I’ll say this for Odd Taxi, it’s certainly holding its nerve so far.  I don’t frankly see how all these threads can possibly be tied together in one more episode, but but I’ll be fascinated to see the attempt.  If you’d told me the biggest suspension of disbelief factor wouldn’t be the whole humans as animals thing (remember that?) I would have laughed in your face.  But that’s just part of the fabric now – the real conceit here is that so many coincidences could possibly string together.  But that’s more or less the point I think – Odd Taxi is a series that very strongly wants us to believe in fate.

So just to summarize what I’m taking to be the latest developments on that score:

• Donraku-san is the head of the foundation for children orphaned by auto accidents.
• That same foundation cared for the Daimon brothers.
• Dobu is Ditch-11 – I think?  Which means poor insane Tanaka confronted both his tormentors at the same moment, completely by chance.

That still leaves me with the same question I’ve had for weeks – where do Homosapiens fit in with all this?  In a series with no coincidences, their presence and indeed prominence in the narrative really shouldn’t be incidental.  But I still don’t see how they connect, apart from Baba’s romance with Rui and Kensuke’s occasional run-ins with Tanaka.  Maybe they’re filling a sort of Greek chorus role, except they aren’t really.  I suppose we aren’t owed an answer on that but it’ll feel a bit off if we don’t get one.

This massive game of double-cross comes to a head on the day of “Oddtaxi”.  Everything seems to be going more or less to Dobu’s plan – Odokawa is right where he’s supposed to be, and so is Daimon Kenshirou.  The bank employees and Imai do their jobs.  Daimon stops Yano as planned, and we learn that Yano’s freestyle lapses when he’s under extreme stress.  Soon enough he figures out that Daimon is in league with Dobu, though, and things go rather badly for Daimon at that point.

The wild card here, as you always figured it probably would be, is Tanaka.  Odokawa has slipped the tracking device into the van with the money, but ends up crossing paths with his stalker anyway.  Dobu’s confidently counts off the six bullets Tanaka has already fired, which begs the question of why there was (at least) another round in the chamber.  Tanaka is clearly far, far around the bend at this point.  But he’s more or less concluded that killing Odokawa has lost its appear for him and appears ready to settle for an apology – which Odokawa gives, despite having no recollection of the incident at all.

Unwittingly, Odokawa’s apology (and accompanying bow) are Dobu’s undoing, as the Donraku eraser falls out of his pocket.  One thing leads to another and Tanaka decides that Dobu is Ditch-11, and ends up shooting him.  His reaction proves that as unhinged as he is, Tanaka is no killer.  And Odokawa is a stone-cold bastard – he doesn’t so much as call an ambulance for Dobu (threatening Shirakawa was probably the final straw).  But when Yano shows up, his best-laid plans to take care of Imai are scuttled, too.  Odokawa has at least one mobster out for his head now, and two if Dobu survives.

Man, what a tangle this is.  Daimon Koushirou is the most sympathetic figure here, actually – a poor, simple guy whose rock and foundation has betrayed everything he believes in.  As I said I have no idea how Odd Taxi plans to tie all this together – there wasn’t even a mention of Goriki or Odokawa’s condition this week, and that might be the single biggest plot point in the entire series. If it manages to stick the landing with a degree of difficulty this high, Odd Taxi will deservedly go down as one of the best series of a pretty strong season.