow or change throughout the first season. every single character stays the same from beginning to end. the whole situation is so fabricated that it feels completely inorganic and confusing to some extent. the entire kakihana arch is borderline unwatchable because it feels out-of-place and so unredeemable that i honestly would see benefits to the narrativein killing the character. visually-wise, the characters being anthropomorphic animals did help a lot in contextualizing the plot but i have no idea why they thought it'd be a good idea to explain it in the last episode. it serves as a plot twist moment but it has literally no weight to the narrative (and the human characters look pretty bad). and oh boi the whole mystery behind doors in odokawa's place was one of the dumbest things i've seen in anime in years. the first few episodes were interesting and i could see some of the praise in its novelty and plot, but similarly to wonder egg, it devolves so much the more you watch it (gladly not as bad as wonder egg). a decent 'meh' in my opinion, i don't really see the point in watching a second season, especially if the characters are now human.
BruZZo
07/11/2021, 03:13 AM
When I saw all of the overwhelming praise that Odd Taxi got, as well as its premise and character designs, I got a great sense of excitement and anticipation. I'm very critical of the sameyness and uninteresting generic nature that most modern shows seem to have, and Odd Taxi's vibe seemed so offbeat and interesting that I was excited to give it a watch, ready to be blown away by great stories, awesome charming characters, and all sorts of unique exceptional aspects for this well-regarded sleeper hit. As I watched Odd Taxi however, I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. My brow went furrowed, myhands got clammy, and my face turned to one of concern rather than interest. This feeling of disappointment, and this feeling of missing something was overwhelming, but rather than mull over these feelings and just let them fester, I'm letting them out here because I feel my perspective on this show could be a unique one, so please keep reading if this interests you. I don't know if I'm just an asshole, or some fool who missed how good this show truly is, but Odd Taxi just didn't deliver. Odd Taxi consists of our Walrus main character Odokawa interacting and getting caught up with multiple strangers and acquaintances that put him in different circumstances, only for all of these separate stories to come together in interesting ways and forcing Odokawa to try and fix everything so everyone comes out of it okay. In trying to understand what was the standout and exceptional aspect of this show, I read multiple reviews, and most seem to cite the sheer number of interesting plots and how they're woven in with each other as an aspect of this show that is truly masterful, but I'm not sure if I agree. There certainly are a lot of stories going on here, but not all are equally interesting or developed as would be ideal in my eyes. Kakihana's story is one of a hopeless romantic getting involved with a girl who turns out to be into him for the wrong reasons, but there isn't a lot of interesting interplay between him and the girl for the twist to feel like a neat subversion. There's a big blue hippo fella who is obsessed with online popularity and makes it his goal to go viral, eventually getting people to rally behind him in his efforts to find and apprehend a dangerous criminal, but the way his story is developed doesn't feel super natural - we don't see why he's taken such an interest in Dobu, we don't see the depths of just how much he needs or wants online popularity enough to be effective, and we don't follow his story consistently enough for it to always be in the back of the viewer's head. There's a story of two comedians who start out as radio show comedians and slowly drift apart as one gets more high-profile opportunities, but again these two and their chemistry isn't great. They only ever act abrasive towards one another, and it isn't clear why either of them need the other one to do comedy, or even why either of them like each other enough to want to do comedy together in the first place. One of the more interesting ones is definitely with Odokawa, seeing this hapless misanthrope who can't help but get involved and do the right thing try and balance everything going on is pretty interesting, but you'd think he'd show some kind of exhaustion or something to illustrate the toll that all this responsibility is taking on him, but there is very little of that, and it's pretty nuts that such a socially distant individual is able to get on everybody's good side with such ease. The fact that all these storylines are being told parallel to one another in any capacity is impressive, and the way they come together is neat, but at some point Odd Taxi cared more about making the stories line up and end rather than the emotional content of each of the stories. There are very few poignant, emotionally resonant moments throughout this story, instead choosing to put most of its dialogue into exposition and elaboration between characters reiterating what is already happening, and as a result this show was a very dull watch. No jaws dropped, no smiles, no frowns, but a generally apathetic viewing experience that left me empty and unsatisfied. The writing of Odd Taxi has also been praised as Tarantino-esque, with personality and flair indicative of each character's personalities, but the voice actors here aren't exactly churning out top-tier performances and never blindsided me with a particularly exceptional line delivery. Comparing Odd Taxi to anything Scorsese or Tarantino though is ultimately a fruitless and shallow venture, since stacking Odd Taxi up against some of the greatest cinema ever made simply isn't a fair comparison, as Odd Taxi doesn't have the directorial expertise as either of the guys I've stated above, nor the fantastically varied writing that their best works have either. Plus, an anime such as this should be showing more than it's telling, and as is typical with plot-heavy anime, there is a whole heaping helping of exposition and elaboration here, which is never delivered with any unique characterful style. A vast majority of these lines, along with the way they're delivered, feel interchangeable between characters, and since there isn't much in the way of outstanding visual storytelling here, Odd Taxi's story and sequence of events is not nearly as engaging to follow as I was expecting. Technical aspects here are also very dull and not very noteworthy. The setting and character design is above average here, with very realized and detailed areas and very evocative character designs, but not much in the way of great facial animation or emoting. Shots are framed very rudimentarily, and there is little in the way of compelling direction to get some interesting ebbs and flows in how scenes play out. The soundtrack here has its moments too, and some nice sound design bits as well, but they are very few and very far between and just aren't much to write home about. All of this and a bit more piled on top of each other, episode after episode failed to amaze, and I've come to my conclusion that Odd Taxi didn't click, and it's kind of fucking with me since one look at the reception to this show across the internet shows overwhelming, well-worded and well thought -out positively ASCENDANT praise for this show, but all of the aspects of the show that should have mixed together to make a bona fide stunner of a 2021 anime made, for me, an above-average show with some good twists and fun moments that, while certainly a good attempt at a story of this kind, ultimately fell short of the mark, and I couldn't help but feel that familiar sense of disappointment and discontent writing every word of this review. I think on paper, there's a recipe for your quintessential sleeper hit masterpiece here: Unique character designs, a cool title, flew under the radar, has an interesting plot and story in comparison to what's usually offered, a great twist ending that recontextualizes the series, but in my eyes, after fully taking in all of what Odd Taxi had to offer, tackling the show on its own terms and assessing its quality based on my own taste and standards, I'm still at the same conclusion - disappointment. If I'm a complete fool and have got it all wrong, feel free to leave a comment letting me know your thoughts, I'd love to have some dialogues surrounding this show, especially given how disillusioned I feel with the general consensus. Thanks a bunch for reading this far.
megumun
07/10/2021, 01:05 PM
I swear this anime just looks like it's really deep and the story and characters are going to be developed good. But it's really just shallow show. Is it really that simple to trick you guys? I love how all the stories of different characters converge at the end. The last twist with the main character is also cool. I really like the main idea of this anime. But it was just boring to watch. Dialogues are not that important, it's not Tarantino movie, it's more like dialogues are needed here in order to remind real life, because anime is for an adult audience. The disclosureof the characters is not very interesting, they show why they are and how they came to this, but I have already seen this in other anime and I would not say that here it is something interesting and done with greater depth than I have seen somewhere else. Well, I think the new anime is just not for me. :)
jiji7878
07/10/2021, 03:57 AM
Odd Taxi is an odd case. I watched in recommendation of Gigguk's video, and seeing as I was already watching the most underrated "anime" of the season, I saw it as a challenge to the fantastic manhwa called Link Click. And so that's how I binged 13 episodes in one sitting. Let's start with its best aspect: the dialogue. People have compared this anime to Tarantino movies quite a lot, and just by the first few episodes, it's easy to see why. Tarantino likes to give people unique dialects (sometimes switching dialogue styles between interactions) and sometimes add in quirky topics to "bring" a lot ofcharacter out. This gives the dialogue a next level of authenticity, with the drawback that not a lot of story will happen. Odd Taxi replicates this style well. Since this style is not commonly used, it does give a unique feel to the anime. However, it might've done it a little too well. For the first half of the series, Odd Taxi tries to set up its characters with Tarantino dialogue, while ever so slowly building the story. It's so slow that I claimed nothing was really happening. And while the dialogue is good, it's not engaging or charming enough to really see into the characters, much less engage you for five episodes straight. When the story actually gets going, it's very clear from the start that the writer had an end goal in mind, and everything is set up to make the end goal work. In that sense, the story is quite good. However, some of the storylines were not as interesting or even fell flat for me. It takes so long to get the story to even start, and trying to juggle so many story arcs... sadly some of them were going to fall flat. This goes for the characters as well. I binged all 13 episodes in one sitting. And now that I have, I can finally see the flaws in recommending this anime after the runtime is done. Odd Taxi is a mystery anime to those that take its time to learn the mystery. The faster one gets through the anime, the less time one has to figure out the mystery before it is revealed. By the time Gigguk uploaded the video and recommended the anime, I was already too late. Overall: 6/10. Decent end and decent dialogue, but the pacing is quite slow, mediocre story, and meh characters. It is in an ironic spot where you want to binge it to get through the slow pacing, but you shouldn't binge it too quickly so that you can figure out the big mystery.
mrlordsaif
07/02/2021, 02:49 AM
I hope I don't say anything too silly, this is my first time reviewing a series and I'm also stupid, please bear with me. Characters; I'll get to the point, This anime may have one of the best characterizations I've ever seen, the characters feel genuine and their actions no matter how small, constantly have an impact on the overall story while also managing to be grounded in reality. IT ALL MAKES SENSE, and it's so satisfying to see it all come together. The dialogue is fantastic too, it feels like they're actually talking instead of trying to shoehorn stuff to try and accelerate the plot. If it'snot clear by now, CHARACTERS ARE A 10/10. Story; 10/10 The story gives you just enough information about Odokawa's past to keep you invested until the amazing payoff at the end. I really can't say much about Odokawa because I want you to go completely blind into the anime, I want you to find out about all the twists and turns because It's all subtly hinted at from the start. About the others, they're just as well-written with their backstories encompassing Lots of different themes. This story is so cohesive that I don't know what the story would be like if even the most minor characters didn't exist. I also wanna mention that theorizing about Odokawa's story and what the hell is going on was very fun for me, each episode changed my theory bit by bit and it was a delight. Sound; 9/10 The OST is amazing and fits the story, as usual. I can't stop praising this anime. The opening song is probably the second-best after Houseki no Kuni which is saying a lot. It's so relaxing and sounds good too. Art; 9/10 The character designs are very good, you can almost guess what their personalities are just by looking at them. Well-defined silhouettes, colorful and saturated color palettes which are in nice contrast to the darker themes this story presents, and everything is very consistently animated. 10/10 series, just watch it, bro.
ohkaekay
07/01/2021, 12:25 PM
By episode 7, it became hard to stay interested in. After hearing that Odd Taxi was just as good as Beastars I decided to give it a chance and watch it and I'm a little disappointed. The storyline was grew increasingly complicated to keep up with as the episodes continued. Between the multiple confusing and pointless side plots, it makes it hard to retain what's actually happening which made me less interested in watching this series. Pretty much what I'm trying to say is the actual plot continuously gets lost when all these other side plots and characters keep being introduced. The art and sound wereboth pretty good, I don't have anything in particular to say about them. The characters were honestly mid af. You have the mc a lousy, underwhelming taxi driver and the rest of the characters were literally just caricatures of the kinds of stereotypes you might find in any society today. Some of these stereotypes include the college graduate in debt, kpop stan, street thug, loan sharks, dating app scam artist, and the list goes on. The ending wasn't as terrible as I honestly thought it was going to be. Although the ending was definitely a plot twist overall I still kind of found this anime hard to keep up with. I think that the ending definitely is what kept my overall rating of Odd Taxi at a 6. Overall I rated Odd Taxi a 6 , because it's not that I didn't enjoy this series it was hard to keep up with and I feel like there was a lot of things in that just weren't necessary to include, which could've made it a lot better.
nazsa
06/30/2021, 11:24 AM
This review is in both English and Bengali. -----English----- In a word, a modern masterpiece. There is no reason not to watch this. It will always be a jewel in the mystery genre. Brief introduction: The story takes place in Tokyo, Japan. The protagonist of the story is a middle-aged taxi driver named Odokawa. His nature is to speak less and speak in a cynical tone. In each episode of the story he serves different passengers. In the story, he happens to be involved in the kidnapping of a high school girl. He gets chased by two members of the Japanese mafia. Will Odokawa be able to save himselfand go back to normal life? Story: 10 Great plot. As unpredictable as it is fun. Many seemingly isolated plot points continue running in parallel here. In each episode, viewers are given small clues so that they can take part in solving the main mystery of the story with Odokawa. With great direction and scriptwriting, the story has come to life. And the twist of the last episode of the story has taken it to the heights of a masterpiece. Characterization: 10 This anime provided the best characterization that was expected from a story centric show. Although the number of episodes of the story is low, there are a lot of characters. Nevertheless, one can easily connect oneself with the characters, understand their mentality, guess what they might do at a point in time. They seem to be real life characters. The side characters have also been carefully portrayed. Art and animation: 8 Somewhat unique art style and character design has been used here to complement the story. Although it was not dazzling, there was no deviation in the enjoyment. Sound: 9 Opening songs, ending songs, background music - everywhere the sound has been used in the light of the city pop theme. It fit perfectly with the thrilling story happening in the city of Tokyo. The director did not hesitate to use different sounds according to the mood of the story. Enjoyment: 10 As a fan of the Mystery genre, this anime was my best gift this year. I used to wait eagerly for it every week. I will remember for a long time the characters of the story, the cynical talk of Odokawa, the very real issues that come up in the story, and that strong twist at the end of the story. Check it out without delay. Watch it again and again. Because there are many clues scattered in this gem! -----বাংলা----- এক কথায় একটা মডার্ন মাস্টারপিস। না দেখার কোনই কারণ নেই। মিস্টেরি জানরার সর্বকালের একটা রত্ন হয়ে থাকবে এইটা। সংক্ষিপ্ত পরিচিতিঃ গল্পের স্থান জাপানের টোকিও শহর। গল্পের নায়ক ওদোকাওয়া নামের এক মধ্যবয়স্ক ট্যাক্সি ড্রাইভার। তার স্বভাব হল কথা কম বলা আর বললেও সিনিকাল টোনে কথা বলা। গল্পের একেক পর্বে সে ভিন্ন যাত্রীদের সার্ভিস দেয়। ঘটনাক্রমে সে এক হাইস্কুলের ছাত্রীর কিডন্যাপিং এর ঘটনার সাথে জড়িয়ে পড়ে। তার ওপর জাপানী মাফিয়ার দুই সদস্য ওর পিছনে হন্যে হয়ে লেগে যায়। ওদোকাওয়া কী পারবে নিজেকে বাঁচিয়ে আবার স্বাভাবিক জীবনে ফিরে যেতে? গল্পঃ ১০ দারুণ প্লট। যেমন আনপ্রেডিক্টেবল, তেমনি মজাদার। অনেকগুলি আপাত বিচ্ছিন্ন প্লট পয়েন্ট এখানে প্যারালেলি চলতে থাকে। প্রতি পর্বে দর্শকদের ছোটবড় ক্লু দেওয়া হতে থাকে, যেন তারা ওদোকাওয়ার সাথে গল্পের মূল রহস্য সমাধানে অংশ নিতে পারে। এর সাথে দারুণ ডিরেকশন আর স্ক্রিপ্টরাইটিং-এর জোরে গল্পটিতে প্রাণ প্রতিষ্ঠা করা হয়েছে। আর গল্পের শেষ এপিসোডের টুইস্টটি একে নিয়ে গেছে মাস্টারপিসের উচ্চতায়। চরিত্রায়ণঃ ১০ মূলত গল্প নির্ভর এই আনিমেতে যতটুকু চরিত্রায়ন আশা করা যায়, তার সবই আছে। গল্পটির এপিসোড সংখ্যা কম হলেও অনেকগুলি চরিত্র আছে। তা সত্ত্বেও চরিত্রগুলির সাথে সহজেই নিজেকে কানেক্ট করা যায়, ওদের মনমানসিকতা বোঝা যায়, ওরা কখন কী করতে পারে তা আন্দাজ করা যায়, ওদের বাস্তব চরিত্র বলেই মনে হয়। সাইড ক্যারেক্টারগুলোকেও যত্নের সাথে ফুটিয়ে তোলা হয়েছে। আর্ট ও এনিমেশনঃ ৮ গল্পের সাথে তাল মিলিয়ে কিছুটা ইউনিক আর্টস্টাইল আর ক্যারেকটার ডিজাইন এখানে ব্যবহৃত হয়েছে। চোখ ধাঁধানো কিছু না হলেও এঞ্জয়মেন্টে কোনই ব্যত্যয় ঘটেনি। সাউন্ডঃ ৯ ওপেনিং গান, এন্ডিং গান, ব্যাকগ্রাউন্ড মিউজিক - সব জায়গায় মূলত সিটি পপ থিমের আলোকে সাউন্ড ব্যবহার করা হয়েছে। টোকিও শহরে ঘটা থ্রিলিং গল্পের সাথে এক্কেবারে খাপে খাপ মিলে গেছে। গল্পের মুড অনুযায়ী ভিন্ন ভিন্ন সাউন্ড ইউজ করতে ডিরেক্টর কার্পণ্য করেননি। এঞ্জয়মেন্টঃ ১০ মিস্টেরি জানরার ফ্যান হিসেবে এই আনিমেটা এই বছরের সেরা উপহার ছিল আমার কাছে। প্রতি সপ্তাহে এটার জন্য সবচাইতে বেশি মুখিয়ে থাকতাম। গল্পের চরিত্রগুলি, ওদোকাওয়ার সিনিকাল কথাবার্তা, গল্পে উঠে আসা এক্কেবারে বাস্তব ইস্যুগুলি, আর গল্পের শেষের সেই জব্বর টুইস্টটা আমার অনেকদিন মনে থাকবে। দেরি না করে এইটা দেখে ফেলুন। বারবার দেখুন। কারণ খুব চাতুর্যের সাথে নানা ক্লু ছড়ানো আছে এই রত্নটির মধ্যে!
fishpun
06/29/2021, 02:25 PM
Genuinely a masterpiece of a show, and I don't use that term lightly. I'm not a "tough" reviewer for the most part - I'm actually quite generous compared to other people it seems, but I'm very tough on what deserves a full 10/10 and this meets ALL the criteria. This anime is so refreshing. No, the genre isn't entirely "unique", but the level of quality in execution sure is. If you often find yourself bitterly disappointed by seinen, especially of the thriller or mystery variety - you're really gonna love this. If I were to have one slight gripe with the show, it would be that Ithink more discerning viewers are able to see quite far ahead with the story telling. Trust me, there are some plot twists you are NOT going to see coming but overall, I felt like I could see the writers setting up the dominoes as well as exactly where they were going to fall... The strange thing is though, this show has a kind of magic that made that process feel extremely satisfying, rather than boring and predictable. I guess it's all in the writing and planning? Everything about Odd Taxi is a feast for the eyes and ears: amazing animation and art style, a SUPER catchy OP (on top of it cementing itself as one of my favourite anime, it's also earned the extremely rare title of "OP that I never skip or get sick of"), an awesome OST... as well as a great cast of characters whose lives intersect in such a complicated but always clearly well-written way... I could honestly sit here and write an additional ten paragraphs praising this show. Watch Odd Taxi.
Isacorn8
06/29/2021, 12:02 PM
I can't believe I'm actually writing a review for this anime but it was That good! I thought about it for a while and I cannot really find a flaw at all. maybe some nitpicks here and there, but not enough to drop it down to a 9. I absolutely loved how everything tied together and fit like a glove. All the pieces of the puzzle falling together in the end was super satisfying! I had no idea how they would end it but I could not have asked for a better ending. That's why, in my eyes it deserves a 10.
literaturenerd
06/28/2021, 04:03 PM
Odd Taxi is one anime that certainly lives up to its title. It is very odd indeed. The director is a complete unknown and this is his first project. The writer is another rookie and this is literally his first work as a professional writer! Odd Taxi was not based on a manga or LN or game. It's a completely original IP. To make things even stranger, it's being animated by Oriental Lights and Magic, the studio responsible for the 1997 Berserk, the first seasons of Pokemon, and a bunch of 80s and 90s anime. I had no idea they still existed! I thought theyhad gone bankrupt eons ago! So what is Odd Taxi about? It's about a cynical, smartass Walrus who works as a taxi driver in a city filled with anthropomorphic animals. So this is like Crunchyroll's attempt to compete with Netflix's Beastars right? WRONG. Despite the fact all the characters are animals, they never act like animals. They live in Tokyo and not some Zootopia city like in Beastars. Culture and technology is just like in the real world. Beastars completely revolves around the predator vs. prey dichotomy. Odd Taxi is not focused on that kind of stuff at all. Instead, it's actually a mystery/crime drama. One thing people will immediately notice about Odd Taxi is the sheer number of characters and simultaneous sub-plots. These 13 episodes are as densely packed as a neutron star! Yet this isn't because the studio was rushing to cram a bunch of manga into a limited episode run. It was written like this completely on purpose! Some people have compared this to Baccano, but that isn't an accurate comparison. Baccano only confuses people because it skips around in time. The LN is more complex, but Bacanno's anime only has 2 main plotlines, 1 sub-plot, and a frame narrative. It can be simplified down to: The fight with Szilard, Flying Pussyfoot, The search for Dallas, and Gustav with Carol. If it was told sequentially, people wouldn't think it was complicated. Odd Taxi is an entirely different animal! Pun intended. It has about 13-15 different sub-plots depending on how you're counting. This makes it very difficult to keep up with if you're watching on a weekly basis and not discussing it with other people. I would definitely recommend watching this show in a few sittings. There are some anime that are great because of the feels or how they tackle a certain topic or how they capture some theme. That's not really what Odd Taxi is about. This is a mystery/puzzle anime. That sadly means the more I talk about it, the more I risk spoiling something. There are some series where spoilers don't matter. I went into Ashita no Joe already knowing almost everything that was going to happen and it didn't make a difference. Odd Taxi is a bit closer to the film Memento. Spoilers would definitely have made a negative impact. That's also one reason I'm not sure how well this will hold up upon rewatching it. It has some really strong aspects like the dialogue, but I'm not sure the mystery will have quite the same punch the second time. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the art is not great. The animal character designs are fun, but the actual animation is fairly cheap at times. The CG cars also look straight out of 2007. I think Killer Bean might have better looking cars. At least the soundtrack makes up for this. The OST is genuinely pretty darn good. Odd Taxi very well might be the best new anime of spring 2021. I haven't seen "To Your Eternity" because I don't like to watch shows that are THAT hyped while they are airing. Despite that, my feelings on Odd Taxi are honestly a little mixed. I think it's one of the most unique modern anime I've seen in quite a while. I think it was an incredibly laudable first effort for both its writer and director. However, it's not a series that I'm instantly adding to my extended favorites. It's so densely packed and confusing that there was never one single moment or episode where I thought "BOOM! this is getting added to my faves!" It still might be added at some point because it is very good, but I'll have to re-watch it again. It's unfortunate MAL only allows you to review an anime once. I'd actually love to review this title again after sitting through it a second time!
suzuyakenn
06/28/2021, 03:27 PM
The whole anime community should now rejoice and plunge in the sea of pleasure and gratification considering the long-awaited and looked-for modern magnum opus of the entire anime industry has finally been brought out from the brilliant mind of the potentially next Satoshi Kon, Kazuya Konomoto, and painstakingly produce it at such utmost dedication—from the aptly cartoonish style of art and animation by which complements the utilization of anthropomorphism to strive for giving a truthful real life depiction in a cutesy way, the copybook voice acting performances that accurately express the persona's countenance, and especially noting the extant actual tweets from the characters circulating theinternet, the canonical weekly podcast series, and extras outside of the show so as to provide additional details to polish up the enthralling obscurity enveloping the whole setting— to give a much remarkable existence to this gripping mystery show that would undoubtedly be carved in the entire history of anime as one if not the most well-thought-out shows to ever exist. Akin to a notorious film noir, Odd Taxi flawlessly handled the entanglement and amalgamation of these deep and rare set of features for an anime: dementia, crime, mystery, cynicism, heavy plot — you name it, and Odd Taxi impeccably mastered it. This show here is a classic in the making. The new decade may have only just begun, but the new king has already been crowned.
NebulousNeon
06/28/2021, 12:47 PM
Many people will pass on this anime simply because of the design and art style. Do NOT let that keep you from giving it a try. You'll watch the first episode and think to yourself "Okay, I gotta see how this ends." and watch the rest of it. The writing is some of the best I've ever seen in an anime, the dialogue is snappy and realistic. It doesn't sound manufactured like a lot of typical shounen anime. The characters are interesting and there are several aspects to them you are left to wonder about throughout the entire show. It all comes together to createa near perfect storyline. Even at it's lowest points, it's still impressive. Do yourself a favor and watch this. The chances of you regretting it are slim to none. I've never watched a seasonal where the wait for the next episode was so difficult. That is how good this anime is. You have nothing to lose giving this anime a shot. This is truly a unique anime, one that was unfortunately somewhat overlooked this season and one that will likely top many "10 obscure anime you should watch" lists for years to come.
Atlos
06/28/2021, 12:07 PM
(TLDR at the bottom, thanks for reading.) Odd taxi is good. TLDR: Anime of the season.There is this issue I have with anime, especially dialogue-heavy light novel adaptations, where the dialogue feels like it was written by a robot. Very by the book statements that don't really feel like they were made by humans and were made by a computer program, at best the writers might try to add some personality to by having the characters insult each other and then pass it off as sarcasm. So when the first episode of odd taxi started with two radio comedians having an organic conversation it immediately hooked me because this isn't something you see in anime. In a show like odd taxi this authentically human dialogue is extremely important, not because of its plot but because of its characters. When you think of well-writen anime characters you might this of characters that develop and change but most characters in odd taxi are adults who have already grown because this anime isn't about people growing and changing, it's about society and the connections people make and in this massive web of connections Odakawa is in the centre of all of it. This is why a place such a big importance on dialogue because odd taxi leans entirely on its characters, it's a show that relies completely on its characters. The actual plot of the show isn't anything to write home about, a heist with some corrupt cops and a missing high schooler, all pretty standard stuff but since it has such strong character writing it can get away with it. When people are talking about plot in anime they often just talk about the events in the plot of the characters and how they develop, but one thing that often isn't discussed is structure. Most anime approach their story in a fairly linear fashion, event A happens then event B then C you get the idea, but not odd taxi. Odd taxi's story happens by a group of random characters living their life and one small event leads to another which leads another, which leads to another. The story then unfolds in an organic, and realistic, way. One of the main benefits of this chaos theory like structure is that it constantly keeps you on your toes, it is kind of easy to predict if you know anything about general storytelling tropes, but the main trope odd taxi applies is an absolute rejection of traditional writing styles and trope and therefor it constantly keeps you on your toes. All these little things build up, the lofi music, Odakawa's dry yet eccentric behaviour, the visual aesthetic, the structure, the dialogue everything comes together to make one unique whole. While each of these individual parts may not make a show good on their own the way the coalesce forms a truly unique whole. At this point saying anything more won't add much to the review, the visuals are constant on-model and memorable, the music is chill, the delivery of the plot and dialogue is good and you get the general idea of things. TLDR: Odd taxi is good
SingleH
06/28/2021, 10:28 AM
Odd Taxi is really good, but its reception is a little warped, as it seems to have found itself in this weird situation of being fairly obscure, but also highly overrated by those who actually know about it, and this is dangerous because it leads to a hugbox where no one is willing to offer negative critique. Odd Taxi is a refreshing and clever mix of genres and styles, and it tells a complex but ultimately grounded and human story steeped in its well-construed mystery. Many have compared it’s conversational tone to that of Quentin Tarantino films, and as long as they’re referring exclusively toReservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight, and perhaps just a tiny bit of Pulp Fiction, I might have to agree, and much like those movies, this was seemingly written by a prodigy. It’s not often you see something like this, but the person behind Odd Taxi’s incredible dialogue and pacing is a writer with no other credits to their name, so either they’re a genius, or their beginner's luck is working insane amounts of overtime. With all that being said, however, Odd Taxi is no masterpiece, and it’s ironic too, because some aspects of the show are so strong, they’re almost held back by other elements which don’t quite pull their own weight. It’s themes of self-esteem are very mature and perceptive, but they’re almost too ingrained in seemingly irrelevant and thereby misleadingly innocuous visual symbols, so one would hardly be at fault for assuming this show had nothing to say at all until the very end when it clearly explains itself to anyone not paying close enough attention. It’s subpar voice acting almost undercuts how good the dialogue is, and visually, the ugly CG cars make the otherwise perfectly constructed atmosphere of the show feel less complete then it had any right feeling. And speaking of the mood, the music is often some of the best around, but then during some casual conversations, it’ll play this obnoxious semi-comedic track which just kills the realism the script worked so hard to instate. But these are borderline nitpicks. Forgive me for feeling the need to selfishly impose my worldview like this, but personally, I believe that while idiots who call dog shit a masterpiece are just funny to laugh at, people who call quality entertainment a masterpiece when it doesn’t quite deserve it are worth challenging, because we owe it to the creators of good and thoughtful anime to offer their work good and thoughtful critique. Provided this, it’s time to gush. Odd Taxi is great, and personally, I found it shockingly compelling. It’s comedy is not only genuinely funny, but it never overstays its welcome and is weaved through conversation naturally. It has a real sense of wittiness, and constantly capitalizes on its ability to establish unique and diverse character personalities one after another. The main character, Odokawa, is this autistic, jaded, contrarian, middle-aged asshole, and having realized this was a show which was actually going to have real-feeling characters, I immediately knew it’s praise was warranted, because as basic of a feat as this may seem, little TV can achieve even one character who is this well-realized, and Odd Taxi has countless. It’s just so good at capturing subtle fluctuations in awkwardness and intimacy in conversation that every personality feels well-balanced and sensible, and despite its ostensibly silly character designs (which scream their thematic relevance), the actual characterization is nothing if not lifelike. The art design and backgrounds aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re far better drawn, more detailed, and more aesthetically adherent than 99.9% of anime airing these days, and overall, it remains a lovely little show throughout all its twists and turns. While I hope this review can distinguish itself from the mass of overtly unbridled praise many of its fans are showering this show with, I must admit I very quickly began to adore this show, and I believe anyone who can appreciate a script which is honestly too good for its own good will feel the same way. Thank you for reading.
KANLen09
06/28/2021, 10:28 AM
THIS IS A HIGH AND TALL ORDER PSA: Aside that this will be a VERY HEAVILY NON-SPOILERY review, go figure out things yourself if you truly want to enjoy Odd Taxi to the fullest. And I highly swear by my guarantee: the rewarding payoff is much better that way. This is a criminally underrated, underwatched/overlooked hidden diamond gem of an intrically made complex and gobsmacking show YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON! In my very honest-to-marvellous-greatness, this show a.k.a Odd Taxi has been far in the way, the most frustratingly challenging review of all time for me to pen down a non-spoilery review ina very long time (that gives me headaches of the absurdly mind-boggling kind), simply because: - It not just joins in the fray of 2021's setting of "ridiculously, notoriously high standard" bars of original anime of the likes of Wonder Egg Priority or even Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song; - Not just because it's gonna be a modern-day cult classic of a masterpiece through and through; - Heck, not even its subverting setting and themes which encapsulates everything about an ARG-like film noir; BUT BECAUSE IT'S HEAVILY SLEPT UPON by the anime community which gives no two flying Fs about anthropomorphic "furry" shows that Odd Taxi is one, but not at the same time. It's a devastating shame that only those of us (like me) whom have watched this show can appreciate that Odd Taxi is NO DOUBT THE BEST ANIME of the Spring 2021 season that no one is watching, BAR NONE! And it's massively thanks to the production staff at P.I.C.S (for the most part with director Baki Kinoshita and scriptwriter-cum-series composer Kazuya Konomoto) and OLM's Team Yoshioka for giving us such a tightly compact, outstanding, pièce de résistance masterpiece of a brillantly thought-out mystery thriller of a show that's unlike anything ever seen in anime before (lest if you count Durarara!, Baccano, or even "Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei" in that sense). You know me: If you're reading this review, you know that like many others outside of MAL in Reddit or even in a specialized Discord group have been discussing and sharing potential theories for the last 3 months when this show was airing, I might not be the first to jump into that gun. But not just in the very elaborate episodic discussions (that I felt like I was the Sensei dishing out those answers to everyone who are lazy in being detective sleuths, which I say: "Why the hell are you lazy-bums?"), the real joy of enjoying Odd Taxi to the fullest is to be like Sherlock Holmes, going in-depth with people who are like-minded and try to figure out the 5W1Hs of how everything came to be from the very beginning. It's very low-key in wanting to accomplish its "Inception" like thematics, and both Baki Kinoshita and Kazuya Konomoto really did use all of the mixed media mediums to corporate all of the "occult"-style hidden juxtapositions that is meant for the audience to truly be Odd Taxi's version of Holmes, both in and out of the anime. The film noir we didn't know we needed, and it was a total blast from start to finish. Just for context, let me give you the preface of what Odd Taxi is about: "41-year-old Hiroshi Odokawa is is an eccentric, reticent talking walrus of a taxi driver, who has no relatives and does not have much to do with others. He does have conversations with his customers, including a college student who wants to go viral, a nurse hiding a secret, an unsuccessful comedian, a street rough, and an up-and-coming idol. These conversations lead him to a girl who has disappeared." If you're thinking that this premise does sound "Odd", given its very aptly named title, that's because it purposefully meant to be a subtle and covert message that everything that happens within this show, NOTHING happens out of coincidence: everything is intertwined together, one way or another, even in the smallest of ways that brings the setting and characters together for such "idiosyncratic" events like this. Don't blink, or you might miss a beat and rewind 10 seconds to see the untold messages. So strap in your seat belts, folks! We're going where the night is right, the city lights are bright, and the conversations are tight in this very strange and peculiar world named Odd Taxi. Before that, I would also like to preface what is the company P.I.C.S all about from the debut director Baki Kinoshita himself (most of which was taken from the ANN interview and changed for nuance, so plagiarism issue solved); P.I.C.S is a production company that handles all kinds of visual works, including advertisements, music videos, live footage, dramas, and films. Serving the role of a character designer and animation director, Kinoshita's impetus for working on TV shows is his desire to create an entertainment work with dramatic elements that depict character growth, which sadly can't be gotten out of a commercial or a oneshot comedy (his inspiration being influenced by Studio Ghibli and Satoshi Kon's works, which it all finally clicks). Working together in the amazingly tightly-packed script for Odd Taxi with writer Kazuya Konomoto (his other work being a hidden gem of a manga: Setoutsumi), I'll just slot a PR for this: Go and read Setoutsumi (which I did before penning this review down), the story itself is conventional to the tropes and clichés of the modern age, but what the hell that Konomoto did was to flip it entirely on its head, giving a whole new rhyme and feeling to his creative inventiveness that "nothing and everything made sense". After watching Odd Taxi and reflecting back on Setoutsumi, it is very clear on its succinct approach to creative storytelling that will blow the minds of people. Back to Odd Taxi, Kinoshita is the character designer, and Konomoto is the scriptwriter and series composer. He had the loose idea for things like an individual taxi driver, but Konomoto was the one who fleshed out the characters and plot beats, as is the story with juxtapositioning ironic and enjoyable comedy elements with the darkness of society with the tight refines with the sense of balance is very tonely refined (which I can firmly say that I've really been taken aback each and every episode). The narrative structure, the meticulous foreshadowing, the characterization…every element is superb in his view, as is the script for the show (AND YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT WAS!). The key to Odd Taxi's eccentricness was the decision to go anthropomorphic with animals instead of humans, a realistic story about the human condition with cute animal visuals. If a heavy story has a cute-looking surface, it mitigates the feeling of gloominess and expands the scope of the story. Both him and Konomoto had confidence that the dissonance brought out by the contrast would be compelling, and that's not just to say about the foreshadowing weaved throughout the entire story. There will be mysteries right to the very end, so the elements are quite strongly pronounced. At the point when the mysteries are being solved, you can see the backbone of the characters, then feel the drama...it's an anime that juggles both its mystery and its human drama elements to an equal (but insane perfection of a) degree. Another key element of Odd Taxi, was getting the voice actors that are a complete un-hoax of an unorthodox (aside from the famous ones), that along with the entire mystery of Odd Taxi, brings another compelling reason why this show is SO doggone perfect. Casting Natsuki Hanae as the cynical 41-year-old Walrus, you've heard his voice go around a lot recently thanks to his massively successful role as Kimetsu no Yaiba's lead MC Tanjirou Kamado. So for Kinoshita to cast him (which does not sound like Natsuki-san's voice at all), it was an interesting choice nonetheless to potray the kind of character who became an adult while dragging along his childlike heart. To be frank, Kinoshita didn't want to make him the typical middle-aged guy with a gruff and austere attitude, but wanted to express his internal youth and purity of his heart. Odokawa may have a cold side, but he makes witty retorts and his conversations bring out his youth as not just an older guy who has given up on various aspects of his life. And as such, Natsuki Hanae's portrait of Odokawa as the middle-aged guy, while also bringing out his cool and collected side, has energy and vigor in the depths of his voice, and is a perfect suit for Odokawa. Also, the comedic conversations and verbal exchanges are a very important part, so Kinoshita wanted to get professional comedians involved for those (the comedic duo of the Homosapiens: rhino Shibakagi and horse Baba, voiced by entertainers from the Yoshimoto Kogyo talent agency: Yuusuke and Atsuhiro Tsuda respectively). In order to bring out the feeling of reality when it comes to the gaps in conversations and the warmth, the pre-score voices are recorded ahead of time and afterwards made the images match them. This unorthodox approach follows up to the cast for some examples (who are complete unknowns): the Daimon brothers with Kousei and Asei, Taichi Kabasawa with Takashi, heck even rapper METEOR got in the fun being the "Handshake" porcupine-rapping Yano. These so-called pseudonym-but-real VAs are not what you typically expect of the anime industry, so to see Kinoshita going far as to recruit actual real-life prominent figures makes the icing on the cake much sweeter. If you wanna understand how much Odd Taxi is playing hooky with the audience, let me direct you to these references (again, NON-SPOILERY): - First and foremost, is the YouTube MV for the OP of Odd Taxi. Sure, as is every full-length song that you could find on Spotify that you can hear if it's your favourite songs of the season, even with the cool anime OP visuals, Baki Kinoshita goes one step further into integrating the anime scenes with the MV, making it look like a sneaky, non-canon of a foreshadowing sequence of events. There are a lot of scenes to take in, because as you constantly watch the anime and go back to the MV, that is where the sublime mystery all clicks up. Even to the point of getting famous rappers such as OMSB, METEOR and VaVa, as is comedians Yuusuke and Atsuhiro Tsuda, along with typical anime VAs Riho Iida and Saori Terai, all of them are a teaser to what the anime has going for its progression. Other than that, Odd Taxi's OP by Wataru Sawabe (Skirt) and PUNPEE is a total blast of a catchy, laid-back, low-fi, city pop of a juggernaut song that gives the whole anime a peace vibe of a mood. Honestly though, the Spring season has a lot of good (and few amazing like Vivy, 86, Megalo Box 2: Nomad) OSTs, but Odd Taxi knows how to hit with full cylinders pumping, and as such, it's the No. 1 spot of OPs for me this season, NO QUESTION. I just love this song to bits, and only Odd Taxi watchers can follow up with that vibe. The ED with Suzuko Mimori and the insert songs with its pseudonymly named "Mystery Kiss" group, it can take a while to get used to the various idol songs, but it's all good as well. - Secondly, it's the official YouTube channel, which also has a non-canon hidden story about normal objects, which is intricately placed in the anime in full hidden view, and used as devices to snively record normal day-to-day conversations that would have been otherwise classified as an "Extras" of sorts. Hey y'all, these are MORE than just your typical "Extras", they are also integral to piecing the smaller puzzle pieces with the main plot. By the time this review is up, most (if not all) of the audio drama would've been fully translated and posted on YouTube or even the compact Fandom page (which I DO NOT recommend to go in the early stages because of heavy spoilers lest you searched for something else, only go there once you're 3 episodes deep into it). - Thirdly, is the official character cast graph. I'd highly doubt that most of you would've made the effort to scour the official Japanese website when the anime started airing for the character cast (and some that actually caught on), but a few wittingly apt people have already made the translations to the big picture of the character connections, so the information is readily available at the places you will expect. Again, please DO NOT spoil yourself by referring to it early on, you're doing a major disservice to yourself (unless you're watching it and need some help). - Last but not least, it's a rando Twitter account that is also non-canon to the story, AND YES, you're hearing it correctly. I've already hidden that link in the discussion forum (you should be able to identify as much from my shared topic), so please check that out also. You should already get the gist that it's also a small integral part to the Odd Taxi story. I understand why you'll want to get a studio such as OLM, popular for the Pokémon series, to create such a kiddy feel of a show that doesn't detract the visuals amidst a film noir-like mystery thriller masterpiece show in the making. OLM's Team Yoshioka having only done a few shows and films made for kids, and Odd Taxi lends that abstractness to the team's unique calibre. It's definitely an unique piece of media, made by a unique production team, crafted by well thought-out people, that only the people who watch Odd Taxi (like yours truly), will find this to be a modern day triumph of a sensational showpiece figure of a cult classic for the 2020s. If Quentin Tarantino had a side job that he would've like to produce an anime for, Odd Taxi would be one to fit within his brilliantly crafted mindset that will always aim to play mindgames with the audience, and you'll be seeing twice or more with the "Inception" like feel that will never get old. Nevertheless, I BEG ON MY KNEES (even with a Dogeza) to ask you to watch Odd Taxi, this is THE one show where nobody gives a crap about "furry" shows. But laying deep within the rabbit hole, is a thriller story beyond anything you could ever imagine to come out of the anime spectrum. An abnormally peculiar rare show that you won't find anywhere else (that I'll ever swear until my time has come), and a tremendously ironic, yet surrealistic monumental classic for the ages. That said, GO WATCH ODD TAXI! STOP SLEEPING ON IT! This is unanimously easily my absolute favourite AOTS, even down to being an undisputed AOTY with a double-confirm plus chop with so many big hits registered in 2021 alone.

Odd Taxi オッドタクシー

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Odd Taxi オッドタクシー

25th Japan Media Arts Festival Winners Announced

'Odd Taxi' Gets Anime Movie in April 2022

Spring 2021 Simulcast List [Update 4/19]

PV Collection for Mar 15 - 21

Spring 2021 Preview

PV Collection for Feb 15 - 21

Original TV Anime 'Odd Taxi' Announced for April 2021