I think we’re getting pretty close to the point where you can toss the words “surprise hit” around when talking about Odd Taxi.  At least among a certain sector of Western anime fans clearly starved for something with writing antithetical to the light novel style which dominates anime (even original anime) these days.  It’s certainly not as big as Osomatsu-san – either in the surprise or hit department – but this was a series which going into the season I was pretty convinced was going to be so anonymous it might not even be streamed.

I should point out that I said in the season check-in post that Odd Taxi was the series on the chart “with a bullet” – the one with a lot of potential to rise sharply in the rankings.  And indeed it followed up its best episode with one that was probably even better, which signals a lot of upward momentum.  Conventional this series isn’t, but it’s oddly gritty and realistic given that the characters are talking animals.  It clearly in no way feels bound by conventional linear narrative structures – there is an arc to the story, but it wanders off for interesting tangents practically nonstop.  But none so far as long or interesting as the one we got this week.

I want to say a word in praise of Saitou Souma, certainly a very good actor though not someone I’d necessarily say I ranked among the elite seiyuu out there.  He’s absolutely terrific as Tanaka, the protagonist (definitely not hero) of this episode.  Saitou basically has to carry the entire thing on his back, and he does a beautiful job of it.  The nondescript Tanaka – even the name, basically a Japanese Smith or Jones, is nondescript – is a loser who’s been a loser his whole life.  Tanaka spins the tragic tale of his own downward spiral, fact-checking himself whenever he embellishes his own case too much.  It’s a fascinating and sometimes harrowing journey he takes us on.

One of the things one can take away from Tanaka’s story, I think, is that it’s sometimes incredibly banal and trivial things that can set the course of our lives – especially when we’re kids.  Like erasers, the only thing an “egalitarian” teacher allows the kids in Tanaka’s third-grade class to collect.  That makes them status symbols (for what was probably about a week but undoubtedly felt much longer to Tanaka), especially among the lower-caste kids with no other social capital.  The lust for a rare eraser (I guess they exist) from an online auction site is what sets Tanaka off on his dark path.

What I find really heartbreaking about this tale is how casually Tanaka brushes off the sheer brutality of his upbringing.  Parents who clearly favored his older brother, beatings from said brother, a physically abusive father, and no affection at all that we can see apart from a cockatiel named Maru (the one instance where the boy was indulged).  Cockatiels are at least affectionate creatures who strongly bond with their humans, but Maru too will end up as a part of the tragedy.

It all starts with that auction, which the boy wins for the ridiculous sum of ¥100,000 – which he charges to his dad’s credit card and gets beaten to a pulp over.  Anyone who has a tendency towards compulsion (we know it when we experience it) will find this episode hits way, way too close to home.  It’s the quest that’s the drug, not the acquisition.  Tanaka gets screwed out of that eraser by the seller – “ditch-11” – and being a kid, doesn’t contest it or fight back.  And as a miserable adult working for a game company, Tanaka sees that same name atop the rankings for the “Zoological Garden” Gacha game that’s ruining his life.  He’s spending all his time and money trying to acquire a rare animal, the dodo – the same animal as the one rare eraser he possessed as a child.

These sorts of games are a real problem for many people, no matter how much their makers would deny it – Tanaka’s addictive personality is not rare.  As for how it ties into the main story, it’s a grudge against Odokawa, who unwittingly robbed Tanaka of the dodo he’d spent four years and tens of thousands of dollars trying to acquire.  A random run in with the older half of Homosapiens seems to cement in Tanaka’s mind that fate has called him to take his revenge – to avenge himself against his childhood self, and his childhood self against the universe.  He’s now a real threat to Odokawa but it’s hard not to feel a certain empathy for Tanaka, because it’s not so hard to see yourself walking that same path in the absence of any good fortune.

Writing like this in anime is as rare as that dodo, there’s no doubt about that.  Odd Taxi seems to possess a fearlessness borne of lack of commercial expectations – as if it’s a one-cour series with no hope of being anything more, and little of escaping obscurity.  That it may just be doing that is certainly ironic, but the essence of its appeal remains the same – quirky, smart, and thematically dense writing for and about adults.  I always wonder how in the world series like this ever get made, but that just makes me that much happier when they occasionally are.