I can't speak for others, but the fact that this is such a bold departure from the original source material, and that just getting to see the characters I like being (generally speaking) the characters I like, any flaws it may possess are far more forgivable than if it were a mediocre or even just ok straightforward adaptation.

Not to mention you should take into account context, we're in a world right now that is drowning in weak corporate remakes with no soul. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off may have flaws, but you'll never convince me it didn't shoot for the moon, and if you ask me, it landed among the stars

Now I understand why the only ex confrontation I liked was Roxie's, it gave actual closure to her and made her anger justifiable.

I think I heard somewhere that Ramona changing her hair colour every day was a way to try to find a "her" she liked, and that's why she always had a disappointed face at the end of every dye until the final now; in the context that she doesn't like herself and her habit of running away in the anime, it makes sense.

You cry over the massacre of Stephen, I cry over the (continuous)  shafting of the Twins! They even didn't have an episode about Ramona using them to get at the idea of "upperclassmen dating a junior", because she could as well tell the second twin who came at her: sorry I'm dating your twin already but no! And that's why in the comic they swore to stick together from then on.

And Lisa is again forgotten...

I’ve never seen a comment section with so many long essay responses, from both people agreeing and disagreeing

Think that’s just a really good sign that this whole series is so layered and complex, and that your analysis equally so.

Can’t wait to see what you do next James! You’re one of my favorite YouTuber essay-ists

Actually, the odd delivery made me feel I was watching a dubbed anime, it's not the stylistic choice I would have made but it helped the immersion

Excited for part three! I love how considerate of, and how complimentary you are to the original intentions of this comic. It's really refreshing, and It's obvious how much it means to you

26:39  She doesn't change her hair colour again at the end, she STOPS changing it. The lingering colour at the tips was her last dye, after which you can see her natural hair as it grew out.

Nitpick aside, good take and great production value.

i definitely understand where you’re coming from here. i’ve only ever seen the movie (but based on your videos i’m definitely going to change that) so i didn’t expect the anime to leave me with any emotional reaction. i enjoyed the anime because i thought it was cute and funny and it was cool that the cast of the movie came back, but if i had been expecting something emotionally impactful, i’m sure i would have felt the same way you do. thanks for deciding to make a video about this! i know most people online get mad when someone dislikes something everybody likes, but i think it’s valuable to share as many opinions and perspectives as possible. so thanks :)

I personally think that the ultimate point of the anime was for O'Malley to point out how his own work that criticized the childish behaviors of its main character, was in itself a childish portrayal of a messy relationship.

Yes, the original comic did spend a lot more time fleshing out characters and themes and having characters talk about things, but in the end every Ex was defeated by Scott in a fight, and even if the series doesn't portray it as Scott saving Ramona from her exes by doing so, it does perpetuate the trope of violence being the solution to a problem, which is especially strange when you think about it in the context of the Exes being metaphors for emotional baggage.

In the new series, the only Ex Ramona fights herself is Roxie, who she still ends up talking it out with instead, and every other interaction with the Exes is non-confrontational, with Ramona either making some kind of amends with them (like with Lucas) or just realizing they aren't worth her time (like with Todd and Gordon), which feels like a far more mature way of addressing her baggage.

I think that Gideon is played up as a terrible villain in the original because he represents the emotional baggage of a very recent break-up, but in this story he is played off as a petty loser because he is now "that Ex I let get in the way of my next relationship" which feels more embarrassing than traumatic when looked back on later.

Instead of Gideon, the actual boss at the end is a version of Scott who still remembers the "original" timeline and is explicitly more willing to rush to extreme actions to deal with his issues than he is to actually talking about his problems, which makes perfect sense as the "bad ending" for the protagonist of a story where the solution to every problem was a ridiculous anime-style fight.

The reason this series doesn't live up to the original is because it isn't trying to do that, it's just trying to make you look back at the original work from a new perspective and recognize that despite all of the great things it managed to do, there were plenty of things it did poorly.

So like with most things I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle. I do agree that many of the changes you point out do exist, but I don't agree that they are a problem. Or more correctly, they are a problem that can be avoided without asking for double the production budget. I'll try to stick to the main items or I'll be here forever.

Ramona's Plot/Growth -- Future Scott's use of time travel doesn't matter as much as Future Ramona's equal use of time travel. Rather than confront her husband (they were separated, not divorced yet, because Scott is bad at being honest) she sent a book back in time as a movie script to trick her husband into meeting her again. Which is topical to the change Present Ramona needs to make about running away from the things she loves. And in turn confronting her past (that is relevant) gives her the tools needed to make this change.

Matthew, Todd, and Gideon don't matter, because Ramona didn't actually leave them. Not the way she left Lucas or Roxie, which is why those two got the most focus. While she didn't confront the Twins at all, explaining her past with them to the others let her confront Knives, which gives her the same overall information of how that behavior she had was- well, bad. Which is what all three of those beats are for: giving Ramona a better understanding of who she needs to be, and what she needs to avoid, to find happiness.

The Secondary Cast -- Much like the movie, the runtime of the series isn't long enough to really give the full depth of any one character. And the best characters in the anime are the two blending elements from their book and film characterization together (Lucas and Roxie). Book Lucas (kind of a sellout but otherwise decent person) turned into Movie Lucas (asshole who pretends he cares about nothing) because his first girlfriend left him the moment a hot vegan came around added something there. And you went over how Roxie actually is a very workable call. Matthew finding the confidence to seek out his dreams because he wasn't a jobber is as interesting as you can really do with a character as flat as Matthew is (he's all style no substance book and film). This extends to most of the secondary cast. So they're flatter, but the space simply isn't there to fully dive into any one character, and if you focus on any one of them you'll have to further remove from the others.

I'd say the biggest loser in this is probably Wallace of all characters, who got made into a complete asshole losing all signs he's ever liked Scott (except in silver fox Future Wallace's scenes) and only his worst traits. Stephen Stills was only in situations where he'd freak out, so we didn't get to see that other side of him (again, if there were more scenes we could have more sides to him show up). Although I don't know how fair it is to expect Joseph stuff when my best estimate of the show's timeline is roughly a few months, while Joseph isn't introduced till half a year of story happened. (The timeline is nebulous and I'm going with the Ramona's hair changing every few weeks rather than the jokes most people make of her ruining her hair with daily hair dyeing.)

Closing -- I do think that the books have more depth and subtlety to them, but that's how Books work? Like- there's a lot more nuance and depth and subtext to comic book Wolverine than movie Wolverine. But comparing a half dozen movies to fifty years of comics isn't really a fair scale to it. Like- even expecting a 1:1 adaptation of the comics to anime would not really work if each volume had 1.3 episodes to work with.

I feel like this entire video...ALMOST makes points? But at the same time, it just feels like instead of engaging with what the show IS, it gets stuck in what it isn't. I dunno if it's self-aware or just ironic that you framed yourself as future Scott here, but you built up this level of expectation and the second the show started departing from that, you got so stuck in it that you let it ruin your own experience.

I don't think it's INVALID to dislike it, I just think that none of the things you listed were that important from my perspective. A lot of them are some of the reasons I LIKE the show. Scott Pilgrim was always a bit of a medium-bender, with the movie setting a standard for how to present a movie that feels like a comic book. The anime is the same. Yeah sometimes the voice lines come out feeling weird and don't quite mesh perfectly with the visuals...because it's an anime. It LOOKS like a dubbed-over anime. Usually smooth, but occasionally at moments of the most animated emotions de-syncing a little. I LOVE that about it. It feels purposeful. I'm pretty sure it WAS purposeful.

With Ramona, I thought it was obvious why she got so obsessed with finding Scott. All of her other relationships ended on her terms. They let her determine her own closure by effectively ignoring that closure. Since she wasn't able to do that with Scott, she was thrown off her pattern. She had one good date and then the relationship was taken from her, and once SHE was the one experiencing loss in a relationship rather than her ex, it forced her into a new perspective, specifically THEIR perspective. That gets mirrored in Gideon being smacked low and needing to change his priorities and get a personality makeover, even if he comes out the other end still evil.

Honestly, I think the only thing needed to fix the majority of the issues you (and most people, for that matter) had would be a second season. Letting Gideon be some kind of threat, expanding on the rest of the cast, getting Steven his goddamn boyfriend, actually...DEALING with Scott's exes. Envy. LISA.

Anyway, this comment is way too long. The tl;dr is: I get it, but I don't agree with the conclusion or even, to a certain extent, the method of criticism at play here. It just doesn't feel compelling. In a show that's still shafting Envy and Lisa after a movie which does the same, Steven not being "extremely serious" doesn't move me much.

I really don't see how the voice acting is a point of complaint, it's super charming and was one of my favourite parts.

39:19 "its not about what these characters feel, its about how we feel about them"

a moment that really cemented this for me was Scott apologizing to Knives. it felt very much like the show saying "see!! he's acknowledging that its bad to date a minor!" as a way to respond to people talking about how "problematic" Scott is.

It feels the need to speak for its source material instead of letting this story speak for itself.

I'm pretty positive Wallace wanted to hook up with Todd because he was dressed as Scott. The creator has made it obvious he likes that pairing, and at least supports the idea of Wallace having a crush on Scott.

Before watching Takes Off, I had experience with the movie and the first volume of the comics. Neither of them clicked for me, because it felt like for them to be meaningful, it was a prerequisite to relate to Scott at least a little bit, which I don't. Takes Off struck me as interesting early on because the spotlight was on Ramona, a character who I felt better able to relate to, and who had received surprisingly little attention in my (limited) experience with the franchise for being one half of the relationship it's all supposed to be about.

As the show went on, what I found interesting was the question it seemed to be building towards -- is a romantic relationship worthwhile if you know that it will end? Even when the characters weren't explored too deeply, I think the show was at its best when Ramona and her exes remembered what went wrong, acknowledged it, and moved on -- and, similarly, when Scott found out about what could go wrong, acknowledged that, and moved forward anyway. In the face of that sort of question, I thought the ending was a cop-out. Ramona "choosing herself" and having some magical transformation certainly parallels Scott's ending in the movie, but I don't know that it had much to do with what the show seemed to be building towards.

Takes Off definitely has its flaws. It's refreshing to see some of them talked about; it makes me feel less alone in having criticisms. Hopefully these comments do the same for you, even if they're not all in agreement.

FINALLY I THOUGHT I WASTHE ONLY ONE

That was a very nice way to handle a disappointment about a show. It doesn't make me feel bad for enjoying what I did and leaves me wanting to engage with the comics to see what I have missed out by mostly knowing about the movie and anime.

My biggest critique of the show is how Romona essentially got off Scott free (see what I did there??) from her own actions towards Scott, especially as her older self. The whole I choose myself trope is so over played by millennial writing that it’s passé. Like Ramona, you’re a grown woman; own up to your mistakes with Scott like you did with your other exes, because your actions directly led to older Scott turning into maniacal even older Scott. If there was healthy communication, you’d have avoided all of this.

I found it better to think of this as less an adaptation/reimagining of the comics and instead thought of it as a meta sequel like the EVA rebuilds.

Wallace and Todd was just to explore a relationship between Wallace and Scott