Meet Science Saru, the Legendary Team Behind ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, an anime based on the popular series of graphic novels (which spun off a cult-favorite film), dropped on Netflix this past Friday, Nov. 17. Born from a collaboration between showrunners BenDavid Grabinski and Bryan Lee O’Malley, the comic’s original creator, Takes Off is a fascinating reinvention of the story. Better still: Japanese animation house Science Saru produced the series, its unfettered visual creativity taking Scott Pilgrim to truly unexpected places.

Not only is it an exciting creative lineup, but it’s also an opportunity for a newcomer to the anime scene: a door into one of the greatest working studio’s idiosyncratic, captivating body of work. Established in 2013 by Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi, who had worked together on animated series like 2010’s The Tatami Galaxy, Saru is known primarily for releasing Yuasa’s directorial work. But even just in his filmography, there’s an astonishing diversity of styles and tones, from strange and intentionally shaky draftsmanship to cleaner, more rounded, cartoonish stylings, stretching even into sinister phantasmagoria.

The studio has changed somewhat in recent years. While its work has been largely focused around Yuasa, different directors have started stepping into the spotlight. That includes Takes Off, directed by longtime studio member Abel Góngora, who previously helmed an Astro Boy-inspired short for Star Wars: Visions. With Góngora in the driver’s seat, Takes Off offers a sampling of Saru’s new perspective and visual variety. The series hops between various genres and moods that are held together by a wealth of pop-cultural homages. But for all its wildness, Saru has made far weirder works than this one. The studio’s boundary-pushing animation takes the expressive potential of the medium to giddy extremes, and after trying this new take on O’Malley’s comic, it’s the perfect time to dig further into the studio’s work.

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