Two decades have passed since the first publication of the Scott Pilgrim comics, and now they return to the screen with a new adaptation, this time in the form of an anime, which will premiere on Netflix on November 17. An iteration of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work that more closely resembles the style of the source material, with specialist company Science SARU putting new scripts from the creator himself into motion. Although his comics were already adapted in 2010 in the live-action film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, by Edgar Wright, probably the culprit that the franchise has been perpetuated over the years.
The platform has opted for the brand despite the fact that the feature film was a small box office failure, failing to raise $50 million against a budget of around $85. However, it is not lost on Netflix that in recent years Pilgrim has been gaining cult status and new fans, has appeared on countless lists of films that have defined an era and has even been the subject of a Ubisoft video game. In this way, it closes the circle of thematic feedback that, at the same time, renews its potential audience. The comics are about a group of twenty-somethings born in the late 80s and early 90s, coinciding with millennials raised on television and video games, accustomed to spending hours in front of screens and ordering on Amazon.
Therefore, the length of 2010 is not so much a generational milestone, but rather a visionary reflection that went ahead to define the anguish of the coming decade and beyond. The growing appeal of Scott Pilgrim led the platform to approach O’Malley to leverage today’s established massive fandom for anime as a weapon in its favor and present the content in a way that was more faithful to the drawing-on-paper style. , where a strong influence of Japanese manga could already be seen. The story will be the same as always, telling how the Canadian music fan falls in love with Ramona Flowers and must defeat his seven evil exes, although in the eight episodes that arrive there will be surprising deviations for fans.
Although the series will be seen more in the comic, the film’s cast returns, despite the current star position of many of its actors. Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jason Schwartzman have maintained their level of popularity. And, although others like Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, and Brandon Routh have not stopped working, cases like Aubrey Plaza’s have exploded in a big way. The popularity of Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans and Brie Larson created more doubts for producers after having played Captain America, Captain Marvel and Succession’s unheroic Roman Roy respectively.
But everything was possible thanks to the fact that the director of the feature film, and now producer of the series, Edgar Wright, kept an old email chain from 2010 and sent an email to the group that within a few hours everyone had responded with a resounding yes. As he tells Netflix: “14 years later, we are all still friends and see each other whenever we can. For them to return was the opportunity to revisit something that meant a lot to them, but now they bring their years of experience. I always thought that a “A live-action sequel was unlikely, but perhaps an anime adaptation was an interesting way to go and Netflix came up with that same idea.”
Anime and references to popular culture are now part of the millennial identity, so a pastiche full of homages and allusions to consumer products played with the impulse to collect and know all the potential nods. Something that the movie pointed out and has just exploded in Ready Player One, but that makes no sense to repeat in a setting so different from that of 2004, when the first comic came out. O’Malley also discussed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly how he approached rewriting his initial work. “It’s been almost 20 years. I have to tell Scott Pilgrim’s story in a world where his story has already been told and people know it.”
Perhaps, in this process of adjusting his comics to new times, his protagonist is reevaluated. Pilgrim, among music groups, comics and retro video games, always hides an interest related to girls. He’s shy, but also passive-aggressive and childish, something new viewers may not miss, and what once seemed funny can now be labeled as toxic behavior. The film also fell into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope with Ramona Flowers, the typical mysterious and eccentric girl that the protagonist justifies as the solution to all of his problems.
However, these aspects were compensated by elements that did not usually appear so easily in youth comedies and fit with an open mentality typical of teenagers in 2023. From Ramona being bisexual or the variation of the gay best friend trope, played by Culkin, away from the typical template. Scott Pilgrim remains a cult creation that bridges the gap between millennials and Zetas, reflecting their world of rapid change and technological revolution. Perhaps the greatest generational value is achieved with Scott Pilgrim Takes the Leap, closing with its animation a transmedia narrative world, which advocates a dispersion of formats that portrays the new popular culture.