kingofthezora

TL;DR Something different, refreshing, and entertaining throughout. Makes you work for clues in a good way! You should watch it.

Odd Taxi almost lost me in the first episode, after letting it sit for a few days I came back. Slowly over time I became more aware of how well crafted the story is. It was refreshing to hear a story that was grounded in reality. The characters didn't have super powers or magic, and there was no getting whisked away into a fantasy world.

What I love is a story that gives you all the pieces to figure out where things are going and doesn't just tell you everything. There wasn't much attempt to try and trick the audience at any point, so the show gets more points for that too. I dislike it when you get blind sided by something that wasn't telegraphed and makes following the reason difficult. While sadly there is some use of flashbacks, another tired thing everyone does these days, I don't honestly think any of it was really all that neccesary, it could have done without what little it had in my opinion.

I have to admit, from the start I questioned why this show had to be animal characters. Why would they choose this? I am frankly tired of this copy-paste story that is awkwardly told like beastars and zootopia tried and failed to do, among other even more dismal things too. I did notice a few things along the way that helped me accept that it was fine. Honestly it was fine in the end, I figured at some point that I needed to focus on the events instead of getting so hung up on it. I just guess I had wanted there to be a reason for it while also disliking the reasons other stories try to tell.

I'm always a fan of characters that act like real people. This show is a bit of a coin toss there. About half the cast is believable and the other half is rather cartoonish, and this at times left a bad taste when two characters on either side of that divide interacted. Another thing I really found tore me away was how 3 characters made reference to very old musicians as if it were the latest thing. You cannot convince me that a 18ish year old kid who is totally into brand new pop music idol groups has enough knowledge to name drop Janice Joplin. Nor will I believe two people born in the 80s are passionate fans of bruce springsteen when they should have been all over rock, punk etc. of the 90s. This comes from someone as musically illiterate as me. A nit pick? Maybe but it was a really stupid thing. I could see the author through the story in those moments, someone who himself liked these oldies, not the characters. Then bizzarely it never comes up again.

There is nothing terribly special about this story if I am honest. It is something though, that is accessible and I think is a more grounded story that isn't made anymore, and that is a shame. So many authors seem to just want to make some flashy story with huge grand universe ending wars, powers and flashy visuals, and underneath the story itself is a pithy rot of nothing. It was a great story because it relied on being actually clever, and it kept all the story beats tight. There was never a moment of unnesecarry dialogue or action for a moment. Blink, and you might miss something important, even if the pace didn't feel fast, you would miss a good detail. I wish there were more engaging stories like this, I even more hope this shows that dramas aren't dead.

I would suggest anyone watch this so long as it isn't a kid, despite the visuals. It was a great one I hope to share with friends...