Scott Pilgrim is Anime of the Year Material

summer 2010 was a big one for me it was my first summer out of high school for starters but more importantly it was the summer I found my favorite film of all time Scott Pilgrim versus the world combined the Bold hilarious magical gamer realism of Brian Leo mali's tonco Bond format black and white Indie comic with the even Bolder and more inventive cinematic vision of the greatest living director Edgar Wright plus basically all of the funniest young actors in Hollywood at the time who would lat go on to mostly be meast stars and a lot of the best bands I'd ever heard in my life up to that point I'm not normally the sort to rewatch movies I generally prefer experiencing new stories to rehashing old ones but somehow I got around to watching Scott Pilgrim seven times in the summer of 2010 alone it's been several dozen in the years since despite my best efforts the film was a complete box office bomb but the critics loved it as much as I did as did many other fans of the original manga adjacent thing and over the years the film's cult following grew to the point we got an anniversary re-release in 2021 plus a gorgeous new Collector's Edition for the Xbox Live arcade beat him up and even crazier in 2020 now a full-blown Scott Pilgrim Netflix original anime which is Anime like unquestionably by any work a definition but I made a whole video on the main Channel about that in this video I just want to gush about one of my new top contenders for anime of the year because it's been out a couple days at this point and I've already watched it twice Scott Pilgrim takes off takes most of the incredible talents who made that incredible movie and mashes them together with the incredible Anime Studio that gave us Japan sinks 2020 tatami Galaxy heyk monogatari devil man crybaby and the greatest Sports Anime of all time ping pong the animation also Anamanaguchi the god tier chip tune band that scored the official Indie Scott Pilgrim beat him up I was just talking about came back to write an OST that complements the film's god tier licensed music making this anime unquestionably the ultimate mixed media expression of the whole Scott Pilgrim brand didn't you read my letter kind of I hand delivered it during a blizard remind me what it said exactly and if you're simply here wondering whether the resulting anime is worth your time to watch either as a longtime fan or a newcomer my answer is an unequivocal yes speaking as someone who loves and grew up with these characters I love everything this show does to expand on and refine them and every last fight scene in the series is an absolute dream come true aside from a couple hype moments in frerin this is the only fight Centric anime this year that comes anywhere near Juju tuuk kaizen's weight class the way its action Blends anime and video game logic with endless clever little references and creative experimental visuals feels distinctly reminiscent of the anarchic animated action of Fooly and it does so without ever trying to be Fooly which is of course the only way to actually be Fooly that's where all the Fooly sequels went wrong though stylistically the blend of anime style cinematicm with more abstract cartoony visuals in Scott Pilgrim feels a bit more akin to pany and stocking or space Patrol luluco also much like cyber Punk Edge Runners this is an all-around Peak anime of the Year Contender without a single second of wasted screen time so whether you liked sex bomb before they were cool or you're an uninitiated anime fan who's just feeling a little Scot curious I'd say this show is absolutely worth the time it takes to watch preferably blind if that's still possible for you at this point though I would also recommend checking out the original movie either before or immediately after you binge the anime so you can fully appreciate the many extremely clever differences between the adaptations hey you know Pac-Man I know of him you know Sonic the Hedgehog however with all that said that's nowhere near all I have to say about this anime because those aren't the only high-profile X gyx Productions I could be comparing Scott Pilgrim too and even telling you what that comparison is risks spoiling one of the coolest things about this anime for old and new fans alike so if you want to take me up on that whole watch it BL line suggestion Now's the Time to pause this video and get binging if you're still here at the end of this sentence you are going to start hearing spoilers sorry they are simply unavoidable in discussing what makes this anime top tier because Scott Pilgrim takes off isn't just a chance to see Ramona and Scott's fighting skills and the various powers of their various exes adapted into glorious science saru sakuga it's a full-blown Evangelion style Reb boot of the core Scott Pilgrim concept one that turns the dynamic between Scott and Ramona on its head making him the object of the story and her the subject letting us see new less evil sides of their exes and some very fun fight matchups that never would have been possible in the original timeline the series sets all this up with brilliant subtlety too playing the first episode mostly straight as a truncated retelling of Scott and Ramona's meat cute the skimming of Matthew Patel's letter and Scott's failure to break up with his fake high school girlfriend immediately before Patel crashes their show with crash and the boys Mr Pilgrim the episode makes plenty of changes compared to both the film and Comics some subtle a lot not but the sum total of those changes feels mostly like an organic effort to just cut inessential content for time get to the point and possibly cut back a little bit of the creep factor of Scott's relationship with knives by scaling it back to they held hands once and she comes to see all his shows and not that Scott being a bit of a creep is bad for the original story it's very important to his Arc but it's also a problematic sticking point for a lot of people who don't want to get into the comics or movie so I can see why they change it to soften that a little and thankfully it doesn't stop the show from interrogating the deep deep flaws in Scott's character in fact I think the new angle they approach that from might be even stronger than the original but now I'm getting way ahead of myself and besides these aren't just minor changes designed to make the adaptation more palatable for modern audiences and you know fit the runtime they're set up for the big payoff of the Patel fight in which the Bollywood flavored Broadway wannabe unleashes his mystical powers on our hero and Scott vanishes in a poof of coins episode one The Evil ex's have won our hero is dead and the whole story becomes something new entirely a murder mystery or uh a kidnapping into fake murder mystery to be more accurate as we learn at the end of episode 2 after Matthew Patel's carried that momentum into a violent takeover of the league of evil x's and Gideon's billion dooll entertainment Empire and envy Adams has crashed Scott's Funeral with a gorilla concert to make it all about her which is just the most perfect way imaginable to introduce her character honestly and I really like how she's introduced in the comic and the movie that's just that's so good what an amazing way to show rather than tell how dominating she is in Scott's life but I digress after all that's happened Ramona dreams her way into Scott's Subspace Highway and there she hears his voice calling out to her from the distance realizing that someone must have kidnapped him and faked his death she sets out to interrogate Scott's friends her evil exes and anyone else who might have a motive in order to find the boy she went on one date with and find out if the thing that they had was actually you know a thing Scott Pilgrim the original comic that is is at its core a story about Scott gradually getting to know Ramona through his violent clashes with her past as his relationship with her pushes him to understand and overcome his own shortcomings as a man Scott Pilgrim takes off conversely is all about Ramona gradually getting to know the absent Scott as she investigates his disappearance and interacts with his friends while her Quest and the experience of being left by someone special just when things were getting serious instead of doing the leaving simultaneously forces her to confront her own fear of commitment and find a form of closure with her exes that doesn't involve anyone exploding into loonies and tunies ko ko through this reframing the anime is able to tell a completely different story that builds on the original in fascinating ways and takes it characters in exciting new directions directions that will be extremely fun for longtime fans especially fan fickers to discover and more importantly directions that set these characters up to return in the event this anime finally gets the recognition Scott Pilgrim deserves and Netflix green lights a sequel this alternate what if Scott never beat the X's timeline is honestly a genius excuse to not you know kill off half the series most interesting personalities right after meet them and I respect that a lot but what I respect infinitely more is how this remix story still manages to deliver all the Essential Elements of Scott Pilgrim so that it fully works as a standalone adaptation and introduction to the series world and characters for folks who've never read the comic or seen the movie and it does so with only a little bit of metan narrative assistance from the in Universe attempt to film the original Scott Pilgrim movie with Lucas Leo Scott based on a script from a parallel universe and later the Scott Pilgrim Off Broadway musical starring Matthew Patel by the end of this series just like the comic and the movie you'll know everything you need to know about every evil ex and everyone in Scott's life and you'll fully understand why he and she are meant to be just you know from Ramona's perspective and with happier less evil endings for most of the ex's not all Gideon still ends up evil in the end despite going through a nice guy phase in the middle of everything however now it's for a much healthier reason he used to be evil because he was an insecure billionaire with trust issues but now he's evil because his evil girlfriend Julie thinks it's super duper hot the rest though aren't really painted as evil at all just misguided emotionally damaged and maybe manipulated a little by the demons they can summon with their mystical Powers depending on the guy Luke Lee is pretty likable when you take away the fame and tone down the ego the katayanagi twins are just total Bros so's Roxy come to think of it Todd Ingram's surprisingly uh sensitive given a bit of distance from envy and as for Envy well the movie gave her some emotional Redemption maybe the anime will too if it gets that sequel it would also be nice to see them work Lisa in if that happens but by far the ex who comes away looking the best in this new version has got to be knives Chow Scott cheating on her in the other versions plays absolute Havoc with her emotions and absolutely decimates her confidence for a really long time but him dying ends up having the opposite effect because this version of knives has no choice but to move on she throws herself into music to take her mind off the loss and ultimately discovers she's kind of a genius how long have you been playing bass what time is it uh 400 p.m. oh then 4 hours between all this character growth and the incredible way her comic design has translated to animation plus the fact that Ellen long is like a really good voice actress compared to most of the Hollywood cast I think this might be my favorite version of knives and that's nuts because she was already one of my favorite characters but the really crazy part is that watching this new interpretation of knives also made me appreciate both previous versions of her more because every one of these alternate takes on the characters is written in a way consistent with their other portrayals with the differences coming from how they react in character to changes in the scenario rather than just being arbitrary differences for the sake of doing something different so watching this version of the story doesn't just give us new alternate forms of closure for each of their arcs it enhances our understanding of every version of every character by showing us how they'd react to different things like now that we know Todd is in the closet that totally changes everything about how he interacts with Envy in the movie and the comics and the way that Luke and Gordon are just instant best friends when they lose their Fame and money respectively is just I'm obsessed with it I love that whole bit so much watching Scott Pilgrim takes off will deepen your appreciation for the movie and the comic in exactly the same way that knowing how the story is supposed to go enhances your appreciation of the anime it's a remarkable writing magic trick and my hat goes off to Brian leoi and Ben David grabinsky for making it work funny enough despite his relative lack of screen time Scott might be the one who benefits most from this Dynamic aside from Ramona eventually it's revealed that none of the evil exes were behind his disappearance the katayanagi twins did help by unlocking the secrets of time travel but ultimately it was Scott himself who set these alternate events in motion specifically old Scott that is the one from the original comic but also a Scott from the future who kidnaps his past self to stop him from ever dating Ramona to save himself the future pain of divorce or uh to be more accurate the pain of not understanding the difference between a divorce and a temporary separation for the long-term health of the relationship because Scott's kind of stupid like that and while he did go through a lot to win Ramona's heart in the original comic that story didn't really leave him with the emotional resilience to whether even the slightest rough patch in the future really by pulling the narrative out of regular Scott's head and showing him mostly Through The Eyes of the woman coming to love him the anime gives him more room to be a bit of an idiot like that but one more of the lovable variety than the self-destructive victim complex type that we see in other versions of this story old Scott is that kind of idiot though and the distance of time gives regular Scott the needed perspective to actually see that and start you know thinking about how not to turn into it which is a fantastic alternate motivator for his eventual character growth that still gets him to roughly the same emotional place without needing to give him all that screen time and on the flip side watching his younger self drift away from him and lowkey invalidate all his self-serving likewise pushes old Scott's character in a very interesting Direction when he eventually returns from 10 years of isolated martial arts meditation as the Almighty older Scott bound and determined to beat up everyone he and Ramona ever knew because that's going to make him less sad somehow maybe or possibly she'll come back he hasn't really thought through any parts of the plan that don't involve violence honestly this dark alternate version of Scott makes a fantastic character foil not just for his younger self but for Ramona as the anime's true heroine as well he reflects back the pity of fear of rejection that's pushed her to run away from every man and college roommate she's ever loved and like all of the exes before him while it does take a very very cool fight scene to get there she and Scott ultimately overcome him and what he represents together by just like talking through their feelings and junk like adults which isn't something I knew I needed from all these characters until this anime gave it to me and I love it so much this one's just an idiot kid and this one is a real mess it's never too late to clean up a mess it all just fits so perfectly with what was already there too I mean if you really boil it down the core conflict of the comic was always between Scott and Ramona and their own stupid flawed stubborn selves and this new approach to externalizing that conflict compared to Nega Scott in the original is I think much stronger for how it balances both of their responsibility for the problems in both their lives it also allows the series to explore questions about what it takes not just to start a healthy relationship but to maintain one for all the years and Decades of your life together which is an aspect of Scott and Ramona's love story that the original couldn't really delve into because they just weren't at that place in their lives yet it's not often that you can say tacking time travel onto a story enhan is its focus on its core themes but that's exactly what happens here and it's kind of a miracle look if you love Scott Pilgrim this is probably going to be your anime of the year if you've never heard of Scott Pilgrim until this weekend it honestly still might claim that title it's that good right om Ali and the team at science saru have created something truly special here and I honestly wish I could just jump back to the late 2000s and tell my teenage self about it just to see the look on my face I'm Jeff th professional Scott Pilgrim fan and Oh wait I didn't put in anything about young Neil he's the most important character young Neil is so good in this anyway [Music] bye

Channel: Basement Life

Views: 171,398

Keywords: scott pilgrim takes off, scott pilgrim anime, science saru, netflix, scott pilgrim vs the world, egar wright, abel gongorra, bryan lee o'malley, ramona flowers, kim pine, anamanaguchi, scott pilgrim netflix, netflix anime, anime of the year, 2023 anime, scott pilgrim takes off review, michael cera, mary elizabeth winstead, lucas lee, gideon graves, black sheep metric, envy adams, mother's basement, mother's basement scott pilgrim, geoff thew, review, anime review

Id: 10i1GbEX7b0

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2023