English Dub Review: Odd Taxi Season One

Overview:

Eccentric and blunt, the walrus Hiroshi Odokawa lives a relatively normal life. He drives a taxi for a living, and there he meets several unique individuals: the jobless Taichi Kabasawa who is dead-set on going viral, the mysterious nurse Miho Shirakawa, the struggling comedic duo “Homo Sapiens,” and Dobu, a well-known delinquent.

Our Take(Full Spoilers Ahead):

In order to discuss why this show deserves the amazing score I am going to give it, I have to delve into massive spoilers. So if you want to watch it unspoiled this is your chance. I promise you won’t regret it! Please, do yourself a favor and watch it. As much as I love Attack on Titan this really should have won anime of the year at the Crunchyroll Awards. It being an original anime really needs to be recognized. If there was anything 2021 did amazingly well it was all the great original anime that came out. Alright, last chance to get out now.

Still here? Alright, the revelations this show drops on us are fantastic. No one else seems to mention everyone being animals or anything. Sure anthropomorphic animals have been a lot but something about this just seemed off. Turns out it felt that way because it was all in Odokawa’s head. Due to some serious childhood trauma, he began to see everyone as animals. This twist and its subsequent reveal are pulled off in such a fantastic way that my jaw fell to the floor. I’m usually pretty good about figuring out twists but this one got me. Sure things felt off but I thought everyone being animals was real so to find out it was all in his head was a fantastic twist. One thing I won’t spoil is the resolution of the missing girl mystery. But it’s pulled off in such a great and interesting way that really my only problem with it is that we have no idea what happens after the end credits roll.

There isn’t a ton of action in Odd Taxi. So what makes it so great? The dialogue is expertly written, the plot is paced perfectly, and every character is important. There’s a reason for everyone and they all are connected in one way or another. The characters are so great that they’re most of the reason to watch the show in the first place. But dialogue and characters can only go so far if the voice actors can’t bring them to life. I love Mike McFarland but to the best of my knowledge, this is his first lead role. It definitely shouldn’t be though because he does fantastic as Odokawa. I watched the sub during the summer last year and I thought a dub might be hard to pull off with this one but everyone and I mean EVERYONE brings their A-game. There wasn’t really anything lost in translation from what I could tell.

Odd Taxi is a fantastic anime that needs to be watched by any anime fan. Now that it’s dubbed and all out there really isn’t any excuse. I thought that everyone who was saying how great this show was couldn’t possibly be right. Nothing could be as good as they were building it up to be. Believe me when I say I have never been happier to be wrong. Do yourself a favor and see why Odd Taxi was nominated for Anime of the Year by Crunchyroll.