The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - Takopi's Original Sin

Takopi travels from his home of Happy Planet to spread happiness across Earth, but meets the unsmiling Shizuka upon landing. Her friends at school and home life seem to be the source of her somber expression—and the pure-hearted Takopi is determined to change things for the better.

Takopi's Original Sin is based on the manga by Taizan 5. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

Content Warning: This series includes graphic depictions of bullying, child abuse, suicide, and (implied) animal death.

There's really no other way to begin covering Takopi's Original Sin without warning anyone who doesn't know what they are getting into. This is easily one of the most grim, harrowing, frank, and graphic depictions of childhood neglect and depression that I have ever seen in any medium, and all of it centers around a fourth-grader. This is a show that features nearly constant occurrences of violent bullying that make sure you can never ignore the despair etched onto Shizuka's face. At one point, after her pet dog is stolen from her and presumably euthanized, Shizuka goes so far as to take her own life, and the sequence forces the audience to linger in the aftermath. It does not cut away. It does not obfuscate any details. This is all before the premiere is even halfway over.

All of this, and we haven't even gotten to the part that will likely drive most viewers away within minutes of turning on the first episode. If you're wondering how an anime can even continue when its nine-year-old protagonist does not survive past the fifteen-minute mark, it's because the core premise of this story revolves around Shizuka's friendship with a cute alien octopus-thing that she names Takopi. Like many kids' cartoons before it, Takopi's Original Sin establishes a formula where Shizuka's magical friend will use his fantastical Happian Gadgets to solve life's problems and get into hijinks. The twist, as you will have guessed, is that Shizuka's problems cannot be easily squared away into simple conflicts like forgetting her homework or making up with the school bully. Shizuka lives an unbearably difficult life surrounded by cruel and vicious children who can get away with just about anything because the adults in her life simply cannot be bothered to care. So, even when Takopi uses time travel to undo the horrific final moments of Shizuka's life, the viewer must watch as Takopi runs a grueling Groundhog Day gauntlet of suffering in his attempts to “fix” Shizuka's life.

So, if the unflinching portrait of adolescent misery and suicide was not already enough to make Takopi's Original Sin nearly impossible to recommend without a list of caveats and content warnings a mile long, the show makes the incredibly bold decision to frame all of that misery within the clashing tone of silly tropes ripped straight out of a Doraemon adventure. Anyone who watches enough anime will know that Japanese art loves to meld seemingly incompatible moods together and switch between them at a moment's notice, but I don't think I've ever seen an anime that is outright fueled by violent tonal whiplash as much as this one is.

Yet, you may have also noticed my superlative score up in the “Ratings” section. This is because, for as unpleasant and upsetting as Takopi's Original Sin is to watch, I think it is trying to tell a vital kind of story. In my day job as a teacher, I cannot tell you how awful it is to work with children whose lives have been marked by tragedies and abuses that you could never even imagine suffering through. The entire gloomy world of Takopi's Original Sin may seem extremely exaggerated, bordering on exploitative, but that is all in the service of conveying the very real suffering that children all around the world experience every day. The show's rough-hewn but stylish animation contributes to this effect perfectly, so you can't accuse the show of being cavalier or tone-deaf. It knows exactly what it is doing, and I am honestly compelled to see how Takopi and Shizuka can possibly emerge from this nightmare unscathed, if that is even possible at all. I would tell almost every person I know to stay far, far away from Takopi's Original Sin at all costs. For those who are inclined to engage with art that forces you to explore some of life's darkest and most painful experiences, though, you might end up hooked as well.

I don't want to continue watching this show. And believe it or not, that's a compliment. This show wants you to feel uncomfortable and rethink your perspective on the world—even if it alienates you in the process. It does this damned effectively.

Takopi is the story of a Doraemon-esque alien who meets an elementary school girl named Shizuka. But rather than problems like not wanting to study for a test (or some other Nobita-style problem), Shizuka faces real issues, like a neglectful mother and extreme bullying at school. Unfortunately, due to his unbelievable level of innocence, Takopi is unable to understand this.

On a metaphorical level, Takopi is a stand in for all those people out there who have never experienced being bullied—along with those who have never dealt with domestic abuse and suicidal depression. While well-meaning, his reactions to her obvious troubles are naive in the extreme. Flying in the sky means nothing to a kid being tortured each day—and she sure as hell doesn't need a magic ribbon to understand why Marina is trying to make her life a living hell. And, most importantly, none of his gadgets (read: quick fixes) will solve any of the actual problems in her life.

Takopi is fundamentally unable to see the world through any lens but his own—even when he finds her dead body. He thinks what happened is his fault for breaking the rules and letting her use a tool without him alone. So time travels and tries again. It's only at the moment that he experiences Shizuka's pain firsthand that he starts to understand the fear, shame, and utter helplessness that comes from being bullied. Those in authority (namely, teachers) do nothing unless directly asked (and even then, it's the bare minimum)—and peers who offer help have no idea what they're suggesting and can't be relied on.

And to cap things off, we learn in the closing moments of the episode that Marina is lashing out at Shizuka not because she's a “natural bully” but rather because she's facing emotional abuse at home—that her bullying Shizuka is her way of both supporting her mom and lashing out at someone at least tangentially related to the broken state of her own family. It's the cycle of abuse. Hurt people hurt people—and no amount of pretty platitudes is going to fix the situation.

At this point, anybody can tell you what to expect going into Takopi's Original Sin. This adaptation of Taizan 5's manga was primarily designed to generate word-of-mouth marketing. It hardly buries the lede with its harsh, scrungly art style surrounding the cuddly titular alien, making the tone come through even before the clear cruelties start manifesting on-screen. This is an anime concocted to have a bad time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as audiences have the proper content warnings to brace themselves.

What attending viewers might be less immediately aware of coming into Takopi, however, is that it does have a real range to show off. Even in this extra-long opening volley, it's not entirely designed as 37 minutes of misery. The opening eases audiences in, not shying away from the reality of the bullying Marina inflicts on Shizuka, but also lingering on moments when it's "not so bad," as Shizuka interacts with Takopi. The simple naivete of a happiness-driven alien learning to understand human sadness and suffering means that there's purpose to this framework beyond the misery porn. And that veneer of amusement allots moments of reprieve and even mild entertainment in between said suffering. Much like dealing with real-world horrors, we relish the relief when we can get it.

That's the other secret about Takopi's Original Sin: depending on your tolerance for darkness, this story can provide moments of obsidian-black humor, highlighting the awfulness it depicts. The premise is basically "What if Doraemon tried to help with all his gadgets, but things were way more messed up than he was prepared for?" which lends itself to some seriously screwed- up sketch comedy vibes. It is objectively funny to watch a split-screen montage of Marina's bullying attempts fail to land, thanks to Takopi's gentle interventions lifting Shizuka back up. There are funny reaction-face shots and cutely animated physicality in the characters as they go about this sort of business.

Then the show unflinchingly shifts to a violent depiction of Takopi experiencing Marina's brutal bullying firsthand. People get so depressed that they can't ask for help? People get so depressed that they die, Takopi.

Between all that, including the magical-tool-assisted suicide that prompts the time-rewind, which sets the full plot in motion, Takopi is an anime that knows how it wants to pace out its problems, even as audiences wonder how much of this is for them. Already familiar with the manga's horrors, I think it's worth revisiting for the adaptation, myself. The team at ENISHIYA has devised a beautiful treatment for the unappealing world depicted in this story, one that complements the material's lingering quality. This is a brutal story, not a brutally efficient one. I think it's worth watching out of dark fascination if you've got the stomach for it, and with the benefit of knowing it does go multiple places apart from simply marinating in misery all the way through. There will be bright spots, there will be very, very dark spots, and this treatment of all of that has thus far justified its purpose.