NYCC 2023: Bryan Lee O’Malley On The Music And Anime Of ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’

For Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, the characters are never far from his mind. From the graphic novel series to a film — Scott Pilgrim vs. The World — to a video game (with the same title) and, now, to the upcoming Netflix anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off from UCP,  there are always new mediums in which Scott’s precious little life can thrive. During NYCC 2023, O’Malley sat down with Comicon.com and other journalists for a chat about the latest Pilgrim path, some of the ways it differs from the film, and the contributions of anime studio Science Saru to the feel of the latest iteration.

While the nature of anime naturally brings it closer to O’Malley’s work on the page, the program has one major direct call back to the film: the cast. Every key actor — from Michael Cera as the title character to Johnny Simmons as Young Neil — returns to the play the characters once again, 13 years on. According to O’Malley, though, bringing the ensemble back was not necessarily always part of the deal struck with Netflix. “We had to start writing it and planning it without knowing,” he said. “So we thought if we can’t get one of them, we probably shouldn’t use any of them. We should just recast the whole thing. It would feel so weird to have almost everyone and then one person clangs. So we definitely talked about it, but fortunately they all said yes pretty early on and we were just blessed to have them.”

The group, all more refined thanks to work as diverse as Marvel movies, a season of Fargo, The Newsroom, and fan-favorite genre shows like Dark Matter and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, compliments the work of animation house Science SARU (Devilman Crybaby, Japan Sinks), who marry O’Malley’s art style with great animation — something that will immediately be clear the viewer when they see the opening moments and the title sequence.

When we asked O’Malley about the titles specifically, he noted it was “the first thing in our outline,” but that he and fellow executive producer BenDavid Grabinski — who we’ll hear from closer to the show’s launch — choose to be hands-off in that specific part of the process. “We asked Science Saru to do something cool,” O’Malley said. The resulting sequence speaks to all aspects of Scott Pilgrim, but also feels like something truly authentic to the medium.

“I love everything they did. It kind of brings it back to the comics, brings it back to the video game even,” he continued. “It’s just you can feel the love for Scott Pilgrim in that opening, but you can also feel like that it’s foreign, it’s anime, it’s something else. And I just love how it all came together.”

The sequence also features the music of Necry Talkie, a band Science SARU spotted for O’Malley after he committed to using a Japanese artist for the titles.  “It’s [a song] about being in an indie band. It’s very specific to the show. It has such a good energy,” he said.

Music also happens to be a point of divergence from the film. O’Malley felt reusing the songs sourced for the film would be like “redoing jokes” and “feel a little too flat.” Nevertheless, he teased there will be some nods to the sound of the film. The score comes courtesy of composer Joseph Trapanese. Meanwhile, all the Sex Bob-omb songs are new for the series, with music from Anamanaguchi — the band who also composed the video game score — and lyrical contributions by O’Malley.

“I know they have so much versatility and I think they proved it here,” he said of the group. “I just tried to take a hand in it. I’ve always loved writing songs and stuff. I didn’t want it to be all about me. So it’s mostly the band.” Of course, demoing the lyrics meant he also voiced Kim Pine’s drum countdown in the scratch tracks. Instinctively hitting a higher register to do so, he fooled Grabinski into thinking it was someone else.

“BenDavid didn’t realize at first that it was me!” he said.

In terms of adapting the story, one opportunity the 8-part series offers over a 90-minute film is the chance to delve deeper into some of the other characters, including Scott’s girlfriend, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), whose story in the books developed after the initial film scripts were written. “The first draft of the movie was around book three and four,” O’Malley explained. “And then I was working on book six while the movie was being [filmed], so they kind of knew what I was doing. But yeah, the movie has to kind of go, go, go, and it has to be mostly about Scott’s story. So yeah, it definitely appealed to have more Ramona — but not just that, [we] try to get more of everyone.”

That also means more screentime for the League of Ramona’s Evil Exes.

O’Malley said he was “young and naive” when he first designed the characters, and began to conceive of more story for them when he met the people cast as Ramona’s ex-partners in the film. “Over the years I definitely thought, ‘Oh, there could have been more of this. There could have been more of that,’ and the anime was just a really cool opportunity to do that, but it had to make sense,” he said. “It really appealed to me to do those scenes and to have more villain scenes. I love anime villain scenes. I always think about Sailor Moon, [when] the villains [come] up to the main villain and ask what their next assignment is.”

He teased ideas he had for the twins (exes #5 and #6) and Roxie (ex #4, played by Mae Whitman — yes, her) when he first wrote the graphic novels finally found space to breath in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off — although he was, naturally enough, less inclined to offer specific details. Nonetheless, he was happy some of the material finally made it way into this version of the story.

And while the show offers “new angles” on Scott, O’Malley was reluctant to call his title character a “shitty” person. “I think he’s a well-written shitty main character,” he joked. “People are still arguing about him 20 years later, so I think I did something right.” But he also pointed out that, ultimately, Scott’s actions — questionable as some can be — are not motivated by malice.

“People will have to watch the show to see how we handled that,” he added. “But I did try to handle it with all the sensitivity I could.”

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off debuts November 17th.