☾ you should be your light

The 2-volume story focuses on a little alien from a planet called Happian nicknamed Takopi. His job is to promote happiness all throughout the universe. One day, Takopi travels to Earth and meets a 4th grader named Shizuka. Shizuka is revealed to be a very depressed girl who is bullied at school by a classmate named Marina. Takopi notices how sad Shizuka is all the time and tries desperately to cheer her up as that's his job. However, all Takopi does is makes things much worse as everything he does leads to death and misery for those he involves himself with. All for the sake of making someone happy.

So for those who don't know, toxic positivity is the total suppression of anything negative in your life. "Oh, you're having a bad day? Just cheer up. You need to pick up your boot straps and stop crying. Sorry, good vibes only. Hey, there's a silver lining to all of this." I'm sure many of us have heard things like that by a good amount of people. Statements like this are made in cultures that are highly individualistic (like the U.S. for example). Also, even great things like body positivity can turn into toxic positivity as there are people who do want to express legit anger and frustration at terrible things about themselves or something that may not sustainable for them.

When you look at Takopi, he is literally toxic positivity despite his kindness. He says and does things without thinking about reality. In the first chapter, Takopi hands a long ribbon from his planet to Shizuka in one of their first meetings and Shizuka uses it to hang herself. And it's noted that Takopi is not supposed to give his planet's gifts to anyone outside of his planet. Takopi resorts to resetting time loops in order to make Shizuka happy and alive. Takopi also tries to make up with Shizuka's bully, Marina, thinking that talking it out will make things better. He does this by pretending to be Shizuka, only to realize that Marina has trauma of her own that can't be solved by simple reconciliation.

The story heats up near the end of Volume 1 as Takopi accidentally kills Marina with one of his gadgets to Shizuka. This unfortunately involves a male classmate, Naoki, who becomes an accomplice due to him having a crush on Shizuka and wanting to be close with her. Naoki also has his own family issues and ends up turning himself in. Takopi pretends to be Marina to cover up for the murder, but sees how bad Marina's home situation really is. Shizuka is distraught about the lack of her father in her life and resorts to travel to Tokyo to find him, only to see him with kids born from his new wife.

Seeing a now-warped Shizuka, Takopi remembers something that was important to him - he once met Marina when she was in high school and tried to make her happy. Marina wanted to be with Naoki as his girlfriend until Shizuka came into the picture. Naoki decides to go with Shizuka instead out of genuine concern for her mental health, but that decision ruins Marina's life as she ends up killing her mentally unstable mother in self-defense. Marina blames Shizuka for her life being the way it is and Takopi decides to travel back to the time period where all the central characters were in 4th grade to kill Shizuka for Marina's happiness. However, this draws the ire of Takopi's mother in Happian. As punishment, Takopi faces a permanent ban from his home planet and his memories would be erased when he goes to visit 4th grade Shizuka.

If you ever want to see a fictional example of someone who believes the power of positivity can solve family trauma and fail at it hard, what I said above sums it all. It's uncomfortable to see Takopi try to use his planet's gadgets thinking that they can stop emotional pain. It's even more uncomfortable when Shizuka, Marina, and Naoki all go through harsh moments as 4th graders because their parents never gave them the love they really needed.

The more I think about Takopi's Original Sin, the more I think about how people generally aren't good at tackling someone's pain. Most toxic positivity is unintentional. Sometimes, what we do is we're trying to make sure we're okay rather than the person in pain. Boundaries are important, sure. But then I think that doesn't mean you're truly listening and being present with them. I also think that we try to reassure ourselves that we won't end up like them and sometimes say the wrong things to get us away from dealing with negative emotions.

We all can't be therapists, but therapists aren't enough to make someone whole and actually happy. Takopi is an example of a therapist with so much standardized knowledge, but is unprepared to be contextually sensitive when he needs to be.

The ending of Takopi's Original Sin highlights Takopi's admittance to the fact that he never once tried to understand Shizuka. He realizes how flawed humans are even when they show kindness to others. In an earnest attempt to set things right, Takopi does one more time loop at the cost of his life and he subtly nudges Shizuka and Marina to actually become friends during an incident where Shizuka is about to be killed by Marina. The story ends on a happy note with Shizuka and Marina becoming quite close many years later.

Takopi proclaims that talking brings happiness more than any solution/device would. While I did say that simple reconciliation isn't enough, talking helps when there's a shared commonality brought out in a safe manner. In previous situations involving Shizuka and Marina, everything was about how different each other was. Takopi decided to become the commonality that the girls shared. Just like in real life, once you get past all the differences, the dynamic changes and things slowly become better.

The grand message is basically that life sucks a lot sometimes. It would be nice if we had people in our lives that are willing to acknowledge the cruelty of life and sit with us through it. We can't and shouldn't try to be superheroes. Trying to force a immediate solution to solve problems doesn't always bring the happiness someone really wants. I don't think people who have been (or going) through a lot want someone to save them at times. They just want a companion to be compassionate with them, actively listen to their complaints, and hear their cries.