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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is an anime streaming series that premiered on Netflix in 2023. It’s a messy show.

Unlike the film, which is a largely faithful adaptation of the comics, this show features a different plot – Scott Pilgrim disappears in the first episode and the remainder of the series follows his love interest Ramona Flowers as she tries to find out who was responsible for his disappearance. I loved the movie adaptation and it is my favorite thing that Edgar Wright ever did. It was wildly entertaining and so funny.

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Imagine my disappointment, then, that this series ended up being so weak. It’s a solid show that started off great, but it ended with such a whimper. The first three or four episodes I genuinely liked and even loved, but then the show discarded Scott in favor of Ramona and it became something that nobody asked for as a result of that poor decision.

Everybody returning from the film’s cast was a delight, though some fared better than others in the animated roles. Mary Elizabeth Winstead for instance had a better voice for animation than Michael Cera. The characters were as great as they’ve always been, but it’s a shame that Scott was so sidelined in the latter half of the season. The highlights were Scott and his roommate.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off features wonderful animation that mixed the style of anime and comic books. The result is this gorgeous-looking show that is colorful, elegant and even quite artistic. The action scenes were also very well executed and the humor and dialogue were both quite good too. The second half with the added new material suffered in comparison to the much more interesting first half. This is where the show lost itself with too weird plot scenarios and a very weak finale.

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