__This review contains spoilers for the anime, comic, and movie.
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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was marketed as a faithful adaptation of the comic. This had me excited, as the comic is one of my favorite stories of all time. I was originally introduced to the franchise by the Edgar Wright movie, which at the time I would have given a 10/10. After reading the comic, however, I drop the movie to an 8/10. The comic is just much better, more cohesive, and sticks the landing better. Part of this is having a multi-year timescale instead of a two week one. This is a necessary compromise for a movie, but a tragic one.

A TV version gives enough space to tell the original story without time contraction, without a worse ending, without cutting Knives Chao or Kim Pine's plot lines, etc. So this show instead being an alternate universe retelling/sequel with some retcons and time travel is off the bat disappointing. It would be easier taking it on its own terms if it was marketed this way, but it was not.
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But whatever. Let's review it on its own terms.__

Visually, it looks fantastic. Science Saru was the perfect pick to take the original art style and put it in motion. The audio design is also great. This contributes to the vast majority of points I award this series. The issue is with the writing.
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A Short Summary:__

The first episode of the show plays out as a near shot for shot of the comic and movie until the fight vs Mathew Patel. In this fight, Scott apparently dies. Ramona then learns he isn't dead, and begins to search for Scott, crossing off lists of suspects, mainly her evil ex boyfriends. Once only the twins remain as a suspect, Scott reappears and explains that he was taken to the future by his future self after a divorce with Ramona, in order to convince him not to ever date her. Scott is then sent back into the past by future Ramona to try to make things work. A barrier stops them from kissing, so they go try to fight the evil exes. Instead, the whole cast is kidnapped by further future Scott. After the whole cast can't defeat him, Future Ramona swoops in, merges with past Ramona, banishes future Scott to the future, kisses Scott, epilogue and roll credits.

The Issues:

1
Scott is a load bearing character
A lot of the original story revolves around Scott Pilgrim. Scott starts and kind of a shitty guy, and a large portion of the cast exists to support this. Kim and Julie Powers and Stacey exist to call him out. Knives exists to have someone be hurt by Scott's carelessness. Stephen and Wallace put up with him and his freeloading. Young Neil exists to take up his place in the band because he has actual work ethic and will show up to practice. Ramona exists as a motivating factor for Scott, which leads him to change. The evil exes exist to reveal information about Ramona which challenges Scott.

If you remove Scott, everybody is without their original purpose. You can find them purposes, but doing so neatly is hard, and the show doesn't really succeed at this at all.

2
Ramona's Search For Scott
The search for Scott falls flat for two reasons. Firstly, none of the exes really feel like plausible threats. This is because they are all flanderized and turned pathetic. They were never the most nuanced characters, but Takes Off takes it to a whole new level. The idea of this Gideon masterminding anything is ridiculous, let alone Lucas Lee. This is on top of the robot being in every episode, pointing towards it being the twins, further reducing the stakes. Then, instead of Ramona actually figuring it out (she never finds out the motive) Scott just shows up and tells her. This renders 5/8 episodes basically pointless.

The real meat here would be Ramona confronting her past with each ex, which would provide similar content and purpose to what Scott fighting each one provided originally, but instead this happens at best only with Lucas (which didn't feel that deep to me), and only definitely happened with Roxy. The single most important ex, Gideon, who represents how Ramona, a seemingly free spirit can be manipulated and controlled, is pretty much written out as his original self and turned into a gag character immediately, preventing Ramona from ever confronting him. This single example proves the wasted potential of this storyline.

3
The pathetic-ification of everyone. Except those who aren't. And the cartoonification of everyone
Almost every character is pathetic now. Lucas Lee can't maintain his career. Gideon is bested by Mathew Patel, and instantly becomes a sniveling gag character for the rest of the show. Patel himself can't run a business, or sing well (even when his play is well received they still have him sing terribly, but this time the audience likes it. Todd breaks and can't stay vegan. Young Neil is a total idiot now? It's not like none of these flaws existed before, but there was some level of subtlety. Now they wear it on their sleeves.

Some characters, however, are immune, or even receive buffs. Knives Chao is now a complete musical prodigy, replacing Young Neil as the one who joins Sex Bob-Omb and helps develop their success. Ramona exists largely in a context where her flaws don't appear, and underexploring exes exacerbates this. Kim and Julie, the "call Scott out on his bullshit" characters are flat and lacking in flaws or nuance without Scott around. Wallace is exactly the same but also gets hired as a movie star. While also made pathetic, Matthew is also given a huge fighting power buff.

In the end none of these characters feel nuanced. They're either complete losers or without flaws. A lot of the flaws that do exist are just gags. Julie, when lacking in a reason for liking Gideon, is given an evil person fetish. This just feels cartoony, like most characters do.

4
Constant Cockblock
All the time, cool stuff almost happens and then doesn't. The story peddles in anti-climax, from the very first episode when Scott vs Matthew is cut short with a fake out death, to the very last episode where the battle teased by the previous episode where Scott battle all the exes at once not only doesn't happen, but the same joke of it not happening is repeated 5 or 6 times. Once was already disappointing. Murdering the rule of threes and weighing down the body with concrete in the harbor was insult to injury.

5
The Core Plothole

The story is almost entirely rooted in a core plothole: somehow, past Scott who never fought any of the exes, is more emotionally mature than the version of Scott who did. I cannot emphasize enough how shitty and non-self aware Scott starts the story. He's not the kind of guy who's suddenly going to become emotionally mature and wise by viewing a slideshow in a virtual boy or some TV of his life on a robot. He would deflect, make excuses for himself, refuse to believe anyone is better off without him, etc. Fighting the exes is Scott's road to no longer being that guy. I could reluctantly accept Scott relapsing after the divorce, but not past Scott instantly having any modicum of self awareness. After hanging out in the future for like a couple hours, Scott is teleported into the last 2 episodes, where he acts like he's experienced a whole series worth of development, which he hasn't.

6
A lack of verisimilitude
The other versions of Scott Pilgrim always had some grounding in a sense of reality, even if that reality wasn't our own. There were absurd elements, but they were always treated with normalcy. They were silly concepts treated with seriousness. Around them were regular characters living out their lives. The more party-focused backgrounds of the movie and comic often depict normalish people living a normalish life. Then there are ridiculous characters like the exes, but because there's sufficient grounding in reality to give the work a sense of verisimilitude.

The series completely ruins this effect by having the background characters essentially act like abridged series background characters. They shout inane bullshit, do constant bit jokes, etc. The worst example is when they all freak out over Envy Adams preforming at Scott's funeral. How am I supposed to be able to be immersed in any of this, let alone be lulled into the sublime dreamlike flow of Scott's reality in the comic.

A lot of the early 2000s grounding is intentionally weakened as well, which I find disappointing.

7
Weak Dialogue Writing
Moving on from plot, the actual dialogue is pretty much just the worst version of the script. This is easiest to note in the first episode, which is the most beat for beat, but they tend to just replace lines for no reason.

My best example is the change from "Can this not be a one night stand? For one thing i didn't even get any." in both the comic and movie to "can this not be a one night stand? i'm not even sure it would count".

Another is the replacement of the movie's puck-man tidbit with the two sonic cartoon tidbit. It's just... worse. It's less concise, but also less interesting, but no more awkward.

This continues through the rest of the show, which just generally has weaker lines than the comic or movie.

8
Voice Preformance
This one pains me the most. The news they got back nearly the entirety of the star-studded cast was genuinely insane. This is squandered by the fact that they are on average not particularly good voice actors. A lot of the voice work is very flat. I actually thought Aubery Plaza stood out as putting in more emotion and range, which is insane since she is known for her deadpan characters, which she is playing one of in this series. It feels like the actors aren't that tuned in to what is happening in each scene, and on top of that aren't great at injecting the type of nuance into the voice work that comes naturally to them while physically acting. It's sort of a catch 22 because the movie is pretty much perfectly cast, and all the voices fit properly. It feels like they needed 3 times more time in the studio for each scene, or some lessons in voice acting, or both.

Conclusion
I could go on.

All in all, this is my least favorite version of the Scott Pilgrim story by a long shot. I wish it were as easy as calling it a meddling hollywood writer or a bad adaptation job by the studio, but this was all pretty much Bryan Lee O'Malley's idea. He just missed the mark. I don't even think the concept chosen couldn't have been done well; it was largely an executional issue. With a greater focus on a sense of reality, putting together a great voice performance, taking more characters more seriously, an increased focus on Ramona confronting her exes, and more time and focus spent on ironing out the plotlines and developments of both Scotts, and marketing the series as what it was, this could have been a great expansion of the Scott Pilgrim universe.

Instead, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off... And Falls Short.