It’s still technically anime (if not meteorological or astronomical) spring. But don’t tell that to Takopii no Genzai, which kicks off summer a few days early. This is a rare case where I look at a six-episode series and ask “is that too long?”. That’s because Takopi’s Original Sin comes courtesy the pen of Taizan 5, one of the more unique mangaka out there. Usually the problem with adaptations is too few episodes, not too many. But this series is only 16 chapters, and given that these eps (at least the first) are clocking in at about 37 minutes, it’s closer to 10 in TV anime terms.
Even more than chapter count though is simply the Taizan factor. I don’t think a Taizan series (he’s had two pretty popular ones) has ended with fans saying “that should have been longer”. Taizan is, in a word, exhausting. He shoehorns more drama into less space than any mangaka I know. Both Takopii and Ichinose-ke no Taizai start out in absolutely riveting fashion. But what he does is unsustainable. What’s more, you wouldn’t want to sustain it. It was a bigger problem with Ichinose, as a Weekly Shounen Jump series. There were expectations it might go longer, especially when it hit with one of the buzziest first chapters in WSJ history. I loved that intro, but I never believed it for a second.
With this series expectations were less of an issue, though intensity was not. It was nominated for both a Tezuka Award and a Manga Taisho. And it inevitably drew comparisons to Oyasumi Punpun, for reasons anyone who watched this premiere should find pretty obvious. The unconventional art, the extremely dark childhood themes, the surrealism – it’s all there. It’s a very strong superficial similarity but I’d still argue mostly a superficial one. And if I say Takopii is nowhere near the same class as Punpun (it’s not), that’s hardly an insult. We’re talking about one of the most subtle, complex, and emotionally powerful manga of the past 30 years.
With all that factored in mind, this was certainly an excellent premiere. ENISHIYA is a studio with much of a track record and director Iino Shinya (also writing) has really only filled that role on Dr. Stone, which I’m indifferent towards. But the staff is a good one, including star animator Nagahara Keita, and the premiere is an artistic winner. The storybook aesthetic belies the extreme severity of the premise, which occasionally breaks through in the visuals. Bullying is a very difficult subject to tackle well in fiction, but one that packs an extreme punch when it is (especially if one has experienced it themselves).
The two principals here are the titular Takopii (Mamiya Kurumi) and a 4th-grader named Kuze Shizuka (Ueda Reina). He’s a squid-like alien child who’s come to Earth to spread happiness (he’s a Happian after all). She’s a miserable girl suffering under the relentless bullying of Marina (Kohara Konomi). Shizuka is poor and living on public assistance, and her mother is a woman of ill reputation Shizuka describes as an “escort” (who, as it turns out, is spending a lot of time with Marina’s father). Of Shizuka’s father there’s no sign, though he did leave her a beloved dog and an emotional connection she’s never cut.
Some have described this series as a hybrid of Oyasumi Punpun and Doraemon and that’s both pretty on-point and as unsettling as it sounds. The alien’s name is unpronounceable so Shizuka dubs him Takopii, as he looks like an octopus and finishes every sentence with “-pi”. He does his best to make her happy with his bag full of happy devices, but the fundamental gap in his understanding of human behavior makes him incapable of grasping her true situation. In the end he breaks the rule his mother imposed on him and let’s her use one of his gadgets – a ribbon designed to reconcile feuding friends – unsupervised. That this is what she chooses to end her life with is not the subtlest irony you’ll run across, but it connects.
This hits hard, obviously, even if some impact is muted by how early it occurs in the story. It’s implied that Marina has done something to Chappy, Shizuka’s dog. Takopii is horrified but one of his devices – a camera – has a function to travel back in time to a photo taken with it. The little alien is determined to set this right but he has no clue what’s he’s up against and invariably his interventions make things worse. Meanwhile the people who should be doing something – like Shizuka’s teacher – are utterly useless. The only one who tries to intervene is Azuma (Nagase Anna), a boy in Shizuka’s class whose offers to involve other adults are rebuffed by her.
This hits hard, too, because bullying is all too real and a huge problem in Japanese schools. An especially devastating moment comes when Takopii uses another gadget to impersonate Shizuka and take her place for a “meeting” with Marina. This is really a savage and brutal physical attack, and the resultant terror this instils in Takopii makes him hesitate to go to her aid when the cycle comes around again. It doesn’t get any realer than this, someone hesitating to intervene in a bullying situation out of fear of becoming the target.
One element of Takopi’s Original Sin I do struggle with is the aspect of “understanding the bully”. Marina’s own circumstances may suck, but one chooses to become a bully. And this choice, in my view, represents a fundamental and profound character flaw. I have no sympathy for her, or for any bullies really. It takes a savage person to become a savage, certainly when not in a literal fight for survival. But Takopii, innocent and naive child of a seemingly innocent and naive species, is ill-equipped to process any of this. It’s his education into the truth of human nature that marks the profoundest side of Takopii no Genzai, to the extent that its brevity can allow such things to develop.
