REVIEW: ‘RoOT: Route of ODDTAXI’ Episode 2 — “Fancy Merch”

When their background check assignment collided with a missing girl case in the premiere episode, things took a surprising turn for Rena (Yūmi Kawai) and Sato (Ryôta Bandô). In RoOT: Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 “Fancy Merch,” the mystery draws closer to home. Rena learns the missing girl may be a friend from high school. But with Rena not officially on the case can she pursue her lost friend while not angering her boss?

We start this week’s story with a flashback to Rena’s past. We see her and two friends leaving track practice and discussing several random topics. This introduction does an excellent job of establishing Rena’s connection to the missing girl, Mitsuya Yuki. There is a lot of casual charm and warmth in the opening. It feels like a random moment plucked from the past: nothing special, just them as they were.

When Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 returns to the present, Rena attends an idol meet-up. It seems her friend has joined an idol group. Of note, this particular group is a mystery group. Two of the members, Yuki being one of them, wear masks. This, of course, makes it hard for people to identify the members. As Rena approaches the group, acting like a fan, she expects Yuki to recognize her. Yet she doesn’t. Rena thinks that maybe the idol has the same name as her friend. But as she moves along as the event closes, a suspicious shot of the group’s manager implies something fishy is happening.

This obvious hint is a bit too blunt of a moment. Viewers would be suspicious regardless of the heavy-handed framing of the manager. The opening was enough to ensure suspicion, as Yuki is far too close to Rena to casually forget her. This feels like a moment of fear from the series’ direction. They don’t trust the audience to pick up on what’s playing out, so they lean too hard on clues.

When Rena returns to work, we learn that she is continuing to pressure her boss to let her work on the missing person’s case. Knowing now that she was a friend of the victim, her boss doubles down on not letting her work it. This leaves her to continue working on the background check of Odakawa with Sato.

After the previous one, this scene leaves the viewer wondering about Rena’s thoughts. Why look for her at an idol meeting if she knows Yuki is missing? Did she think she had disappeared to join a group, leading to a misunderstanding rather than a kidnapping? This lack of clarity in her motives leaves Rena’s character with an intriguing element. The opaqueness of her motives plays in stark contrast to the last scene’s bluntness.

Once their boss leaves, Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 shifts back to what Sato has learned aboutOdakawa, the taxi driver. The rookie has been hard at work, learning the taxi’s regular routes. With this new information, Rena takes Sato to see if anyone along those courses has anything to say about their taxi driver. While informative, this scene struggles, thanks to Sato. When he notices information about the idol group Rena checked out, he notes how cute some of the members are. Thinking he’s been rude, he begins stumbling through some attempts to compliment Rena, not wanting her to feel like he thinks she isn’t pretty.

The moment is intended to be awkward, but charming. However, it never manages to be the latter. Sato’s flailing attempts to be nice just feel weird. They fall so short it’s hard to believe he couldn’t be aware of how poorly he is presenting himself. It brings nothing to the scene or Sato’s character.

From here, we watch as Rena and Sato question a handful of people about Odakawa. They get some interesting tidbits about the man, further filling in some of his personality. Many of their questions also lead back to a particular house in the area, bearing further investigation. Most interesting of all though, is a charm a homeless man has. Matching the one Rena used to have on her bag, the viewer can instantly string together where it came from.

Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 then sees our stars return to the home of the woman who asked them to look into Odakawa. They fill her in on what they’ve learned and their suspicions concerning the kidnapping. This comes as a shock to the woman, who didn’t expect anything like this. Rena also questions the woman about the house they keep hearing about. This leads to details concerning the local neighborhood and how people try to remake it.

This renovation of the area is soon shown to have mob connections, dove-tailing nicely into a deeper look at a character. We learn more about the mobster who beat up Sato. Exactly what part he will play in the story is not clear, but the moment establishes the personality and focus of the character well. Styling himself as an old-fashioned man who uses brawns over brains, it’s clear how he intends to pursue his goal, whatever it may be.

Returning to Ibusuki Detective Agency, we see Rena and Sato confronted by their boss. He knows about where they have been going and knows they are looking into the missing person. His reprimand is brief, as he also reveals they’ve heard from the girl and the investigation has been called off.

Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 follows this up with a pair of scenes that inject doubt into this situation. First, we jump back to the same scene that opened the episode. There, Yuki asks Rena if she can have the charm that was found earlier in the episode. While this once again feels a little heavy-handed, it’s not nearly as egregious as the moment with the manager. Showing the transference of custody of the charm is fine. It just would’ve been nice if it could’ve been handled a bit more subtly.

The second scene shows a pair of individuals we are led to assume are Yuki’s family. It seems they haven’t heard from her. But the group’s manager has claims he has. This now firmly establishes that the girl is still missing and definitely in some form of danger. The episode wraps up with a return to Rena and Sato as they idly chatter about a series of topics. While this moment doesn’t have direct narrative implications, it builds out some of the pair’s opinions.

Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 continues to be a decent series. While it feels too blunt with some of its clues, Rena continues to be an intriguing star. There is still an interesting mystery here if the series can just shed some of its struggles to let the narrative focus on it and its strong central personality.

Route of ODDTAXI Episode 2 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.