By John Ferrandino
Characters: Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Wallace Wells, Knives Chau, Kim Pine, Young Neil, Stephen Stills, Julie Powers, Envy Adams, Gideon Graves, Lucas Lee, Todd Ingram, Mathew Patel, and Moxxie Richter
Plot: (Vs The World) Scott Pilgrim is a normal 22 year old living in Toronto, Canada. He lives with his cool gay roommate, Wallace Wells, is the lead guitarist in the indie band, Sex Bob-Omb, and dates a 17 year old named Knives Chau. Otherwise he is an unemployed slacker. He meets Ramona Flowers, a delivery girl who can roller skate in his dreams by a neural highway. He finds her interesting so he takes her out on a date, but to get to the next base, he must defeat her seven evil exes
(Takes Off): A sequel to Vs The World, Scott and Ramona have a bad breakup after their honeymoon. Scott becomes Old Scott and uses a robot using a vegan portal to stop his younger self from getting together with Ramona. During Scott’s fight with Mathew Patel, the robot takes him through a vegan time portal, with everyone assuming that he is dead.
Inspirations: Bryan Lee O’Malley’s love of indie rock and shonen style manga, Plumtree’s song, “Scott Pilgrim, various characters named after musicians, Nintendo games based styles for the setting, 2000’s indie culture: garage bands, geek culture, and 80’s nostalgia; and love models: Gottman’s Four Horsemen, Knapp’s relationship development model, attachment theory, and Sternberg’s Triangle; and Peter Pan Syndrome.
Motifs: Health bars, game points, relationships, exes, changing hair colors of Ramona, and veganism
The world of Scott Pilgrim is unserious. The main character is a slacker and a pedophile, the physics is a mix of Shonen and retro gaming, and Scott doesn’t have a complex view of relationships, treating everyone like acquaintances, even ex girlfriends, like Kim, Knives, and Envy. His current residence with Wallace is only because he dropped by and never left. He’s carefree, but aloof and insensitive.
The physics of this world are a mix of of Shonen fights and retro gaming logic.
Characters have insane powers, like Ramona’s subspace travel, Todd’s vaganism based powers, Mathew Patel’s Indian mystical powers, and Scott’s super-strength. The rest of the characters treat this like its normal, and the only time law enforcement shows up is when Todd Ingram breaks the vegan code. The fights in the graphic novel are Shonen style, like Bleach and Naruto, and the defeated side turns into Canadian coins, like in MarioBros., and K.O. appears overhead. The movie and anime expand on this by adding health bars and a street fighter style narrator and font.
Ramona has an issue with commitment, and this is illustrated by the existence of the Evil Exes Organization and her constantly changing her hair dyes.
“I run away from the thing that I love.” “I never want to feel stuck.”
She doesn’t want too commit herself, because she fears she will be stuck in monotony, so she breaks off her previous relationships. These are the Seven Evil Exes. In the anime, each episode begins with her changing hair dyes in the morning.
Conflicts: Scott vs himself (Nega-Scott)
Scott vs his future (Older Scott)
Ramona’s fear of commitment
Scott breaking up with Knives
Scott vs the Evil Exes
Ramona’s past haunting her
Running from the past or being obsessed with it, which is the goal of the Evil Exes, to get back with Ramona.
The world of Scott Pilgrim is the real world, but with the physics of beloved pop culture mixed in, like a distraction. Scott and other characters try to live like its their favorite video game or comic, but no matter how much they try, real world issues like unemployment, toxic relationships, taking advantage of minors, obsession, relationship experimentation, and break ups, are still relevant, and are more highlighted in a fantastical world like Scott Pilgrim. People don’t get killed, they just turn into currency. All of the characters are attempting to live a life of escapism, similar to the readers and watchers of this IP.
Themes: Escapism, forming of relationships. fear of commitment, adulthood’s consequences, self-respect, self-esteem, Peter Pan syndrome, obsession, aloofness, and hero worship.
IBanalysis 
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