Scott Pilgrim, Round Two

In short, I'm still unsure of how much I like it.

Yeah, it's quirky and fun, but at the same time its angst-ridden and full of high-school style drama that just gets annoying after a while.

That's it. This should be set in a high school.

Scott Pilgrim should be chock full of swearing and adult situations, given as it's about "adults", but it isn't. The characters talk like adolescents, and have the same maturity level. Again, it's audience pandering, and I don't really know that I fall into the audience for that. It seems more for kids who like Japanese stuff a little too much and play Final Fantasy with fanatical fervor. The concept of "drama" here is very basic, with love triangles (in reality, that's an oversimplification, given as Scott is romantically linked to every girl in the story who is not his kid sister).

The character of Scott Pilgrim gets on my nerves too. I know that he is supposed to be a lovable slacker, sharing a futon with his gay roommate (they point out that his roommate is gay all the damn time) in a totally hetero way. He has no job, but he's in a crappy band, which apparently makes him awesome. He just sits around and plays bass (poorly) and video games.

Now, generally this can be taken as the affable slacker, a hipster Seth Rogen who, while being lazy and immature, is funny and genuine and makes Katherine Hiegl swoon because he's so different or whatever. The thing is that when it comes to women, Scott's kind of a dick. A good portion of the book is them pointing this out. I don't have a lot of sympathy for Scott here.

The whole evil ex thing is suspect at best too. I guess it will be wrapped up in book 6 but they have taken their time. I mean, without that element it would be just a romance story and then I'd feel even weirder reading it, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I need motive here, and by book 6 we should have gotten there. We are at the peak of our story. This should have been covered in rising action.

I'm going to finish it, mostly out of a desire to get some answers, but I'm still not sure on my final verdict. At this juncture, though, Scott Pilgrim needs to get it together.