Scott Pilgrim creator reveals his favorite scenes in the anime

❘ Published: 2023-11-11T21:48:46

Netflix

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is almost here, and in the leadup, the writer of the original comics has explained his favorite scenes in the upcoming anime.

If you were a nerd back in the 2010s, chance is you know of Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Directed by Edgar Wright, and based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World follows this synopsis: “As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.”

Now, that same cast are back for the anime series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which is heading to Netflix this month, directed by BenDavid Grabinski, along with writer and original creator O’Malley.

We recently got to chat with said creator, and in our interview he revealed which scenes in the upcoming anime were his favorite.

Scott Pilgrim comics writer reveals he loved the music and action scenes in the anime

Dexerto recently got to attend a roundtable with Bryan Lee O’Malley, in which he discussed scenes he was excited about. Turns out, many of his favorite scenes were ones he could not have captured as well in the original comics form.

Speaking of comparisons between adaptations of the comics, he said, “Edgar Wright did such a kick-ass job that people still cite Scott Pilgrim as like, the best video game movie. Like he really established that visual language. So yeah, it’s not a matter of trying to compete with the movie, but of trying to, like I said, like, let the animators go wild and do what they do best. And, you know, there’s no gravity in animation unless you draw it that way. So it’s much freer. And as long as it kind of follows an emotional logic, you can get away with a lot more, which I tried to do in the comic, but my drawing is fairly limited, and it doesn’t move.

“But in terms of the anime, what I was really into was just being able to write stuff I would never be able to write my comic, for example, sound. Like there’s a whole scene where characters are playing music together, which became one of my favorite scenes in the whole show. And that’s something I never could have done.”

One of these music scenes will be a J-Pop sequence – fans of the franchise may be able to guess when this sequence appears – and it turns out that it’s actually a reference to an old anime, Bubblegum Crisis:

“Yeah, so it’s very old school anime reference from like, Bubblegum Crisis from like the early 80s. And that song is the opening of the very first episode. I’ve always loved that song. And we thought it was so funny to have that actor sing that song in Japanese. And then [the animators] did such a kick ass job turning it into this wacky music video that I’m obsessed with. I know people won’t necessarily get the reference. You don’t have to get the reference. Just hearing the guy singing in Japanese, it’s amazing to begin with.”

Another way the Scott Pilgrim animators were able to create some of O’Malley’s favorite scenes was through action: “The first thing I think about with anime is action. So we started off writing these action scenes. And we realized quickly that we should just write them as loosely as possible, send it to [the animators], they come back with something amazing. One Ramona scene has a lot of amazing stuff. And we tried not to guide it that much. Like we had to let go to some degree. And just let those artists do what they do best and let their imaginations go wild.”

Guess we’ll all have to wait until Scott Pilgrim’s anime drops, so we can check it all out for ourselves.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off will release on Netflix on November 17. Read more about it here.

You can check out our other Netflix hubs below: