This review contains minor spoilers.
Takopi is a show which, ambitious premise notwithstanding, amounts to little more than your typical misery porn about the abuse of children. Although extreme situations have long been a hallmark of anime, distinguishing it from Western cartoons, they are often confused with thematic complexity. Takopi is not a contemplation on trauma; it's an excess simulation of despair. Its world is not simply cruel; it is persistently and implausibly evil to a degree that breaks immersion. The narrative doesn't want to be an examination of suffering. It would rather spend its time constructing the most extreme situation imaginable simply for the sake of eliciting a visceral reaction and proudly exclaim, "Isn't this sooooo fucked up, guys?"
Over the course of just a few episodes, we are treated to parents whose behavior borders on cartoonish sadism, children who perpetuate violence with matching ferocity, and a society comprised of indifferent educators, irresponsible police, and absent institutions that enable abuse. To this violence enters an alien, an inexperienced, untrained, and inexplicably cheerful being who believes it can offer happiness to children so severely traumatized that they strain credulity as a possibility within the story. The entire premise begins to feel less like a commentary on social collapse and more like an attempt to outspend itself on nihilism for the sake of unhealthy fascination. The show isn't presenting reality, but rather the most extreme manifestation of a societal issue. It’s the narrative equivalent of locking a puppy with terminal cancer inside a burning building while indifferent cosplayers snack outside. Can all of these things happen? In the worst-case, most hypothetical situation, yes. But Takopi isn't interested in likelihood; it's more concerned with tragedy in the guise of depth. It's sensationalism, pure and simple.
And then, of course, there is the titular character, an alien creature familiar with happiness but unaware of sadness. This conceit, intended to be cute or perhaps even poignant, falls flat under even the slightest philosophical scrutiny. It's not possible to comprehend light without darkness, joy without sorrow, or gain without loss. To understand happiness in any meaningful sense requires a knowledge of its absence. By disallowing this duality, the themes are reduced to the same weight as when the alien journeys between planets, effectively zero. The show never even tries to grapple with the consequences of its provocations. It saddles us with horror without cost, violence without penalty, and worst of all, stakes without permanence. Problems aren't solved but erased (literally) through time travel, memory loss, or magical resets of reality. The emotional devastation fails to resonate because its tragedy isn't tied to reality or choice.
Takopi resorts to narrative absurdities, most notably the stupidity of adult characters, used to maintain the show's artificial edginess. Consider the following:
- A child arrives at school, visibly bruised, the marks apparent to kids and adults alike. No one says anything, no one asks any questions; the silence is employed to build a forced sense of despair.
- The same child's desk is regularly defaced with hateful graffiti. Again, not one grown-up steps in, not because the world is authentically cruel, but because the story needs to maintain its unbreakable emotional shame.
- A group of kids later embarks on an organized plan to cover up a serious crime using advanced extraterrestrial technology. They are promptly caught, despite their cunning, not as a natural narrative outcome, but purely to increase their agony.
- When the workers discover alien technology (something which would naturally alter society), the adults ignore it, keeping the focus of the plot on the kids' spiral downward rather than on broader implications. If the show wants the audience to question whether the alien is real, there are other ways to do it than to have the alien commit the crime and then pretend it never happened.
- In perhaps the most discomfiting example, police go to the residence of a traumatized girl. The house is in shambles, the parents are nowhere to be found, and the child is dirty, injured, and distraught. On any rational basis, this would precipitate intervention. Instead, they all ignore the obvious in an attempt to prolong the tragedy.
This is narrative puppeteering, where things warp into grotesque shapes only to shock and exhaust. Nothing occurs organically; there is no plausible cause and effect, only a structure designed to repulse.
A friendly warning to viewers suffering from anxiety, depression, or intrusive thoughts regarding self-harm or violence: This anime is not cathartic, illuminating, or soothing. Subjecting yourself to it can easily worsen your mental health. It offers no wisdom, no hope, and no meaningful insight. It amplifies tragedy for the sake of spectacle and sells suffering as depth. Fiction is emotionally and psychologically resonant, as it can make us cry, stir discussion, and stay with us long after viewing. People are affected by what they consume, and I think it's more than fair to at least think about what that means for us. Slapping on a "true friends can be found even in your worst enemies" as a last-minute band-aid feels utterly disingenuous, given all the emotional manipulation that comes before it.
Takopi doesn't succeed via meticulous attention to craftsmanship or bold truth-telling, but by embracing the darkest, most hyperbolic approach to every conflict. It sets an innocent, naive alien down in a world where adults so conveniently intervene only when their actions will make things worse. It's not empathetic; it's an exercise in engineered despair. So no, I won't praise it. I won't pretend this show has something meaningful to say when it doesn't. It's not profound, it's not realistic, it's obscene, shallow, and harmful. And if you’re already struggling to make sense of the world around you, watching this won't provide you with clarity. It will only deepen your confusion.
__
A hollow-pi, glossy-pi, misery-fantasy-pi with nothing meaningful to say—kindly fuck off back to space.__
