The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

Takopi's Original Sin

What's It About? 

Cute little alien Takopi lands on Earth. What is his mission? To be taken to our leader? No. To spread happiness throughout the universe!

The first person Takopi meets is depressed fourth-grader Shizuka. (Or is it…?) Takopi is determined to do whatever it takes to make Shizuka smile again. But his misguided attempts to help her by using his advanced technology to turn back time only result in mayhem and death.

What is the truth Takopi can't remember? And what must the pink alien octopus with a heart of gold sacrifice to truly help Shizuka and her friends…?

Takopi's Original Sin has a story and art by Taizan 5. Translation by JN Productions, while English adaptation is by Annette Roman. Lettering and touch-up done by Stephen Dutro. Published by Viz Media (November 21, 2023).

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

Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

The broader genre of "childish framing device around subversive, shocking content" is necessarily hit-or-miss. For every poignant presentation of understood trauma, you will get at least one or two others that are mere misery porn. Takopi's Original Sin doesn't wholly devolve into the latter, but as an earlier Jump+ entry from Taizan5, you get the vibes of an author feeling out the exact tone and purpose they want their story to hit. Credit for not burying the lede to begin for shock value's sake, as the raw impact of the sketchy scrawled art contrasting with the cute cartoon alien bits makes it extra-clear that something is wrong at the start. It lets us settle into these distressing vibes as we, Takopi, and possibly the author, try to figure out where all this is going.

As a general gimmick, the premise of "What if a Doraemon-type time-traveling cartoon character arrived with an array of funny gadgets, but the kid they were trying to help was dealing with some genuine problems" is a solid enough one for a story like this. And if you can stomach all this stuff. In that case, quite a few guiltily snort-worthy instances of pitch-black humor are borne out of this utopian cartoon octopus stumbling through humanity's sheer capacity for cruelty. It arguably helps blunt the edges of what otherwise would be pure tragedy porn.

That still doesn't mean Takopi's Original Sin will work for anyone who thinks it can get to its points without heaping on misery for over 400 (admittedly brisk-moving) pages. It reaches for strong escalations and turns as the story goes, meaning we're not constantly lingering on a single state of Shizuka's terrible life. As we watch her become a singularly focused broken shell of a human being, we also mediate on the motivations of a couple of the other kids in her orbit and Takopi himself, most interestingly. At least one wraparound swerve late in the book is exceptionally well-realized, even if it also comes with the wrinkle of Taizan 5 dabbling in making this a Pandemic Period Piece, which I don't know was needed. And the actual ending can feel too contrived for everything that brought us here, even as I at least understand its ultimately grounded message. I respect the effortful messiness in Takopi's Original Sin, and its heart is in the right place. It makes it a curiosity worth checking out (alongside all content warning caveats), uneven and imperfect as it is all the way through.

MrAJCosplay

Rating:

This was hands-down one of the most challenging things I've had to read for this preview guide. I say this without hyperbole and entirely sincerely, but do be warned if you pick up this title after reading our reviews. Know that it is not a happy-go-lucky sci-fi series. This dark and disturbing story is full of verbal abuse, physical abuse, bullying, suicide, etc. By the time the first chapter ended, I was genuinely sick to my stomach, and it's hard to say if that's because of how well things were executed or if it's because the things displayed were just that graphic.

This book has a very muddy art style, but unlike many other stories, this works to its benefit. The characters' lines are soft and fluffy, almost like something you'd see in a comedic fantasy manga, but many dark smudges are scattered throughout the background. The presentation is done in a way that makes it hard to tell if a character is covered in mud or if they're covered in blood. The contrast between the fluffy character designs and the dark subject matter is probably intentional and highly poignant. I appreciate that the characters didn't look too realistic because it's the only way I could stomach what was going on.

That's the story itself is a lesson in how sometimes you can't always make people happy no matter what you do. That's not an amazing message, especially if you're looking to the media as an escape, but we have a story that portrays some of the worst aspects of humanity through the lens of a naïve alien that comes from the planet Happy. This alien has probably never felt a negative emotion in their entire life. Now, he has to deal with the physical and emotional pain of trying to help somebody in a hopeless situation that offers no way out. And for a book over four hundred pages long, they run the gamut of just how cruel and twisted people can be.

There are some conversations about nature versus nurture here and how sometimes, no matter what you do, a positive in your life could be an intense negative for another. The setup poses a depressing yet fascinating philosophical quandary, but the execution is less desirable as we get into the second half. Plot points are introduced randomly to try to convey this message with a broader brush, and it comes off as a little too convenient. Then there's the ending, which felt like it was done to wrap everything up rather than because it was something the narrative was building towards. Narrative issues aside, though, this is still a gripping story that will leave you emotionally hollow by the end. It's not something I can recommend to everybody unless you're specifically looking for a piece of media to invoke that specific emotion.

Sometimes you need a good reminder of how terrible everything is, but sometimes you have to be in the right mood for that rather than having it sucker punch you out of nowhere like it did for me. If this sounds like something up your alley, give it a shot; but, you might want to harden yourself before picking it up.