Takopi’s Original Sin dissects the complexity of love, cruelty, and guilt

Trigger warning: Mention of abuse and violence

*This review contains spoilers for the anime

A small, octopus-like alien, on a mission to spread happiness throughout the universe with their gadgets, crash-lands on Earth. They are found by Shizuka, a young girl who shares bread with them and gives them the name 'Takopi.' Over the following days, Takopi offers her various gadgets, only for her to reject each one. She insists that they can't do a thing to change her situation. Amidst this setting, the audience is left to reckon with the scribbles on Shizuka's school bag that are meant to berate her, the way she has to hide from her 'friends', the nature of her absentee mother's job, and her father, who is never going to return. But Takopi is naive beyond hope and obstinate in trying to make her smile.

Within minutes of its beginning, Takopi's Original Sin presents an almost infectious innocence, juxtaposed with a quiet, sinister atmosphere, only to puncture the former with what feels like a knockout blow. This tension is not only sustained but delved into further as the story progresses.

Takopi's Original Sin can be an uncomfortable anime to watch. Not least because of the relentless abuse of children that is carried out by other children. Rather, it is because of the quiet helplessness of the victim that is depicted in contrast to the unceasing malice of their abuser. The eerie manipulation by the once 'victim' and the 'abuser', who are languishing in their own prison of anguish, feels just as ominous. These dynamics culminate into a portrayal that's not only unsettling but also feels suffocating.

As the anime progresses, a girl's life is taken, and the characters, in tandem with the audience, are meant to convince themselves that they shouldn't feel too bad about what has just transpired. Subsequent to the unravelling, one of the protagonists, along with the girl's doppelganger, proceeds to enjoy some of the best days of their lives, even as the guilt catches up.

Eventually, however, the doppelganger is confronted by the girl's mother, who sobs and begs that she be returned to her, promising to be a good mother. As they're each crushed under the guilt of their sins, the show forces us to acknowledge the convoluted complexity of trauma and the cyclic distortions it begets from one victimised soul to the next.

The show is masterful in its depiction of the way parents set the tone for the lives of their children. It articulates how it is the parents' expectations that forge what the child expects for themselves. It also portrays how all of it can easily devolve into a burden that drags them down into the abyss, as opposed to gently nudging them towards the light.

In subtle but profound moments, it shows that the love children receive at home is what love becomes to them, and it could well be the only form of love they are capable of giving or receiving.

Takopi's Original Sin is a bleak journey throughout. There are hopeful moments, but in painful contrast to their transience, the constant suffocating gloom of seemingly inevitable doom is always present. There is only a faint light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. A light that can be reached through empathy. A gentle light born from the faded fond memories of a shared lost innocence.

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