Takopi's Sense of Relief

In search of the perfect aesthetic

Before we talk about Takopi’s Original Sin, I’m gonna bring up Dream Root again. Sorry.

I’m apologizing because being able to abandon that project made me feel like a chad, but all chad feelings are negated if I keep finding ways to casually work it into conversation.

“Yeah, I planned this comic for, like, years, and everyone hated it so I pulled the plug. Its no big. That’s just how it is. No need to get emotional.” and I’m smarm-browing the whole time and sipping on an iced coffee, to really hit home how I am Thoroughly Unbothered and Definitely Didn’t Cry while I made that iced coffee and the only thing that got me through it were the 2 nice comments that manga received and the shoutout on Smol-Sachi’s video.

That manga was about the aesthetic, to try to capture very specific feelings. Here’s the first few pages to jog your memory:

(You can read chapters 1 and 2 on Mangadex)

I tried a lot of different things— oh yeah, I’ve remade the first chapter 4 times.

The most recent iteration (Version 4) had 3 chapters.

I haven’t posted the third, because chapter 3 would’ve started the next arc: The protagonist’s dad is charged with domestic terrorism, and the whole time, the protagonist just can’t stop thinking about his femboi crush. I thought the contrast was hilarious.

I really liked this sequence so I guess now’s the time to show it:

Im realizing this lost a lotta Soul when i made the lineart cleaner. barf.

The message of chapter 2 was a perfectly pleasant “Thank you for not killing yourself.” That’s a great place to end a story.

Setting up a courthouse drama and not offering a payoff is just a giant serving of blue balls on top of a poorly-received webcomic, so chapter 3 remains banished to the shadow realm of my hard drive.

About the previous versions.

When making the different versions, I went through a lot to try to figure out what mood and style could best capture what I was feeling.

When I first wrote V1 I was trying to process Some Shit, and by the time I had made V4, I was “over it.” I now felt free to make the protagonist even crazier and dumber, because that’s how you see yourself when you get a little bit of goddamn Perspective.

At the time (v4), I was also really fucking angry at living in a rural town where you needed a car and wanted to say that shit stinks. So that also went into the story.

With every new version I approached it with the mindset of “How can I visually translate what I’m feeling?”

The first iteration I tried to make it look like Oh! Great’s Monogatari manga adaptation. I failed, but maybe you can see the attempt.

My main takeaway from the Monogatari manga was it’s very chaotic and not afraid to play with visual metaphors and high contrast. It was very intense.

You see what I mean about trying too hard for the protagonist to look cool, reasonable, sure he’s a creep, but… He’s got his reasons! So kakkoi!! Barf.

(The entirety of v1 was posted to Medibang)

V2 was more about a heavy hatching style and trying to do crazy inking, not just crazy screen tones. Idk if it worked but I abandoned it before making a full chapter.

V3 I did it ON PAPER!!!! And tried different pens. (And burned it afterwards so I can’t bring it in for show and tell). This was where I thought the deepest about his character design, before settling on making everyone look kinda like Nagata Kabi characters floating around in a Miyazaki Natsujikei world.

aiming for the saddest, gayest art style

Then I remembered drawing on paper kinda sucks so V4 was just remaking V3, and experimenting with different pens to nail the hand-drawn mili-pen vibe.

So by V4 there’s a considerable effort to make the characters look cute.

I’ll bulletpoint through the thought process:

• Cute characters means the violence and antisocial behavior is easier to process

• Sketchier art style means its easier for the scenery to “Melt” which would be important when protag-kun uses his lucid dream powers

• Sketchier art also made it easy to rotoscope photo backgrounds for a uniform look, and give that uncanny feeling, and I can express “god!!! I hate living in an unwalkable city!!! Fuck this!!!!!!”

So, thats my reasons.

Now onto Takopi.

After struggling with this for years, I felt an enormous sense of relief when I first saw Takopi’s Original Sin. This character design was exactly what I wanted. It had a similar vibe as Miyazaki Natsujikei’s art. The settings feel a bit sturdier, but the characters are just as likely to melt.

I had this sense of— if I had encountered Taizan5’s art any earlier, this is what I would try to emulate. I would do everything I could to make Dream Root look like this.

(On a good day, my stuff still looks like I’m awkwardly emulating Miyazaki Natsujikei’s art, so I can’t posture myself like I’m some genius mashing together a wide range of styles. I’m not.)

The dream root designs now feel like “my style,” for whatever that’s worth, and I later did another oneshot with a similar design aesthetic.

So, my Takopi-related relief. It was satisfying seeing someone else capture similar feelings and translate them into art, at a much higher level, with a higher competence and execution. It also looks fundamentally different from what I’m doing, so there was also the relief that I didn’t run into this manga and fall completely in love.

I had a lot of hesitation to read Takopi, knowing it would completely ruin me. And I was right! It did! It ruined me and I loved every second. Perfect manga, 10/10.

With the upcoming anime— and seeing it has Shinya Iino as director (who also directed Dr. Stone’s first 2 seasons)— I feel inspired. I want to make more in my dream root style style, now that I’ve seen this fully realized, entirely beautiful, parallel line.

And as I’m posturing all of this about inspiration and my totally gritty totally emotional art, you know what????

My latest oneshot is now online, and it’s about a prince with a really really really Really big dick.

Mangalab gave this prompt:

On her 18th birthday, the young lady (the heroine) arrives at the place where she is to marry into a political marriage she did not expect. Her husband, whom she meets for the first time, is a beautiful, cold-looking duke. But the “unexpected side” he shows her makes the heroine fall in love with him...?

I thought it would be hilarious if his ~unexpected side~ was that his dick was absolutely goddamn massive.

So I can pontificate about art all I want, but lowbrow comedy always wins.