Review by residentgrigo

I read the comics before the film came out and even played the game making me the bullseye for the target demographic. The audiovisual aspects are top notch so let´s just move on. Would I have liked a more direct adaptation? I prefer the comic, so maybe, but actually not. The score would have remained the same and the anime would have also left my memory for the same reason most 1-to-1 anime adaptations do. I can´t stop thinking about this adaptation on the other hand and not only due to its "canonical" implications. Treating comics as raw storyboards is the easy path. Well, easier. Making a 00s nerd culture show would have dated the anime before it even aired and made it a side product to the movie, especially due to the returning cast. A deconstruction of that generation of entertainment and adaptations is hard to forget on the other hand. A few characters, Knives most of all, end up underserved (but not Scott) and I wouldn´t have minded a present-day, well 00s, version of Nega Scott either. Ramona develops less than one would think as the audience's viewpoint now switches to her for about 4 eps but this isn´t really "her" show either. The exes take the stage and boy howdy do they. Gideon being able to carry his own plots divorced from what came before isn´t surprising but Lucas and Matthew of all people really surprised me. Newcomers need to have experienced at least one older version of the tale to "get" what is happening here and why as this is sometimes a prequel and later even a sequel to the comic. That is the real "issue" with the show but I would argue that the anime is strong enough to get you interested in the rest of the story. Even the film version becomes a plot point and I liked those 2 eps the most. I wonder if Bryan Lee O'Malley will call it quits here. I don´t think so but a second season or a page-by-page adaptation makes little sense after unleashing this labyrinth of deconstruction.

Scott is still the protagonist. He still drives the plot even after he "Takes Off" and not Ramona but the people complaining clearly don´t know what defines a protagonist. Or that fans would be the first to want to read a comic about her and her social circle. Her new plot doesn´t even lead anywhere but how could it? The story is many things but it´s mostly a slice of life and no one is the protagonist of that. No real villains either. Putting "the plot" on pause for 5 eps was a ballsy decision and I wish that more people had the balls to lie about what their latest IP entry is about. Druckmann, Kojima and O'Malley certainly know how to keep an IP fresh. When the sun comes up, I'm down!

PS: The author divorced 4 years after the comic concluded after 14 years of marriage.