Takopii no Genzai
Takopi's Original Sin

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Takopii no Genzai, or Takopii's Original Sin, explores the human psyche through the lens of pure innocence and naivete. How do you explain suffering, loss, emotional, psychological and physical abuse to someone who knows nothing of the human condition? This manga goes to very dark places as a cute little alien with strange powers named Takopii tries relentlessly to help and understand humans in the only way he can, with no understanding of just how his well-meaning charity could be twisted and taken advantage of.

This manga exploded in popularity in Japan, and could have easily dragged on for years, but the author chose to end ... it on their own terms, and I have a lot of respect for that. For how dreary and depressing it can be, the ending is satisfying. You can easily read this in a single sitting and enjoy it for what it is. It gets slightly convoluted near the end, but gets its point across with brevity and conciseness.

For everything that could have gone wrong with Takopii, it gets a lot right by having an uncompromising vision. If this is an indication of the talent of this mangaka, I think we have a lot to look forward to, as this is their first published work. I would recommend this short read to anyone, and give it a solid 8/10.

Takopii no Genzai had a really intriguing premise.It's a series that contains many problems that our society is facing constantly, such as domestic violence,bullying and kids being overpressured by their parents.There were many shocking scenes and fucked up situations.Unfortunately the ending felt kinda rushed ,I think the manga should have been a little longer like an extra volume or so. If it wasn't for that I would give it a solid 7 or even an 8 who knows.

The art is pretty good ,I really enjoy the author's unique artstyle and the widespreads were fantastic. I extremely liked how the eyes were drawn, it is said ... that eyes are the gate of a human's soul and the mangaka managed to indicate that well enough.

The characters were good ,due to the situations they lived in no one is hateable ,their actions can be understanded.

Overall, Takopii no Genzai is a really nice short dark manga, it would have been way better given a little more time ,but it is what it is .It can be read in less than a day and I recommend it

Octopi are a curious and fascinating species. Out of all the animals residing on planet Earth, they are probably the closest to extra-terrestrials. Many documentaries such as “My Octopus Teacher” have brought awareness to these creatures to show that they are in fact, smarter than we give them credit for. These cephalopods are capable of displaying a wide array of cognitive abilities ranging from being able to solve mathematical problems to even using their limbs to fashion makeshift tools out of coconut shells. Don’t be surprised if in the future, humanity’s downfall could end up at the hands of these creatures. Octopi Skynet is closer ... than we think, people! Be warned!

But enough of this biology lesson. Anyways, this manga really does capitalize on the otherworldly-ness of octopi. Here the octopus is an alien lifeform from the planet known as “Happy Planet” and is imbued with a gift that allows it to cure the sadness and despair of other individuals and disperse happiness across the globe. Upon arrival, the alien – or Takopii in this case – winds up being targeted by the authorities and narrowly escapes their devious clutches. It is then that Takopii comes across a child named Shizuka wallowing in her own despair. Being inherently kind hearted, humble, and good natured, it aspires to help the child and the two strike an odd friendship. It all seems to go just right for the two until things take a turn for the worst.

The premise sounds like a light-hearted romp, kind of like something out of a whimsical comic strip like all those “Doraemon” comics I’ve been accustomed to reading when I was a wee little lad. For a more modern analogy, think the Isobayan segments from Inio Asano’s “Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction”, where an otherworldly creature comes to comfort a lonely child and help them find their footing in life while hilarious and wacky hijinks ensue. The connections to that and “Doraemon” hit even closer to home as Takopii even attempts to gift the child various different gadgets, including one very familiar one that will enable them to fly freely in the sky. But whimsical this manga is not. In fact, it’s a very raw and depressing look into how children cope with abuse and trauma, from both their parents and their classmates from school. The cover of the first volume – a close up of a crying child – is a huge giveaway of what the manga is actually like. However, what I was not expecting, was it to tackle darker subject matter such as child abuse and abandonment.

Takopi’s Ambition is kind of similar to manga such as ~Erased.” It uses the template of a coming-of-age story into almost deluding the audience into thinking it would be just that, only to reveal some disturbing and ominous imagery buried beneath the narrative. There are depictions of child abuse and murder that would not look out of place in your average seinen manga. Let me warn my fellow viewers about this: this is not a manga for children. There’s imagery in here that is not for the faint of heart.

Takopii itself is a creature brimming with curiosity; it knows nothing about humans and human nature in general, and wants nothing more than to learn more about them as a species. It also has a goal of spreading happiness across the worlds it visits and offers its gadgets as means to aid others. It’s an innocent creature that’s pure and selfless with none of the flaws and volatile emotions that human beings possess. This is what makes it different from other similar characters of its kind. Whereas Isobayan acts like your teacher and Doraemon acts more like a best friend, Takopii feels like a little sister who’s constantly questioning the wide world around her. And no matter how much it fails at doing its job, it will never stop at anything to bring joy to the world. In spite of this, its bounded by a set of rules, and in its desperate attempt to help the poor child, it breaks many of those rules.

The best thing about the characterization in this piece is that no one is presented as being nothing but pure evil. It seems to be a common trope in anime and manga, where the abuser or the bully just torments others just for the sake of it. However, the manga highlights that even the tormentors have shades of grey to them. Marina for instance, viciously bullies Shizuka on a chronic level everyday she heads to school. But it’s also revealed, that she is a victim of her mother’s abusive behaviour towards her, and she merely takes out her anger on Shizuka because Marina’s father cheated on her mother and found himself infatuated with Shizuka’s mother instead. As a result, she blames Shizuka for all her troubles even though she’s completely innocent in this regard. As someone who’s tired of over-the-top bullies in anime/manga, it’s refreshing to see one that isn’t completely one-dimensional or a stereotype. There’s also another character that ends up being introduced – Azuma. He finds himself attracted to Shizuka due to her resemblance to his mother and whom also harbours his fair share of troubles, albeit less traumatic compared to the other two. He is constantly living in his brother’s shadow and his mother constantly bribes him in an attempt to have him earn the best grades possible. Even a score of 95/100 isn’t satisfactory to her; its either full marks or he loses some provisions. This isn’t unheard of in Asian countries as a lot of parent’s desire for their child to get the best grades possible so they can either work as doctors or engineers in the future and secure a comfortable, rich livelihood. While these are good scenarios for your main characters that present a conflict and give you a reason to care for their predicament, the characterization is fairly weak.

The characters jump straight to the worst possible conclusions when it comes to handling their own situations. Every resolution just seems to involve murder for some reason. Without spoiling much, there’s a really messed up scene early on involving a murder and a character views it as a blessing upon the earth. This character is one the audience is supposed to be rooting for. There’s no shock or revulsion regarding the event, just nothing more than joy. And then the body is just dumped there in the woods to be forgotten about. It just feels so out of place that I could have sworn it was a parody or something.

The amount of deus ex machinas is also problematic. Oh no, someone just committed suicide, here’s let me whip out a gadget that would help resolve that issue. Whoops, I just made some middle schooler go on a rampage. Oh no whatever shall I do – aha I have a gadget that can reverse time. My dog just died? No problemo! I’ll just get out my nifty little – hey, that’s weird, the gadgets a little dented the last time I used it. Nevermind, here’s a magical solution to fix all of that! The manga also introduces one of my most hated and one of the most overdone tropes in all of anime/manga: time resets. Apparently, there is a device that can wind back time. Well, there goes any sort of tension. Who cares about these characters when a time reset can occur and they can be brought back to life and everything can be resolved with a single push of a button? Seriously, what is it with manga and time resets/travel/loops anyways? Its like these writers either are obsessed with this concept or are worried they’d end up killing too many characters or something.

The second half of the manga is a mess. I don’t know if its because the mangaka was under threat of cancellation, had to rush to meet deadlines, or just had no clue how to end it, but it just ended up getting worse page after page. We get certain questions popping up, but barely any answers to satiate our curiosity. We get a short glimpse of the alien’s home world, but barely any sort of exploration into what its society is like and so on. There is one moment towards the end where during a tension-filled event, the manga then just decides to include a “what if” scenario in the middle of it. It comes right out of nowhere, without any rhyme or reason. It disrupts the flow of the manga to yet again to expose our poor octopus friend to more trauma and hopelessness. All for the sake of more emotion turmoil and forced shock value. All of this culminates in what is essentially an ending that feels contrived and hastened.

There are a lot of issues this manga tackles. Bullying, abuse, bribery, suicide, companionship, trying to meet the demanding and high expectations of your parents. All these are relevant to today’s climate and are issues many people would have faced on a daily basis. These would be great topics to dive deep into… in a better manga that is. Takopii only touches upon these very superficially, never going into detail about any of it. It feels like window dressing and what we end up getting is only a surface level exploration of these issues.

It’s just a shame that the manga ends in 16 chapters. By the end of it all, I felt like there could be a lot more. The last stretch of the manga feels rushed as if the mangaka is trying desperately to tie up loose ends and finish everything in a hurry. This manga was serialized in a shonen jump magazine and it almost felt like it was under threat of cancellation because very rarely do you get manga that run for such short a length. Sure, we had “Red Hood,” but that got axed by the committee. This one didn’t. I did feel like it should have run on for much longer than what we got.

The art is also awkward to say the least. Its presented almost as if its some kind of children’s colouring book with rough sketches and outlines. It doesn’t look ugly, but it doesn’t offer anything of beauty to the human eye. It’s kind of like Hajime Isayama’s initial drawings for “Attack on Titan” - very unkept and rudimentary. That being said, the mangaka does a decent enough job at capturing the expressiveness of the characters. It’s clear whenever characters are tearing up or trouncing about in a fit of rage, he goes all out with visually depicting the emotions as vividly as possible.

For its length, Takopii no Genzai is a manga you could finish in literally a day – no, make that a couple of hours in fact. For that alone, it’s worth reading. Unfortunately, its rushed pacing along with the superficial approach to its themes really bogs this down to yet another standard, emotionally manipulative tearjerker with a plethora of plot conveniences and magical resolutions. Had it been much longer and tried to focus more on what mattered, it would have been an unforgettable romp. By the end, I was just indifferent. Indifferent to all the crying, to all the attempts to emotionally manipulate me, to all the constants moments of sheer shock value. Make of it as you will.