Odd Taxi

Ever wonder about how many odd folks a city taxi driver must deal with daily? Do you then reflexively ponder whether you yourself are the aforementioned odd customer? Odd Taxi pushes the pedal to the floor with that premise, with the taxi driver and his patrons being eccentric anthropomorphic animals.

First announced during the 2021 Crunchyroll awards, Odd Taxi follows an introverted 41-year-old taxi driving walrus named Hiroshi Odokawa. It begins with Odokawa, forced into mild-mannered conversations with his customers who range from being aspiring pop idols, wannabe influencers, and down-on-their-luck comedians. But the seemingly disparate lives of Odokawa’s patrons start to weave together as news breaks of a missing high schooler who just so happened to be one of his customers. Odokawa finds himself in the middle of a police investigation while under the eye of the yakuza, who have a personal stake in the missing high schooler’s safety. But the less I reveal about the anime’s plot the better.

While its premise seems grimdark on the surface, Odd Taxi has an infectious dry humor, mostly thanks to how nonplussed Odokawa is when he stiffly reacts to his bizarre patrons. Odd Taxi came in as a dark horse in the spring 2021 lineup as a show anime fans would be wise not to sleep on.