Odd Taxi Review

Odd Taxi is a mystery that plays fair, a comedy with a genuinely funny double act in the driver and his doctor friend, and a portrait of loneliness in a city, and it holds all three together across thirteen episodes without a wasted scene. The animal designs are a device rather than a gimmick, and the reveal of what they mean recontextualises the whole series in a way that rewards a second viewing.

The dialogue is the achievement: long, naturalistic conversations in a taxi about nothing that turn out to have been about everything, written with a wit and a rhythm that most live action drama would envy. The animation is modest, a limited style that the show uses well and never pretends is more than it is. The cast of fares, an aspiring comedian, an idol group, a nurse, a gangster, are each given a life. The ending is a masterstroke. It is the kind of series that makes the case for original anime.