2025 has been one of anime’s bigger years in quite some time. From the rather strong winter season class, and with the fall just around the corner, the year has been littered with a number of major releases from well-established titles. A show like Solo Leveling drove the bus early on, while Dandadan‘s historic run has continued through the summer.
There are a number of strong contenders for Anime of the Year at the annual Crunchyroll Awards, a title Solo Leveling controversially took home this past May, but the show with the best chance to win is one nobody saw coming.
In a year filled with highly acclaimed and ultra-hyped releases, Takopi’s Original Sin stunned fans during the summer anime season. The short six-episode miniseries instantly captivated the anime community with its shocking first episode, and refused to let go of the spotlight the rest of the way, proving itself the top candidate for Anime of the Year.
Takopi’s Original Sin Shocked the Anime World
2025’s Most Devastating Anime Seemingly Came Out of Nowhere
Coming into 2025, anime fans were ready for what appeared to be one of the most stacked years in recent memory. After a strong winter, however, the spring was surprisingly quiet. Shows like Fire Force and Lazarus garnered a bit of attention, but failed to live up to what had come before, or to the hype of what was coming next.
The summer promised good times ahead, with the return of Dandadan, one of 2024’s biggest breakout hits, alongside shows like My Dress-Up Darling, and the exciting new psychological thriller, The Summer Hikaru Died. Though when week one of the season arrived, the anime community was discussing something else entirely.
Takopi’s Original Sin is a six-episode miniseries that flew largely under the radar when it was first announced, but later stole the spotlight from other established titles. Fans weren’t surprised by any high-flying action, or the immaculate vibes that won over countless viewers in 2023’s breakout hit, Frieren.
Rather, viewers were taken aback by one of the darkest, most disturbing, absolutely shocking debuts in anime history. Takopi’s Original Sin lies a bit to anime fans with its cute central mascot and gentle art style. In reality, nothing about the series is gentle in any way.
The tragic character drama at the heart of Takopi’s Original Sin is its selling point, and after the sudden death of Shizuka at the end of the first episode, fans were completely bought-in to the year’s most unexpected success.
Takopi’s Original Sin is a story that touches on sensitive subjects like bullying, self-harm, and the importance of truly listening to others’ struggles rather than inserting oneself into them.
The series follows an alien from Planet Happy named Takopi, who stumbles across a troubled girl named Shizuka, and eventually becomes tangled in a web of problems between her, another girl named Marina, and a boy named Naoki. After tragedy strikes, Takopi uses a gadget to reverse time, but only ends up making things worse.
Takopi’s Original Sin Is the Darkest Shōnen Jump Anime Ever
The Haunting Series Comes From the Unlikeliest of Places
Takopi’s Original Sin is a story that touches on sensitive subjects like bullying, self-harm, and the importance of truly listening to others’ struggles rather than inserting oneself into them. Series such as these are typically found in the pages of seinen magazines aimed at older audiences, but that wasn’t the case with the source material for Takopi’s Original Sin.
Surprisingly, the original manga series by Taizan 5 ran on the digital Shōnen Jump+ service in 2021, an online home for manga bearing the iconic magazine’s name, but without a spot in the Weekly Shōnen Jump physical lineup. Overly dark series like Takopi’s Original Sin would have once been far too mature for Shōnen Jump, but that’s changed with the advent of digital manga.
In recent years, countless big name titles have been published exclusively on Jump+, or Manga Plus in the West, including Dandadan and, for its second part, Chainsaw Man.
Thanks to that increased visibility, adaptations like Takopi’s Original Sin are far more likely to be made than they were in the past, when they would have needed to have been buried in a less illustrious magazine.
There Will Be Competition, But Takopi Has Made a Strong Bid for Anime of the Year
2025 Has Been a Strong Year For Anime
In any other year, Takopi’s Original Sin might’ve had a straight shot at winning Anime of the Year, but 2025 has been a good year for anime fans, and it’s only going to get better. Following the summer, which was headlined by Dandadan while also offering some high-quality romance titles, the fall is set to bring along some heavy hitters of its own.
Spy x Family, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, and more are scheduled to arrive in October, and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if they made their own bids for Anime of the Year.
To this point, however, no series has impressed the anime community quite to the level Takopi’s Original Sin has. Other shows might have brand power behind them, but it’ll be tough to tackle 2025’s most unexpected success.
Takopi’s Original Sin
- Release Date
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2025 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Bandai Channel, Netflix, Prime Video, Niconico, ABEMA, Hulu, Disney+, FOD, d Anime Store, Anime Houdai, U-NEXT, TELASA, DMM TV, niconico Channel, Lemino, J:COM STREAM, milplus, WOWOW On Demand, Anime Times, Rakuten TV, VIDEX
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Kurumi Mamiya
Takopi (voice)
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Reina Ueda
Shizuka Kuze (voice)
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