Odd Taxi’s opening is one of the best anime OPs in years

Odd TaxiThis is an unusual anime that tells the story of a cantankerous, walrus driving a taxi who finds himself caught up in a dangerous mystery. It’s unique, engrossing, and one of the most memorable and emotionally affecting anime in recent memory.

The animated movie adaptation of the series is now available. Odd Taxi: In The WoodsCrunchyroll’s streaming debut of, Thursday, is a great time to review its absolutely banger opening, which aside from being the preface to one of the most outstanding anime of 2021 stands out as one the finest anime title sequences last year.

A stylized graphic of a monkey with heart eyes swiping on multiple touchscreen phones.

Directed and storyboarded by Ryoji Yamada, known for his work as a director on Millennium Parade’s psychedelic 2021 music video “Trepanation,” and featuring a groovy hip-hop title track written and performed by Japanese singer-composer Skirt and rapper PUNPEE, the opening title animation for Odd Taxi stands as one of last year’s best and a supremely entertaining sequence to watch on its own. It’s essentially a montage of a night in the life of Odd Taxi’s 41-year-old taxi-driving walrus protagonist, juxtaposed with scenes focusing on other major characters from the series. Opening is done in an abstract style. This includes digitally animated background characters, chalky backgrounds, watercolors, construction papers, broad-tip marker textures and clever wipe transitions that replicate the movements of a windshield wiper.

All of these elements culminate in a sequence that’s as entertaining to watch and listen to without context as it is revelatory to rewatch upon finishing the entire series. Yamada’s Odd Taxi opening lays out the show’s entire thesis with nary a word of dialogue, communicating in abstract symbolism the ways in which people are led astray by their own desires in a world inundated by the stimuli of social media and where nothing — and no one — is entirely as it seems.

An ape in a doctor’s coat and an alpaca in a nurse outfit scrutinizing the giant head of a walrus in a blue cap.

The original anime, directed by Baku Kinoshita (who also served as the series’ character designer), written by Kazuya Konomoto, and co-produced by creative company P.I.C.S and anime studio OLM, tells the story of Hiroshi Odokawa, a 41-year-old taxi driver who also happens to be a walrus in a world of talking anthropomorphic animals. When Odokawa is implicated in the disappearance of a young pop idol, he’s forced to contend not only with conniving yakuza enforcers and crooked police officers, but a homicidal masked stalker and a begrudging love interest in the form of a young alpaca nurse named Miho.

Although the show was not seen by many people when it first aired, in spring 2021 it caught on quickly because it was competing with big titles like My Hero Academia, Tokyo RevengersPlease see the following: Megalobox 2 – Nomad, Odd Taxi’s slow but steadily engrossing psychological crime drama and richly developed characters won it a place on our best anime of year list (and in our hearts). The sixth Crunchyroll Anime Awards gave it recognition, with the best protagonist and director prizes.