‘Takopi’s Original Sin’ Anime Gets First Trailer, Director Says He Tried To Avoid Going Too Extreme With Depictions Of “Pain”
According director Shinya Iino, while his upcoming anime adaptation of the heartbreaking manga series Takopi’s Original Sin will not err away from the original story’s more brutal aspects, he did take special care to avoid making its depictions of “pain” feel too sadistic.
First confirmed as in production in early December and receiving its first trailer at the Jump Fest 2024 preview event a few weeks later, the animated take on mangaka Taizen 5’s debut manga will follow the titular Takopi (CV: Kurumi Mamiya – Marron in Hirogaru Sky! Precure), a member of the Happian alien race, as he seeks to spread happiness across the universe.
In service of this mission, Takopi makes use of not just his own inherent cuteness, but also a variety of fantastical ‘Happy Gadgets’, such as a camera that can instantly print pictures or a bracelet that lets one fly.
Finding himself deployed to Earth, Takopi eventually makes the acquaintance of Shizuka Kuze (CV: Reina Ueda – RiCO in Mega Man X DiVE), a depressed fourth grade girl who is regularly and viciously bullied by her peers. Seeing her as the perfect candidate for some cheer, Takopi proceeds to try and raise her spirits – though sadly, all of his attempts to do so have no effect.
And though this failure only inspires him to try even harder, his mission abruptly comes to an end when he discovers Shizuka’s lifeless body hanging from the rafters of her house, the young girl having taken her own life after her one and only friend, her beloved dog Chappy, was murdered by her bullies.
Devastated by the entire affair, Takopi decides to break one of the Happy Gadgets’ cardinal rules and uses their power to go back in time, in doing so promising to do whatever he can to change Shizuka’s fate.
However, little does the alien know, his ‘original sin’ will soon spiral into an ever greater cycle of evil.
As readers can attest, part of Takopi’s Original Sin appeal is the fact that Taizan 5 was not afraid to depict such serious subject matters ranging from bullying, to depression, to child abuse, and more.
To this end, during the anime’s Jump Festa presentation, Iino told attendees, as per a recap provided by Japanese news outlet ComicNatalie and machine translated by DeepL, “that he tried not to make the depiction of ‘pain’ in the film too painful.”
Admittedly, thanks to the information coming second-hand and the limitations of Japanese to English machine translation, it’s currently unclear whether the director’s words are meant to suggest that he explicitly toned down the the manga’s graphic imagery for mainstream audiences or that he simply put a concerted effort into making sure such scenes were not overtly gratuitous.
If this is a case of the former than the latter, it would be yet another instance of not just a Japanese work, but one dealing with such heavy topics being slightly ‘sanded down’ for wider audiences.
Ultimately, it will likely take the actual release of the series for fans to learn exactly how it handles the hellscape that is Shizuka’s life.
On a slightly more cheerful note, in conclusion to the Jump Festa presentation, Shizuka’s voice actor Reina Ueda read a note from Takopi’s Original Sin mangaka Taizan 5 commemorating the anime adaptation.
“Takopi’s Original Sin is going to be made into an anime!” they wrote. “I’d like to thank everyone who was involved in the manga’s serialization and anime’s production as well as all the readers. I would be thrilled if you could watch the anime. As a viewer, I’m really looking forward to it. Thank you very much.”
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