Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is not a faithful adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comics. It does not follow the story but rather tells it's own in animated form.

That is the most important thing everyone who wants to watch Scott Pilgrim Takes Off needs to know. As someone that didn't read the comics before hand I thought this was going to be a faithful adaptation, but found myself extremely confused after episode 4. So my experience that I will catalog in my review will come from that position.

Ok now the review following contains spoilers for the Take Off, there's just too much to say otherwise.

What's left is a show that feels like it's talking past me to it's own fans in a heated argument trying to justify it's own existence.

Why is there a Scott Pilgrim movie in the Scott Pilgrim side show talking about the events of the original Scott Pilgrims plot, which was written by a Ramona Flowers from the future after future Scott Pilgrim kidnaps Scott Pilgrim from the present to make the past Scott Pilgrim break up with the past Ramona, but then the past Scott Pilgrim cast from the side show fight the future Scott Pilgrim (during a scott pilgrim play after the movie flopped????) who may or may not be from the original Scott Pilgrim or the future of the side show Scott Pilgrim, to which they say how Scott Pilgrim is an asshole and beat up the old Scott Pilgrim but still love the young Scott Pilgrim because Ramona will always love Scott Pilgrim and uhhhhh

My brain is literally turning into mush as I write this because I don't understand what the point of any of this even is.

Even from the first couple of episode this show just feels limp, it's Ramona looking for Scott which is an interesting role reversal in concept because Ramona loves Scott as much as he loves her. But there's little to no conflict it's just Ramona meeting up with each one of her exes who have nothing to do with kidnapping Scott Pilgrim because Scott Pilgrim did it to himself, but from the FUTURE :O

I don't see how this is hard to write, just have Scott Pilgrim be kidnapped by her 7 exes so she has to fight them and work through her old relationships. You know an interesting "what if" scenario.

What frustrates me so much is that there is a lot good about this show. The casting is perfect because they took from the cult classic 2010 film adaptation, but they also got the feel of an early 2000s Canadian college flick complemented by Panty and Stocking styled animation. It's genuinely awesome to see Imaishi's style given to a western source material, which itself is inspired by western cartoon of his time.

I honestly don't know where to find the pulse of this project, what it is for. At least for me it's some decent characterization for the cast of the comics, and the only way to experience their story is through the comics. To be honest I don't even know if they wrote this series with newcomers in mind, but I've seen equally confused reactions from a portion of the fans as well.

But hey if you enjoyed it, good for you.