Odd Taxi - Thursday Anime Discussion Thread (ft. the /r/anime Writing Club)
Hi! Welcome to another edition of the weekly Thursday Anime Discussion Thread, featuring us, the r/anime Writing Club. We simulwatch anime TV series and movies together once a month, so check us out if you'd like to participate. Our thoughts on the series, as always, are covered below. :)
For this month, we chose... Odd Taxi!
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. Set in a strangely familiar city filled with unusual individuals, Odd Taxi is a bizarre story about a humble taxi driver and the mystery of a lost high schooler.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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· 5 days agoFor me Odd Taxi's brand of anthropomorphic designs lies in the same lane as Lisa Hanawalt's art (best known from Bojack Horseman). It's hard to decide whether these are humans with animal characteristics or animals with human characteristics. They're not unsettling, but they don't lean into cuteness either. They're pretty restrained all things considered. It almost feels like they are specifically designed in such a way for the viewer to ponder "what was even the point of making them animals if you're not gonna play with difference in size and bodytypes ala Beastars, nor lean into their species' characteristics like in Seton Academy". It becomes one of the shows mysteries - one that actually does have an answer.
Another "meta" aspect of the designs is that they don't exactly give out the tone of the show. Traditionally for that kind of mystery drama I'd expect more detailed, "realistic" designs, something like Blacksad. Or they could make them really cutesy in order to subvert viewer expectations ala Happy Tree Friends. But instead once again they are in that middle ground where they keep the viewer guessing, and if you're going into the series blind then you won't be sure how "adult" it'll get.
Also I just kinda like them, that mascot-like simplicity but without going into Aggretsuko-level cuteness or Looney Tunes-like cartoonishness gives them kind of a uniquely "cool" feel.
”What is the city but its people?” -Shakespeare
Paved with owl lights in the sky and drifting with neon lights on the ground, it’s quite simply a jungle out there in Odd Taxi. In urban living, we can’t possibly hope to survive on our own. We rely on the grocery store employees, we rely on the transportation drivers, we rely on others in order to fulfill our basic needs. There is no means to sustain on our own when it comes to the big city and we see this unfold in both a positive and negative manner in Odd Taxi.
There’s a foreboding sense of “eat or be eaten” in this world and the eclectic zoo of a cast are each afflicted with this condition: crippling debt, towering stardom, psychological addiction. The city never sleeps and so too do the characters as they all grapple with problems that are beset not just by themselves but also by others. Their troubles are exacerbated as they stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the crowd; the nebulous faces and huddled masses all elbowing each other for that breath of fresh air. It extends even to the computerized space where the concrete buildings are pixelated websites and the raucous applause are ringing notifications. Societal woes of both the analog and digital world pile on as they struggle to break free and failure to do so results in trampling from others. Someone falling down means someone else is getting taller.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. [Odd Taxi] Odokawa breaking the cycle of debt for Shirakawa, Baba and Shibagaki accepting their place in the comedy world, Dobu freeing Kabasawa from his crutch on social media fame. It’s this theme of collectiveness that both isolates and unites us and the climax of Odd Taxi sings this tune as well for Shirakawa saves Odokawa’s life and Goriki saves Odokawa’s soul. If urban living brings out the worst in people, then maybe people bring out the best. In the end, it’s fitting that the taxi is a microcosm of the entire city; a vehicle that connects driver and passenger alike, opening themselves up to opportunity.
I've actually found some of the decisions regarding the urban character of the story rather peculiar. The way Odokawa is drinking buddies with his doctor, or the fact he's acquaintanced with his beat cops, or the fact that everyone seems to know who Dobu is (or the way the whole city seemingly unites against him). All those things to me are more reminiscent of a smaller town setting, where everyone knows everyone and there's no anonymity. Not to say that it's impossible for people to know each other within their neighborhood in the city, but it's just not something I typically associate with urban settings.
As a result, the world of "Odd Taxi" often seemed pretty small to me and I've felt a dissonance when you actually saw crowds of people or it hinted at larger institutions at play. I get that the story aimed at creating this interconnected web of characters so it wanted to use each as often as it can and I don't think the story really needed to feel particularly urban. But it most certainly is when it comes to the aesthetic as well as the whole theme of moving to a city to chase dreams of a better life, in particular by succeeding in an entertainment industry. So perhaps it would've left a stronger impression on me if it committed fully to that urban feeling, or perhaps leaned into that aforementioned dissonance in an interesting way. But because it doesn't, the urban setting felt like just a suitable backdrop for mystery rather than a core thematic backbone of the show for me.
· 5 days agoOther than Odokawa, I'd say Tanaka. Don't worry, I don't see myself reflected in him, but I find his arc very relatable, because I've gotten way too sucked into something before. Any one of us could become a victim of addiction, and it doesn't have to be drugs, alcohol, or gambling. In Tanaka's case, it may seem like he's addicted to Gatcha, but it's more than that.
When it was erasers, he wanted to prove his collection was cool too and gain acceptance. When it was gatcha, he wanted to prove to Zooden users that he had the best zoo, to ditch11 that he wasn't some dumb kid he scamed, and to himself that his life was worth something. [ODD TAXI] When he lost the Dodo, he became addicted to getting revenge on the man that took away his life's worth. When he finally found the identity of Ditch11 and took his revenge, he wasnt satisfied, he was horrified. Maybe it was horror at the reality of what he had just done. Maybe it was because he found that he still hadnt found his satisfaction, and no matter what his next addiction is, it won't quench it either.
Choosing to portray addiction in the form of a farmville-esque gatcha game was genius. It shows that no matter how silly it may look, addiction is addiction, and it's dangerous.
Odd Taxi boasts an assortment of oddities but to me the one character I’m drawn to the most is Rui Nikaido. The tragic figure plagued by over-ambition and possible homicidal tendency, Rui is not an entirely sympathetic character but there are moments, small windows, where we peek into the psyche of this toy poodle and see that she was just misguided. She joins the ranks of Kakihana, Ichimura, Shibagaki, Kabasawa, Tanaka, Dobu, and Yano; characters who overreach in one way or another and Rui is just another fodder to the lesson.
Rui is special in that her love for Baba is pure, it is genuine in a world where almost nothing is, and I found myself rooting for a happy ending for the two of them. [Odd Taxi] Rui and Baba balance each other out but it is ultimately Baba’s way of life—contented acceptance—that wins out in the end in not only his own life but also in the entire story. What strikes me the most for Rui is that even though she did find herself at the murder scene due to her own refusal to accept the results, she was merely strung along by the crimes of the true murderer; an unintentional shrapnel to the bomb that sets off the entire plot of Odd Taxi. I can’t help but feel if she had accepted Baba’s way of thinking just a tad earlier then she wouldn’t have found herself strolling into this dark avenue. Unfortunately, an unforeseeable framing leaves her scrambling to play the part and it’s almost like karmic retribution that she should have to pay the price of her inability to accept defeat.
I find Baba's character arc to be quite compelling. He's introduced as a character that has to keep up with his partner and feels that he falls short in his own path. Then he gets a windfall and finds success, coming with the dilemma of progressing on his own and leave behind his friend or stay with his friend and miss out on some great opportunities. All while also maintaining a relationship with an upcoming star full of ambition while he tries to put in effort in his own lack of ambition. The act of keeping your relationships alive and not drift apart I find extremely relatable.
I already wrote about the dialogue of Odd Taxi for Short and Sweet Sunday but I also wanted to briefly touch on the choice of dialogue in the show.
”I understood more or less from the nuance.” -Shirakawa
It doesn’t occur frequently in Odd Taxi but there are moments in the script where people refuse to mention certain words. You can chalk it up to either the character’s idiosyncrasies or the plot’s mystery thickening, but to me I believe the deliberation behind their vocabulary adds to the character. From Yamamoto’s reluctance to say “diamond” to Little Daimon rejecting Odokawa’s correct name, these characters are often hiding from the truth.
Let’s take a quick look at Yamamoto: he consistently uses the word “carbon gemstone” to describe Rui because saying the word “diamond” will definitively define her. Read in one way, you can say Yamamoto wants to believe Rui is more than just a mere diamond and thus he refuses to describe her in such plain terms and purposefully uses words that leave her in a more abstract sense. Read another way though, the word “carbon gemstone” is a roundabout way to describe diamonds, it’s a mask of a word that you have to dig a little deeper to uncover the full meaning. [Odd Taxi] Yamamoto is trying his best to hide him and Rui’s involvement in their crime and his refusal to fully describe Rui is another way of him avoiding to look the truth of their crime in the eye.
For Little Daimon’s case, he refuses to correct his use of Odogawa because he wants to continue believing that a taxi driver is responsible for the evil in the world rather than his own brother. His fierce devotion to justice is hampered by his inability to look at what’s in front of him, hence bringing a new meaning to “justice is blind.” It’s rather a coincidence that Little Daimon would resemble a meerkat, the mammal most well-known for their sentry duty and poking-of-heads.
These are just small instances of language choice that ultimately don’t amount to much on their own. Taken in a vacuum, they would most likely be a flimsy distraction, but pooled together into the long scheme of things, they form an iron-clad script.
A lot of anime takes place in high school or involves teenagers; we know. It can feel limiting when you watch the fifth anime of the season where most everyone is wearing a school uniform and you have no idea of what adult life in Japan is meant to be like. Odd Taxi helps to make question somewhat clearer by not only having a majority adult cast, but having them represent a wide range of generations, occupations, and current lifestyles. A cross-section of life in Tokyo circa 2021 is presented to us in a somewhat exaggerated but still realistic manner, creating scenarios and concerns unlike the vast majority of anime out there. I hope that Odd Taxi's success on both sides of the Pacific helps makes clear to anime studios and production companies that, yes, we do want to see ourselves on screen, in all our glories and pains, all our dreams and tragedies, because we want to know that we're not alone.
Had an excuse for anthropomorphic animals other than the creators wanted to entice furries like I thought it was when I initially watched it. Definitely worth watching.
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