With Teeth

Contrary to my self-image as a discerning anime fan, I picked up Odd Taxi based only on the faintest of Internet whispers and a handful of images. This approach probably wouldn’t work for slow-burn series, but Odd Taxi peacocks plenty of its strengths from the very beginning.

For one, it boasts the most inviting character design of any anime I can bring to mind. Every one of the characters–anthropomorphized animals, all–is rendered with a playful sense of anatomy and an Inafune-like balance of simplicity and legibility. It’s not just the main cast, either. From “hipster patron fox”, to “nervous salaryman pig” and even “urban professional lion” (seen only from behind!), the artists depict every single animal-person with this exceptional level of care.

Image: OLM, Inc.

Don’t let the whimsical aesthetic fool you, though: these animals have some impressively-genuine conversations. Simply by laughing with one another, characters demonstrate a level of sincerity that’s sorely missing from much of today’s hyper-self-aware/ultra-cynical media. Even the bickering is playful and engaging, like when Shirakawa tells Odokawa, “you need to apologize to everyone and everything, starting with Brazil.”

The care the dubbing team took is evident even to a hopelessly-monolingual weeb such as yours truly. They used English colloquialisms which obviously capture the spirit rather than the literal meaning of the writing (like when an exasperated pop idol tells her date, “I can’t even”), and they managed to preserve the rhymes of a character who speaks exclusively in freestyle rap.

The early episodes certainly charmed me, but charm alone wouldn’t inspire me to watch an entire series. Strangely, I couldn’t explain why I kept coming back or why I felt so excited as each opening credits rolled¹. “Could this be my first cozy TV show?” I wondered. Structurally, the term seemed fitting (a lonely taxi driver conversing with his passengers), and I definitely felt comforted by those initial low-stakes interactions. Still, “cozy” didn’t feel right². It took me most of the series to recognize its subtler strengths.

By regularly jumping between multiple perspectives, Odd Taxi progressively builds up a layered mystery whose intricacy didn’t quite dawn on me until I reached its tenth episode. Re-watching those episodes (which I did enthusiastically) not only improved my grasp on the plot; it heightened my appreciation for the series’ subtler foreshadowing.

Although one twist is fairly obvious (with enough hints in the very first episode to raise suspicion)³, the story wisely doesn’t bank too much on that particular revelation. Much of the emotional impact instead comes from empathy with the characters–as it should–empathy inspired by traumatic experiences (including domestic violence, addiction, torture, and murder) and by internal crises (like fame, aging alone, and competitive careers). For instance, take this come-to-Jesus moment during the build-up for the finale:

I’m saying your extreme rejection and hatred of yourself is narcissism. Normal people aren’t that interested in themselves.

With such incisive dialog, you’d be forgiven if, in the moment, you didn’t register that a baboon was speaking to a hippopotamus.

Odd Taxi uses an absurdly playful visual language to tell a mature story, and it relishes the resulting tension. The series can be heartwarming and funny and cute and quiet, but it’s ultimately dark and tragic and conflicted. It would have been a jumbled mess were it not for the creative team’s sincerity and superb sense of timing. While it happened to speak to me in my particular social circumstance, I’m nevertheless convinced that it’d delight anyone.