Sara Talks Anime

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Before I get into the anime spotlight, this anime spotlight will contain slight spoilers for content in the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels that is not covered by Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Of course, this also includes spoilers for Takes Off itself, but like…it’s impossible to talk about Scott Pilgrim Takes Off without getting into spoiler territory for it, at least for me, so you should’ve expected this.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is the show that, at least in some sections of the anime circle, reignited the age-old debate of what does and does not classify as anime. However, for the purpose of this anime spotlight, I am considering it an anime because both AniList and AniDB count it within their databases and my mom added the official music video for the opening theme to her anime theme playlist on her YouTube channel. Also, Science SARU animates it, and I really like their animation. Yes, the same Science SARU that animated Dan Da Dan. As of the writing of this post, Netflix has the streaming rights for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off in North America.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was marketed as if it was going to be a straight adaptation of the graphic novel series, with the latter half likely going to be closer to what Bryan Lee O’Malley had actually written instead of the stuff that was done for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World live-action movie. But I’ll spoil you all now: we do not get a straight adaptation of the graphic novels. And, unpopular opinion, but for those familiar with how the story is supposed to go, that’s obvious from the first scene in the first episode after the opening song.

In the graphic novel and the movie, we establish that Scott isn’t the best person by showing how he’s in his 20s (the only consistency with Scott’s age in both sources) and “dating” a high schooler (Knives Chau), basically setting up that this guy is a loser and has hit a real low. Takes Off, however, begins with the first dream shown in the story for Scott seeing Ramona, leaving the “SCOTT PILGRIM’S DATING A HIGH SCHOOLER!” set up for later. So, Takes Off actually begins in the middle of volume 1 of the graphic novel series. Anyway, one “time to wake up, dude” later, Scott Pilgrim does wake up in the apartment he shares with his cool gay roommate and, in my opinion, the best character in the entire series, Wallace Wells.

One verbal spat with Wallace later, and Scott is now hanging out with the other members of the band he’s in: Sex Bob-omb, composed of the bass player Scott, the chill yet also a nervous wreck guitarist and vocalist Stephen Stills, and the sarcastic drummer Kim Pine, with Young Neil (Stephen’s roommate) and Knives watching. After playing a song (and getting a compliment from Knives, though probably only because Scott’s there), they head to a party hosted by Julie Powers, the sole character who got this show rated TV-MA despite this show having the same level of maturity as the graphic novels or the movie. Anyway, at the party, Scott ends up running into the girl he sees in his dreams, aka Ramona Flowers, and strikes up a conversation (albeit an awkward one) with her. He tells her a fun fact about Pac-Man…at least in the graphic novel series and the movie. Here, he tells us about how the same guy played Sonic in two different Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons in the 90s with two clashing tones. While this could be seen as a “haha, funny” moment poking fun at the fact that the English version (which is the version I watched) managed to cast almost all of the actors from the movie to voice in Takes Off, I think this is a more well-known fact than “they wanted to call Pac-Man ‘Puck-Man’, but one could easily vandalize ‘Puck’ into an inappropriate word, so ‘Pac’ was used instead”, and as a result, there’s less to really be surprised about.

Not like any of my complaints mattered, because this is the first time Ramona’s heard this fact. And with a mix of “modern viewers may get turned off by the fact that a series starts by admitting that the main character is problematic” and “Knives is most likely a Sonic fan so would already know the fact”, and most likely also “we don’t have the time to adapt this”, skipping to the middle of Volume 1 makes sense.

Scott eventually leaves Ramona’s side, finds Julie, and asks her about Ramona. Here, we get another interesting change from the graphic novel series and the movie, where we find out that Ramona works at Netflix instead of Amazon. But, like…when you consider the fact that Netflix might not want to show their competitors in a Netflix Original Series, the change makes sense. However, after getting the information he needs (+ one “I FORBID YOU FROM DATING HER, SCOTT PILGRIM!”), Scott leaves the party, heading back to the apartment and heading to Netflix.com to rent a DVD, where we learn through best boy Wallace Wells that Scott can’t go to the local video rental store because he owes too much in late fees. Wallace states “a bajillion”, but Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game prices his late fees at 504 Canadian dollars and 25 Canadian cents, so it’s my personal belief that is canonically his amount of late fees.

Anyway, Scott ends up renting a movie starring a Wallace-approved hot guy named Lucas Lee, who, spoiler alert, is one of Ramona’s exes. And the person that delivers the DVD to him is none other than Ramona…oh, yeah, it was also delivered in Wallace’s name because Scott is just a silly little loser like that, he has to use his roommate’s computer to rent this DVD. The silly goober.

Without recapping the first episode too much (because I fear if I do TOO much recap, we’ll be here all day), Scott ends up getting to spend more time with Ramona, to the point where he invites her to a show that Sex Bob-omb is doing at The Rockit. This, of course, causes an awkward run-in between Ramona and Knives out front, but backstage, Stephen is nervous about doing good. However, they get on stage and begin playing…only for it to be interrupted by Matthew Patel, the first of Ramona’s seven evil exes. After Scott gets caught up on what the hell’s happening because he skipped reading the information mailed to him (because Scott just chose not to read it) about needing to fight Ramona’s seven evil exes if he wants to date Ramona, and so, the fight begins. The two have a fierce clash, and it ends with…

…Matthew Patel standing victorious, while money falls to the ground with Scott nowhere in sight. For those who have read the graphic novel series, you know that this is not how the fight is supposed to go. However, this is where Scott Pilgrim Takes Off stops following…or, should I say, takes off from the source material, and begins telling its own story, this time, following Ramona as the protagonist. The story is more chill from this point, following Ramona running into her exes and talking to them, trying to figure out what in the world happened to Scott. This is mainly propelled by the decision for Young Neil to make a movie (which later turned into a musical) that would’ve been more of a straight retelling of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. While after the conclusion of the encounter with Matthew, Episode 2 leans into the fact that Scott Pilgrim is dead, the episode ends with Ramona realizing that he’s still alive.

Episodes 3 through 6 really lean into the whole “Ramona trying to figure out which of her exes took Scott” plot, with the movie (later musical) serving as the device that pulls the plot along in episodes 4 and 5. However, the most we really know after Episode 3 but before the end of Episode 6 is that Scott was pulled into a green portal created by vegan powers…because apparently vegans have superpowers in the world of Scott Pilgrim, don’t ask me how.

It isn’t until the end of Episode 6 and most of Episode 7 until we get an explanation as to where Scott Pilgrim took off to. He was kidnapped by his future self because said future self took a statement that was clearly intended to be a joke too seriously, with help of two of Ramona’s exes that she doesn’t even talk to during the episodes where she’s looking for Scott, as the robot they made is the one who made the portal. Because robots can be vegan apparently? Let’s just not question it…and instead talk about the asshole that is Future Scott!

Like, bro, can you get a more healthy coping mechanism than kidnapping your past self to prevent the events that caused you to become you in the first place?!

Yeah, and this isn’t even the last time that Future Scott kidnaps his past self…though the second time, not only does he kidnap his past self, he also kidnaps Ramona, the seven evil exes, and all the other main cast members into the Dream Desert…so we’re presumably in one of the Scott’s heads, as the previous times that we’ve been here, we were clearly within Scott’s head. And before anyone points it out, yes, I know that the character that I call “Future Scott” is technically called “Older Scott” when we first meet him and “Even Older Scott” right now…but I think Future Scott is cooler.

This battle does end in a victory for the Scott that isn’t from the future, but I’m absolutely stopping my talking about the plot, just so that I don’t spoil everything. Sorry, Scott Pilgrim is a huge interest of mine, and if I didn’t restrain myself, I could probably talk about anything related to Scott Pilgrim for several hours.

So instead, I want to talk about the animation. This is the first show that I knew from the beginning that Science SARU animated, and my gosh, I love the work that they’ve done on this show. All of the parts look extremely fluid. In a tier list, I’d probably put the animation at A tier, mainly because of another Science SARU show that I’ve watched. Not the best, but still a very high rating.

The music is also incredibly good, with Amanguchi serving as the composer for the instrumental episode OSTs. This isn’t even their first time working with the folks who made Scott Pilgrim, as they also made the soundtrack for the game. Speaking of the game, the actual final thing that I will say about stuff actually connected to the plot is that the sub-boss theme from the game makes a return in the final battle. It’s cool. The songs that have lyrics are cool too. I really like the Part 2 version of I Feel Fine. I’ll let you look it up if you want to listen to it.

The opening is also a freaking banger. I listened to it before watching the actual series, and it’s literally so good. Bloom by NECRY TALKIE, you have my heart. And my soul. And my mind. …wait, no, maybe not my soul, I don’t know if I even still have it or not. But I freaking love this song.

Due to this being one of the few cases where I watched an anime in English (because the original language is English), and I’m already familiar with almost all of the cast due to the movie, then I don’t think I need to state that I absolutely love the voices used for the show. Bias because I’ve watched and loved the movie. So my answer is biased. While there are some moments where it seems like the animators and the voice actors weren’t on the same page when it came to what tone to use, I still found the voices to be good.

And while Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was confirmed to not be getting a continuation, I personally believe that this is actually for the better. I felt like everything wrapped up quite nicely in Episode 8 (post-credits scene included!), and if anyone really wanted a continuation, they could always try to write their own. Bryan Lee O’Malley writing Scott Pilgrim Takes Off to tell the entirety of its story within eight episodes really works well. If you have the time, and want to sit down and watch a story that is short but impactful…well, first, get familiar with Scott Pilgrim, and then I recommend watching Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. While some stuff about the story gets explained, I don’t think it’s enough to justify watching the series without background knowledge.