How Takopi’s Original Sin Devastates Through Cuteness

As the season progresses, it becomes clear that Takopi’s outlook is as simple as his appearance, contrasting entirely with the complex moral reality he’s trying and failing to understand through the sheer force of joy. The show wields Takopi’s cuteness as a weapon in that sense, punching harder with each emotional beat as we despair at his relentless naivety in the face of trauma and abuse. 

Yet just as we were lulled into a false sense of security in episode one before the show got real dark, real quick, Takopi’s optimism in the face of darkness belies something much darker within Takopi himself… 

By episode five, Shizuka snaps completely, and in doing so, she physically lashes out at Takopi, just like Marina used to do to her so much. But the blow jogs Takopi’s memories of another life lived before this one. And just like that, it’s revealed that Takopi actually reversed time long before we saw him do it in the wake of Shizuka’s death by suicide. 

Via flashback, we discover that Marina was actually the first human Takopi met and bonded with. They became close, so close in fact, that when Marina accidentally killed her abusive mother, Takopi grew convinced that Shizuka was responsible, so he decided to go back in time and kill her for Marina. In the process, however, he lost his memories and, therefore, his desire to kill Shizuka. That’s the Takopi we meet at the beginning of the series, the one who seemed so cute and sweet.     

Yep, the adorable character who did everything he could to help our suicidal protagonist was actually planning to kill her all along. And therein lies the true nature of Takopi’s “original sin”. Not killing Marina by accident, but reversing time to kill Shizuka on purpose.

Narratively speaking, it’s an incredibly bold twist that’s impossible to see coming, changing everything you thought you knew about this entire story. But what makes it especially hard to stomach is just how kind and innocent Takopi seemed all along. If a denizen of the Planet Happy can be corrupted so quickly, then there’s no hope for anything good or pure in this world.

It’s the kind of brutal, rug-pull moment that longtime anime fans might recall from watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica back in 2011, where the cutest magical girl tropes cracked and bent into something monstrous. Just as Takopi is revealed to be far more disturbed than that kawaii exterior might suggest, so too was Kyubey, an adorable alien mascot who trained magical girls, not to make them heroes, but to sacrifice them for their own gain. 

The entire purpose of the kawaii aesthetic is to offer a temporary escape from life and all its complexities via innocence wrapped up in a cute, simple package. What Takopi’s Original Sin and Puella Magi Madoka Magica do in subverting that function is suggest that there’s no escape from the stresses of reality. Any relief is fleeting and fundamentally false, an illusory means of escape that holds no real substance.  

But perhaps that’s no bad thing. As hard as it is to reckon with, it’s Takopi’s refusal to reckon with reality at all that leads to more suffering in the long term. Not until he recognizes that in the final episode does Takopi figure out how to fulfil his original mission and bring genuine happiness to these poor children who have already gone through so much.

Instead of trying to fix things with his kawaii gadgets, Takopi stops trying to avoid the truth of what’s happened and gives Shizuka the space she needs to feel her agony in full. It’s painful and horrible and deeply traumatic, but it’s real in a way that the forced joy and cuteness never was.      

That’s what makes the ending even harder to bear. Because after they bond like never before, Takopi realises that he can fix the broken camera and rewind time once more by sacrificing himself, putting all his energy into the device. Shizuka protests, but it’s too late. Takopi says goodbye for good and leaves just as strangely as he arrived, dying in the process.

With time reversed, Marina is alive once more, and it’s as if Takopi never existed. Except, by empathizing and listening like he did at the end, Takopi has helped Shizuka and Marina develop healthier coping mechanisms. Cruel things will still happen to them — just look at the scar Marina’s mother gave her — but now they can draw strength from each other rather than perpetuate the cycle of abuse alone.   

It’s a bittersweet end, especially when the girls dismiss a doodle of Takopi that Shizuka subconsciously drew. Marina describes this funny-looking figure as “useless,” like she did before, and it’s true; he often was. But cuteness should never be dismissed completely. 

Whether it provides us a small measure of comfort or is subverted to say something deeper, like this type of masterpiece, there’s a lot more power in the kawaii aesthetic of a pink, squishy bundle of joy like Takopi than you might expect.

Takopi’s Original Sin is available on Crunchyroll.

David Opie is a freelance entertainment journalist. To hear his ramblings on queer film and TV, you can follow him @DavidOpie.