Have you ever been telling what you thought was a funny little anecdote from your childhood but suddenly everyone in earshot looks at you with a mix of horror, pity, and confusion? If you have, you'll probably find Takopi's Original Sin--especially hearing others talk about it--a truly cathartic experience.

Going into this anime I'd only really heard that it'll mess you up pretty bad and that most people end up crying partway through the first episode. I saw the trigger warning at the start of the anime and then... it was a pretty normal childhood experience? By the end of the second episode I was wondering why it was considered horror instead of dark comedy. That oh so familiar experience when my perception based on my lived experience and the perception of others was so drastically different was present again.

Before I go into more detail, here's the basic overview of the anime's characters. We have the titular Takopi, a vaguely octopus shaped alien from the planet happy who is on a mission to spread happiness across the universe. Shizuka is a girl with absent parents who is bullied daily at her school and whose only support is her beloved dog, Chappy. Our other female lead is Marina, a girl who bullies others as a way of coping with the constant fighting between her parents at home and the abuse that her mother regularly deals out just for her. Our final main character is Naoki, a boy verbally abused and neglected by his mother because he doesn't measure up to his genius older brother. One of the show's greatest strengths is just how grounded in reality all four main characters are.

I'll start with Takopi. I know what you're thinking, how is an alien grounded in reality? Well, as an alien, he doesn't really understand how human relationships work. Growing up in a situation similar to our main characters, I had to deal with many therapists and counselors who largely didn't understand how relationships worked... or so my child self thought. Positive psychology was the latest trend and I was met with many a therapist who ended up sounding so much like Takopi. Positive psychology and focusing on happiness is probably helpful to someone, but it's not a great tool for people struggling to survive. I thought the juxtaposition between Takopi's upbeat attitude and Shizuka's active suicidality or his positive perception of Marina's parents' fights compared to what was actually being said was hilarious because it was such a relatable childhood experience. Takopi says the kind of things we would sardonically say in groups at the psych ward. Most people I've seen talk about Takopi online find him extremely uncomfortable or off putting when that juxtaposition is present. After the oh so familiar weirdness of hearing those opinions wore off, it felt really cathartic. I could tell my inner child that she wasn't alone in her reaction to inappropriately positive "help".

Shizuka's bullying and her responses to it were really well done. Disassociating throughout the day until she got home to her pet is a really common childhood experience... isn't it? She had no control over her mother's or Marina's father's actions, but she was assigned the blame and made to be Marina's punching bag. It's completely unfair and she can't understand why, but she's been beaten down so much and so often that fighting back--against Marina or against reality--just isn't worth the effort. The only thing she has the energy to fight is death and her dog is the only thing that she can desperately cling to in that fight. The first two episodes show just how important that tool is to keep her alive and the last four show just how desperate she is to get back the thing that's keeping her from killing herself.

▶ Video

Marina being a realistically relatable character is actually a little painful with how many people celebrated what happened to her at the end of episode 2. For a long time I hated myself for the way I dealt with my parent's abuse as a kid so seeing those kinds of comments hurt. Marina's parents were constantly fighting when they were together and her mom abused her when it was just the two of them. Marina didn't know how to deal with her feelings and needed to do something to control the chaotic situation she lived in. She understood that Shizuka's mom was part of the reason her own parents were fighting and she knew that she didn't do anything to deserve her mother's abuse. So--being an emotionally uneducated child--she decided that it was Shizuka's fault that she was being abused herself. It's too terrifying to fight back against a mother who you still want to love you, so passing on those bad feelings to someone else will surely make her feel better. After all, her mom doesn't attack Shizuka's mom and instead takes out her frustrations on someone weaker so that must be the right way to feel better. In episode 5, "To You in 2022," Takopi says something to her that was one of the hardest things to hear in the entire anime, "So you've just been copying her... you're always rough with me because you're copying your mama, right-pi?"

▶ Video Marina has the oh so relatable horrific realization that she's treating others the way her mother treated her.

Takopi--unintentionally twisting the knife--continues, "That must be how humans practice raising their own kids, huh-pi? You'll be a great mother-pi, Marina-chan." One of my few gripes with this anime is that we never see how she deals with the cognitive dissonance from this realization. Takopi changes the subject before she has enough time to really think about it.

Naoki doesn't get as much focus as our other main characters, but what is shown of him shows a lot of hurt. Naoki is raised as the scapegoat while his older brother is his mother's golden child. Because of the way he was raised he thinks that parents only have a finite amount of love for their children so he hates his brother for hogging his mother's love. Eventually he figures if he can't get his mother's love then the girl who vaguely resembles her should be fine. He halfheartedly tried to do something about the bullying situation but once Shizuka gave him a little bit of attention he was ready to do anything for her approval.

Whether it was hiding a dead body, stealing his brother's ring, or taking the blame to keep her out of jail, he'd do anything for her approval.

All three of our human characters come from abusive households. Their own parents--the people they've no doubt been repeatedly told are the people who are supposed to love and care for you more than anyone else in the world--don't love them in the way they need. Takopi tries his best, but it isn't until after Shizuka's rage in the final episode that he realizes he doesn't know how to help them in the way they need either.

▶ Video Takopi's acknowledgement of and apology for his failure to help or even try to understand Shizuka's problems was such a cathartic moment.

Final Thoughts

Takopi's Original Sin isn't for everyone. Its very real, unapologetic portrayal of child abuse and its consequences might be a little too much for people with happy childhoods or people who were abused and haven't worked through their trauma. It doesn't deal with things in a black and white way like some anime fans seem to enjoy. Just like in real life, there's no good guys or bad guys; there's just hurt people who deal with their hurt in different--sometimes unhealthy--ways.

I'd recommend this anime to those who want to empathize more with victims of abuse. I'd also recommend this anime to those who were victims of abuse (and have worked through enough of their trauma to be able to interact with triggering scenes) so that they can feel seen, heard, and understood by all those involved in the anime's production.