Set in modern-day Tokyo with a twist, you have a taxi driver who by some luck gets involved in a big crime operation. All the "beings" appear as animals at least from what you see, they're all humanoid animals. I know you're thinking "Hey that sounds like Beastars" but believe me, it is far from Beastars. The story is very neo-noir, a crime thriller with this taxi driver slowly hatching the most 400iq plot to catch criminals with some very interesting revelations along the way. And it has one of the most well-written endings for an original series.
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Visuals
The visuals in Odd Taxi are very unique. They almost look like they were drawn with crayon, giving it a very unique vibe, that somehow fits extremely well with the anime.
And as I mentioned earlier all the characters are humanoid animals. But they are not drawn like crayons like the backgrounds, so it creates this very disconnected feeling that what you're seeing is not real. Almost as if the characters are made to stand out (you see what I'm getting at?).
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Characters
Odd Taxi has a big cast. Your protagonist is Odokawa, the taxi driver. The story is entirely told through his eyes, so you see what he sees. Odokawa is an apathetic uninterested walrus, on first look, you can probably say he has depression considering how disconnected and automated he feels. But he is a smart individual with a very unique disposition, I won't get into that here. He is voiced by Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro in Demon Slayer) in perhaps his most unique role as a VA from what I can tell, because Odokawa sounds nothing like the young boy that Hanae's voice is known for.
Then there are the side characters, that while you would think this is a disconnected episodic series where the taxi driver encounters multiple people, it is exactly the opposite. In fact the proverb "What a small world" applies extremely well to the world and characters of Odd Taxi because each character is somehow connected to the other one in a very intricate manner. There's a monkey gangster, an alpaca that knows capoeira, a porcupine that raps, etc etc. A very big and unique cast, each with their own story and their own unique traits, all of them are unique individuals, and they're all connected in some form or another to each other, and to Odokawa.
The world building in Odd Taxi is done so well that the Odd Taxi website has an image that shows exactly how each character is connected to the other. Here is a translated version of it if you want to check it out yourself. The official Japanese one is available on Odd Taxi's website.
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Overall
If you are looking for a crime thriller series with a twist, then this is right up your alley. In my opinion, Odd Taxi has been the best original anime of 2021 so far, and the best anime of this season of Spring 2021. Each episode is enthralling and each episode will make you create hypotheses and theories about the characters and what is going to happen next, with one of the best endings in an original anime I have ever watched. Combined with one of the smoothest OPs of all time that I vibe to pretty much everyday, this anime is nothing short of an amazing experience that I would like to see more anime adapt since this genre of noir crime thrillers is so extremely niche. Also rewatching this series is very worth it, because so many of the plot twists are presented right from the start, you just miss them because you didn't know. So this is an anime that is not just a one and done but worth revisiting and see all the hints littered throughout. The whole series is fascinating and I highly recommend it. Just keep an open mind to the animal visuals, and always keep in mind that this story is being viewed from the perspective of Odokawa, you see what he sees.
