The Big Picture

• Netflix’s animated series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, is a sequel and remake of the original graphic novel and live-action film, earning critical acclaim and bringing back the original cast to voice their characters.
• The show’s genre-blending style combines elements of 90s video games, beat-’em-up animation, and musical action fantasy anime like Angel Beats!, creating a vibrant and colorful experience.
• Just like Angel Beats!, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off delves into deeper themes of acceptance, connectivity, and living life to the fullest, while also offering exciting action scenes and the exploration of character backstories.

Netflix’s newest animated series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, has thrown loyal and new fans back into the magically realistic world of comic book artist Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s original work. Developed by O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski, the 8-episode anime serves as a sequel and remake of the graphic novel and the live-action film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — which became a cult classic in 2010. The remixed story puts Ramona Flowers into the spotlight as she embarks on a quest to solve the mystery behind Scott Pilgrim’s sudden disappearance. Since its release on November 17, the show has risen to critical acclaim and has won the favor of the public for bringing back the entire original cast of the Edgar Wright-directed adaptation to voice their original characters.

While the franchise stands as a perfect figure for transmedia storytelling, O’Malley’s genre-blending series is equally praised for its out-of-the-box, 90s video game, beat-’em-up-animation style that shares a similar tempo to the musical, action fantasy anime Angel Beats! Producers O’Malley and Grabinski teamed up with Japanese animation studio Science Saru (the animators of Disney’s Star Wars: Visions) to create a vibrantly colorful experience as a nod to Dragon Ball and Street Fighter. With these inspirations, it’s no question that when viewers finish binge-watching Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, they can surely find even more pleasure in Jun Maeda‘s dazzling, violent animated series that tells the story of a high school in the afterlife.

What Is ‘Angel Beats!’ About?

“Please let me believe in everything you believed in. Let me believe that life is great,” says Kanade Tachibana (Kana Hanazawa). Regarded as one of the saddest animes of all time, Angel Beats! is jam-packed with flashy fighting scenes, musical performances, and slice-of-life tropes, despite the heartbreaking undertones. The story, visually produced by Jun Maeda and Na-Ga, is an ode to human suffering and pulls its success from its character-driven plotline. Viewers start their journey when teenager Yuzuru Otonashi (Hiroshi Kamiya) wakes up with amnesia in a sort of limbo for young people. Otonsashi is immediately swept into the chaotic battlefield between the students of a purgatory high school and their enemy “Angel,” the student council president with supernatural powers.

Otonsashi learns that no one can die in the afterlife, and he is quickly scouted by the SSS, or the Afterlife Battlefront student organization, which is led by Yuri Nakamura (Harumi Sakurai). The SSS’s ultimate goal is to eliminate Angel, whom they believe is God’s assassin sent to prevent them from reincarnating. The students also have a fear of turning into mindless NPCs, Non-Player Characters. These NPCs resemble the behavior of real humans on Earth and act as “filler” population within the high school like students or teaching staff. In reality, the students are unaware that only specific people can enter this afterlife — those who have tragic, unfulfilling lives prior to their death. Without overcoming their hardships, these young teens must realize the only way to “pass on” is to come to terms with their past, and Otonsashi steps in to help his friends.

While Angel Beats! takes a comical approach to the afterlife during its beginnings, often humorously exaggerating the high school experience (the students must fight the NPCs for lunch tickets), viewers steadily discover the show is far from your basic action-comedy. What’s “beating” at the heart of the anime is the soul-crushing backstories we undergo as the episodes unveil the truth behind each character’s reason for ending up in limbo. From a stroke, a fatal car accident, to suicide, the members of the Afterlife Battlefront are much deeper human beings than their eccentric personalities. They’ve all dealt with the short end of the stick in life.

It is not until the lead member of SSS’s subdivision band, Girls Dead Monster, performs her first ballad in front of the school do the students find out the purpose of the fulfillment of dreams. The song speaks about the unfairness of the world, and more so, how there are dreams you want to achieve and dreams you can’t reach. But hope is what keeps us alive. After this performance, Masami Iwasawa (Miyuki Sawashiro) disappears, and the students first come to understand what “moving on” means, leading to Otonsashi forming a friendship with Angel.

Only 13 episodes long, Angel Beats! is a bite-sized anime with a reputation for having a few plot holes here and there; however, fans of the series have celebrated the show for its brave choices in reminding us of the importance of acceptance, connectivity, and the ability to live our lives to our fullest. The show shines its brightest when it steps forward with its more melancholy themes. The characters are always in pursuit of happiness, and their rebellion against purgatory portrays just how precious life really is. The anime tackles emotionally sensitive topics, never tip-toeing around reality. Once viewers realize the meaning behind the title, they’re in for a tissue-worthy experience like none other before.

How Is ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’ Similar to ‘Angel Beats!’?

Fans cannot deny that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is just a little bit absurd. Maybe way more over-the-top than your average anime, but that’s why the story is so great! It punches unexpectedly loud and doesn’t hold back to bring audiences an out-of-this-world experience involving people who resemble ordinary people. The anime version of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s masterpiece twists the original storyline by allowing Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to face her past faults on a more personal level.

Based on the original comics, the newest animated series still follows 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) — snooping off his roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin) — who plays bass in his band called Sex Bob-omb. He meets Ramona, the girl of his dreams, at a party and is immediately infatuated with her mind and beauty. The two embark on a cute date, leading to some spark-triggering kissing. All seems like cherries and rainbows until Scott falls through a mystery time portal when fighting against one of Ramona’s exes, Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha). Now it’s Ramona’s turn to fight back against her evil exes and to find out whodunnit?

Similar to the beat-em animation style seen in Angel Beats, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off features amazingly vibrant action scenes when Ramona starts interrogating her past lovers. She gets thrown into sudden fights that take her through famous movie scenes, a Hollywood studio set, and eventually, an alternate universe where she meets her future self! The action is fast and eye-popping just like how the SSS battlefront doesn’t hold back in furiously executing their missions to eliminate Angel from the afterlife. Thanks to the lead animator, Abel Góngora, the incredible visuals were pictured to resemble Gorillaz illustrations and older anime character designs. With Angel Beats being an anime, the series often shows characters with energetic hair colors, which is also a key element to how Ramona dyes her hair a different exotic color to express her moods, in various episodes. Góngora comments in an article on Netflix Tudum:

“I think that fights are super important in the show — those are the key moments when Scott Pilgrim becoming an anime makes sense, and the style of character design can be pushed to the limits,” Góngora says. “We hope that fans watching the amazing action scenes will get the feeling that Scott Pilgrim was made to be animated.”

It’s unquestionable that turning Scott Pilgrim’s story into an anime performs better than the film adaptation. Where the story’s main rhythm revolves around fighting, anime is the best way to display the movement of these characters to their full, powerful potential. We know they’re just human beings, but adding the component of supernatural abilities can only be explicit when exaggerating battles against all-powerful villains. Just as the protagonists in Angel Beats must come to peace with their past, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off also addresses the faults Ramona kept hidden within herself, often walking away from her loved ones. Both she and the SSS students are able to move on from their former regrets for a better life.

The theatrical themes of romance, violence, humor, and reality are blended perfectly in the newest adaptation of Scott Pilgrim’s misadventures. Where Jun Maeda’s afterlife series sprinkles in memorable, musical scores with its band Girls Dead Monster, O’Malley brings back the iconic Sex Bob-omb band for a hint of nostalgia. It is unclear whether Scott Pilgrim Takes Off will be the last version in the franchise, but it is safe to say that if the characters continue to live so vividly in our minds — in the same way the students cannot die off in Angel Beats! — surely the beloved story will grace the screen again in the near future.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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