Odd Taxi

There aren’t many anime where the entire supporting cast is almost as compelling as the main character, but that’s exactly what happens in <em>Oddtaxi</em> (2021). This anime weaves its story through seemingly mundane conversations, all while building a plot worthy of a full-on crime novel in the background.

I found it quite enjoyable to watch. The way each character manages to resolve their own personal conflicts is genuinely satisfying. And the final episode's big reveal truly caught me off guard.

The only downside (and maybe I’m exaggerating a bit) were the dumb <strong>idols</strong>. Why are the Japanese so obsessed with a group of squirrel-voiced girls who can’t ... even sing? Have they never heard someone talk after inhaling helium? Because it’s almost the same sound.

Was disappointed by this, wasn't super interested in many of the characters and backstories and the "twists" and reveals at the end were disppointing. Honestly this anime is overrated. It's not super bad, but it's not one of the 100 best anime of all time. I'm a huge fan of good mystery animes with intricate, well written plots, and that's what I expected coming into Oddtaxi. But it just didn't live up to my expectations. Maybe it was just a personal thing, sometimes an anime that other people like just doesn't land for me, and sometimes an anime other people dislike I end up loving ... (Tokyo Ghoul, I'm talking about you). But I just wasn't a huge fan of how a lot of the side characters were introduced and written, and a lot of the "big reveal" stuff at the end disappointed me massively.

It's not terrible or anything, it's still tolerable and I like the overall vibe of the show, but it just isn't worthy of being one of highest ratest anime on this whole platform in my eyes.

This is one of the most overrated anime I've ever seen.

It does start out good, with the set up to the overarching plot and drama and the establishment of characters that would contribute to this. However, as more characters are introduced and the story has increasingly less reason to focus on MC all the time, the anime runs into the all-too-common problem of, not being able to tie up any loose ends and half-assing it at the end by using said increasingly irrelevant MC to act as an anchor.

As always I will review this from a perspective of looking out for women's interests. The character ... designs were completely uninspired, especially at the end, because every female character must be beautiful, while male characters are largely unattractive, whether good or evil, making me immediately dislike the anime. The female characters' motivations are at least explored somewhat.

I can't say the same thing for the main character, Odokawa. His personality invites a strong feeling that there will be consistent exploration of his character and how it changes with the people he meets. However, despite the entire cast fawning over him in particular, he remains a static character who doesn't seem to have much presence in the world besides "cool taxi driver." He has no meaningful relationships, no contribution to any theme, no well-written reason to be so involved in the plot. I mean sure, he gets somewhat attached to one character in particular, but that nowhere near explains his zeal in getting involved in increasingly dangerous situations, including working with a criminal guy that he kinda-sorta hates (even though this guy namedrops the title in his fucking honor) that he attempts to murder but not really even though he has this sense of justice and fairness...? It is because of all of this, besides the obvious "ugly guy gets the hot younger girl" trope pushed on us over and over, that he comes across as a self-insert character for a certain male demographic. And his only memorable "gimmick", which gets fully explained by the end of the anime, makes absolutely no sense, because his view of the would should have been made fairly obvious in his behavior if he'd lived with that so long, and so many convenient steps were made to reach that discovery, like finding a hospital that managed to keep a fucking DIARY (not even medical documents) of his from elementary school that conveniently explained everything. I mean these side characters were DEVOTED to figuring him out, but in the end, none of this was acknowledged by Odokawa, because again, relationships with others don't affect him, and Odokawa rests well knowing that he doesn't have to put in any work to doing anything besides being cool and coming up with plans because the narrative caters to everything he does.

This all leads to an extremely lackluster ending. In a very cheesy, extremely contrived, and anticlimactic slow-motion scene, everyone's problems are resolved and they all receive some philosophical awakening due to the poorly animated actions of the MC. And of course he is saved by a female character girlbossing her way to save him... somehow, despite having absolutely no training in anything and doing something physically impossible. And to further rub salt in the wound, the "secret" he's hiding... turns out to be a completely trivial thing, and there's no explanation as to why this was being hidden in the first place and why so much narrative focus was placed on it. Oh yeah, and this "trivial thing" was red herring to hide some other plot point about a missing girl and the true situation behind that, which also ended up being nonsensical because the antagonists involved in said plot are strangely passionate about their craft, a detail the narrative never cares to address or convince you that this doesn't clash with the down-to-earth tone of this work.

Overall, the anime is only worth watching for the opening and ending AMV's. Don't leave it to a single cour (or five fucking volumes of manga) to deliver a multi-layered plot with fleshed out characters and motivations without completely collapsing on itself.