New Scott Pilgrim Series Has Fans Debating Anime Label
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off official trailer still
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off launched on Netflix last week to glowing reviews, with the series attracting a Metascore of 82/100 on review score aggregator site Metacritic. Despite some of its more surprising elements – it’s not a straight adaptation as some expected – one of the biggest debates around the animated series right now is whether or not it should be called “anime.”
Fans of the series have taken to Twitter to argue their points, often with heated language, and it seems like neither side is budget. In favor of the series being dubbed an anime is the production and animation studio, Science Saru, which previously worked on anime like Space Dandy, Devilman Crybaby, and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, all undoubtedly anime productions.
Related: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Opening Released By Netflix
Those who are against the label argue that because Scott Pilgrim was written by Canadian Bryan Lee O’Malley and its original dub was in English, it isn’t really anime, just a Western cartoon animated by a Japanese studio. Some have also argued that because the series wasn’t aimed specifically at the Japanese audience, it shouldn’t count, regardless of who wrote it.
That latter argument has been used on MyAnimeList, one of the biggest databases of anime series and movies in the world. As pointed out by former Crunchyroll marketing director Miles Thomas, MyAnimeList requires that something be “created by professional staff in Japan for the Japanese market” to be included in its databases and labeled as anime.
MyAnimeList's rules for "what is an anime" requires a piece of media to be made "for the Japanese market".
What an absolute joke, even if you ignore that the *majority* of the "anime market" is overseas. pic.twitter.com/rbZN6lvcxw— miles (@Real_Kilometers) November 20, 2023
Thomas says the guideline is “an absolute joke,” pointing out that the majority of the anime market is outside of Japan. It’s complicated further with series like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a series that was undoubtedly made for the Western market more than Japan, but is nonetheless included in MyAnimeList.
Anime as a term is actually a double loan word, having first been used in Japan, based on the English “animation,” before being loaned back to English specifically to describe Japanese animation. In Japan, it still refers to any animation — be it One Piece or Family Guy, it’s all “anime” over there.
Unfortunately, this is an argument that doesn’t really have a clean solution. Ultimately, people will use whatever term they feel is right, and if that’s anime, that’s more or less what it is. And the next time something comes along that blurs the lines, this argument is likely to pick up again.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is available to stream exclusively on Netflix now.
