Odd Taxi Movie: In the Woods

Massive disappointment is an understatement. I was expecting 50% recap at most like the Goblin Slayer movie, but this movie turned out to be >90% recap and honestly just felt like a cash grab. The movie is over 2 hours long, but - no joke - 2 full hours is just recap, and the MAL description of "reconstruction" was giving it too much credit: it was basically just all the characters narrating the scenes from the anime series from their perspective without adding that much. Maybe if you dig really deep you could find some discrepancies/omissions in their narrations for some he-said/she-said type analysis, but that is a huge stretch. The only completely new material was the final 10 minutes and even that was not satisfying. Without going into spoilers, the new stuff left me feeling, "That's it? Is that all I waited months for?" They could have easily edited the anime to fit the actual ending instead of leaving it in a cliffhanger so you would have to watch the movie to get the "real ending." Overall, this movie left a really bad taste in my mouth and felt like the production company tarnishing the legacy of a great anime for a quick buck. Just save your time and look up the ending somewhere in 5 minutes. 3/10, and the 3 points are just leftover goodwill from the anime series, which remains a masterpiece except for the ending.

The point is: Odd taxi's movie is a recap of the anime, not entirely new content. Of course, there are a lot of new scenes with a new narrative point of view, like a police interview. I personally loved the experience a lot, even though I've watched the anime before. Another person went with me to the movie session, and this person had never seen Odd Taxi; loved the movie. So I think it's quite worth watching, just don't expect a sequel. ----------- So, basically, I really liked the movie and I don't understand people's disappointment, the producers themselves previously disclosed that it would not be a sequel...

If you are new to the Odd Taxi franchise, this is not the entry you should start with. Although it is a recap of the original series, due to it being a movie, much of the dialogue and mystery storytelling which made the original so great had to be skipped in this installment. So, if you are new, go watch the original. It is one of my 10/10s, and I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation. You've probably seen the user score hovering around a 6/10. This mostly happened due to disappointment with what this movie ended up being. People were expecting a sequel (me included), and unfortunately that's not what this is. What the description says is accurate, it's a recap with a reveal of what happened after the cliffhanger final scene of the anime. Yes, I do think it's a scummy move to have cut this out and resold it, and this anime kind of deserves the pounding it's getting in the reviews for having done that. That aside, however, I genuinely enjoyed watching this movie. It's an interesting recap as far as recap films go; the first 3/4ths or so of the anime is recapped using an interviewer as a plot device. The interviewer is talking about the events prior to the big finale with the characters, explicitly stating some new perspectives that you might have missed on your first viewing of the TV anime. Then, the finale is played more or less intact, with some new scenes added in as a nod to the final episode's reveal and some further acknowledgement of the TV anime's cliffhanger. Then the new scene of the cliffhanger happens. No spoilers in this review, but if the reveal of what happens is your only drive to watch this movie, I'd say just look it up online instead. It's not worth sitting through the whole film just to see it. It's honestly nothing special at all, which is kind of a shame, honestly. If mean, they really had to cut that scene out and create this whole stink over *that*? If you're interested in seeing a slightly new spin on this world and it's characters, however, it's absolutely worth watching this. For me, the new stills of the characters they showed in the end credits was worth my time by itself: I loved revisiting this series, and even if this is a water-downed Odd Taxi, it's still Odd Taxi, and Odd Taxi is great! So if you're ever considering a rewatch of the original, but are short on time for whatever reason, don't let the hate against this scare you off, deserved though it may be. It may not have been what you wanted, but it serves its purpose as a recap quite adequately.

Allow me to summarize the various video media of OddTaxi. OddTaxi (anime): the story centered around the taxi driver Odokawa with a cliffhanger ending leaving out 1 final scene. OddTaxi Movie: a shitty cashgrab recap recutting the anime intercut with sitdown still-frame interviews with all of the characters and some new scenes to resolve much of the broader narratives of the characters and partially finish the 1 final scene of the cliffhanger ending before cutting away to leave the scene unfinished to further leave it as a cliffhanger ending like a bad joke at the viewer's expense. These are adaptations of the manga: Odd Taxi. RoOT - Route of OddTaxi (live-action TV show): the story of OddTaxi centered around the PI investigators who were conducting the interviews of the movie, here actually doing PI murder-mystery investigations to follow clues and go around collecting evidence and risking their lives to solve the case, includes a ton of subplots and connective tissue that was entirely skipped over in the movie while only missing a few little relevant bits the movie had. Here the cliffhanger ending is fully resolved (the full story is revealed to be rather dumb). This is an adaptation of the manga: RoOT of OddTaxi. In summary, this is a dull murder-mystery story that has been hacked up into a bunch of incomplete versions of the same story for the sake of scummy cashgrabs. My interest in this series is dead and it's no mystery why. 1/10 (where 5/10 is average) I'd recommend the live-action for the story but its technical execution is quite boring (a remarkable low in comparison to a literal cashgrab recut like the movie).

Who was this made for exactly? If you have not watched the anime yet, this could be kind of confusing since you won't have the full context behind the story and characters and you may feel like the story wasn't too fulfilling, but if you watched the anime already this does not add anything to what you already know. This is just one giant waste of time. A 2 hour film consists of 90% recap with some commentary from the anime's characters giving personal recounts of their experiences. The last 20 minutes shows what happens in the end of the anime, but even then nothing much happens that you can't guess yourself. Nothing but a cash grab.

finally I was able to watch the film that I most awaited but it was a slight disappointment but I still remain a fan of this wonderful day that I savored unfortunately the film is quite short few highlights especially its extremely short end but I remain indifferent I would have liked more time for this film which is generally a commercial failure but I can already tell you that the anime is highly recommended, however if you are a fan like me you can greatly appreciate this brilliant work it would be beforehand to be able to view this film briefly my impressions of the film were superb I loved what I have but the end left me indifferent sorry olm and pics for daring to criticize one of your most ambitious projects but this film remains a disaster but I respect the work

For what it is, this is good. Odd Taxi: In the Woods is a recap film that also finishes off the last remaining plotline and mystery from the series. It exists to revisit and touch upon what the original series already covered while attempting to give greater context to what you've already seen. The story of Odokawa is an interesting one. Just as in the series, he's a very compelling and relatable loner, whose personal issues are explored in great depth as the series progresses and you realize just how much of what you see is impacted by his mental state. He's one of the best protagonists I've seen and definitely worthy of being at the center of all these interesting interconnected stories. The choice to have someone interviewing the characters was a smart one. Allows us to get further input from them and better justifies the existence of this film. Now, I will admit that it was a tad disappointing that only the last ten minutes or so offer new and completely original content that continues and concludes the story. This definitely could have been a short released afterwards rather than a film but as far as recaps go, it's really good. Overall, could have been better if there was more original content perhaps focused on the characters afterwards but was a good recap of the series with additional content to heighten the most impactful moments and storylines, plus it did wrap up that last mystery and that was honestly amazing to see.

A lot of people seem to dislike the movie, but I honestly liked it. It isn't much new content so to speak, but it's pretty important for me to have as many of my questions answered once I've finished watching a series, so I tend to watch everything related to a series. The movie answered any remaining questions that I had from Odd Taxi, but it's definitely not a required watch. It's formatted as an interview with the animal characters throughout the show, where everyone explains their point of view of what went on. It's basically done to piece everything together all nice and pretty and to add on a couple extra scenes. It's completely up to you if you're anything like me on wanting every miniscule question answered, if you don't care about that then I wouldn't recommended to watch the movie, but I also wouldn't not recommend to watch the movie if that makes sense.

If you haven't seen the TV series, don't watch this - the TV series just tells Odd Taxi's story better. Yes, the TV series ends on a cliffhanger which this movie resolves, but if the need for resolution becomes all-consuming, there is a better way to get that resolution than watching this movie. If you have seen the TV series, this movie is mostly recap. The reason to watch the movie is that it resolves the cliffhanger the TV series ends on, but again, there is a better way to get that resolution. Rather than watching this movie, instead watch the live-action spinoff series ROOT. It not only stands on its own as a rather fun detective story, it resolves the original TV series' cliffhanger in a much more satisfying way than the movie does without lessening any of the original story. After you've seen ROOT there is no reason to watch this movie as it will not add anything new to the story.