Odd Taxi – 10

「俺たちに明日はない」 (Oretachi ni Asu wa nai)
“We Have No Tomorrow”

Okay so to my understanding, nothing got resolved, and things just got laid out before their execution. Which is more than likely to happen next week. That leaves two episodes for the finale. I get they’re trying to close all B stories. But once again, I’m complaining about the padding. This felt more like they unnecessarily wanted a 13 episode cour, and they ran out of material, to make amends, they filled out the side stories of this show, and now are forced to close them in haste. 

Honestly, this is fat you trim when you revise a script. But maybe I’m just not patient enough. Still, I’m left with a feeling of ‘this could have been an e-mail’ but maybe that’s just me. 

Believe it or not, here at RandomC we also talk about anime within ourselves. Most importantly, Guardian Enzo, and Princess Usagi have been watching week by week and keeping up with Odd Taxi. As I cannot speak for them, Guardian Enzo pointed out how Odd Taxi is starting to feel like a Woody Allen movie, the nonsensical, almost borderline comical effect underlining the serious tones in Odd Taxi is certainly very Woody Allen of them. 

I can’t help but wonder if Odd Taxi staff and writers looked at more western movies and TV shows. And maybe that’s the reason behind today’s episode. A sort of moment, where everyone gets together to wrap up the final details of a heist. Before it actually happens. 

At one point I genuinely thought Odokawa was going to die, when Yamamoto betrays Odokawa and decides he knows too much and is time to go to the great beyond and bury him with his secrets, I genuinely thought this show was going to go there. I don’t know why, but I believed for a second, I should have known better as Miho shows up, in a very Deux ex Machina, way if you ask me. And pulls out her Capoeira moves, it’s not just a weird dance, but useful martial arts! 

I loved how the trope was inverted here, and Miho was the one saving Odokawa and not the other way around.    

I’d like to harken to last week, as in passing. I mentioned how Dobu was giving me big soft vibes. Well, what a coincidence! Because Odokawa mentioned the same thing in this episode.

Totally unrelated, but equally important, I got this big feeling Kuroda has a big role to play when it comes to Odokawas upbringing. Could he be part of the mysterious organization that paid for his rent in life? Or some other key element that we’re missing. I can’t exactly tell, but they have a heart-to-heart in the sauna. (Where else are you gonna have a heart to heart, duh!?) And Kuroda seems more interested in knowing Odokawa is on the right path towards being a good person and doing what’s morally correct, rather than fall into a black void where he wallows in his pitty and self misery. 

I like Odokawa because even though his life was against him, he managed to survive and find way’s to cope and be a better person. I think Odokawa is constantly learning and changing, and becoming better, always trying to do the right thing. In a way, I think Dobu knows that too, but still wants to go ahead with the plan.

In other news, a new character showed up at the beginning of the episode. Satoshi Nagashima (Takasugi Mahiro), a giraffe who has a very high ego. He has a conversation with Shibagaki and asks him to become his comedy partner, telling him he can show him the view from the top. (Get it? Because he’s a giraffe? I’m sorry for the dad joke, I’m just in that mood today). Shibagaki refuses, foretelling the implications of working with someone so young! 

Yano gets super philosophical on us spitting rhymes about wanting action in the field! Then they see Imai trying to fool them into thinking he didn’t win the lottery, but they know better than that and set to raid his house the next morning. Not before Odokawa can warn him about it. And the way Sekiguchi cyberstalked Imai was impressive and creepy at the same time. It made me curious about what he did to end up with the Yakuza.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the most important part, Odokawa finds the tracking device and starts surmising a plan to use it against Tanaka.

And we finally got a clarification as to why the show is named how it’s called. It’s not Odd because it’s weird, it’s Odd because the plan can only work with an odd number of people. And well Taxi because it’s a taxi. No surprise there.

People speak so quickly in Odd Taxi, it always feels like I’m missing something. But – the real action starts next week! Let’s see what this show has in store for the final three episodes!    

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