Anime / Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

WARNING! It is STRONGLY recommended that you watch the first episode at least before continuing on this page due to a major First-Episode Twist. You Have Been Warned!

The game has changed, but the players remain the same…

Julie: Ramona, I don't see how any of this is your responsibility. You went on one date. How good could it have been?
Ramona: Honestly? Great.
Julie: Your date with Scott Pilgrim? Yikes.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a 2023 American-Canadian-Japanese action/romantic comedy/mystery anime series and the second adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series following the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World from director Edgar Wright. O'Malley writes alongside BenDavid Grabinski (2019’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? revival) and executive produces alongside Grabinski and Wright. Science SARU is the lead animation studio for the series, while Anamanaguchi, who provided the score for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, contribute to the soundtrack.

As before, the series follows Canadian musician and slacker Scott Pilgrim as he begins a relationship with the mysterious American delivery girl Ramona Flowers —only to find out she has seven former suitors hell-bent on revenge. Luckily, Scott happens to be the best fighter in Toronto, so he might just stand a chance against the League of Evil Exes...

At least that's how the story SHOULD go. But when Scott is seemingly killed in the first battle, everything changes. Now, as Scott's friends and the League deal with the fallout of his apparent demise, Ramona comes to suspect that Scott Pilgrim's precious little life may not be as over as everyone thinks it is, setting off to find out what really happened, find Scott, and get their offbeat love story back on track.

Nearly the entire cast of the 2010 film reprised their roles for the original English version — Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Mark Webber as Stephen Stills, Alison Pill as Kim Pine, Johnny Simmons as Young Neil, Anna Kendrick as Stacey Pilgrim, Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers, Satya Bhabha as Matthew Patel, Chris Evans as Lucas Lee, Brandon Routh as Todd Ingram, Brie Larson as Envy Adams, Mae Whitman as Roxy Richter and Jason Schwartzman as Gideon Graves. The only exceptions are Keita and Shouta Saitou as the Katayanagi Twins, with Julian Cihi voicing them instead.

The series premiered on Netflix on November 17, 2023. Currently, there are no plans for a second season, though the creators remain open to the possibility.

Previews: Cast Announcement, Teaser Trailer, DROP 01 Clip, Official Trailer, Opening Credits, Final Trailer, Post-release trailer

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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off includes examples of the following:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: Despite being released in 2023, the series still seems to take place around the same time period as the comics and movie (around the mid-late 2000s, earliest 2010s at most). Characters still use primitive cell phones, video rental stores still exist although they're on their way out, and Netflix primarily works through a delivery system.
• Aborted Arc: The whole series is intentionally this to the original comic following the Matthew Patel fight, as Scott's sudden and apparent death leads to many buildups and allusions in the first episode to go nowhere to show how off-script the entire series has become seemingly losing its titular character.
• Actor Allusion:
  • The final episode sees the security guards played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost eating Cornettos. The guard played by Nick Frost also describes Young Neil as "off the chain" which is something his character said in Hot Fuzz.
  • Old Scott prevents his past self from being able to kiss Ramona by implanting him with an AK (Anti-Kiss) Field. The Japanese dub has him played by Gendo Ikari.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Even though nobody, not even the former evil exes, has any real beef with Scott after he returns, everyone still finds it hilarious when Scott and Ramona are blocked from kissing each other by a literal barrier.
• Adaptational Badass: Some of the Evil Exes come across significantly stronger here. Matthew Patel in particular, though it turns out he didn't actually defeat Scott, is still strong enough after a singular confidence boost to defeat Gideon.
• Adaptational Deviation: Takes Off takes after the original Scott Pilgrim graphic novel, but the end of the first episode leads to this becoming far more than just another adaptation. It completely throws the script of the graphic novel and its movie adaptation out the window following Scott's apparent defeat and death, against the first Evil Ex no less. From there, this series shifts focus on the rest of the cast and allow them all to interact with one another.
• Adaptational Diversity: One complaint of the source material that Bryan Lee O'Malley has owned up to and has since worked on in his later comics was the lack of diversity in the main cast. This series softens that somewhat by giving Matthew Patel a much beefier role as he seemingly kills Scott in his first fight and subsequently usurps Gideon's role as leader of the League of Evil Exes, giving Knives a new character arc that doesn't revolve around being jilted by Scott where she forms a genuine Odd Friendship with Stephen and Kim and eventually joins Sex Bob-Omb herself as a keyboardist, making two more characters canonically same-sex attracted (Todd Ingram and Kim, in the latter case confirming the implications from the comic and the game), and in general there are more varied extras both to Toronto and the new supporting cast, such as Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Lucas's agent.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Gideon appears during the first episode, significantly earlier in the narrative than the film — where he makes his first appearance at the end of the second act — or the graphic novels — where he first appears as a shadowy figure in the third book, and makes his first full appearance in the sixth and final book.
  • Incidentally, Ramona's pet cat who's named after him shows up at Ramona's home in the first episode, while she adopted him in the second novel.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Wallace is a bit more hostile towards Scott in the opening episode. He bitterly states that Scott is just freeloading off him and doesn't seem to have any desire to go to Scott's show. While Comic Wallace would certainly give Scott a hard time, it always seemed to come from a place of care or humor. This Wallace seems more actively annoyed by Scott.
  • Similar to the above, Julie is more hostile towards Scott in this version as well, as seen at her party where Scott meets Ramona: while in the comic book she is implied to have invited Scott to her party, and explicitly invites Scott in the movie, here she makes it clear to him that he was not invited, is not welcome, and should leave. Later, when Ramona starts looking for clues to Scott's disappearance, Julie makes her disappointment with Scott still being alive known.
  • Despite the series branching from a continuity more resembling the comic, Lucas Lee keeps his film characterization as an arrogant, toxic Hollywood d-bag. When Scott briefly meets him in the original, he's actually a pretty chill, affable guy aside from his chip on his shoulder over Ramona and being a bit of a sellout. Still, though, he's shown to have a good heart under that.
  • Envy Adams, due to the changed situation not allowing for the kind of Character Development she originally received, remains a self-centered pop diva throughout the whole story, with only one Pet the Dog moment toward the very end.
• Adaptational Job Change: Downplayed with Ramona. As shown in the DROP01 clip, Ramona remains a delivery girl, but instead of delivering Amazon packages, she delivers Netflix DVDs. This was Netflix's original business model in the early 2000s (although the DVD delivery service was never available in Canada), and the service only shut down mere months before the anime's release.
• Adaptational Protagonist: What seems to be a straight adaptation of the comic books quickly goes Off the Rails when Scott is seemingly killed in the first episode. The main role then shifts to Ramona for the bulk of the series.
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • Unlike in the source material, no mention is made of Ramona and Roxy being "a phase" according to Ramona, so for all intents and purposes Ramona is genuinely bisexual in this version.
  • As Joseph is basically adapted out, the subplot about Steven Stills being gay/bisexual is non-existent, he's treated as straight (though in this version fully broken up with Julie).
  • In this adaptation, Todd becomes really attracted to Wallace, who does not reciprocate his feelings.
• Adaptational Villainy: Julie at her worst was a Jerkass Alpha Bitch, but here is completely onboard with Gideon (or Gordon) on getting revenge and killing a lot of innocent people. Him being evil is even mentioned as one of the main sources of attraction she feels toward him, which is a big part of why he keeps it up.
• Adaptational Wimp: Gideon actually has by far the worst showing of the Evil Exes here, rather than being both their strongest and their leader. A simple confidence boost enables Matthew Patel to completely usurp him and steal his empire, and reduced to the loser he used to be behind the "Gideon" persona, it's only the pity and then attraction of Julie that gives Gordon somewhere to hole up when left broke and homeless and lazing around her house. He sets up a revenge plan in the finale, but it's undermined and overshadowed by Even Older Scott's appearance, wherein he's the participant in the fight who achieves by far the least.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • As more focus is given on the League members, we get more details on their histories and relationships with Ramona.
  • Stephen Stills and Knives getting close is only a minor detail in the comic, Scott wrongly assuming they were dating when by then Stephen was out and gay, but here they spend much of the series together, Knives' influence helping the band finally come into its own and her determination put to use in landing them lucrative gigs.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the first episode, Scott makes a reference to the loss of his last job but says "maybe we can get into it in a later episode" (a slightly modified line from the comic), setting up the Brick Joke about the Gilded Palace of Flying Burritos from the comic, only for the joke to never be revisited.
• Adapted Out:
  • The supporting cast sees some cuts, even further than the movie, which retained characters like Michael Comeau, Crash 'n the Boys, and the Vegan Police, none of whom feature here. Notably, Lisa Miller — a major player in volume 4 of the comic — is hit with this again after she didn't make it into the movie (however, someone who might be her is visible, partly obscured◊, in the audience in the last episode). The same happens to Joseph, and with him goes the subplot of Stephen's homosexuality (however, someone who might be him is also seen◊ in the last episode audience).
  • Lynette Guycott is Demoted to Extra and does not even retain the scene where she punches Knives like in the film, meaning instead of cheating on Envy with her, Todd cheats on Envy with Wallace. She does make a small cameo in Old Scott's virtual reality recap of the events of the comic, however.
  • Since Scott doesn't date Knives long enough to antagonize him and his role is largely inconsequential to the story, especially to Ramona's, Mr. Chau never appears, similar to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
  • Tamara Chen doesn't appear. This is likely because her only role was to be Knives's best/only friend, whilst also being her voice of reason. Her character wasn't really necessary since this adaptation of Knives has her befriend Sex Bob-Omb and flourish in their company.
  • With the exception of Stacey, Scott's family are barely in the show, and that's saying something because Stacey is barely in the show herself. Mr and Mrs. Pilgrim, and their younger brother Lawerence make a brief cameo during Scott's funeral.
  • Subspace is only very slightly touched on and the Glow only makes a brief, unexplained cameo when Gideon fights Even Older Scott. As a consequence, this means that Nega-Scott doesn't exist at all^note though his role in the story is more or less occupied by Even Older Scott and Gideon is given Adaptational Heroism since he never exposed Ramona to the Glow.
  • Gideon's imprisoned ex-girlfriends are never mentioned, making Gideon an Adaptational Nice Guy.
  • The Power of Love, the Power of Understanding, and the Power of Self-Respect don't make an appearance due to Scott being a Decoy Protagonist.
• After the End: Old Scott's Toronto reveals that sometime within the next fourteen years, the city if not the world will suffer some kind of unspecified cataclysmic event that will leave everything flooded and in a state of visual disrepair, with nature slowly encroaching upon the urban environment. The actual state of the world isn't commented on, however, and Old Scott and everyone else seem to be living their lives how they've always been, even if there are visibly less people on the streets than there would be in a city. The only thing Old Scott alludes to is technology advancing faster than people were prepared for.
• All for Nothing:
  • Instead of an email like in the comic and film, Matthew Patel's message to Scott - where he explains the Evil Exes and Scott's task to defeat them all - is a handwritten letter, and Patel went out of his way to walk to Wallace and Scott's home during a blizzard to deliver it to him. This makes him even angrier when he eventually confronts Scott and finds out the latter didn't even read it.
  • After defeating Scott, Matthew reasons that the entire League of Evil Exes is pointless, as defeating Ramona's boyfriend does not result in her getting back together with the victor. Consequently he ends up turning on Gideon and challenging him for the top seat, with the rest of the League approving his coup.
  • The true Big Bad of the series, Even Older Scott, was so upset by his seeming divorce with Ramona that he changed the past in an attempt to prevent Scott and Ramona from dating. When that didn't work, he laced Scott with nanomachines preventing his younger self and Ramona from kissing. Even that didn't work permanently, so he resorted to putting himself through Training from Hell to become as powerful as he could be and kill everybody who might help Scott and Ramona get together. After effortlessly defeating his younger self, Ramona, Scott's friends, and all the Evil Exes... it turns out Future Ramona hadn't divorced him, she just wanted a temporary break and then couldn't find her husband anywhere after he locked himself up to train for battle.
• Amicable Exes: Ramona ends the series on friendly terms with her exes after properly reconciling with them. Though Gideon still seems set on scheming against her and Scott in the Sequel Hook, it's no longer because of any hang-ups toward her or desire to win her back, instead it's mainly because his new girlfriend Julie thinks his evil scheming is hot.
• Anachronism Stew: Scott name drops Detective Pikachu at one point. While the series still takes place early in The 2000s, Detective Pikachu would only be released for the 3DS on February 2016.
• Anachronistic Clue: Looking at the file for the screenplay reveals to the members of Sex Bob-omb that the file was created fourteen years in the future.
• And Then What?: Matthew Patel and the rest of the League of Evil Exes are under the impression that the one to defeat Scott gets first dibs on dating Ramona. Ramona doesn't even bother hearing Matthew out while he's in the middle of explaining this, and the rest of the Evil Exes express confusion as Matthew reports this to them.
• Animated Adaptation: At first it looks like a Truer to the Text adaptation of the comic book, but oh boy we were soooo, so wrong.
• Animation Bump: At least Once an Episode there is one lavishly detailed action sequence with significantly more fluid and expressive animation than the rest of the show.
• Arc Words: The "precious little X" phrase in the graphic novels carries over into the anime.
• Art Shift: Episode 6 opens up with a self-contained anime, animated and designed by industry vet Atsuko Nakajima. Which helps differentiate itself from the faithfully-reproduced Animesque style of the original comics the series otherwise uses.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: Starting with episode 2, we see how Ramona re-dyes her hair every week, which by all counts should make it coarse and stringy at best and render her bald at worst due to all the bleach that would take.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Young Neil, Matthew Patel and Robot 0-1 were basically non-existent in the comic, but in the series, they are given more characterization and focus, with the latter being the catalyst of everything that happens to the characters.
  • In general, the League are regular characters throughout the entire series in this story, rather than only briefly appearing in the volume where they're faced.
• As Himself:
  • In-Universe, Wallace winds up usurping the role of Wallace in the Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life movie from the actual actor who was cast in the role.
  • Ramona also acts as Envy's stunt double while Envy is playing the role of "Ramona Flowers" in the film.
• Ascended Fanboy: Knives joins Sex Bob-Omb on keyboards in the epilogue.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: In Episode 3, Ramona's battle with Roxie has the ratio going to a widescreen once they jump into the movies at the video store.
• Bad "Bad Acting": The actors in Young Neil's movie are... not very convincing.
• Bad Future: Toronto 14 years in the future generally averts this, as despite venues like the theater being rubble and civilization being overgrown with nature, people live their lives more or less the same as before, and technology has progressed far beyond what we predicted it would be. This is played straight for Scott, however, as he learns that he becomes a Future Loser who divorced Ramona, still lives under Wallace, and left Sex Bob-Omb to form a failing band with the Katayanagi Twins.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The first episode of the series is mostly accurate to the comic and film's events, with Scott meeting Ramona, receiving Matthew Patel's threatening message, and their subsequent duel at Sex-Bob-Omb's performance. But then unlike the previous iterations, Matthew suddenly wins and seemingly kills Scott, setting the series' actual story into motion.
  • When Scott meets Old Wallace in the Bad Future, Old Scott tries to stop Wallace from talking about his husband, claiming that his younger self is "not ready" for the revelation. This indicates that it's an established character Young Scott already knows - with Todd seeming the most obvious, after his fling with Wallace in the fifth episode - but then Old Scott simply reveals that Wallace's husband is a Nintendo executive, which still amazes Young Scott.
• Black Comedy: Scott's funeral has some of this, such as Young Neil cheerfully asking if Ramona is "the girl that got Scott killed", and Envy turning the church into a concert hall complete with screaming fans whilst performing an uptempo, pop-punk style version of Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You".
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Honest Ed's, which is prominent in the third volume of the comic, is referenced in the first episode shortly before the Sex Bob-omb concert in which Scott disappears as "Honest Ex's".
  • The VR Headset that Older Scott uses to show Scott his future is a red headset on legs called a Virtual Guuy.
  • In the first episode, Scott is shown using on the internet using a browser that resembles Internet Explorer, except its logo is a green B rather than a blue E.
  • The coffee shop Julie and Stacy works at was a Second Cup in the comics and the movie, but is renamed The First Cup for the anime.
• Book Ends: The series stars and ends with Sex Bob-Omb's song "I Feel Fine". The difference between the two performances is Knives' role: spectator during the first, keyboardist during the second.
• Break the Haughty: Gideon loses everything he owns to Matthew Patel after the latter defeats him in the second episode.
• Brick Joke:
  • In the first episode, when Scott is ordering a DVD as an excuse to see Ramona again, Wallace comments that Scott is banned from No Account Video for oweing them "like, a gajillion dollars in late fees". Later on when Ramona goes to the video store to talk to Kim, Scott has a prominent place on their Wall Of Shame for racking up $3,500 worth of late fees.
  • Wallace denies the existence of sparks appearing when two people kiss, as he didn't experience it with Todd. In the epilogue, he kisses a fellow Canadian in Paris (who fans of the comic would recognize as his eventual boyfriend Mobile), and sees sparks.
  • In the fourth episode, Lucas insists that he'd never get talked into dying from a failed skateboard trick. In the seventh episode, Older Scott's Virtual Guuy slideshow shows him doing just that.
• Broad Strokes: The series turns out to be a Stealth Sequel to the comics, with a thirty-seven-year-old Scott having time-travelled and kidnapped his younger self to stop his relationship with Ramona. However, other differences (such as characterizations being merged with the film's, backstory alterations, and plot-points like the Glow being Adapted Out) indicate that, in the original timeline, Scott and Ramona didn't go through the exact character-arcs they did in comics, giving a possible partial explanation for why both suffered from Aesop Amnesia.
• Butterfly of Doom: Scott not defeating Matthew Patel and the other Evil Exes by consequence creates a timeline of events that are unrecognizable to fans of both the film and the comic, as they primarily follow Ramona instead of Scott tying up the loose ends of her life and making amends with her exes when the OTL was very focused on Scott's life.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": in this world, "paparazzi" are Highly-Visible Ninja who swarm around celebrities in great droves like locusts, rather than merely sleazy and invasive photographers (though they are that as well).
• Call-Back: In the first episode, Ramona mentions that using the subspace highway in Scott's head allows her to travel about 3 miles in 15 seconds. After a moment, she states she doesn't know what that is in kilometers. Late in the show, Scott meets an older Ramona from the future who mentions having Delorean rollerblades that can time travel when she gets up to 88 miles an hour. She also takes a moment then notes she doesn't know what that is in kilometers.
• Casting Gag: Regular Edgar Wright collaborators Nick Frost and Simon Pegg guest star as a pair of security guards at Torontowood Studios.
• Central Theme: Addressing past mistakes, learning from them, and moving on from them. Throughout the Anime, Ramona learns how her actions have affected each of her exes and the exes leave the League by reconciling with Ramona and moving on. Even Older Scott is revealed to have isolated himself for 10 years and he chooses to antagonize Scott so his younger self would never meet Ramona and prevent his heartbreak rather than just talk to Ramona or move on with his life.
• Cerebus Call-Back: There are multiple jokes made in the original graphic novel about how Scott has literally no plans for the future in regards to him and Ramona^note When asked by Wallace if he and Ramona will get married in the future, Scott's only reply is "The future?...like, with jetpacks...?". This series shows the ultimate outcome of Scott indeed having no idea what the future will bring: he and Ramona do get married, but they eventually run into more problems similar to the ones they experience over the course of the comic, with Scott ultimately degrading into a Psychopathic Manchild who tries to undo everything he and Ramona experienced together with Time Travel.
• Character Development:
  • As a result of reconciling with Ramona, all the Exes end up shedding their negative qualities and developing into nicer and positive individuals, moving to Toronto and implicitly becoming friends with Scott and his social circle.
  • Gideon gets the most deserved mention. The result of him losing his empire leads to him surprisingly shedding his toxic, controlling nature that defined him in the comics, striking up a genuine friendship with Lucas Lee and possibly Matthew while growing a healthy, mutually loving relationship with Julie, becoming a better partner to her than he was to Ramona. While the Sequel Hook implies that he'll return to his evil ways, it's nonetheless big growth coming from him.
• Closet Key: Wallace is this for Todd.
• Clueless Mystery: Most of the series revolves around Ramona trying to find out who faked Scott's death, why they did it, and where did he go, focusing her investigation on her Evil Exes. It turns out the real culprit is a character who (technically) never appeared before and would've been impossible to otherwise deduce: it was an older Scott from the future, who wants to try and convince present day Scott not to go out with Ramona because they get divorced later on (although the time portal technology was built by the Katayanagi twins).
• Company Cameo:
  • Ramona now delivers Netflix DVDs, with Scott accessing the old website with the previous Netflix logo.
  • Old Scott's memory tour reveals that the newly-wed past Scott and Ramona honeymooned at Universal Studios Florida. The two can be seen posing with a Minion mascot, Old Scott notes that he met Optimus Prime, and a digitized version of the Universal Studios theme plays in the background of this segment.
• Composite Character: Roxie and Lucas take more after their movie counterparts than original graphic novel versions in regards to their personalities, namely Roxie's bitterness over being treated as a phase by Ramona and Lucas being a boisterous Large Ham.
• Continuity Nod: Because Roxie herself is half-ninja, the ninja paparazzi leave her alone.
• Creator Cameo: Executive producer Michael Bacall lends his voice to one of Envy's fans in episode 2.
• Dawson Casting: invoked An in-universe example; the actress playing the teenage Knives in Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life is actually 31 years old.
• Death Faked for You: Scott is seemingly killed, but is actually kidnapped by his future self, who throws some coins behind to make it seem like he died.
• Death Is Cheap: Zig-zagged. It's revealed that every Evil Ex just respawns back in their hometown after their defeat (something previously only made clear by Word of God), but everyone actually thought Scott had died after Matthew defeated him, so the rule doesn't appear to be universal in-universe, suggesting it's a benefit only enjoyed by those with a substantial amount of privilege like the League of Evil Exes would have via Gideon.
• Decon-Recon Switch: While the Bad Future deconstructs the ending of the source material by showing just what could go wrong in Ramona and Scott's relationship after the events of the source material due to Ramona's flaws not being fully addressed, the events in the present show that this doesn't mean Ramona is incapable of changing, as the story being launched off the rails pushes her to reconcile with her exes and come to terms with her weaknesses.
• Decoy Protagonist: Scott spends the majority of the series presumed dead after being dragged into Subspace during his fight against Matthew, while Ramona takes the lead searching for him and facing off against her exes. Fittingly, the first episode is the only one named after one of the books. Slightly downplayed with The Reveal that he was actually playing a major role through Robot-01 as well as taking center stage in the finale, but is still nonetheless outshone by Ramona.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Due to his presumed death in the first episode (which is later revealed to be a kidnapping), Scott Pilgrim himself is a victim of this, with the role of the lead going to Ramona.
  • Stacey Pilgrim has a much smaller role here than in either the graphic novels or the film. Similarly, although their roles were small to begin with, Scott's parents and brother Lawrence are reduced to voiceless extras at his funeral.
  • Though still one of the more recurring supporting characters, Kim doesn't have the massive amounts of character development and focus the latter half of the comics gave her, her hurt over how Scott left her only being briefly brought up to kickstart Ramona's journey to make amends with her exes.
  • Envy Adams shows up earlier, but her overall role is also less significant and doesn't fully probe her depths. Her bandmate Lynette is also a Living Prop again.
  • Since the story diverges right after the fight with the first Evil Ex, many of the characters that appear in the later parts of the comic have no role in the story, but can be spotted in the audience as extras in the last episode (although not identified by name, so they'd only be recognizable to comic readers). This includes Lisa Miller, Dominique, Joseph, and Michael Comeau.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In the first episode, Patel apparently manages to actually defeat Scott, unlike in the comics where none of the Exes were ultimately able to best him. He thinks this means it entitles Ramona to go out with him, only to discover that, no, killing her current boyfriend doesn't mean she'll want to hook back up with him. Patel then calls a meeting with the other Evil Exes, at which point they realize none of them even considered that could happen (except for Gideon, who thinks this outcome was just because Patel is the lowest ranked ex). The League can prevent Ramona from going out with anyone else, but there is no actual mechanism to translate that into Ramona dating one of them. (Gideon in both the movie and the comics does have ways of compelling her to get back together with him, but here that never comes up, and he wouldn't be interested in deploying them on the other Exes' behalf anyway.) Furthermore, none of them seemed to realize that even if Ramona took them back, only one of them would get her as a girlfriend, which leads to the group breaking down.
  • Even Older Scott spent a decade training himself to go back in time and fight the younger versions of himself, Ramona, his friends and the League of Evil Exes to stop his past self from dating Ramona in the first place. Even Older Ramona has to explain to him that the reason their marriage fell apart is because he started trying to stop his younger self from ever dating her instead of working on their relationship, and the entire plot could have been avoided if he didn't think Ramona asking him for space after their first fight as a married couple meant she was leaving him.
• Documentary Episode: The fifth episode is structured as though it were a "behind-the-scenes" featurette about the making of the Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life movie. Complete with interviews with the cast, an opening narration (by "Weird Al" Yankovic of all people), and lots of fake Jitter Cam and out-of-focus shots. It ends after Patel shows up and fires everyone after the film's production goes way over budget, and the remainder of the episode is shot normally again.
• Double-Meaning Title: The "Takes Off" part of the title both refers to Scott's disappearance and presumed death due to his future self kidnapping him, but also refers to how the series wildly diverts from the source material.
• Dramatic Irony: Lucas Lee, who is playing Scott Pilgrim in Young Neil's movie, complains to Ramona that Lucas Lee's appearance (Lucas Lee the character, not Lucas Lee the actor) has him accidentally kill himself in a skateboard grinding accident while fighting Scott. He laughs at the script saying he'd do that and asking what idiot would write it. That's exactly what happened in the original books, alongside everything else in the script.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Even more so in this series. Not only are Scott and Ramona still dating in the epilogue, Ramona's exes have all found closure and moved on with their lives, Wallace finds love, and Sex Bob-omb add Knives as their keyboard player and - as Scott puts it - stop sucking.
• Electric Love: Apparently a kiss between two people who are in love will send off visible sparks of light; if the attraction isn't mutual, such as with Wallace and Todd, only one party will see them, and if there really isn't any attraction then no sparks appear for either, like Roxie and Kim kissing just to test.
• Entitled to Have You: The League of Evil Exes (save Gideon, who believes Ramona will return to him no matter which member "wins") assume Ramona has to get back together with whoever defeats her new boyfriend. When Matthew tries to claim her after apparently killing Scott, Ramona walks away without a word, not even dignifying him with a rebuttal. He's stunned, as are the others when he tells them.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • When Gideon and Matthew Patel discuss Scott and get to his relationship with Knives, both men sound particularly disgusted with Scott dating a high school student (though not in "kissing" status) and supposedly cheating on her with Ramona.
    Matthew: Wow. And I thought we were evil.
  • In the finale, the other Exes, along with everyone else present, all disapprove when they learn that Gideon/Gordon was planning to blow up the stage and ruin Matthew's show, even when he clarifies that none of them would have been harmed by it.
    Knives: That could really hurt someone!
    Gideon: Not us. The cast and crew, maybe.
    Lucas: Still not cool, Goose.
• Everyone Lives: Not only how this series ends as everyone is Spared by the Adaptation due to the League of Evil Exes all collectively pulling Heel–Face Turn (save Gideon who, while goes through Character Development, remains a Card-Carrying Villain), but is retroactively revealed even the comic's canon ended this way as well as none of the people who died via coining actually died, as they all respawned later in their hometowns and carried on with their lives after the fact. The only characters who might have canonically died in the show are the many paparazzi coined by Lucas, since they're not as powerful as the Exes, though it's possible the same applies to them, especially as Edgar Wrong, who was also coined, returns near the end of the show.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Unlike the original comics' events, which last at least over a year (since Scott's birthday comes up, and Ramona changes her hair completely at least 6 times "every three weeks" in the books) or the movie's, which last at least a month or so (Scott doesn't have a birthday, and Ramona changes her hair colors 3 times "every week and a half", but not the shape or form of it, and it doesn't grow), the anime's timelapse can be calculated pretty much to at least be between one or two weeks (Scott waiting for his Netflix DVD, Scott's funeral, the disastrous movie making plot which lasts 3 days, and a whole rehearsal and creation of the musical show, plus Ramona changes her hair colors no less than 6 times, but not the shape or cut of it, and it doesn't grow at all). Overall, a pretty hectic and busy time for everybody.
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: Generally the audience learns clues to the mystery of what happened to Scott alongside Ramona, or in a few cases before she learns them in-story.
• First-Episode Twist: The very first episode cleverly disguises the fact that this series is not a mostly one-to-one adaptation of the graphic novel like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was. Scott is apparently killed in the first battle against Matthew Patel, and the rest of the series is dedicated to the fallout and mystery of his death.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The trailer's use of the Mortal Kombat theme may have been a hint at how time travel is used to rewrite the series' original events, much like what began with Mortal Kombat 9.
  • Ramona tells Scott that she was a fan of Columbo growing up. Her actual primary role turns out to be investigating his supposed death, playing a detective-type role as she seeks him out.
  • When Scott first introduces himself to Ramona by spouting off trivia about Sonic the Hedgehog, mentioning how there were two unrelated Sonic cartoons where he was voiced by the same person, and how funny it was the same guy voiced two different versions of the same character. The one behind Scott's disappearance turns out to be Scott himself, an older version from the future. Not only that, but it could potentially hint at Ramona gaining a Golden Super Mode like Sonic himself, and if you really squint, you could compare the time travel plot to Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
  • An earlier hint at the Adaptation Deviation that was soon to follow is how Crash and The Boys don't even show up to perform this time.
  • The very title could be taken as foreshadowing. Scott Pilgrim "Takes Off", as in "goes away".^note Or rather, "Take off, ya hoser!"
  • The original comics and the movie showed that, if killed, Scott leaves behind a corpse (unlike the League of Evil Exes). Some loose change appearing after his supposed death is one of the first signs that Scott's still alive.
  • Young Neil's screenplay featuring oddly specific details that he had no way of knowing is a sign that Older Ramona was the one who wrote it.
  • When Lucas and Todd go to Matthew's impromptu League of Evil Exes meeting, the latter mentions wanting to get into acting. Later, when Lucas is fired from the movie about Scott Pilgrim, it's Todd who takes his role as Scott.
  • Wallace tells "Straight Wallace" (the actor who was going to play as him in the movie adaptation) that he should have used a time machine to go back in time and not go to the audition. The events of the whole series are a result of Old Scott messing with the time-space continuum based on a sarcastic suggestion from Old Wallace.
  • In episode 8, Ramona incredulously notes that they've ruled out all her exes. All except for Old Scott, who is (or at least believed himself to be) Ramona's ex in the future.
• For the Evulz: Implied by the Sequel Hook. By the end of the series, Gideon - now going by Gordon - has given up his pursuit of Ramona and seems to be on good terms with her, Scott and all the other Exes, and has even begun a new relationship with Julie. Whatever new sinister plot the couple have planned, they are simply doing so for the fun of it rather than any personal vendetta.
• Future Me Scares Me: When Ramona contemplates ending things with Scott because she doesn't want to end up married to Even Older Scott, Scott asks if she thinks that he wants to end up like him. Scott is also self-aware enough to see through Old Scott's Never My Fault attitude and realizing much of the split was probably on him
• Godzilla Threshold: Becoming Super Ramona becomes this to Present & Future Ramona, Present Scott, their friends, and the Exes after everything they threw at Future Scott has failed.
• Golden Ending: Aside from the Sequel Hook, the show can essentially be considered this for the multiple incarnations of the Scott Pilgrim storyline. The Evil Exes all have their complaints heard and are redeemed instead of being simply defeated in battle with no resolution, and Scott & Ramona get a look into the risks that their relationship could run into, helping them to know what mistakes to avoid making.
• Golden Super Mode: Super Ramona, the fused version of Young Ramona and Old Ramona. The Scotts explicitly compare it to Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
• Happy Ending Override: Played With and Subverted; the series shows that Scott and Ramona eventually break up, which embitters Scott into just another Evil Ex, who kidnaps himself in the past to make sure he never falls in love. However, it's also made clear that this is only one of the possible futures, and Scott and Ramona can still make different choices to keep their relationship alive. Furthermore, Bryan Lee O'Malley confirmed on Instagram he considers the anime timeline to be it's own thing separate from the comics and the movie and not meant to replace either, meaning that the happy endings from both are still intact.
• Hero, Rival, Baddie Team-Up: Scott, Ramona, their friends (and hostile acquaintances like Julie), the evil exes, and the former big bad of the franchise Gideon, all team up in the finale of the series to battle the true big bad; an Even Older Scott Pilgrim who has gone beyond a regular evil ex, and who makes every single strength feat previously displayed in the franchise look like child's play.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: The Paparazzi that harass Envy Adams in episode 2 and Lucas Lee during Episode 4 are dressed as ninjas.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Gordon attempts this in the finale, aiming to blow up the theater in which it takes place and reclaim his power, but it's subverted. Even Older Scott utterly bodies him, and it's only Matthew Patel's pity and disinterest in running a multibillion-dollar empire that give him everything back in the end. He and Julie do get to be in the Sequel Hook, though.
• Hourglass Plot: One by one, the 7 Evil Exes become less hostile towards Ramona and get some sorely needed work on their own personal issues, growing out of their evil natures...most of them, anyway. Older Scott, meanwhile, regresses as a person due to Ramona up and leaving him one day, and his anguish and resentment get so bad that he turns into Even Older Scott, the final villain of the series. This all leads to Ramona's 6 Okay-ish Exes and Gideon helping present Ramona and Scott fight Even Older Scott, who's effectively become the 8th Evil Ex.
• Hypocritical Humor: Between Julie and Stacey in episode 3.
  Julie: You're bleep joking. Stacey, I'm taking my fifteen.
  Stacey: You took your fifteen 20 minutes ago! And would you stop swearing? We have bleep customers!
  Julie: bleep my life!
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: After Matthew defeats Gideon and becomes the new leader of the League of Evil Exes, the other Evil Exes accept this and leave Gideon behind.
• Idiot Crows: In Episode 1, a crow laughs overhead Scott when he comments he doesn't know what a sugar daddy is. It occurs again in Episode 7 in the form of a robotic crow.
• In Spite of a Nail: Some things change, some things will always remain the same.
  • Even with all the massive divergences in continuity, Envy still breaks up with Todd over him cheating on her.
  • Even after his life changed big for a while, Wallace still ends up hooking up with Mobile, his psychic boyfriend. Though they hooked up offscreen in the graphic novel, we see how they meet in this timeline, and even sooner than in the comics.
  • Even after Matthew kicked Gideon's ass and took over his empire, Patel hated being a CEO and gave Gideon back his company, so Gideon is still an Evil CEO Billionaire and Full Fledged Supervillain.
  • Even after the divergences in how things played out, we still see a lot of characters with their most iconic looks, for different reasons. Notably, Scott and Ramona in the last episode dress exactly like they do in volume 6, and Knives rocks her emo-ninja scarf, arm-warmers and highlights from volumes 2-3, even though she doesn't have a murderous grudge against Ramona in this timeline and has no reason to try and copy Ramona's looks.
  • Once again, Knives got punched her highlights out of her hair, and by a THIRD different person this time: Old Scott himself.
  • Even after all the events of the anime play out EXTREMELY different compared to the comics/movie story, Scott and Ramona do end up with each other, finally ready to go on with their relationship.
  • This is subverted with Scott and Ramona assuming they still have to defeat the Evil Exes to be together despite Ramona having reconcile with them. None of them have any desire to fight Scott since they moved on from Ramona.
  • While the circumstances are different, Roxie is still the first of her exes Ramona ends up fighting.
• Instant Expert: Knives becomes a skilled bass player in just about four hours, and later with the piano in a slightly longer timeframe.
• Internal Deconstruction:
  • Of the concept of the League of Evil Exes. The book and live action film mostly used them as a plot device, but this show instead focuses a lot more on their dysfunction. First, Matthew managing to beat Scott does not mean he gets the girl- Ramona walks away in disgust, leaving him puzzled over what to do next. The second episode directly addresses how the League seems to be a way for Gideon to get ahold of Ramona again, rather than allowing each ex to vent their feelings. Once Matthew beats Gideon, he takes over the League, who all support their new leader for being a fairer leader than Gideon was. Ramona's pacifistic approach to resolving their issues also means that none of them die in their bouts with Scott, allowing them to get over their personal issues without violence.
  • This series is one to the original. Ramona goes from being the girl of Scott's dreams to the "hero", thrusting her into the spotlight. While Ramona isn't a bad person, she is a severely flawed person who suffers from severe Poor Communication Kills. The books and especially movie downplayed this aspect of her character, but this series forces her to confront these aspects of herself and ultimately prove herself worthy of Scott, not the other way around.
• It's All About Me: Envy turns Scott's funeral into her own mini-concert, giving a quick speech about how she "barely remembers" their time dating, before performing "I Will Remember You" to an adoring crowd.
• Lampshade Wearing: Robot 0-1 disguises himself using a lampshade at one point.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Gideon was planning to leave the other members of the League of Evil Exes with nothing after Scott's defeat while he took Ramona for himself. Matthew Patel then leaves Gideon with nothing by defeating him in a duel and claiming everything he owns, including the League of Evil Exes. He gets it back eventually when Patel willingly gives it away, but by then he's supposedly lost billions.
  • Todd, serial cheater, has his heart shattered when it turns out Wallace only considered the pair of them to be a brief fling.
• Last Disrespects: Envy shows up to Scott's funeral to pay her respects, but then turns it into a concert just to sing about it.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The original comic and its previous adaptations treated the fact one of Ramona's Evil Exes is a girl as a twist, but this one assumes the viewer already knows, and she's shown with the other League members in the second episode without any particular attention given to her and is even the second ex to show up in Toronto rather than the fourth.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Scott's first conversation with Ramona about Pac-Man's Japanese name is instead changed to him talking about Sonic the Hedgehog and how there were two different cartoons airing in the 90s, with Scott being amazed that the same guy played two different versions of the same role.
  • In the finale, Scott tells Knives that he shouldn't have dated her to begin with, and that a 23 year old dating a high schooler is frowned upon by society. Scott being so overt about while saying it directly to the camera can be interpreted as the show being up-front about this aspect of his character.
  • Likewise, Lucas Lee ends up in hot water when it's revealed he's dating the actress who portrays Knives, a teenager, in the In-Universe Scott Pilgrim film. He justifies himself by saying that the actress is actually 31. Dawson Casting was indeed in action for the real-life film, including for Ellen Wong who portrayed Knives at the age of 25.
  • Lucas says he's receiving job offers are to voice characters in animation, but turns them down because "he's strictly live-action". He's saying this in an animated series (and voiced by a primarily live-action actor to boot).
• Loophole Abuse: Pretty much the reason why Robot-01 can use vegan powers. Because robots can't consume animal products (or really anything), this technically makes them vegan, which is how Robot-01 could summon a vegan portal to help Older Scott kidnap Young Scott.
• Losing Your Head: Patel punches off Robot-01's head because he disapproves of the Katayanagi Twins bringing a plus one to their secret meeting, but the robot is later seen carrying his head under his arm after the meeting is over, and appears in the rest of the series with it reattached.
• Love Dodecahedron: In addition to the original continuity's one, which was already pretty tangled, the anime adds more connections: Todd falls hopelessly in love with Wallace after they have a fling on the film set; Gideon, or rather Gordon, gets with Julie; Kim exchanges a kiss with Roxie, and later piques the interest of Lucas.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Scott's disappearance is the result of a plot by a future version of himself, whose relationship with Ramona fell apart, causing him to become bitter and seek to use time travel to keep his past self from ever dating her by kidnapping him.
• Meta Fiction: The fourth episode turns into this, as the screenplay Young Neil finds turns out to be a retelling of events from a timeline where the events of the comics actually played out in full.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Lucas is fired from the movie set after photos of him dating the actress playing Knives, who is 17, are publicized. Played with, as Lucas points out said actress is actually 31, and the tabloids are mocking him for dating an actress playing a teenager, rather than dating an actual teenager.
• Mooks: The army of paparazzi ninjas are exactly how they sound: An army of paparazzi ninjas. While they're mostly just paparazzi when surrounding Envy in episode 2, Lucas Lee later actively battles a massive swarm of them, taking out $999.99 worth of paparazzi ninjas with his skateboarding tricks.
• Money Spider: In franchise tradition, people who are killed end up being turned into coins. This is taken to a comedic extreme with Lucas Lee's battle against the paparazzi ninjas, where he gains almost $1,000 from taking them out single-handedly.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The cast announcement video is presented in a similar style to the opening credits of the film.
  • A number of visual gags is recycled from the film, like the pan over Wallace's possessions in his apartment, the terrible drawing of Ramona's hair Scott uses at Julie's party, or the "pee bar" (which this time appears for Todd).
  • Young Neil (sorta) writes a screenplay based on the events of the series as originally portrayed, with Lucas Lee commenting on how his film counterpart is tricked into grinding to death. The film is directed by Edgar Wrong and photographed by Jan De Pope.^note A combination of the film's cinematographer Bill Pope and another notable DP Jan De Bont The film is titled Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, which is the first volume of the comic, while the real life film's title is from the second volume.
  • Knives and Stephen become Those Two Guys in the anime, possibly alluding the observations of them growing closer to each other over the course of the graphic novels.
  • In episode 5, the song playing during concert footage of Clash at Demonhead is "Black Sheep", which played for their introduction in the movie.
  • Envy arrives at Scott's funeral in a jet-black Absurdly-Long Limousine similar to her entrance in stage 3 of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game.
  • The title card logo for "2 Scott 2 Pilgrim" is based on the "Scott Pilgrim" title logo featured on the covers of the three-volume "Color Collection" re-releases of the graphic novels. The font, as was the case with the Color Collections, is the same one used on the original black-and-white volumes' covers.
  • "Big Bad", the music that plays as Even Older Scott fights Scott's friends and the League is a rearranged version of Nega Scott's subboss theme from the 2010 video game.
  • When trying to adapt "Neil's" screenplay into a musical, Stephen and Knives end up singing the lyric "Bread Makes You Fat", a line that originates from volume 2 of the comic, but achieved its current memetic status when it appeared in the movie.
  • Yet again, Knives has the highlights punched out of her hair, though this time it's by Even Older Scott.
  • The song that inspired the title character's name, "Scott Pilgrim" by Plumtree, plays at the conclusion of Episode 8.
  • While attending the Scott Pilgrim Musical, Ramona is dressed in her outfit from the fight with Gideon in the graphic novel, whilst Knives is wearing the outfit from her fight with Ramona in the second volume; the later also being Knives' outfit from the climax of the film.
  • The pictures of Scott, Ramona, the Exes, and all the other main characters pinned to Even Older Scott's wall are all panels and art taken directly from the black-and-white versions of the graphic novels.
  • Ramona is forced to fight against Wallace's stunt doubles, similar to the movie where Scott had to go through Lucas Lee's stunt doubles before facing the real thing.
  • The music track "Goose's Origin" that plays as Julie explains Gideon's backstory as Gordon Goose is composed in a similar style and using soundfonts from Earthbound. In the comics and movie, Gideon has an Earthbound association, having named his famous club the Chaos Theatre.
  • "Yet Another Winter Again" from the soundtrack is a mellow rearrangement of the track "Another Winter" from the video game, and plays while Scott is exploring his current life in Future Toronto. The track "I'm Ramona Flowers" also reuses the melody from Another Winter.
  • When Even Older Scott kidnaps Scott, Ramona, the exes, and Sex Bob-omb, Gideon demands he send them back, reasoning that they have no beef with him. However Even Older Scott responds by asking "What if I have a beef with you?" a reference to the film.
  • In addition, in the desolate wasteland they end up in, you can see the moon which has two giant craters from when Todd punched them.
  • Wallace meeting Mobile in Paris instead of picking him up in Toronto is a very subtle reference to how Scott initially thought Mobile was European when Wallace first mentioned him.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers seem to set up the show as a full-on animated adaptation of the graphic novels, with first episode setting itself up to be a recreation of the first novel, until Matthew Patel actually ends up winning the battle against Scott, revealing this show going FULL Adaptation Deviation into its own unique story. A few days after the show's release, however, Netflix did release one last trailer that properly advertised the big twist.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Future Scott's kidnapping plot ends up getting Ramona to make peace with her exes in her quest to find him.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Robot 0-1, the robot made by the Katayanagi twins, not only is apparently sentient but is also a "robot vegan", meaning that he has access to the powers bestowed to vegans like Todd in this universe; he also doubles as a time travel device and video game console.
• Not Enough to Bury: Coins (apparently all that's left of him) are put in Scott's casket. It's actually foreshadowing the fact that Scott is actually still alive, as Scott in previous iterations has always left a body behind after being killed.
• Not His Sled: The show starts off as a pretty faithful adaptation of the comics... until the fight with Matthew Patel, which ends with Scott (seemingly) dying while Patel emerges victorious. The plot diverges into a completely new story from there, with Ramona taking center stage as the protagonist.
• Not Me This Time:
  • Ramona narrows down her exes one by one to figure out who could've faked Scott's death, while Gideon is shown from the start to be just as clueless as the rest. She correctly deduces the involvement of the Katayanagi twins, but even then, it was their future counterparts acting as accomplices to Older Scott.
  • Happens in quick succession with the entire League in the final episode, as Scott and Ramona accuse each of them of being responsible for the forcefield stopping them from kissing.
• Not So Above It All: Whilst the League all make their peace with Scott and Ramona, they still take the opportunity to troll the couple by encouraging them to kiss, knowing full well that there's a forcefield preventing them from doing specifically that.
• Now You Tell Me: Invoked when Old Wallace asks Old Scott what Young Scott is doing in the future and Old Scott protests it was Wallace's idea. He reminds Wallace of once saying, "if only you had a time machine to stop you and Ramona from ever dating." An incredulous Wallace protests he was only kidding with Old Scott saying the trope.
• Odd Friendship: Stephen and Knives form one, making music and singing together. This is in stark contrast to the other continuities where they probably had some of the least interaction out of every other pair of main characters.
• Off the Rails: The series starts off the same as the original comics, only for the plot to get completely blindsided by Old Scott transporting Scott to the future to avert the original timeline where Scott beat the Evil Exes and married Ramona. So instead, Ramona is investigating where Scott went and ends up reconciling with her exes in the process, meaning Scott never has to fight any of them once he returns.
• Oh, Crap!: Scott has this reaction upon finding that both Ramona and Knives were attending the Sex Bob-Omb concert together.
• Older Than They Look: The actress playing the 17 year-old Knives in Young Neil's movie looks almost exactly like the real Knives, which lands Lucas Lee in hot water when it comes to light that he's been dating her. Lucas claims that the actress is actually 31, but it's still the straw that breaks the camel's back on his cancellation and retirement from acting.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Parodied; several tunes off of the soundtrack that play while the evil exes are assembling or fighting feature choirs that simply chant "evil exes".
• Ominous Multiple Screens: Gideon has a multitude of surveillance monitors focused on Scott within his personal lair.
• Once per Episode:
  • Except for episodes 5 and 7, Ramona has a montage where she dyes her hair a new color.
  • A fight scene where an announcer calls out the fighters (i.e. "SCOTT PILGRIM vs. MATTHEW PATEL") occurs in every episode except Episode 7.
• Out of Focus: Although several of the more minor characters in the comic have bigger roles in this series, the story diverging early on also means a number of characters which had a bigger role in the comic have more underdeveloped roles here, such as Envy Adams, who never goes through any character development or even a reunion with Scott, Kim Pines, whose previous relationship with Scott is only briefly touched on and the fact she still has feelings for him never comes up, and the Katayanagi twins, whose robot now plays a bigger role than they do.
• Pair the Spares: Subverted. Kim and Roxie try making out, but they feel nothing from the attempt.
• Paparazzi: They show up around Envy and Lucas... and are ninjas for some reason.
• Period Piece: The series takes place in the mid-late 2000s, like the comics, as is indicated by Netflix still delivering DVDs, video rental stores still existing, and the absence of smartphones.
• Persona Non Grata: Wallace mentions Scott was banned from the video store for owing a large amount of late-fees that amount to $3,500, which Ramona sees in the video store's wall of shame.
• Present-Day Past: The show is set in the 2000s, but Scott mentions Detective Pikachu in Episode 7. The original Detective Pikachu game came out in 2016, and didn't even release worldwide until two years later. (Though it's possible he could've learned about it while he was with Old Scott in the future, the context of the scene makes it unlikely.)
• Poor Communication Kills: All the changes in the timeline happen because Old Scott assumed that when Old Ramona said she needed "a break", she meant a total break-up. She actually meant they needed some brief time apart. She still regarded him as the love of her life and was furious he stayed away for a decade, rather than trying to reconcile.
• Post-Stress Overeating: After Wallace tells Todd their hook-ups were just a fling, Todd is inconsolable and gives up being a vegan to gorge on fatty foods (like a huge bucket of poutine or buttered popcorn that's more butter than popcorn). Although he doesn't get visibly fatter, the ending of the last episode shows him going back on a vegan diet and exercising to get back in shape.
• Punny Name: The band formed by Old Scott and the Katayanagi Twins is named "Pop'n Twinbee" because two of the members are Twins. Jury's obviously still out on whether Old Scott technically counts as a "Pop", though.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • Matthew Patel's presumed victory against Scott is initially treated as this, as Ramona still rejects him out of disgust for presumably killing Scott.
  • It turns out that even after Future Scott defeated the League and married Ramona, things didn't turn out how he expected with her, leading to a total breakup.
    Old Scott: Fighting those exes was the biggest mistake of our entire life.
    Scott: Because we lost?
    Old Scott: No... because we won.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • In the teaser, Gideon and the rest of the league are shown with red eyes.
  • Even Older Scott has this to show his Sanity Slippage and red colored powers.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Ramona's theory for Scott's death/disappearance is that Robot 0-1 teleported him away with his superior "robot vegan" powers. She's close to the truth: Scott was whisked away by Robot 0-1... to the future, and it was his own future self, with help from the future Katayanagi twins, who was behind everything.
• Robot Wizard: The time-travel kidnapping is made possible by Robot 0-1, as the fact that he's never eaten meat allows him to use vegan powers.
• Role Swap AU: Not a perfect 1-to-1 reversal (The League of Evil Exes are still her former partners, not his), but the central concept of this iteration is Ramona being the one having to fight to secure their relationship, while Scott is mostly on the sidelines though like Ramona in vol. 6, he assists with finishing the Big Bad. Appropriately, instead of defeating her exes, this Ramona has to own up to her faults in their relationships and departs with them as Amicable Exes, like Scott did with his ex-girlfriends in previous versions.
• Rousseau Was Right: Everyone is capable of redemption in this version of the story.
• Running Gag:
  • Robot 0-1 is repeatedly mistaken for a trash can.
  • Scott's fanboyism over Sonic the Hedgehog is brought up multiple times.
• Same Content, Different Rating: The show is rated TV-MA, the TV equivalent of an R rating. Despite that, not much has changed in content compared to the film, which was rated PG-13. Violence isn't really any more graphic, and even the more explicit swears are still bleeped out.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: There is a shot in the teaser of various red images of Scott being reflected off the glasses of a smirking Gideon.
• Sequel Hook: After everyone manages to move on with their lives, we see a couple of shadowy figures planning their next move.
  Gordon: Time for the real game to begin.
  Julie: The goose is loose. Honk-honk, f**kers.
• Ship Tease: During the epilogue, Lucas Lee and Kim Pine meet for the first time, both demonstrating their "whatever" views toward life. He looks clearly interested as she walks away.
• Snot Bubble: Wallace develops a sleep bubble while Scott waits for his DVD arrival.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: All of Julie's stronger swears (In particular her constant f-bombs) are censored with some sort of beeping sound effect.
• Spared by the Adaptation: invokedAll of Ramona's evil exes manage to not only survive the end of the series, but they move on from her as well. O'Malley's Word of God is also canonized, revealing that each Evil Ex, upon their defeat, simply revived in their hometowns, having lost all interest in fighting over Ramona.
• Spiritual Antithesis: The original comic and its film adaptation have a "Boy meets girl, boy has to overcome obstacles to prove his love for girl, boy is rewarded with girl" story structure. This starts from the same place, but goes in a very different direction with it after Scott's apparent defeat. The focus instead is on Ramona and becomes a story about her confronting the past she'd been running from and reconciling with her exes, before eventually getting Scott back and moving on after having sorted her own baggage.
• Stable Time Loop: Because Robot-01 sees Old Scott and the Katayanagi Twins as bros in the future through its vegan powers, the twins become bros with Scott when he gets back to the present after he gets kidnapped by Old Scott.
• The Starscream: Matthew Patel overthrows Gideon Graves and takes over the League of Evil Exes in the second episode.
• Stealth Sequel: The first episode plays it as a very faithful adaptation of the comics' first book, Precious Little Life, with some little deviations here and there. That is, until Matthew Patel apparently kills Scott in their fight. After that, everything changes, and the audience is lead to believe it's an unusual What If? situation in which they see what would happen if Scott died. Then it shows that the canon events of the comics already happened in another timeline, but in this timeline they were prevented by an older version Scott that kidnapped the younger Scott into the future to prevent the canon events of the story from playing out as usual.
• Stock Footage:
  • Ramona dying her hair each morning uses the same animation every time. The only thing that changes is the colors she uses.
  • The sequence of Sex Bob-omb practising is also reused in the final episode which is why you don't see Knives where she should be in shots of Scott or Kim.
• Studio Episode: The fourth and fifth episodes focus on Ramona investigating two of her exes in the middle of the production of a film that Young Neil apparently wrote in the space of a single night, based off of a timeline where Scott survived his fight with Matthew (basically the original plot from the comic and movie). Said film first stars Lucas as Scott, before Todd is later brought on to replace him. In the end, the film fails to come to fruition, between Lucas's ego and the relationship drama between Envy and Todd after Wallace becomes the latter's Closet Key.
• Stylistic Suck: Old Scott and the Twins' band Pop'n' Twinbee sounds like someone trying to make a Yellow Magic Orchestra tribute band covering anime opening credits themes work. But hey, they have 105 views going on Youtube.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Despite what the League thinks, Ramona doesn't actually need to get back together with the ex who defeats Scott. After Matt's victory, she simply walks off, leaving him angry and confused about what to do now. This also leads to the rest of the League turning on Gideon when they realize only he stands to benefit from their current arrangement.
  • Roxie and Ramona's destruction of the video store during their fight was the last straw that led to its permanent closure. Combine that with the lack of customers and Netflix's rental services and it's no surprise.
  • After Matt defeats Gideon in the second episode, he takes complete control of the latter's lucrative media empire. Come the final episode, Matthew practically begs Giedon to take it all back, saying he's lost billions and hates the position. Even if he seemed like he was doing a good job for a few episodes, Matt has zero training in the financial industry and business management and no actual interest in such a career. It wouldn't have been long before he was left completely bankrupt.
  • Just because Older Scott beat the Evil Exes didn't mean that his relationship with Ramona was exempt from regular old problems that long-term relationships run into.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Gideon is shown spying on Scott alongside Matthew Patel.
• Time-Passes Montage: In the first episode, Scott sits idly in his room awaiting for his DVD delivery as time passes by.
• Tragic Keepsake: After Scott seemingly dies, Knives ends up taking and wearing his jacket.
• Trapped in TV Land: Ramona and Roxie's fight at the video rental store where Kim works ends up sending them through various genres of film, ranging from Japanese cinema to a war film.
• Truth in Television: In the final episode, Wallace takes a vacation to Paris and is shown speaking French to a waiter, causing Mobile to joke that he's glad to see another Canadian who can't speak French very well. This is sort of true to real life, Canada actually has two different languages; Canadian English and French Canadian. French Canadian is different from European/Metropolitan French due to the differences in its pronunciation and vocabulary.
• The Unfought: Due to the story immediately going Off the Rails as soon as Scott's fight with the first Evil Ex starts, he ends up not having to fight any of them, once they realize the entire concept of their league was dumb to begin with (since they get nothing if they actually defeat Ramona's boyfriend) and Ramona reconciling with them during his disappearance. When Scott returns in the last episode and challenges them to battle, they all turn him down for various reasons, much to his confusion. However, Roxie does have a fight with Ramona, and all of the formerly Evil Exes end up fighting Even Older Scott in the finale, alongside younger Scott and his friends.
• The Unreveal: Older Scott avoids telling Scott about the circumstances he lives in all at once. When Older Wallace presses him to do so, the buildup implies that they are a couple. The truth is just that Wallace's husband works for Nintendo.
• Wag the Director: In-Universe. Wallace is able to get the role of himself in the Scott Pilgrim movie. At one point, they're filming a make-out scene between Scott (played by Todd) and Ramona (played by Envy), but it looks stupid and ridiculous every time, wasting dozens of takes and driving the director nearly insane. Wallace is able to convince him to change the scene so that he's the one making out with "Scott" instead of "Ramona". They get it exactly right first try this time, but Todd falls in love with Wallace as a result, who doesn't return his feelings (aside from the two having lots of sex afterwards).
• Was It All a Lie?: As a result of Wallace stealing Todd Ingram away from under Envy Adam's nose, Envy is left asking this of Todd. And likewise, Todd is left discarded by Wallace as he declares he'll be chasing to match or surpass the high of that three day fling for the rest of his life.
• Wham Line: Scott's conversation with the true mastermind behind his disappearance sheds light on the true nature of this series.
  Old Scott: Fighting those exes was the biggest mistake of our entire life.
  Scott: Because we lost?
  Old Scott: Because we won.
• Wham Shot: Matthew Patel defeating Scott in their fight, cementing that this show would not be a copy-and-paste adaptation of the original comic many diehard Scott Pilgrim fans thought it would be.
• What If?: In-Universe. Young Neil writes a screenplay that tells the event of the original canon where Scott won the fight against Matthew Patel and decided to turn it into a movie.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Sex Bob-omb becomes quite successful with Knives on keyboard. Stephen and Knives even manage to collaborate with Envy Adams. Ramona continues to work as a stunt double. The last scene shows her dyeing her hair and looking satisfied with the results before joining Scott and friends. Wallace visits France and meets Mobile, his boyfriend in the comics. As for Ramona's exes:
  • Matthew continues to star in Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Musical, which went on Broadway and won 27 Tony Awards.
  • Lucas becomes a very popular barista at the cafe that Stacey works at.
  • Todd returns to being vegan.
  • Roxie becomes Todd's personal trainer.
  • The Twins are shown reading at Stacey and Lucas's cafe.
  • Gideon appears to be plotting something with Julie.
• Win-Win Ending: The series has an overall much happier ending for everyone involved, and far less angst in the process of getting there.
  • Scott still gets the girl, and doesn't have to fight any of the Evil Exes to keep her, plus the exes all get over their hang-ups, didn't have to die, become friends, and have successful futures. Even Gideon, who remains evil, but still gets to keep his billions and get Julie as a girlfriend.
  • Because Scott is absent for most of the story, Knives doesn't have to get depressed over him cheating on her and even joins Sex Bob-Bomb, so the band is actually good instead of sucky. Similarly, Scott's absence means Kim doesn't get any time to angst over her lingering feelings for him, nor is the bitter rivalry between Ramona and Envy present (since Scott isn't there, so there's no reason for them to fight).
  • The only character that could be said technically lost is Older Scott/Even Older Scott, but his plan to have younger Scott not fight the Evil Exes and eventually divorce Ramona inadvertently succeeds in ensuring the original timeline that made him never came to be and Scott and Ramona's relationship will ultimately be much stronger and more mutual than it could've been.
• Written Sound Effect: As in the comic and film before. In the teaser, when Matthew Patel crashes through a wall during the band's performance, the word CRASH materializes made out of bricks, just as Patel smashes through the word itself.
• Younger Than They Look: Old Scott is already going grey at 37, while Old Wallace and Even Older Scott have gone completely grey by 39/47. By contrast, Future Ramona looks exactly the same as present Ramona besides her longer hair (although she's still dyeing her hair, so that could be hiding grey). Even Older Ramona does look noticeably older, with wrinkles and a part of her hair being kept gray, but she still looks young for someone probably pushing 50.
• Zeerust: Toronto 14 years in the future is this, with hovering buses and highly advanced virtual reality that is inexplicably based on the Virtual Boy. This is despite the fact that the anime keeping the same time period as the original graphic novels (i.e. the mid-2000s) means that said future is actually our present or even earlier. It's parodied with Old Scott saying that the future ended up being "more futuristic than we predicted."

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