Crunchyroll‘s Summer lineup was already impressive, but it was elevated by a sleeper hit, Takopi’s Original Sinwhich stunned viewers with its increasingly dark narrative rooted in raw emotional realism. The anime tackled heavy themes such as suicide, depression, bullying, and violence, made even more impactful by centering them around children. With each episode, the story deepened in intensity, culminating in a shocking twist in the penultimate episode. Told through the eyes of an alien who cannot grasp human emotions or morality, the narrative subtly explores what it means to learn humanity by confronting its most painful truths.
This journey reaches its emotional peak in the finale, as Takopi reveals his grasp of human emotions and morality by making a life-altering decision that affects all the children involved. His ultimate realization, that humans are not meant to live in isolation and that openly expressing emotion fosters understanding, becomes the heart of the story. Shizuka and Marina, two girls from broken homes, find solace in each other’s pain. United through their grief and their shared experience with Takopi, they form a bond destined to endure.
Crunchyroll’s Takopi’s Original Sin Concludes on a Cathartic Note
The finale of Takopi’s Original Sintitled “To All of You in 2016”, continues in the second timeline, with Takopi regaining his memories and remembering his mission to kill Shizuka. However, after spending time with her, Takopi comes to understand that neither Shizuka nor Marina is inherently bad. His emotional growth leads him to realize that both girls are simply alone, broken by the pain of growing up in dysfunctional families. Takopi’s understanding deepens when he recognizes that what Shizuka needed was not forced happiness, but someone to listen to her pain. This realization mirrors his earlier misunderstanding of Marina, where he had wrongly assumed Shizuka was the cause of Marina’s suffering without truly understanding her situation.
Takopi’s emotional insight into both characters emphasizes that to understand human pain, one must first listen. Upon realizing that the root of Shizuka and Marina’s pain lies in their broken homes, something he cannot magically fix, he understands that they can find comfort in sharing their pain with each other, easing the weight of their loneliness. His magical presence after he reverts the timeline for one last time also indirectly impacts Azuma, who learns to express his emotions to his brother, leading to a stronger bond forged through his struggles with jealousy.
While it was evident that a good ending in Takopi’s Original Sin would be one where Shizuka and Marina, the two main girls shaped by emotional abuse, would find happiness in each other, it doesn’t magically fix their broken families. However, through one another, they came to accept that this pain is a part of their lives and moved forward with the bittersweet happiness they found in each other’s scars.
