This past Sunday was Father’s Day in the United States. I love my own father and called to wish him a good day. But I still have trouble navigating some of these “greeting card holidays,” especially the parent and grandparent related ones. My husband and I have been trying to start our own family since we got married nearly four years ago, and as everyone can probably tell we haven’t had much success. These kinds of holidays are a sore reminder that my kind, caring husband doesn’t have the child he deserves, and my parents have no grandchildren.
I think life is full of regrets, and one of mine is that I went for so long thinking that I didn’t want to have children and never looked into whether it would be a possibility for me until I was older and staring down the loaded gun of advancing age. It’s a tough situation to navigate, because I’m used to giving things up; my family didn’t have a ton of money or resources when I was growing up and so I went without sometimes (I also had all my needs met, though, so it feels strange to claim hardship even though compared to other people I know it probably was). But sometimes life isn’t fair and wanting something very badly doesn’t mean that it will eventually appear in front of you somehow.
On that cheery note, let’s get back together with our animal friends for this penultimate episode of Odd Taxi! I have to say, I’m going to miss this series deeply when it’s over. Check out the links below for my thoughts on previous episodes:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Throughout this episode, the chickens come home to roost, as they say, and characters begin to face the consequences of their choices. In spite of some of the more… gruesome things that happen during this episode, for some reason I feel like the most tragic revelation comes from Shibagaki as he and Baba play out the swan song of The Homosapiens on stage during the N-1 losers’ bracket. As their routine unfolds, Shibagaki has a sudden outburst of emotion, exclaiming that he regrets ever becoming a comedian. Considering that he’s been the one to show more passion for keeping their comedy duo going, this is somewhat surprising on its surface.
There’s a logical fallacy that many of us will probably relate to called the “sunken-cost” fallacy. It’s the type of wrong-headed but understandable line of thinking that keeps people locked into situations that are harmful to their well-being. Because they’ve already committed so many resources to whatever the situation is – a job, a relationship, etc. – they feel as though it will have been a waste of their time if they suddenly decide to just quit dealing with it and leave. “Surely if I keep pumping quarters into this slot machine, I’ll eventually hit the jackpot, right?” In reality, there are just some bad relationships that will never improve no matter the amount of work invested, and the clarity that settles in once the situation is finally over can lead to regret for not having bailed long ago. And sometimes it’s impossible to tell the difference between a worthwhile commitment and a waste of time until that point, anyway. I think I can safely say that almost all of us have been through something like this at one time or another.
The tragedy is that neither Shibagaki or Baba are bad people, their life goals just diverged in such a way that their partnership was no longer viable. I think there’s often a great deal of grief that comes to realizing something like that. Despite the fact that the Homosapiens are kind of comic relief, their story has had a sad poignancy to it that I didn’t want to overlook.
I also feel a little bit bad for Dobu, despite him getting what was probably coming to him. He’s the type of old-school gangster that operates on his own brand of ethics – handshake agreements and man-to-man honor even in the pursuit of doing crime. There have been moments throughout the series where this classic way of operating has been able to rise above more modern methodology; Dobu’s pep talk managed to thwart Kabasawa’s viral internet manipulation, after all. Yet, Dobu is and has always been a grifter willing to take advantage of someone for a buck, and it’s that petty thievery rather than his final big heist that does him in.
Over the past few years, I’ve tried to pay attention to the ways in which our society discusses criminality, namely in how people talk about those who are accused of or have been convicted of crimes. I’m personally of the opinion that people who do things that are against the law are still human beings and still deserving of rights, due process, and if eventually convicted, the consequences should be of the type that rehabilitate rather than exacerbate whatever issues drove someone to do break the law in the first place. Having spent a lot of time listening in on local Facebook and Nextdoor groups, though, I feel like my position on the matter isn’t shared by a lot of people, or the criminal justice system in general in this country to be quite honest. There’s a lot of very gross language about locking people up and throwing away the key (even underage kids committing petty theft) and the assumption that people who regret their actions only do so because they finally got caught.
Does Dobu regret becoming a Yakuza thug? As he bleeds out on the pavement, one has to wonder. Do we regret the state of the world that makes doing that a viable option for some people? I often wonder that, too. I think Dobu could have been a good psychologist, if only he’d had the opportunity to straighten out his life. But perhaps I’m the one more regretful of what could have been than the person directly involved.
Speaking of the deeply flawed criminal justice system, I’ve found the resident police force in this series to be really interesting. The Daimon brothers are both bad cops but this manifests in completely different ways. As we’ve seen throughout the series, Big Daimon’s had dealings with the criminal underworld through Dobu; while his endgame might be the pursuit of justice, he’s turned a blind eye toward one aspect of his duties in favor of dealing with another, which just results in a messy, ethically-complicated situation. Little Dobu, on the other hand, has an overly-simplistic tunnel-vision view of justice and can’t see the big picture or the nuance of situations. Little Dobu throws around terms like “good” and “evil” as though they’re a binary, when in fact they’re on a continuum that’s different for every single person and deeply influenced by many circumstances.
The two brothers are the sorts of characters where one might joke “if they put their two brain cells together they might end up with one good idea.” I think they’re both wrong and both right about certain things in society and in their work and together they could balance one-another out.
I think Big Daimon regrets his misguided involvement with Dobu, and probably did even prior to getting thrashed and being left bruised and battered in the road by Yano and company. I think Little Daimon regrets being naïve and believing so completely in his brother and the simplistic ideals of TV show justice. I guess it still remains to be seen how being burned by regret will drive the two toward the conclusion of their part of the story.
As we settle in for the final episode, there are some open items remaining to resolve. Listed below are some of my “hopes.” As I’ve said before, I generally prefer not to speculate too much when it comes to plot-heavy series, because I’m very willing as a viewer to go along on the journey of a competent story wherever it may lead. But there are definitely characters in this series that I really care about and I would really like to know that they came to the end of their journeys unscathed (or scathed in a manner that suits their arc, in some cases).
Obviously, at the top of my list is Odokawa’s story and the related sub-plot of Goriki looking into his past. Odokawa is the heart of this series and possibly one of the more intriguing protagonists I’ve had the pleasure to know in my many years of watching anime. He’s a regular guy with some trauma in his rear-view mirror who just happened to find himself at the center of something ridiculously large. I would love to know a little more about how he grew into his personal morality and his quirks, and especially who he talks to alone in his apartment. I’d also like to see some kind of resolution within his relationship with Shirakawa. I don’t know that I want them to get together, but I do feel like whatever they’ve had to this point is still unresolved.
I’d also like to know who actually did the murder, but that desire might be overly-simplistic of me. Does it really matter who killed the original Mitsuya? I’m not sure that it does, because it’s the aftermath – the disposal of the body – that had more of an effect in the long run. Sometimes crimes go unsolved, and mysteries remain. I do have a soft spot in my heart for Rui, whose sense of self-worth is so fragile and so relatable. While her expression of these issues has been less-than-constructive (to put it mildly), I feel like there’s more to her than meets the eye.
And, of course, there’s our beloved comedy duo, who may no longer be a pair once all is said and done. Honestly I just want them both to find happiness in some way, whether that means being famous or going through life in a more typical way.
As this series comes to its end, I’d like to recommend some “further reading,” so-to-speak. One thing I didn’t realize until recently is that the show has a related audio drama that provides a bit more character insight. You can find a playlist of these translated into English HERE. The music video for the series OP is also really fun and sort of interesting, especially if you’ve already seen the majority of the series. It’s kind of mind-boggling how many little visual clues there are embedded into the music video, especially since it seems to have come out around the beginning of the series broadcast.
I’ll see everyone in a couple of days for the finale!