Thank God finally its over or at least thats what I keep telling myself. I am genuinely tired after finishing the anime wretched even but I think thats alright. I never watched this show for some cute happy feeling anyway. I knew what was coming but man it still hit bad. Im not here to critique the show honestly so sorry about that. I just want to get my feelings out and talk about it because this... this felt hard. You go in thinking youre prepared. You see the cute pink Kirbylooking octopus alien and you know its a trap. Its like seeing Kyubey from Madoka Magica for the first time a part of your brain the part thats been hurt by anime before just screams RUN The show even gives you two content warnings at the start which is basically the anime equivalent of a bouncer telling you You sure you want to go in there pal? But you do it anyway. Because you have to know you want to know you are already too deep. The whole thing starts as this twisted parody of Doraemon. You have the helpless kid Shizuka and the magical friend from the future Takopi with his pouch of Happy Gadgets But this isnt about getting better grades or standing up to a neighborhood bully. This is a world of souldeep neglect and abuse that feels so real its suffocating. And Takopi with his simple happy brain just makes everything a million times worse. His attempts to help are pure chaos. He gives Shizuka a Happy Ribbon to mend friendships and she uses it to hang herself. The camera just stays on her lifeless and in that moment the show looks you dead in the eye and tells you there are no easy fixes here. There is no magic that can patch over this kind of pain. From there it just descends. Its not a slow burn of psychological horror like Oyasumi Punpun that story is a surgeons scalpel meticulously dissecting a soul. The whole environment is a nonstop barrage of misery that just keeps going never giving you a moment to breathe. The visual style is a huge part of the pain. Its this constant whiplash between Takopis original sins soft storybook world and the grim dirty dead reality the kids live in. Its like if A24 decided to do a gritty psychological reboot of Barney Friends the dissonance is the point and it makes the horror feel so much more violating. What really wrecks you is that there are no real monsters. Not among the kids anyway. Its like Lord of the Flies but the island is generational trauma and the beast is the complete and utter failure of every single adult in their lives. You hate the bully Marina with a passion but then you see her home life and you realize her cruelty is just a distorted echo of the abuse she suffers from her own mother. You see the good boy Azuma so starved for love that his mother making and then taking away his favorite pancakes because he didnt get a perfect score on a test is enough to break him. Theyre all just children hurting each other because theyve been hurt and its a cycle that feels impossible to escape. Its a different kind of darkness than something fantastical like Berserk. Thats a nightmare you can wake up from. This feels like it could be happening down the street and thats what makes it so much harder to stomach. 9.5/10 will never watch again