Webtoon Review: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Scott Pilgrim is not exactly the most successful young man on Earth. He’s between jobs, crashing at his gay friend Wallace’s apartment in Toronto, playing bass in an indie band “Sex Bob-Omb” and kinda-sorta dating high school girl Knives Chau. He’s weirdly good at fighting, but this is a world where lots of people are weirdly good at fighting so that’s not a standout quality. Lately, Scott’s been dreaming about a girl on roller skates with oddly colored hair. To his surprise, the girl in/of his dreams turns out to be real, and her name is Ramona Flowers.
Scott and Ramona hit it off, there’s a first date, and a kiss with “sparks.” But both of these young people have bad dating history, and Ramona’s comes back to haunt Scott when it turns out he must battle her seven evil exes, starting with Matthew Patel, the boy she dated in seventh grade. This might be tricky, given Matthew has mystic powers!
This was the premise of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s popular comic book series Scott Pilgrim (2004-2010). It was turned into a movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010, directed by Edgar Wright. It wasn’t a big hit, but did well with critics and the home market. Between the quirky characters, weird situations and the fact that it was heavily influenced by Ranma 1/2 in the first place, it’s not too surprising that it’s now been turned into an anime miniseries. The animation was done by Science Saru, and the English dub cast is almost entirely the same people who played these characters in the live action movie.
This adaptation takes a severe twist at the end of episode one, re-focusing the story on Ramona as the protagonist for several episodes while she works on her own issues and relationships. This still allows for some pretty awesome fight scenes, and the events of the movie still kind of happen.
Good: The shift in focus gives Ramona and some other characters more of a chance to shine and develop their personalities. We see sides of them the movie or even the comic book never got to.
Cool animation and fight scenes! I liked the recurring bit of Ramona’s hair care routine, when in most anime we just have to pretend the odd colors and styles are natural.
The movie episode gets to make fun of movie adaptations and the weirdness of Hollywood. (For example, the actress playing high schooler Knives Chau being far older than the character so technically it’s not a problem for the adult Lucas Lee to date her, but that’s not how the paparazzi are portraying it.)
Excellent finale.
Less good: The shifted focus also means some characters get a bit shortchanged with less development than the comic or movie.
Stunt casting is a double-edged sword. It’s cool to have the same actors come back for the familiar roles, but voice acting is its own skill set, so not all the cast are as good as they were in the movie.
Content note: Fantasy violence, no one gets permanently killed. Extramarital sex (actual acts off-camera.) Cheating. Scott is dating/leading on a high-schooler, specifically called out as a bad thing (and somewhat softened from the comic book.) Some naughty language.
Overall: A fun series that makes good use of the change in medium to tell a different story that still connects up. I suppose it would be possible to do a sequel, but it is fine as is. Recommended to romantic comedy fans.
