Takopii no Genzai: Arigatou, Mata Ashita

Don't let the cute alien fool you. Takopi is a round, cheerful, octopus-like creature from Happy Planet who shows up in 2016 Japan carrying a bag of whimsical gadgets and a genuine desire to make people happy. He finds Shizuka, a quiet fourth-grade girl who clearly needs a friend. And that's where the story stops being anything like what the premise suggests. Shizuka's life is hard in ways Takopi genuinely cannot process. Bullying, a difficult home situation, the kind of loneliness that doesn't go away when a magical alien shows up with cheerful solutions. When Takopi's gadgets fail to fix things, he gets access to a camera that can rewind time, and he keeps trying. The catch is that each attempt reveals how tangled and human the problems actually are, and how little a well-meaning outsider can do when he doesn't understand what pain even is. The tone is the whole point here. Bright colors, cute character design, and light sci-fi concepts set against something genuinely bleak and emotionally raw. If you liked the tonal gut-punch of Puella Magi Madoka Magica or the desperate time-loop urgency of Erased, this sits in similar territory. Wonder Egg Priority fans will recognize the same pattern of using fantastical imagery to get at childhood trauma sideways. This theatrical version compiles the full story with added scenes, so it's the most complete way to watch it.