Odd Taxi: In the Woods

The nighttime Tokyo of Odd Taxi: In the Woods feels painfully familiar: wet asphalt, dim shop windows, radio shows playing inside the cab, random passengers who say more than they meant to. But in this city every face wears an animal mask, and behind everyday conversations hides a tense, almost noir mystery. At the center of the story is Odokawa, a forty-year-old loner of a taxi driver: gloomy, sarcastic and unpleasantly observant. He lives without family, keeps people at a distance, listens to rakugo before bed and pretends that other people's fuss has nothing to do with him. His rare anchors are the doctor Goriki and his old friend Kakihana, though even these ties are cracking under the weight of things left unsaid. Everything changes when ordinary rides begin to form a single disturbing pattern: students, nurses, comedians, idols, police officers and yakuza seem to cross paths in his car by chance, and the trail of each conversation leads to the disappearance of a young girl.