Odd Taxi Episode 2 – Musings on Luck in Its Various forms

So, I typically don’t write episode reviews of series as they’re airing. I’ve tried to do it a few times over the years and always encountered issues (such as not having enough free time) or lost interest part way through. But lately I’ve been trying to broaden my reach and my writing skill set a little bit, and I thought this might be one way to do that.

There are a ton of great series airing right now, but the one I just can’t seem to get off my mind is Odd Taxi. Compared to most other contemporary anime, its tone and subject matter feel very, well, odd; it has the feel of a live-action drama in every way aside from its animal characters. It looks very cute but feels unsettling, and I enjoy stories that play off of that kind of ambivalence. So I’m going to try to catch up with the show and post on it as episodes come out. I hope you’ll join me!

Note: This post contains spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of Odd Taxi.

You can check out my previous reviews of the series below:
Episode 1

Odd Taxi has read like a slow-burn drama to me from the moment I loaded the first episode, so rather than spend a bunch of time and energy speculating on how the plot will roll out and trying to predict its twists and turns (if it even manages to eventually tell a straightforward, typical story which I suspect it may not), I’ve decided it might be more useful to try to look at the show through the themes that make each episode unique. The first episode introduced many of the characters and played around with the idea that people tend to have hidden, internal lives that they don’t always share with others. Seemingly upstanding people may secretly steal from their employers, cops may use their privileged positions to commit crimes without suspicion… the characters in the series, at least thus far, rarely seem to live up to our first impressions of them.

Episode 2 seems to be focused on the idea of “luck” in its various forms, and the ways in which it’s perceived by people on opposite sides of those lucky breaks. The episode begins as Odokawa and Kakibana share some time and conversation in the sauna, where Kakibana learns (much to his surprise) that Odokawa has somehow landed a date with the young, beautiful nurse Shirakawa. Kakibana sees this as an extremely lucky break; as someone who’s constantly checking dating apps and searching for love with little success, Odokawa has access to the one thing in the world Kakibana seems to really want for himself, and Odokawa’s lack of apparent enthusiasm about it is a complete mystery to him.

This isn’t Odokawa’s only lucky break, either; the mildly altruistic act of driving a passenger to a destination for which they don’t have enough fare ends with the comedy duo Homo Sapiens (of whom Odokawa seems to be one of few fans), riding in his cab. We also learn that Odokawa was the only survivor of a bad car accident at some point in the past. As unassuming a guy he is, he seems to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time and getting himself out of trouble.

Or does he? There are several moments in this episode that seem to argue that “luck” as we know it is really only positive interpretations of what amount to convenient coincidences, or illusions obscuring what actually amounts to a lot of hard work and effort behind closed doors.

During the episode we check in with Kabasawa, the young wannabe internet celebrity whose quest to go “viral” managed to confound Odokawa. We find that his manufactured tweet attached to the selfie he took in the cab gained some minor amount of traction, but that the level of internet success he seeks has still managed to elude him despite all attempts to study up on surefire ways of achieving it. I’m sure there are plenty of social media managers out there who would claim to be able to use their knowledge of human behavior to make this kind of magic happen at their whim. I certainly believe there’s some craft to their job and ways to make virality more likely. Yet, I think in the end it just boils down to posting the right thing at the right time, whatever that means in the moment (creating a meme, riding the coattails of some social issue, or even just crafting a joke that catches on). Is that luck? Skill? Or something completely separate?

The other major character introduction during the episode is Rui Nikaido, the leader of an up-and-coming (though apparently not very successful) idol group “Mystery Kiss” on the precipice of releasing their debut album. We heard a bit of their music in the first episode, but this one brings us to one of their meet-and-greet events where Imai, Rui’s biggest fan (self-proclaimed, but possibly also true) recalls how he was one of only five people at their first live show. Even in the manufactured world of idol groups there’s no real guarantee of success; as in all things, the most well-intentioned business decisions may only result in middling or even no measurable amount of success. But unpredictable success doesn’t mean that idol group members aren’t some of the most hard-working out there. Another member of Mystery Kiss even talks about holding a second job in order to make ends meet.

Imai’s day-one fandom, his personal claim to fame that he believes separates him from typical idol fans, is yet another coincidental happenstance that was more the result of chance than of fate. While he may feel lucky (and even a little haughty) for having the chance to follow Rui and her group “before they were cool,” he’s also going into debt from purchasing lottery tickets, hoping to win enough money to achieve more within this niche fandom. Is that actually lucky? Or just an illusion based on a parasocial relationship?

After watching this episode, I’m left wondering how even to define the concept of “luck,” because it’s a force of the universe that I’d wager most of us don’t even really believe exists, and yet we’re often quick to call something positive “lucky” as if luck were something quantifiable. I like to think of myself as believing that there’s no grand plan for the universe, and that nothing happens for a reason more mysterious than cause and effect. And yet despite this pragmatism on my part I often have a difficult time attributing certain happenings to anything other than luck working in its own strange ways.

I finally finished Horimiya a couple of days ago after realizing there was a thirteenth episode (whoops), and the final episode has a through line in which Miyamura reflects on how different his life would have been had he not encountered Hori’s little brother and brought him home to her that one afternoon. In the world of the series he’s gained both a girlfriend and several other friends, and spent his final year of high school in a substantially different way than he would have otherwise, simply because he was in the right place at the right time. Was this luck, or fate, or coincidence?

I think luck boils down to perception, in the end. Is it wrong to call something good “lucky?” In most cases I don’t think so. It might soften the blow to think of someone’s fortune as being luck rather than the complex interplay of wealth and privilege that it probably is. And it’s valuable to remember that one person’s lucky situation might be another’s misfortune. Seen from an outsider’s perspective, they’re both just things that happen, and our lack of omniscient knowledge prevents us from seeing every complex factor at play which led to that point.

When Odokawa talks about having survived a terrible car accident, the reply Imai gives him is that “If you were lucky, you wouldn’t have gotten into an accident.” Is it luckier to simply survive, or to live without the trauma of a near-death experience? I think that answer may be different for just about everyone, and might change based on the type of life they’ve had the privilege of living. If anything, though, luck is fickle and hard to define, even if one believes that it’s real. And Odokawa’s seems to run out when Dobu slides into his back seat and points a gun in his face…

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Odd Taxi remains an intriguing if somewhat inscrutable series two episodes in, but I’m having fun with the way in which it’s organically provided us with insight into the various characters’ lives and personalities. I feel like no character thus far has been portrayed as a completely straightforward, boring person; they’re all the product of their outer and inner lives, just as we are.

More than likely I’ll be posting reviews of the series every couple of days until I catch up (episodes drop on Mondays so I’ll try to be caught up before episode 6 on May 10th), so I hope you’ll bear with me until then. Let me know if you’ve been watching and enjoying the show so far in the comments! Please be sure not to spoil anything for readers who may not be caught up.