Forget Deloreans, what would a time traveling car in Japan look like? A kujira Crown, apparently. In the drama Time Taxi an MS65 cab takes people back to rectify their mistakes — as long as they have the dough.
It’s not cheap, either. A 30-minute rewind costs about a hundred bucks. Clearly, some passengers need to do some more planning because in the pilot episode a guy chooses certain death simply because he can’t stop by an ATM.
Despite plot holes big enough to drive a whale through and a solution to the time paradox involving large cardboard cutouts of oneself, the show does give plenty of screen time to one of the coolest Crowns in the model’s 60-year history. Coincidentally, the show is also sponsored by Toyota (as well as subsidiary Daihatsu).
The car used in the show is mostly stock, though original Kujiras never had 3-point seatbelts for the rear bench. Nor did it come with a BTTF-style digital date and time readout on the dash.We couldn’t find an explanation of how the Crown got its powers either. Sadly, the plot does not require it to reach 88 mph or any particular velocity at all in order to bend the laws of physics. In fact, the lack of a light show when it time travels is even the subject of a recurring joke between the driver (played by Yutaka Takenouchi) and his fares.
Japanese TV programs don’t stretch on ad infinitum. They have a set number of episodes and when the story is done, it’s done. In Time Taxi‘s case, it was just a 9-story arc. The actual Crown was displayed in Shibuya last year as the show came to a close.
Now, however, thanks to the YouTubes, you can actually watch fully subtitled episodes of Time Taxi online. Be warned, though. It’s not as action packed as that other time traveling movie involving a Toyota and if you do watch it, unlike the characters in the show, you can’t get those hours of your life back.
Thanks to Josh K. for the tip! Images: KTV, Tarotaro-Tarotaro.
Huh. Episode 1 was surprisingly good. It felt like a big budget college-level final project for a team of young filmmakers.
” Japanese TV programs don’t stretch on ad infinitum. They have a set number of episodes and when the story is done, it’s done. In Time Taxi‘s case, it was just a 9-story arc. The actual Crown was displayed in Shibuya last year as the show came to a close.”
Explain why Aibo (Partners) is showing it’s 11th “Season.” Or Kasouken no Onna (Investigator Mariko) went to 10 “Seasons.”
Watched episode 1. I like it.
Watched episode 1. I like it.