Well, it's not every day I come across something as much of a rollercoaster as this. This is coming from someone who doesn't express themselves too much as well.
Takopi's Original Sin lies within the start of the manga, otherwise, it is all pretty good for the most part. I don't know too much about how unique the idea is, but I would imagine that coping with depression and loneliness is not something I think is unique in this medium. The way it is gone around in this manga, however, is probably something to take more to heart. Maybe not all the literal origins which build up everything, but instead, the plot progression and all the wild (and I do mean wild) turns that take place. It's a manga that has fully utilised its premise and created a story that isn't too dependent on being depressing for the sake of it, it also doesn't go into melodrama territory, which seems to be easy to fall into these days.
Alright but I need to actually speak about the start of the manga. It is very problematic and would have been the reason to give this manga a 1/10 if it kept going the way it did. I don't want to dive too much into it, the manga is at its most powerful when I don't go into spoilers (explicitly) but basically, everything seems to be really cheated in place as a means to drive on the story, and I do mean a repugnant exude of cheating, unfortunately, left for readers to process for some "story", but it's all cool and more so just jumping the gun. Despite absurd and lackadaisical startup, everything takes care of itself which ultimately does improve the circumstances of the manga once it gets rolling into the real content—it improves just a teeny tiny bit though.
The main thing to take with this manga is how powerful it can get with the ideas it plays with. It brings out a whole lot of messages about what is right and wrong, the battles people deal with on the inside, and the relationships between the things we love. It's all executed in a way that doesn't come across as eye-rolling, but rather, as a genuine expression that would very much what is said and done in this manga. It's very easy to take a touchy concept like this and bastardise it in ways that would make it become insufferable, whether it be due to a lack of real understanding of said topics, or inconsistency in characters that would create an unbelievable world enough so that it would be impossible to immerse or take seriously. This just isn't the case with Takopi's Original Sin. I don't have a ton of experience in psychology or anything similar, so I can only go off on what I understand (aided with logical reasoning) but I would love to believe that the story is not entirely off the mark in creating a believable premise with characters that are true to their motives.
Speaking of characters, I liked reading everything about them. Each character held some relevance to something in some way—whether that was the idea attached to them or just being a person in general. From how to deal with particular scenarios to the meaning of life, all of it. Simply amazing. I will start with Takopi, the main guy. He's naive, but that's a given when you get to know his origins (being a space alien often means you can't resonate with humans well). Honestly, if you are not patient, he may come across as very annoying. You may even be very close as I was into dropping the manga, but as stated before, give it some time. His lack of understanding actually works really well. You know, his journey means that he can understand human beings more in a variety of ways. Whether that be correcting tone-deaf actions or correcting the misguided actions of others. It's nice to see the little space dude grow, but also maintain what it was that made him, him. Being the friendly Happian with a mission to make Shizuka happy. This leads me nicely to my next character to speak of, Shizuka. If it is not already obvious from the first few pages, she is the extremely depressed girl who seemingly cannot hope to be happy for anything that isn't something she hasn't already established a relationship with. Her life is hard, and that is probably an understatement. Many things in her life have gone terribly wrong and it is easy to sympathise with her given her circumstances. I love how she progresses as a character, and whilst I am in no position to call for how legit it is that someone similar to her would progress in life as she has (given that the events that occurred here were to replicate in real-life hypothetically), I still believe that she is an honest character, albeit, maybe a few possible extremes to her behaviour, which I will not name due to spoilers, but you will come across it and think to yourself something along the lines of "hey these children are pretty scary…". Still, for pretty much the entirety of the manga, her character and relevance to themes like the meaning of life is nothing short of generally very good.
Other side characters aren't exactly stereotypical "side" characters in my vision, they serve more as people who come in and out of the story, but not so much so that they constantly "just exist" on the sidelines. In other words, these people are important in their respective times they receive the spotlight. As is every other character here, they too are well written to a degree that respects their intended human behaviour. They both deal with internal issues well, but again, in ways that are slightly exaggerated, also won't speak too much of them due to spoilers. These characters I speak of are only just Azuma and Marina.
Thinking about it, the exaggeration of these characters can come across as something of a cheap trick to entice readers to release some emotion just because. I don't think that is entirely the case, but the few amplifications do add up. I don't believe that is inherently a bad thing, considering how this manga is true to its word, it is just vamped a little, but it can also be said that the reason it is a little more than it says is due to the powerful imagery, panels and technicalities which bring out the most of each and every moment.
I suppose I will dwell on the point a little more here. For some reason, this manga looks like something Asano Inio would draw. The style reminds me of something that came out of Goodnight Punpun or DDDD (from the few pages I've seen from both). It is ridiculously detailed character designs, with the occasional detailed background. Most of the attention is on character detail however and solidifying a mark on this style of art. It's all very good and something that catches your attention the moment you read it. Sometimes this manga utilises great shocks via page-turning. If I could describe it in some other way, I would mean that this manga is good at making powerful images with the occasional turn. It brings out more to these already evil surroundings, which is really nice in helping read some more about what this has to offer, or just becoming more absorbed into how bad this world can get. The art is just very respectable and clearly something that was thought out.
TLDR: Good story with an idea not too unique, but one that is taken and presented in a way that makes this story a grand one. Characters here are believable and people who play their roles to the utmost standard. As well as an art style that puts everything into place and magnifies everything towards the apex.
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When all is said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this manga. I went and read the entire thing in a night, and managed to write something down in a relatively (and I mean that compared to the other stunts I've been pulling) reasonable time. I am not entirely sure exactly why I read this or how I found it, but I did get to the end of it and it is something of time well spent if I say so myself. SJ+ is always pulling out good stories to feast on so it is nice the quality has not deteriorated for what I know of its standing at this point in time. Anyways, I don't have a lot to speak of other than I would very much recommend this if you have an hour or 2 to spare. There's no downside in reading this if I do say so myself. It is just a good psychological drama. What more do you need? Aside from the fact that the first few chapters are something that requires a lot of patience, this is all good to go.
