Alright, that was a very nice show, I really liked it. I'm glad people talked so much about it or else, while I was planning to watch it, it probably wouldn't have been after a while and I might would've forgotten it actually.
I'm not gonna list this show's qualities, so many people already did so before me.
That said... Mmm... How to say that... First thing, I confess my sins, may I rest in peace.
Now... Please if you really wanna kill me, make it quick and painless.
Because I might happen not to find Odd Taxi to be a masterpiece.
Yup I said it. Now, why do I think that way ? Firstly, I might be the only person in this world to not feel satisfied by this ending.
Edit : Nevermind, I've seen some people complaning a bit. Not as much as me, but still.
The reveal about the murderer was very underwhelming (it was obvious it was this girl but I really hoped they went for something more impactful for the reveal), and while as I said, the truth was obvious, I can't really say I like it, it's just... Yeah, underwhelming really is the word.
Another thing is the lack of real character development. A lot of these characters experienced some interesting evolution in the show, but everything has been lost at the very end because they all came back to stage 1. Dobu is a criminal so he got arrested (which is normal but that's still a rather sad ending for such a good character), Tanaka is back to being a salaryman (I'm glad he is doing fine but after everything I really think showing him working on his mental issues would've been much better than showing him being perfectly fine, it's totally unbelievable that someone as mentally broken as him would go back to normal just like that), Kakihana is working which is a good thing but I can't believe Odokawa didn't help him at all (speaking of which, I really wonder if Odokawa is supposed to be seen as morally grey because that's the way I see him), that hippo guy is back to being a social network addict (and how exactly did he get back his phone ?)...
The only one who received real development is Odokawa but even for him, something feels wrong. First, the twist was pretty nice, I liked the metaphor, but from a realistic point of view (because they clearly did try to adopt this point of view), that's not only stupid but also, I'm gonna say it again, underwhelming. Underwhelming, because it made for a rushed development, we didn't actually get to see Odokawa work on his issues, but because he drowned all of a sudden : magic ! He can talk to humans ! And he isn't shocked at all ! Yaaaa...y ?
Also I'm not certain drowning can solve such a problem, both psychologically and physically. Not only that, but his friend (whose name I forgot) and the nurse (whose name I also forgot) jumped on the conclusion that he lost this "ability" before he even woke up, that's stupid.
And speaking of that twist, they keeping hinting at that through people not understanding how he can recognize silhouettes so easily, but he didn't just do that, he also actually referred to people as animals a few times, in front of them, but this didn't bother them ? Yeah, sure.
Finally, to end this part about this particular episode, the twist about what's behind the door is very disappointing, especially since this cat is far from being the first actual animal to appear in the show.
Now about the rest of the show, as I said it was very good, but definitely not perfect. The problems I listed above also impact the show as a whole, but there's more.
A lot of characters, while interesting and unique, ended up being very cartoonish. Take Yano for example, I expected so much from this character and waited for something great up until the last episode, and I barely got anything. Turns out the only interesting thing about him is that he talks in rhymes.
Another thing is that the show is praised for having everything connected, but there were a lot of times where I thought the connection happened not because it totally made sense but because the show wanted it to happen. With that I can also say that it didn't manage to avoid all those little things that make me facepalm, such as that scene where the cop was about to open Odokawa's closet but got interrupted at the very last moment. I really believe that great and clever writing also involves getting rid of these types of things.
Something else is the fact that the show often built up mystery and tensiom out of not so much, and sometimes insisted so much on some details that the twist ended up not being one. The best example for me would be Tanaka shooting Dobu, with how much they insisted on him not having any bullets left, it seemed obvious to me that the opposite would happen. Because of that, what would've actually been surprising to me would've been if nothing happened at all because Tanaka actually ran out of bullets.
Now with all that said, don't get me wrong, I really do like the show and I'm not trying to hate on it. But seeing it being praised everywhere as the most perfect show ever even though I can so easily list so many flaws is frustratimg to me, we can totally acknowledge that a show is very good while still acknowledging it's not perfect.
So I give it a 7/10, unfortunately for all the reasons listed (and also the fact that while I was invested in the story,I never felt any strong emotion coming out of it) I wasn't impacted enough to give it more than that. That's still a good score ! But I was hoping for more. |