2025 has been a memorable year for anime. From explosive returns like Solo Leveling Season 2 and Dandadan Season 2 to exciting new debuts and surprising original works like Lazarus, anime fans have been nonstop thrilled. While many series received widespread praise, none matched the critical acclaim of Takopi’s Original Sin.
Takopi’s Original Sin holds the highest rating ever on IMDB and boasts the top score for a first episode. It’s easy to see why this series brought a fresh perspective to many viewers, but its ending perfectly illustrates why it might have been overrated. Takopi’s Original Sin bravely tackled challenging themes most anime avoid, yet ultimately it felt shallow.
Takopi’s death feels rushed and unearned at the end
Takopi’s Original Sin shocked viewers from the start with a dark, emotional story no one expected. When Shizuka takes her own life in the very first episode, the plot immediately sets the tone for what the series is willing to explore, leaving a deep impact on the audience. This solitary tragedy pushes Takopi, an alien tasked with spreading happiness across the universe, into a desperate mission to save Shizuka from her fate.
Throughout this mission, Takopi journeys through multiple unhappy timelines, each layered with complex meanings. The highlight of the middle episodes is how the series portrays characters with destinies beyond anyone’s control. Each character has their own potential and inner struggles that Takopi cannot directly influence, no matter how much he tries to intervene.
Takopi’s deep understanding of what makes people human is what makes the series so effective and why it stands out in 2025. Unfortunately, despite its strong build-up, the anime fails to deliver a satisfying conclusion, preventing it from becoming the true masterpiece many fans and critics hoped for.
By the end, Takopi must accept the harsh truth that he cannot change the fate of Shizuka, Marina, Naoki, or anyone else, no matter how hard he tries. Instead, he chooses to give up completely, sacrificing his life to rewind time and let the three children decide their own futures.
On the surface, this is a hopeful ending, but several issues arise. First, Takopi’s “sacrifice” loses much of its emotional weight because it’s such an obvious metaphor. Many stories kill off their spiritual guides at the end to push the main characters forward.
For a series that presents so many emotional images and begins by dramatically subverting expectations, ending in the most predictable way is disappointing. Moreover, Takopi’s sacrifice suddenly becoming the key turning point for the pair is a complete 180 from the anime’s earlier emphasis on his powerlessness to change fate despite his magical tools.
The finale of Takopi’s Original Sin falls flat
Although the entire premise of Takopi’s Original Sin is that Takopi cannot change the children’s fate, in the end, he actually does. Takopi exerts a supernatural influence on the group because his actions truly make a difference.
Under normal circumstances, the girls bonding over a strange doodle of Takopi in Shizuka’s notebook would seem absurd, but the anime explains this by confirming Takopi is not just a metaphor or an imaginary figure, he really exists.
The anime clearly shows a magical force at work as the girls unconsciously remember Takopi. This is what binds them to the doodle and serves as a very safe ending. While it’s satisfying to see Shizuka avoid prison and Marina survive, their forced friendship ultimately feels like the result of magical intervention, something the rest of the story largely contradicts.
Another weakness lies in the ending’s theme and core lesson. The show is dark from the start, but the finale feels childish, despite targeting an older audience. It delivers pain and lingering regret, but the final message is underwhelming. As Naoki puts it, the ending boils down to: “people can do good and bad things” and “that’s just how it is.”
The series’ strongest theme is highlighting the capacity for good people to do bad things. Using children to illustrate this is a great choice since a character like Shizuka falling into illusion is more believable. However, the problem is there’s no real connection to the character arcs throughout the story until the final episode. There’s no development showing Shizuka and Marina changing, everything is simply magically resolved through Takopi’s sacrifice.
The pair hate each other, then become friends, and that’s it. There’s no clear climax for this central theme in the ending. The strongest expression of it is actually the big twist where Takopi is supposed to save Marina all along. If anything, the anime might have been better ending right after that twist.
Takopi’s Original Sin is great but not the life-changing anime fans claim
Takopi’s Original Sin deserves attention simply for being a serious anime that tackles themes many other series, even outside anime, shy away from. These details alone make it a refreshing standout among countless bland, generic anime plots flooding the market. However, two things can be true at once. The overall premise and effort behind Takopi are commendable, but the actual ending the anime delivers can be deeply disappointing.
As a pure anime, Takopi’s Original Sin remains a notable achievement of 2025. It captures a unique blend of horror and cuteness, reminiscent of other great series like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Promised Neverland, and Made in Abyss. To fit that tradition, Takopi’s Original Sin made significant strides, but its rather generic finale leaves it feeling like just another anime in the genre.