Animal Collective: The Rappers Behind the ODDTAXI Soundtrack

An overview of the music by the three rappers responsible for the soundtrack to the 2021 anime

This feature is part of This Side of Japan issue #46. You can return to the main newsletter here.

Anthropomorphic animals tend to otherwise regular human jobs in the world of ODDTAXI. But then after a few episodes, the anime introduces the porcupine Yano, the crime boss who raps his entire dialog. While the absurd premise makes for one of the show’s best running gags, his freestyle-as-dialog is also crafted with care. Rapper and Yano’s voice actor METEOR teams up with rapper/producer PUNPEE to weave in clever internal rhymes and double entendres within Yano’s elaboration of his threats and business schemes¹. The other characters look at a mumble-rapping porcupine as puzzled as the audience, but the porcupine himself isn’t one to be taken as a joke.

Yano’s freestyle only represents a sliver of the hip hop featured in the show’s soundtrack. “The characters of ODDTAXI look cute from the outside, but they can be ugly in the inside,” director Baku Kinoshita said to FNMNL last April. “I wanted the music to have that kind of gap too. The material is heavy, but the music is unique and light.” While Kinoshita initially called up PUNPEE to strike that balance of pop and edge, the rapper soon divvied up the work with VaVa and OMSB, two of his label mates in the hip-hop imprint SUMMIT. From the assigned 45 or so tracks, the three ended up with a collection of 27 cinematic songs that expand their hip-hop production work into different palettes and moods very much outside of their usual comfort zone.

The three rappers explained to FNMNL that they chose which song each would work on based on how the description suited their personality: “OMSB usually got the ‘cool’ or ‘angry’ ones,” PUNPEE said with a laugh. OMSB brought ruggedness in “Kyohaku” and “Saiaku”; VaVa handled melodic tenderness in “Inko No Maru” and “Uwasa No Onna.” PUNPEE rounded out the rest by bringing out diverse sounds and tricks from his toolbox as well as inspirations from other soundtracks like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s for The Social Network.

Indeed, the kind of moods struck by each of the rapper’s respective tracks are ones also represented from their respective solo material. Each boast a rich catalog of their own, some spanning a decade or more worth of work. Here are the three artists featured in the ODDTAXI soundtrack.

PUNPEE

“Renaissance” from Modern Times (2017)

PUNPEE’s initial submissions to the ODDTAXI producers were beats he had stocked up over the years, he says. The rapper could probably afford to do so with him being active in the scene since the early 2000s. He first earned praise with the 2009 album David with the trio PSG formed with fellow rapper (and actual sibling) 5lack and producer GAPPER. While he dabbled in a lot of production work and guest verses for other artists in the 2010s—the theme song for Suiyoubi No Downtown! A mix for Hikaru Utada!—he struck a highlight that decade with his debut solo full-length, Modern Times. It’s the kind of classic that eases listeners new to hip hop into the genre, with stylish boom-bap opening up heart-on-sleeve, ordinary-guy introspection.

That same downplayed personality shines in the title track of ODDTAXI. The beat’s main guitar riff offers a mild cloud of melancholy, numbing away the listlessness sung by Skirt’s Wataru Sawabe into a digestible chill pill. PUNPEE casually accepts life as a big joke, rapping laments like “I become the background / for you it’s just like taking out the trash” with an unaffected, backpacker coolness. If he appears nondescript, his problems insignificant, he succeeds at what he sets out to do: “Oddtaxi” reflects the smallness one feels while caught in a sea of people in a crowded city.

The show forces him to flesh out a lot more personality than pure cool when it comes to the score job, but PUNPEE answers with compositions full of color and humor. His hip-hop foundation still shows through, many of his pieces buoyed by slick breaks and drum beats. His tracks usually features the most playful sounds like the wheezes and chirps of “Yoru No Picnic” or the rotund bass for “Nichijou A.” The rapper also said to FNMNL how he learned the beats couldn’t feature too prominent a melody and he had to account for the voices to complete the story. “Tsukeyakiba No Capoeira,” then, seems like the end result of this lesson with its jingling boom-bap fully complete only when laid with the scenes of its associated character: Shirakawa, an alpaca trained in the art of capoeira.

Further recommendation: Modern Times (2017); “Wheels” ft. VaVa, OMSB, Sara Yoshida (2021)

OMSB

“Clown” from Haven EP (2021)

It may not be as harsh as PUNPEE might make it seem, but OMSB kicks music rougher to the touch in comparison to his other label mates. The bluntness comes through more in attitude than the production in his more recent works, though he could get aggressive on the beats as well: the bass on “Naruhodo” off of the Monkey EP hits as abrasive as the yelled hook warning others to treat one another with respect or else. “Stoic and critical” suits him better to describe his personality than “aggressive” with his latest Haven EP in particular as he applies himself with seriousness in the path of self-improvement: “Right now is probably the best time / Don’t be a god damn pussy,” he recites perhaps to himself in “Justify Myself” over equally hard-nosed boom-bap.

Further listening: Haven EP (2021); Monkey EP (2021)

VaVa

“Fruit Juice” ft. BIM (2021)

“VaVa-chan got the emotional ones,” PUNPEE explained to FNMNL on the songs VaVa decided to tackle; “melodious ones,” describes VaVa himself. The rapper certainly has the best ear for pop melody out of the three—maybe not a surprise, then, to see him as the artist responsible for penning the songs for ODDTAXI’s fictional idol group Mystery Kiss—and his tracks often flirt around with Auto-Tuned R&B. He croons a series of love songs on his 2019 full-length VVorld, his “Auto-Tune and boom-bap” vibe so fitting to have him alongside tofubeats on a standout track. The heart-on-sleeve personality carries over to his musings on life as it does on “Fruit Juice” with label mate BIM: VaVa’s smoothness lifts platitudes like “you can’t eat tonkotsu ramen every single day” into cool as much as charm.

Further listening: VVorld (2019); “Triforce” ft. Yo-Sea & OMSB (2021)

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1. METEOR and PUNPEE produced a full EP, 2019, recorded in the character of Yano. The album cover spoofs Joey BADA$$’s breakthrough 2012 mixtape 1999, and that fact alone, well, and of course knowing that SUMMIT was involved in the music, was what eventually got me into the ODDTAXI anime.