Odd Taxi Director Talks The Series' Origins
Odd Taxi on its face might seem like a cute story featuring anthropomorphic anime characters, but it revolves around a murder mystery and a world where death lies in wait around every corner. With the latest movie arriving on Crunchyroll the director of the series took the opportunity to talk about the origins of the series and how he felt with the project being his directorial debut as fans have a new avenue of entering the world of Odd Taxi.
To start, Kinoshita described the origins of Odd Taxi, the anime series which follows a taxi cab driving walrus who is dragged into a mystery that is life and death, as a massive secret waits in the wings to be revealed:
"Originally, I wanted to create a drama story with animals. That was my original idea. Initially, I gave the idea to the producer and we felt like we could tweak [the story] a little bit and polish it up. So that's how we kind of tweaked it. Also, [Kazuya] Konomoto was on this project, and he threw out a lot of good ideas. That's how we came up with doing human types who look like animals, which we settled on. So, the story came from myself, the producer, and Konomoto-san who brainstormed together to create this story about taxis."
Kinoshita then discussed his directorial debut, thanking fans for their dedication to the series:
"Upon doing this project, I was very happy to hear that a lot of people enjoyed the story of ODD TAXI. I was really happy and grateful to work on it. Being my debut, I did get a lot of advice from a lot of my peers, like my senpai. So I really appreciate them helping me out and giving me so advice to make this project happen. I just want to try to build on that and get more experience to become a better director."
While Odd Taxi had quite a definitive ending for its first season, the movie promises to explore further into the world, though a second season following the anthropomorphic world has yet to be confirmed.
What is your favorite strange anime released in recent years? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Odd Taxi.