Takopi's Original Sin - A Miserable Experience.

Misery Porn
TV Tropes describes misery porn as a subsection of misery literature where "readers actually get off on wallowing in the graphically-described horrific abuse". Takopi's original sin covers all of the textbook painful and tragic topics in these stories, graphically and unrelentingly. Abusive parents, alcohol addiction, murder, suicide, prostitution, poverty, divorce and of course, bullying. To its credit, this anime's central theme is the cycle of abuse and it makes an honest attempt at showing how the cycle of abuse is perpetuated in broken homes. It attempts to show how trauma and pain is passed on from generations, showing how individual hard decisions can lead to otherwise innocent children becoming monsters in their own right. The use of Takopi's happy gadgets serves as a vessel to explore one critical moment in time from multiple perspectives. Takopi's presence as an outsider with a naive innocence who wants everyone to be happy is critically explored, showing how the issues these characters face is not easily remedied.

Where it works
Two powerful moments that I thought captured the core themes of the show well were when Marina laid dead and Shizuka thanked Takopi with genuine happiness. It showed how when cornered, violence can seem like a solution to a problem with no end in sight. Similarly, towards the end of the anime there is a scene where Shizuka relentlessly beats on Takopi, someone who is innocent and incapable of understanding the full scope of human suffering. This was a great depiction of how internalized pain can manifest itself as violence against the innocent. Considering the events of the story this felt like rational actions on Shizuka's part.

Where it fails
While this anime does have some interesting structural ideas, the execution is marred by tonal confusion, shallow characters and a heavy handed approach that does not do the subject matter justice. The show is unrelentingly dark from beginning to end, with little respite from the constant barrage of depressing events. Takopi, who is presumably meant to be a source of contrast often comes across as annoying and ends up weakening the serious themes that the show concerns itself with. There is no joy shared between the characters, no highlights that we can contrast the horrific scenes with and as a viewer I ended up with an emotional fatigue and disinterest in the fate of the characters who die repeatedly on screen.

Marina and Azuma I found to be particularly bad. While Shizuka's frustration on Takopi and her relief when Marina was killed felt genuine, Marina's bullying of Shizuka was laughably cruel and completely unjustified. Her motivations for targeting Shizuka: Her dad's infidelity and the love triangle with Azuma don't feel compelling enough to justify the heartless violence she commits against an innocent and defenseless child. I find it difficult to empathize with Marina and all the show does to display her as being a product of her situation falls flat. She is just evil.

The relationship between Azuma and Shizuka had a lot of potential. With Shizuka's mother being a prostitute there was a great opportunity to explore darker themes such as manipulation, distorted views on love and show Shizuka's relationship with her own parents might express negatively in her relationships with others. Instead what we got is Azuma having a crush and heart eyes pop up to serve the plot further. Azuma felt like a pawn in the war between these two girls and we are left with a pointless and uncomfortable love triangle that feels out of place due to the characters ages.

Other Remarks
Visually the anime is quite good, with a unique style and wonderful direction. The production on this OVA is movie quality and very impressive. The sound design however, I cannot praise as much. The tonal clash created by some of the musical choices did not work for me and I found that it often removed the emotional weight of certain scenes, particularly where Shizuka hung herself and when Takopi killed Marina. I felt the music actively detracted from the anime in nearly all cases and nothing of the OST was particularly notable.

Finally the ending where the two girls reconciled through Takopi and found solidarity in their shared trauma felt deeply unearned. There was too much emotional baggage between the girls two square things away like that and I felt it was a patchwork to give the show a bittersweet ending.

Ultimately I felt that the anime had some cool ideas, and often generated hype that would keep me engaged, but a lack of breathing room to give emotional weight to traumatic scenes, weak character development and an inconsistent tone rendered the entire experience nothing short of disappointing. Rather than being cathartic or insightful it felt like lip service to real problems while wallowing in their graphic depictions. I burst out laughing at multiple points because of how tonally mismatched it was. I hated this anime.