In the year 2048, Dr. Deniz Skinner, a scientific genius dubbed second only to Einstein, developed the revolutionary painkiller Hapna. Being cheap with no reported side effects, the drug gained widespread acceptance, even though Skinner himself silently vanished one year after launching the drug. Everyone revelled in the heaven of relief and ecstasy provided by Hapna, but they would suddenly come crashing down to Earth. It is now 2052, and Skinner reappears, giving the shocking announcement that Hapna was designed to mutate into a lethal toxin, killing anyone who had consumed it. While he claims to have a cure, he will only hand it over if he is physically found within 30 days.
Axel Gilberto, a maverick youngster serving a sentence of 888 years in a high-security prison, is unwillingly recruited by a group calling themselves Lazarus. Composed of eccentric misfits, the group has only one task—to find Skinner. With no means to escape and their lives on the line, Lazarus begins the hunt to find Skinner before the countdown to the end of humanity ends.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
Comentários
jahver
Shinichiro Watanabe was one of those guys who was impossible to criticize for years. When you’re the name people most commonly associate with a show as lauded as Cowboy Bebop fans are gonna be ride-or-die for you regardless of the quality of your successive projects. You can argue that Bebop isn’t perfect, and I’d agree with you, but it outshines practically anything coming out these days thanks to Watanabe’s direction and writers like Keiko Nobumoto at the helm. Bebop’s understanding of homage, Champloo’s anachronisms, and Space Dandy’s reverence towards of the previous 40-something years of anime all go to show that Watanabe’s reverence towards whateverhe was paying tribute to was enough to help a show stand on its own despite the peaks and valleys that may be there. Carole and Tuesday was Watanabe’s 3.0 moment and people still overlook its obnoxiously glaring flaws on the grounds that the non-humorous musical performances are great. Lazarus on the other hand is his Thrice Upon a Time, and you honestly couldn't get something this bad if you force-fed a script writing algorithm the last decade's worth of capeshit and MSNBC broadcasts.
The way Lazarus presents itself is as bleak, sterile and spiritually vacant as the setting. If Bebop was style before substance (not indication a lack of the latter or surplus of the former) then Lazarus is no style and no substance. It’s an unwelcoming range of greys, blues and dull browns compared to Cowboy Bebop’s prismatic spectrum. There’s no warmth to the color palette, which while mostly being an unfortunate side effect of the transition to digital animation, doesn’t excuse how muted and lifeless everything seems. This is supposed to be an episodic ensemble storyline but it feels like you’re watching a Marvel movie. The main cast even goes as far as to compare themselves to The Avengers once or twice, which makes all too much sense watching something that presents itself like a Joss Whedon flick instead of anything serious or intellectually present. The direction and animation are no better, in fact the only time Lazarus channels Watanabe’s old energy is the fourth episode with enough competent direction to emphasize Chad Stahelski’s technically impressive fight choreography (https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/281409, https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/281412, https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/281410, all look good if you ignore the jarring shifts in fluidity, detrimental camerawork and garish digital backgrounds). Episode 11 has a decently put together fight scene that also suffers from the inconsistent production. The audio mixing, voice acting and OST are fine, though, and I really like the instrumental opening. It surprisingly manages to emulate the style of Tank! without being a total rehash, which is sadly not the case for every other aspect of Lazarus.
Cowboy Bebop’s most glowing accomplishment was the writing teams’ ability to draft the foundations of credible characters with credible conflicts and then build upon them over the course of 26 episodes and a movie. Every ally, antagonist, or passerby Spike encounters is iconic in a nostalgic sort of way. The chatbots tasked with writing Lazarus might’ve been too comfortable in conformity, however, and opted to ride the coattails of Bebop and hope people like watching the same thing again, but shallower and with less feeling. I had to look up the names of the Lazarus crew just to try and remember their role in the show. Axel is just Spike without the regrets, the drive or the connections. Doug is just Jet if he wasn’t a philosophical asskicker. Christine is just Faye if she was a completely unlikeable bitch all the time without any of Faye’s charm, wit or sympathetic tenets. Leland is Canadian or something. Eleina is…fuc, I don’t even have anything to say on her, she’s just there. Ed’s equivalent would probably be Popcorn Wizard, a hacker who exclusively speaks in Katy teh penguin of d00m-tier dialogue. You’ll want to put your head through a wall every time she’s onscreen. There’s even a Vicious knockoff who shows up in the last third to try and form an emotional bridge between Lazarus and Bebop, which doesn’t work because he has about as much of a scarce connection to Axel as anyone else in his crew. If this show had another ten to twelve episodes maybe he'd be a compelling antagonist but that’d mean sitting through more of Lazarus.
The MyAnimeList page doesn’t even have a complete character list so the front page where you’d usually find the main cast has bit parts like “Police Officer” or “Loan Shark” which is both hilarious and a tragic indictment of how much of a non-factor the characters are in this show. 13 episodes go by and you barely learn anything about Team Lazarus or feel anything about them which is astounding because Bebop managed to get me to in less than half that time. These guys are trying to save the world together and by episode twelve they still feel like colleagues whose relationships begin and end at the water cooler.
Lazarus also has a plot, surprisingly, which I think the writers forgot because absolutely nothing happens for 90% of the show’s runtime. Nearly every single episode ends with the team back at square one with maybe a shred of evidence towards the location of the guy who wants to give everyone on earth the vaxx. Because that’s the running storyline, even though most of the show is pointless sidequests building up to character moments that never happen. Dr. Skinner made a miracle drug that cures all pain and disease, got every single person on the planet to take it, announced it’s gonna kill them all in two more weeks like a /pol/ schizoposter and then dipped. The problem is that there’s no urgency. Even after Skinner’s announcement we don’t see any social unrest, no riots, no television debates, no internet shitposting, nothing. We’re just told the whole world is kinda on edge and that's really it. It takes THIRTEEN EPISODES for the team to go “Hey, isn’t Skinner a bigger deal than whatever we’re doing right now?” There’s no before or after, the whole world seems to be living in some kind of equilibrium of apathy but if that’s intentional it’s never actually demonstrated in ways becoming of an intelligent writer.
And if you thought the show would spend any time telling the pretentious mass murderer off, you’d be wrong, because apparently this show was written by fucking Dan Harmon or something. I swear there’s a corny speech every episode about how humans are le bad because of war or racism or climate change. Episode 7 had the most eye-rolling instance of this where one of the characters states that “the last beautiful place on earth is only like that because there’s no humans” because there’s water and trees and stuff despite the fact that they were literally a minute away from occupied civilization. The ending of the show even goes as far as to completely vindicate Skinner and his ideology. I know Watanabe’s always been a bit of a progressive type but this hysterical neolib fatalism isn’t his style. Carole & Tuesday’s obnoxious showboating and political caricatures look tasteful compared to these WEF-sponsored diatribes. Lazarus’ moral barometer is on the same level as those childfree millennial couples to brag about how they “hate those breeders, man” because having kids destroys the environment or causes racism, or whatever insane notions of moral grandstanding you can think of. If you wanna own the chuds you made up in your head write something that doesn’t make you look like a shallow, immature misanthrope. I don’t watch anime to listen to reddit-tier haranguing and neither does any self-respecting human being.
The narrative’s self-righteous moralizing crumbles when you consider how it fails to reasonably convey any sort of justification for it, or any meaningful solution for that matter. Episode 1 begins with Skinner’s plan being put into action. There’s no glimpses of the world before his announcement, everyone who took his miracle drug reveling away in their newfound carelessness, no sign of the underlying problems with the world, we’re just thrown right into it. Where’s the conflict, where’s the prejudice, where’s the indifference? How would there even be any in such a racially harmonious world? It’s practically utopia compared to Bebop’s setting. The worst you get is the occasional government hitman or a couple one-off villains being sex pests being menacing towards the female cast, but they’re more like ideological punching bags than real antagonists. (Side note, making the rapey cretin of the week a Wall Street jerkoff or an AI-touting Silicon Valley techbro doesn’t make your hackish social commentary any more insightful.) And when characters start spouting monologues about racism or the struggles of being transgender it feels like lipservice more than anything else. Am I even supposed to care when the entire world is at stake? It doesn’t feel like it. Every single character in this show would rather be off doing something else of talking about whatever social cause the script guys were incensed about that week.
Did I mention this show is predictable? Because it is to an insulting degree. Lazrus doesn't know when to show and when to tell, and it does both in the most infuriating ways imaginable. You’ll figure out every turn of events an episode before Team Lazarus manages to combine their 5 brain cells and get anything accomplished. It takes them a month to find Skinner when the audience already knows he’s off larping as a hobo. The final plot twist regarding Skinner’s drug is staggeringly obvious to anyone with the most surface-level knowledge of The Bible. The final episode convolutes what little we’ve already learned to try and turn it into some big “Gotcha!” moment and make Skinner look smarter than he really is but it falls flat.
I can’t make heads of tails of Lazarus. This show is a piece of trash and I feel sorry for everyone who wasted time making it and writing it. What was anyone involved in its creation expecting us to see in it? A pretentious, half-assed spiritual sequel to Cowboy Bebop without any of the soul and none of the passion where everything is explained through flashbacks and infodumps and none of the characters seem to care about anyone or anything going on around them until the last few minutes of the show? At least two-thirds of the show can be described as “nothing happens”. You could watch only the first and last episode and you’d have the same exact experience as watching the entire thing. The characters are lame, unlikeable retreads of better ones from a better show, the message is so far removed from reality it sends me into a schizophrenic episode trying to figure out what any of this was trying to say and the production isn’t enough to justify watching outside of AMVs. Maybe Watanabe's at fault or maybe he's innocent in this whole affair. For all I know the Toonami execs could've pigeonholed him into making something more generic. I can tell there were promising paths he wanted to explore, that the writers took as an opportunity to build around their pseudointellectual rambling. Everything that happens in Lazarus is in service of faux-socially conscious moralizing that’s naïve at best and outright ignorant at worst, timewasting garbage plots that go nowhere, idiotic navelgazing hackish bullshit. This isn’t anime, it’s cynical westernized slop pretending to be something it hasn’t earned the right to be. This isn't anime, it's more cultural detritus courtesy of Hollywood.
Marinate1016
Unpopular opinion, I like Lazarus. A lot. That’s not to say this show is perfect or even a masterpiece, but it was a very enjoyable watch for me and a lot of the criticism levied against this show tends to fundamentally misunderstand what it’s trying to accomplish. Yes, there’s flashy fights done by the legendary Chad Stahelski, but that’s not the main point of this show. It’s supposed to be a slower introspective piece on the sins of humanity, how we(generally) prioritise profit over the greater good and whether or not humanity is truly worth saving. Now, If you actually go into this series expectingthat sort of philosophical questioning, you’ll enjoy it. If you go in expecting cowboy bebop, space dandy or any of Watanabe’s other legendary series, you’ll be disappointed. This falls short of those, but then again most shows do. That’s why they’re considered masterpieces. Lazarus sets out to answer a singular question “is humanity worth saving” and by the end, we reach a conclusion. Again, that’s not to say this show is perfect. There’s some very valid critiques of it, especially surrounding the episode count, a few holes in the logic, the dub voice acting, etc., but people acting like this show killed their mother or something or like it’s the next Ex-Arm are ridiculous.
Lazarus was awesome to me because I’m a huge fan of that early 2000s late night toonami style of anime. Your Bebops, The Big O, etc. Those sort of subdued, mature and thought provoking series that let you know you were up way too late if you were awake when they came on. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Lazarus has that sort of energy since it’s literally produced by Adult Swim and comes from Watanabe. The aesthetic really just does something for me here to pull me in, but the cast, music and story are what hooked me. I absolutely loved the entire Lazarus team. Even though I would’ve really loved to have seen every single character get their own little 1-2 episode development arc(most do) the little time we got with them and their backstories was enough to make me care about them. There’s this nice found family dynamic going on and I’m a sucker for social rejects coming together to form a team and do something greater than themselves, thanks Jamss Gunn. They all have their own strengths and compliment each other’s weaknesses very well. It’s nowhere near Bebop levels of character writing, but it’s solid for a one cour show. Every scene with the full team on screen together was awesome too. The banter and way they tease each other as the season goes on and they get more comfortable.. awesome. I really fell in love with this group.
The story is the other big draw for me here. You need to set your expectations going into it though so as to not disappointed. Again, this isn’t a straightforward story. Yes, the goal initially is to find skinner and get a cure for the HAPNA situation, but it’s quickly made apparent that there’s much more to skinner’s actions than previously thought and that everything he’s done is with the intention of making the characters retrace the steps he took, seeing all the bad stuff humanity has done, ignoring climate change advice, putting profits over people, caring more about covering up illegal experiments than saving lives, etc., and have them meet him knowing everything he knows before they ask for a cure. That’s why the story doesn’t go from point A to B and often sidetracks, it’s supposed to. This is show is about people at its core. The good, the bad and the ugly. That requires.. spending episodes with people, getting characters’ backstories, going into homeless camps, slums, visiting islands affected by climate change, etc. You can’t make a judgement on humanity or the world if you haven’t seen all it has to offer. To me, this was obvious after like 3 episodes so I really don’t understand how people misunderstood the show, but a lot of criticism about it would instantly be eliminated if people realized what the show’s narratively and philosophically trying to do. It does it consistently and well in my opinion. That doesn’t mean you need to like it, you can absolutely just not like skinner as a villain and find his actions reprehensible or maybe you just don’t care for the cast, couldn’t connect with any of them and didn’t find them compelling. That’s totally fine and I’m not here to force an opinion on you, I just want people to understand where this show’s coming from. There’s plenty of objectively well written shows that I don’t like as well. It happens.
The third most important thing for me here are the production values. This show looks amazing. I love the subdued colors, the realistic character designs, the incredible soundtrack, which shouldn’t come as a surprise because Watanabe’s works always have great ones, the choreography from Stahelski and the voice acting(JP). I’m a huge fan of the more natural sounding dialogue style they went for in this. From what I’ve heard, the dub sounds very awkward so I would definitely recommend sticking with the Japanese here if possible. MAPPA brought their A-game to all the big fight scenes as well. Phantom Killer’s introduction is going to live so rent free in my head for a while.
This was just such a fun series to watch. It just had a way of really gripping me every week in an almost mesmerising fashion. Christine and the rest of the cast stole my heart, the story was solid and really the only thing I’d change is making it 16 episodes or so just to get more of the team hanging out. Happy with what I got, though.
Lazarus gets 8 out of 10.
Gsarthotegga
Lazarus is another helping of westaboo porn by courtesy of Shinichiro Watanabe, his stable of writers, and Kidult Swim. The producers approached Watanabe in hopes of replicating the success of Cowboy Bebop with another sci-fi action series, to which he asked if they meant something like Space Dandy. Their response was "No, something more serious." But clearly not much more serious, given the aloof and referential hipster farce that we got. Since Lazarus will likely be compared to Cowboy Bebop because of the director, a similarly gritty visual style, a touch of jazz and other American pop music, and a cover and OP drawing fromthe older title, it is worth making a quick comparison. The Cowboy Bebop English dub was legendary in anime circles compared to the average dub of the time, but a lot of the lines in Lazarus are delivered without much conviction and often in monotone, with Eleina sounding like an actual robot; while I am by no means a Japanese dub purist, it is the superior choice here, even if the authentic westaboo vibe would suggest otherwise.
This series becomes a Team Avengers plot and a wacky race to save the world rather than being a moodier episodic offering of smaller and often better-written stories like in CB. Lazarus is semi-episodic in the sense that they are always hunting for Skinner as the days are counting down to humanity's demise. There is hardly any character development or plot progression along the way. Not all characters need development, but there is nothing about Team Lazarus' character traits, perspective, or backstory that make them compelling or memorable. Every so often, there will be some attempt at filling in a past for these dullards, mostly coming from rushed episodes like the one involving the cult or an out-of-the-blue lesbian spy subplot, which complements a prior "yuribait" scene; there is also the drama between Leland and his sister, coming too late to matter, when the world is supposed to be "ending" in a couple of days. The drama is bad to begin with, but it feels like a prank in this context. Spike was supposed to be a stoic, cool character, who knew chop socky, and the intent is likewise for Axel to dazzle the audience with acrobatics and always being the coolest cucumber in the room, though in a far more watered-down and heavy-handed fashion, to the point of being distracting. Usually, the dynamic is that Team Lazarus is trying to fashion an elaborate plan to, say, enter a secured building, but Axel struts right in and cues up a fight scene. "So cool and ironic, bro. Can't wait to see the sick action scenes. Let's gooooooooo! 😎" Yeah, you just need to turn your brain off and enjoy the action, spectacle, and eye candy. The characters and story are z-grade at every turn, and even the visuals and action pale in comparison to the director's CB or so many other anime that will continue to be mentioned again and again after Lazarus is rightfully seen as a dud and forgotten after a few seasons. In the end, what does the animation amount to other than a few parkour scenes with minimal energy and tension and a flashy, emotionless final duel with a schizo?
The Characters will goof off for a bit, get a lead, go look for Skinner, and find out everything they did for the whole episode was basically a waste of time. Yet they end up getting a clue by the end. That clue is carried over and explored in the next episode, most of which end up feeling like filler because of this formula, with there being hardly any plot progression until the last 3 or 4 episodes. Many of these leads that they get from going down various rabbit holes are either public information or obvious. For example, they get a lead before they investigate the pharmaceutical company, when that would be an obvious place to check much earlier; a smoking-hot cliffhanger reveal about a character having a connection to Skinner was easily accessible public information, and Team Lazarus being ignorant of this fact was confirmation that they were too lazy to even finish researching Wikipedia before going on adventures around the world.
Team Lazarus investigates a bunker that Skinner owned, a drug company, a homeless camp, Skinner's grandma's house for a milk and cookie break, etc. Seemingly any place that Skinner had ever been to is open for investigation, and probably even his elementary school would warrant checking if the series were any longer. The relatively self-contained episodes have plenty of surface level writing about social issues. Whether it is confronting goofball roofie rapists, a rushed episode about cult identity and AI ascending to godhood, the abuse of AI and its potential for creative and intellectual atrophy of humanity, or even the most egregious example of the hilariously cliched social commentary about how the homeless are ignored but to view them with new eyes leads to a Where's Waldo? puzzle of apocalyptic proportions being solved—try not to face palm when you immediately see something that the dunces of Team Lazarus overlook.
Part of the worldview of the creators seems to be that the end of the world will be a casual decline with few differences and people going about the daily grind as if nothing changed at all, other than a wistful soliloquy here and there, with the intent seeming to be a reflection of how people confront the political issue of anthropogenic climate change in the present: "People aren't nipping climate change in the bud in the here and now, man, so, like, people are totally cool with the world ending for real, man. It's, like, common sense, man. 😎" Oddly, rioting and social unrest are nearly non-existent, even though you would expect people to be razing government buildings or pharmaceutical corporations to the ground for having ushered in the end times. What do they have to lose? Imagine the greater impact Axel's prison break would have if the streets were swarming with rioters who were smashing windows and torching buildings, and the pigs were rushing them with riot shields and batons and falling back on tear gas and water cannons or other crowd management methods. The series' apocalyptic mood would have a more persuasive punch. All we get is a bumbling cop who has many cameo appearances, but he seldom has anything to do other than react to someone trashing a car or having a conspicuous Axel walk right past him, unnoticed; similarly, while governments actually are searching for Skinner, it is easy to forget anyone other than Team Lazarus are sniffing out his stink. The world is simply dead and ill-conceived.
Lazarus is a realistic-looking series set in the U.S. and has a trace of that kind of "mature tone" you might get from Cowboy Bebop, but it is like the little kid who smokes cigarettes, drinks beer, and curses to feel mature rather than anything close to actual maturity. Maybe the worst offender when it comes to dialogue is when we get to our first round of banter (I have rendered the dialogue verbatim) with our five mains: "This team wasn't formed for personal gain or profit." "Okay then, what's it for?" "Well... [dramatic pause] We're here to save the world." "Oh? So basically, we're superheroes." "That's cool. We're like the Avengers or something." This is like a masterclass in terrible referential dialogue! as if the Team Avengers vibe (or Isekai Suicide Squad, which is not any better) were not already obvious from episode 1. It seems like they have a quota to fit at least one cringe reference in per episode, as we get "secret agent" and "License to Kill" from James Bond/007 (7 IQ, that is), and we are spooned two helpings of the corny "Uh, layman's terms, please," to tone down technobabble. This is actual dialogue from Lazarus, and the oppressive hentai vibe sums up the experience well: "Don't look at it and just open your mouth. It's proof of our bond. Now swallow it. 🥵"
The problems with the writing are multi-faceted and not limited to the dialogue. One of the silliest things about Axel is that he is a veteran prison breaker who has been sentenced to 888 years and is like a flipping MAPPA monkey who bounces off walls, climbs up multi-story buildings, and is too nimble for the donut-sucking pigs to shoot. He should be in solitary or his hands and feet always cuffed and probably even some kind of other body restraint to keep him in check. There are all kinds of odd moments, like Leland's laughable solution to get past guards by having them foot the cleaning bill; one has to conclude that the writers were desperately struggling to find some use for Leland early on, whose main role otherwise is to play with Tonka trucks and RC helicopters. They easily find a clue at Skinner's house that the police missed without even trying, which is then forgotten about for more than half the series until the slept-on clue provides them with yet another lead. A former professor-cum-hobo known by a member of Team Lazarus just happens to have been a past colleague of Skinner and remembers some useless story about Skinner's grandma that turns out to be a hot lead. Later, Team Lazarus are attacked by a vicious gang in Istanbul and one character yelling, "We want to see grandma Skinner and eat baklava" results in a deus ex machina and plot convenience because this gang happens to know her and immediately become tame enough to roll over and have their tummies rubbed. Axel finds a camera that Skinner left inside of grandma Skinner's apartment in about 10 seconds. The scenes are often conveniences piled on top of conveniences, which should form a mountain by the end.
Since a lot of American political hot topics are incorporated, the script is obviously cartoonish, with even the original Gundam from 1979 feeling more mature in its politics. Cutting edge social commentary incoming... "Can you help us find this person?" Leading to the non-sequitur of a minor support character who does not need a backstory: "Hey, listen, I'm a bankrupt transgender woman who went to prison." All of this information could be inferred without dialogue. Then, of course, the black Pirates of the Caribbean extra, instead of asking what that has to do with anything, has to compete and insert his sob story too: "Oh, yeah? Well, back when I was an academic researcher, a guy said to me, 'There will never be a black Einstein,' and it'd be impossible for people like us to win a Nobel Prize [at least 17 blacks have won the Nobel Prize, by the way; it is true that they have not won any in the physics category, which is probably what he means, but this script is still awkward]; so, uh, guess who that guy was... he was actually the dean of the university, and I knocked his ass out, LOL." Uh huh... For social commentary to work, it cannot be this fake and lazily written, and the writer is trying to cram in too many half-baked ideas, poorly inserted pandering, and stereotypical characters who are nothing but some boohoo backstory in the waiting. People will celebrate this as "trans and black representation," but this is abysmal writing, and these are presently not even characters: They are, at their essence, walking political talking points. This is Watanabe's fumbling attempt at engaging with social commentary, like Terror in Resonance or Carole & Tuesday all over again, but many times worse and overdosing on Reddit screeching and uptalking TikTok influencers. Upon arriving at the animal testing segment, I assumed we were going to get a heavy bong hit of social commentary of the week until our eyes went bloodshot, but the writers could not care less about this issue, and I have never seen a more squeaky-clean depiction of big pharma.
The year is 2052, which is most likely a reference to Jorgen Randers' book of the same name, who was a co-author of the well-known The Limits to Growth report that was commissioned by the Club of Rome, which is relevant because the environment is the core issue of this series. Our main villain, Dr. Skinner, after a disappearance of three years, delivers a video speech to the masses, which might as well be this: "Although I'm stoked that we finally got a female president—UOOOH #I Stand With Her... Blah, blah, blah, the evil of inequality, war, and cow farts must end, so I will now reveal that the unrealistic panacea drug that I have created was laced with super secret ingredient x and has mutated, and you will all die unless you stop me. Let's play a game! Mwahahahaha!" It is hard to endure these preachy humanitarian Einstein activist/Bond villain plots nowadays, as they just keep getting worse.
Hapna, the super drug Skinner pumped onto the market, is basically like Brave New World's cure-all Soma but with a deadly twist. Watanabe's influence was the opioid epidemic, in large part spearheaded by the underhanded Sackler family, who went so far as to pay off medical journals and shill doctors to line their pockets. Instead of this potentially more interesting and complex story of pharmaceutical corruption, we have an evil genius and an incompetent FDA (and every other drug administration in the world) that failed to do due diligence with proper testing and rolled these drugs out immediately. You have to suspend disbelief for an oversight of this scale in what is effectively a global idiot plot. Admittedly, while it might seem ridiculous for so many people to be using Hapna, if you compare it to aspirin usage instead of opioids, it becomes a lot more reasonable, as daily aspirin usage is quite high, the average person probably takes at least one aspirin a year for minor things, and Hapna appears to be at least as potent as opioids but without the side effects or a need for a prescription. It is also cheap. At the very least, a massive amount of the population will die and send the world into further chaos—or maybe I should say actual chaos, since the public takes a "Keep Calm and Carry On" approach to the countdown to death. Even though there are some ridiculous things about Hapna, there are not as many holes in this piece of cheese as quite a few other parts of the plot.
It does not help that I predicted cow farts would be a motivating issue by the first episode, and it turns out the reason Skinner embarks on his dastardly scheme is because "The ice in the north pole will melt and be lost forever!" Skinner then whines and goes into hiding once everyone laughs him out of the UN, seething in his hole while he readies his plan. That is right, he has a butthurt hissy fit because the unwashed plebs are not doing anything in response to his soundbite, so his solution is global pharmaceutical genocide in hopes of getting his way. It smacks of Attack on Titans' Eren 2.0, but at least Skinner's balls have dropped far enough to go all the way... There is also the edgy opinion (and a position clearly endorsed by the writers) floating around that Skinner is a good boy, representing the change that humanity needs, but he is effectively punishing the powerless masses of the world, many of whom are too busy trying to make ends meet to worry about such bourgeois concerns. Of course, blame everyone who has no say in the matter instead of governments and corporations.
Regardless of what one thinks about this controversial topic, scientists have been casually throwing catastrophic predictions out for years, going back well before the 1960s—global cooling becomes global warming becomes climate change becomes WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE NEXT YEAR! The topic is more complex than the propagandistic way the issue is being depicted. The writer is taking a climate change idea commonly parroted in the present and applying it 27 years into the future. Problems arise from this, however, because the future the writers present is far more advanced than our time, the population is undoubtedly larger, and the carbon and other emissions must be even greater. The cited ice still has not fully melted, and humanity has yet to die in the hypothetical future 27 years from now, even after endless prophesying of doom and gloom. Lazarus is just poorly written fiction, and we should not draw any conclusions from it concerning real world issues, but this plot point not only seems to downplay the political issue from the present that the writer presumably cares about, but it is so ill-conceived that it would probably be more likely to make one question whether or not the whole thing is baloney rather than persuade. But Skinner's shining brilliance and the hokey writing is such that only he can produce a mass-adopted super drug with a hidden kill switch and not only time that with the ice caps deteriorating but accurately predict the occurrence. However, the climate change plot is mostly forgotten in favor of something else by the end, indicating the event was not that pressing after all. It seems as if the writer has no self-awareness when it comes to his pet issue, which is too speculative to make for convincing fiction.
We are immediately given dialogue to indicate how you are supposed to feel about the perspective of Skinner on climate change and whatever was presented on his Wikipedia page in this instance: "Sounds like a pretty decent guy." "Sounds too good to be true [Botox bimbo face]. Maybe he was doing some really evil stuff." As if his Hapna scheme were not enough, they have to find some other dastardly deeds in his early life. Oh, he won three Nobel Prizes and donated all of his money to charity. Whoop-de-doo and cue the Community "Ha Gay!" meme. "He was seen giving his seat to an elderly woman on the train... and helping out a homeless person... And there was this time that he tried to eat a sandwich, but then a stray dog took it away from him." "He seems like an all around good person." "The guy's practically a saint." Can I get a barf bag, please? There is example after example of this, and it becomes repetitive fast. I would think this were satire of the left-right divide in the U.S. if not for script cues looking to enshrine Skinner as a saint and ascended master.
However, what the script is initially presenting is that everything about Skinner, on the surface, is "good," but that this veneer conceals the evilest of evil bastard geniuses, which is made obvious when you realize Skinner is supposed to be an Anti-Christ figure. The comparison is not altogether different from the sympathetic portrayal of Lucifer/Satan in Paradise Lost, where Milton must have realized the best way to depict a convincing villain is to make him relatable so that you can imagine yourself being tempted to become him or to make the same choices, were your circumstances similar. Hapna is seen as a godsend, an "opium of the masses," yet this wonder-drug harbors the doom of humanity. Skinner is seen by Lazarus as being like a saint, yet the description of the Anti-Christ in the bible is that he will appear to be good as a means of deception; Skinner is also from Turkey and appears to be half-Turkish, as his first name is the Turkish Deniz. The reason that he is from Turkey is because this is one of the theorized locations for the appearance of the Anti-Christ, and Islam and the Ottoman Empire were commonly enemies of the Christian west. Gog and Magog are associated with end times prophecy, and Turkey is sometimes interpreted to be Magog. There's even a brief, subtle nod linking a prepubescent Skinner to a horseman in Israel, with the White Rider of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being associated with the Anti-Christ. The name Skinner refers to one who skins an animal, and it pertains to the surface and what is underneath, much like how Skinner appears a certain way but hides a darker nature, though this also applies to certain twists in the story as well. Nevertheless, despite the Abrahamic symbolism, this is not a supernatural story, and anyone concerned with climate change will never be depicted as the real villain in a prominent media production. While Christians often think of the Anti-Christ as an evil figure, he is part of god's plan, and, in that sense, becomes a quite tragic character.
To reinforce this tragic element, the scene in Turkey is also heavily symbolic. The red tulip derived from Skinner relates to Islamic and Turkish legends. Leland, by dressing in an Arabic thawb was not just playing the clown for a quick laugh but was meant to look like a "prince," as referenced by the young girl playing with dolls. This scene is a nod to the story of prince Farhad and Shirin. Another similar story is the Battle of Karbala, where the imam grandson of Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali, dies and is martyred. He is often referred to as the "prince of martyrs." Upon their death, the story goes that their blood seeps into the desert and gives rise to red tulips, a symbol of sacrifice—often carried out for the sake of higher causes. And what could be a higher cause than a 5D chess scheme to unify the population and have the UN enforce the Worldwide Butt Plug Filtration Act to reduce emissions? I'm speechless, and Skinner's transcendent love for humanity knows no bounds.
Aside from the reference to Lazarus, the character Christ brought back to life after 4 days, there are other references to Christianity. Axel is supposed to be a Christ figure, which might not appear obvious at first, but he frolics with the "sinners" and dregs of society (we are even taken to a homeless camp on his initiative), much like Christ; Axel is also (involuntarily) doing a good deed for humanity, much like how Christ, um, washed dirty feet, I guess? A minor point is that Axel's good luck charm is a wing, like that of an angel's, supposedly protecting him from harm, with it also being connected to creation; he wears a red shirt, and red is associated with him on the OP and one version of the cover art: The color is evocative of Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the symbolic significance of blood in religious practices. More serious points include the name Axel being derived from the Danish Absalon, which is thought to be a corruption of Absalom, a Hebrew name. One of the sons of King David is named Absalom, and the name means "Father of Peace." Christ is supposed to be descended from King David as well, even if this makes no sense in respect to the supposed "virgin birth"; speaking of which, even the desaturated ED is "pregnant with meaning," as the camera tracks through a highway of seemingly dead bodies, only for Axel to "resurrect" and stand up at the end of the road. The other hint is the symbolic 888-year prison sentence that Axel received. In certain Christian numerological or gematria circles, Christ is associated with this number.
There is also plenty of Judaic and Christian imagery as well, such as flocks of doves; the seven angels sounding the seven trumpets of Revelations, each resulting in a cascade of cataclysmic events, until the seventh ushers in the kingdom of Christ; the ugly post-post-modern crucified figure on a building that looks like the cat coughed up the Tower of Babel (on a similar note, a key multicultural location is called Babylonia!); and the dreidel in the introduction, with the letters on the four sides often thought to be associated with enemies of the Jews, such as Babylon, Rome, etc. Christine could be viewed as having a meaning like "follower of Christ," and the name is close to the word Christian. Another notable name is Hersch, the old hag leading Team Lazarus: The name has German, Hebrew, and Yiddish associations and means "deer." Quoting Psalms 42 might be the best conclusion here: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God." And Psalms 18: "He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights." Plenty of this could be overlooked because they're squishing it all into symbolism and coded references, but the writers want to make sure everyone absorbs this oh-so-deep message of a battle between good and evil on some level. They give you the secular comic book version by referencing Team Avengers. They also give you the tl;dr religious version: "I swear, Skinner is the devil incarnate..." "Well, if he's the devil, then I suppose that makes us the angels that are going to kick his ass back to hell." *The rest of Team Lazarus groan on their Zoom call.*
Ultimately, this is a hokey Abrahamic-filtered eschatological (scatological is easier to say and just as accurate) thriller in the vein of the Left Behind novel series, only it is a mixture of seinentard realism and caricatured political dystopia rather than a fantastical exploration of the Revelation prophecy, the Anti-Christ's plans, and the rapture; the Anti-Christ in LB similarly gives a speech before the UN, but he is a smoother operator than the crybaby Skinner, and the "Tribulation Force," sounding quite similar to a Team Avengers-like entity, is organized to stop him. Other than that, Lazarus has the John Wick guy choreographing fight scenes that look like Jackie Chan flipping around on a spaceship with zero gravity and toppling baddies far bigger than him, along with some zany hijinks along the way that resemble the scattered neo-noir subplots of CB, yet the action is the only remotely compelling aspect of the series, and this new "current thing" kind of political angle is unlikely to age well.
KaminL
complete and utter wash. no clue what even happened here. wait. yes i do. shinichiro watanabe is mainly known as the cool badass genius that made classics like cowboy bebop and samurai champloo, as well as underrated gem space dandy and forgotten nightmare terror in resonance. considering everybody forgot said forgotten nightmare, surely his newest production, from the same team that worked on attack on titan and the same guy that is basically about 50% of the reason why john wick is such a huge hit, will be just as legendary as his original iconic works. surely! except, this is what happens when you try tophysically manufacture a classic. it comes off as inauthentic -- strictly artificial.
watanabe has gone on record stating that, when adult swim initially contacted him to work on a new anime, his first desire was to make something more akin to space dandy: something light, and fun, and maybe a bit horny. but the big wigs over at willaims street said "eeehhh listen ichi. can we call you ichi? space dandy kinda came and went like a pleasant smelling fart. we want something thatll put adult swim back on the map. we want something thatll withstand the test of time. we want something LEGENDARY." to which watanabe said, "you want cowboy bebop?" and to which the execs nodded back, "yes." thus, watanabe was given a task, a team, and a seemingly endless well of money to do what he does best. but, much like AS similar attempt to exhume a historic gravesite with their many, many failed attempts to make flcl happen again, lazarus simply...does not work very well.
like i said, it reads as total plastic. axel is as bland of a "cool guy" mc that one can imagine. the rest of the lazarus team is...fine, i guess, by virtue of them being well designed and given just enough depth to balance out axels lack of any original qualities. of course the artwork and animation by studio mappa is quite heavenly as well, with the choreography by chad stahelski going quite well with the fast paced and flowy style theyre inconsistently known for. the best aspect of lazarus, however, has got to by the plot: the doomsday countdown. the mystery. where is dr. skinner? will the team find him in time, or are we doomed for another absolutely diabolical "platinum ending"? thank whatever gods you believe in that its nowhere near as catastrophic as that insult of an unflushed toilet was, but the monkey paw that manifested this anime curled with a sickening crunch, and instead of a show by an immensely talented and hugely successful anime director that follows a team racing against the clock to find one man before the end of the world, we get a show by an immensely talented and hugely successful anime director that follows a team...lazily completing repetitive fetch quests, as the doomsday clock continues ticking by uninterrupted, and seemingly unnoticed.
its like a video game with optional side quests which your friend is obsessively completing before proceeding with the main storyline. its infuriating. what are we doing. why are we leisurely taking little breaks when the literal fate of the world is at stake? what is the point of any of what is happening? and why is popcorn wizard so annoying? blessedly about half of these questions get answered about halfway through when the show itself questions the lazarus team by having an inquisition upon their actions like "um, are yall still looking for skinner? yes? then what was all of this other bullshit yall have been up to for the past 6 episodes? was this trip to vivis bubble tea a part of the plan?" which was fun, and actually captured my attention again briefly. but then immediately after that we fall back into more pointless b-plots that amount to nothing, lead nowhere, and end unceremoniously as we get another onscreen reminder that there are only so many days remaining until basically the entire planet gets genocided. like i hope the boba was worth it because now theres a week left and we still dont know if bro is even still alive at this point
without spoilers there is a finale, and the mystery does get solved one way or the other, but, much like everything else in lazarus, its underwhelming as hell and feels entirely half baked. the mystery and countdown is what kept me coming back for more, and watanabes style is what got me here in the first place. but if it wasnt for the team behind it, and the fact that it was inoffensive, AND the fact that i already dropped mha vigilantes prior and i had nothing else to do, im not sure idve made it to the very end of this one, yall. not bad really, just uninteresting, uninspired, and painfully forced. would never part my lips to suggest watanabe lost his touch, but i will say that that space dandy style anime that he wanted to make prior to getting basically forced to make this...probably wouldve been substantially better. ik the dandy nonbelievers hate to hear it, but that show ruled, and this one kinda drooled, so live in denial all yall want. all i know is that gachiakuta, dress up darling, panty and stocking, call of the night, dr. stone AND dandadan are all dropping in the coming weeks so i have literally zero time to waste trying to catch up on mediocre bullcrap right now so if yall aint got no sauce then im leaving the drive thru expeditiously. @ adult swim, next time, let my man cook!!!!!!
JoexySun
In summary, this anime might just be the biggest waste of a top-tier budget and a top-tier team of artists. It is, without a doubt, the most extravagantly wrapped piece of turd of an anime I have watched. The premise is interesting, and the early reception which was mostly negative did not bother me that much, as I wanted to give a show that looks so slick a chance. I should have listened to the negative early reviews. In the end, its simplistic but morbidly dragged-out story/narrative is a crotch punch to all the very talented visual designers, interior designers, futuristic engineers, Blues musicians, fightchoreographers, and the legendary Watanabe Shinichirou himself. Just go back to make more absurdist raunchy comedies like Space Dandy, Watanabe Shinichirou. Seriously. Why did you make an anime to insult yourself and punch yourself in the tenders? What is wrong with you? Why does an all-around rip-off of an anime has all the budget in the world, while more original and creative stories gets only shoelace budgets?
3/10. Stay away from this good-looking but ill-meaning piece of "postmodern art" at all cost.
It tries very hard to show you that it has absolutely nothing substantial to say. Its world-ending stakes, Bourne-ish conspiracies, and big philosophy talks about whether humanity is worth saving, in the end, amounts to a most infuriating and nihilistic passing wind.
Go punch yourself in the crotch harder next time, Mr. Watanabe Shinichirou.
Feli_Esmeralder
Another disappointment from this year's anime releases. Superficial in its themes, it shows "oh deep" themes, but without delving into them or really taking them seriously. A worldbuilding that barely holds up, and good action scenes just to show they could do it. Most episodes revolve around the team essentially doing "nothing" and making little to no progress in the plot, with minimal development in characterization and/or their relationships. The last episode was terrible, and the airport reveal makes several events in the series less meaningful, even though the formation of the eponymous group makes sense. Several characters introduced throughout the series were unintentionally unlikable (exactly, I'm nottalking about the villains), and overall, few seemed interesting, from their designs to their narrative construction.
teraphIl1000
Lazarus is a visual success: sleek animation, mature colors, pleasant (if a little banal) character design. Unfortunately, the work and care that was put in the directing of the show doesn't translate to the story, as the writing for Lazarus leaves much to be desired. The plot meanders endlessly, red herrings follow red herrings, and characters remain one-dimensional the whole way through despite meager attempts at backstory. There is a writing tip that every new writer learns pretty quickly: every sentence in your story should either advance the plot or show character. However, if one were to cut everything in Lazarus that does neither, only enoughmaterial for a 90 to 120 minutes movie would be left. What's more, the rhythm of the story is completely off: after the inciting incident, nothing of significance happens again until three quarters of the way through, where suddenly new characters (and subplots) are introduced, and the whole, sad story meets its underwhelming end.
If you've watched the trailer and want to give the show a try for the nice visuals and good music, don't. Just watch the trailer again, that'll be more fulfilling.
Silver_Kiyotaka
Seriously, You Need to Watch Lazarus If you're a fan of Shinichirō Watanabe (you know, the genius behind Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo), you've gotta check out his latest, Lazarus. It's a super slick sci-fi thriller that'll have you hooked from episode one. Plus, the action scenes were put together by the John Wick director, Chad Stahelski, and the soundtrack is absolutely killer. It's a total treat for your eyes and ears. So, What's It About? Picture this: it's 2052, and life is pretty sweet. A miracle drug called Hapna, made by this genius scientist Dr. Skinner, has gotten rid of all pain and sickness. Sounds perfect, right?Well, plot twist! Skinner, who's been MIA for three years, pops back up to tell the world that Hapna is actually a poison. Anyone who took it is going to die in three years—and the clock is ticking down, fast. So, a special team of five agents, called "Lazarus," has to hunt Skinner down and find a cure before everyone kicks the bucket.
It Looks and Sounds AMAZING
Okay, let's talk about how awesome this show looks and sounds. The animation from Studio MAPPA (the folks behind Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man) is just gorgeous—so smooth and stylish. The world itself is this cool mix of shiny future-tech and grimy streets, which perfectly fits the whole "perfect world with a dark secret" vibe.
And the action? It's insane. Since the John Wick guy designed it, you get these incredible fights that are like a mix of gun-fu and crazy acrobatics. They're not just for show, either; they actually move the story forward. And the music! The soundtrack is packed with awesome jazz from Kamasi Washington that just pumps you up during the action scenes. It's that classic Watanabe style, where the music is just as important as the characters.
It Takes a Minute, But It's Worth It
I'll be real, the show takes a little bit to get deep into the characters. The first few episodes are more about setting up this crazy situation and the mystery of Dr. Skinner. So you might not feel super connected to the team right away. But stick with it! As they get closer to finding Skinner, you really start to get who they are. The show also gets into some pretty deep stuff, making you think about society, apathy, and why pain is a part of life. It's the kind of show that sticks with you.
So, Should You Watch It?
Heck yeah! If you love sci-fi that's got style, tons of action, and a great mystery, you have to watch Lazarus. It might not hit you with deep characters right from the jump like some of Watanabe's other stuff, but the story, the visuals, and the insane action make it a total blast. It's a show that gets better and better, and the ending is totally worth the wait. If you want an anime that's smart and super cool, this is it. Seriously, go watch it.
Zontromm
What happens when rotten western minds get involved in the production of an anime? You get Lazarus. This show has been gutted and you can see it in EVERYTHING. The dark parts are not dark, the characters have been made "safe", there are the now-a-days forced "token" characters and relationships in places they make NO SENSE whatsoever, the punch lines never punch, the action never goes full hard, the scenes which should go 'that is awesome' just fizzle, the sound is flat, the colour are bland, there is nothing that is memorable and every scene is just meh. NOT once did the show grab 100%of my attention for anything.
Lazarus could have been the badass classic-adjacent of the 2020s, but it will be just another mediocre original, forgotten within a month after people saw it.
This is why western media is garbage now a days and it is now spreading to the anime industry. The Adult Swim we all loved, for shows like Robot Chicken is dead. It has been replaced and it is going down. Unless they go back to their roots, which, is never going to happen in this sanitised world of western media. Cartoon Network is done, thus is Adult Swim.
Will give MAPPA what they deserve, the animation is amazing where it needs to be. BUT the colour palatte is bland. It feels like everything was beige and boring, where it should have been INTENSE like the entire plot of limited time. Their creative freedom was shorted too.
All the main Producers need to be shoved to the side to give way to actual good talent. The Animation Producers did a good job.
- The Excecutive Producer, Jason DeMarco, needs to never be worked with again. He did a horrible job with Ninja Kamui, Uzumaki, C Danshi, Bladrunner:Black Lotus and now Lazarus
- The Producer, Joseph Chou is the same story, with only mediocre works, except a above average Kami no Tou.
Shinichiro Watanabe's direction and writing were taken and neutered. Hope he never works for a western network ever again.
Overall, the show was BAD and I hope Watanabe-san comes up with more fantastic shows without being neutered and sanitised!
RIP Keiko Nobumoto
----- PLOT BASED CRITIC WITHOUT SPOILERS -----
The character stories were incomplete. 3 of the main characters had traits which were used extrensively, the others had nothing special to them. 2 of the main characters would have had an amazing story built around them, making key events in the show work even better with emotion and tension, but that was never built upon until episode 12 with a tiny scene and even that didnt have the right emotions.
The overall world building was weak. If this wasnt sanitised, there would have been shot from world building when the boring dialogue is happening to support the main plotline of HURRY HURRY only 30 days till people start dying. Even very important people to the world were affected by this and the only thing we see is ONE scene towards to end. It felt like the rest of the world didnt exist at all.
There were multiple scenes which introduced characters which were DRAGGED. Something that should have been 30 seconds was dragged on for THREE MINUTES. While on the other than, something CRITICAL to the story and importance was shown for 10 seconds in 2 dialogues.
The multiple mini-plots all had significance but NONE were emphasised at the right moments and none made any sense when connecting the dots on the go, not even a 'they might be related'. They only made sense in hindsight. This made most of the first half of the show feel like a waste of time. The story was wasted, the tension was wasted, the characters' time was wasted, everything wasted. Thus, the final reveal which should have been 'OHHHHH, that makes sense' was instead a 'wait? that is it? the end?', which ruined the show even more.
MagnusSE
I think this is a really underrated anime series. As with any great story, it's not the end that matters, it's the journey. This one is all about the investigation and the interactions between the people. A character story that reminds me of a well written book or modern TV-series. A very grown up story, not for the impatient viewers. Personally I really enjoyed the pacing. Also, the end is not a bad one. The story is told perfectly within the 13 episodes. Beginning, middle and end. Reminds me of an early Dan Brown novel (Digital Fortress and Deception Point). It felt a bit slow atfirst, but after 3 episodes I was hooked and really wanted to know what was going to happen. And that slow ticking of the days at the end of each episode. It is really nice to really show how time is running out. We get a pretty realistic future with realistic people and a living breathing world. At first people seem to react appropriately. But halfway in people seem to have forgotten about the end of the world. And the focus of the story is on the team and the rest of the world is just skipped.
It is also blended nicely with top notch action and character backstories. The animation is amazing and the futuristic world is beautifully created. They really did not pull any punches with the budget on this one. The parkour, the fighting, camera angles, environments etc. It is just a joy for the eyes.
It's not as good as Steins;Gate, but it is definitely better than it's rating. The Coboy Beebop influences are definitely there, but this is a completely different genre. Reminds me a lot of Black Lagoon as well.
AshParth
I'm a fan of Shinichiro Watanabe's works, and I was looking forward to seeing this anime. Soon as I had gotten myself into it from beginning to end, I found this to be a mixed bag. Is it Cowboy Bebop? No. Is it Carole and Tuesday? No. Is it Samurai Champloo? No. It does have some moments, yet it does have its own problems. In 2049 where it started off as a neuroscientist named Dr. Skinner discovers a miracle analgesic drug called "Hapma" that completely relieves the user of any pain, shortly before Dr. Skinner disappears off theface of the Earth. Three years have passed, and the doctor returns to make a public announcement via online video to announce that the drug has a three-year half, and soon everyone who took the drug will die. Now it's up to a band of free agents made up of misfits, known as "Lazarus", has been assembled to locate Skinner within thirty days before the first wave of Hapna users start to die off first.
The members of Lazarus consist of Axel, a Brazillian man who was originally meant to stay in jail for three years yet keeps escaping in the most stylish way possible. Doug, a Nigerian man who specializes in intelligence and coordination for the team. Chris, a skilled Russian sun specialist. Leland, a teenage Canadian boy whose skills are best with piloting drones. Eleina, a Chinese skilled hacking teenager who is also anti-social. They get their orders from Hersch, who is actually more than who she is as the story goes on.
As we're now on the story, it's serviceable as where our main leads are globetrotting to find Skinner, yet ends on a red herring. Yeah, I guess we can already talk about some of the problems of this anime, and it's certainly the story. Well, it's not a terrible plot as you're watching Lazarus going through different missions, which are a good variety of and not as much as the structure goes. It goes from getting briefing from Hersch, going to do a mission, and ending on a red herring. Thankfully, you go to different places, and it's always amazing that you get to see what the future is since twenty-four years away from our current year. The scenery is amazing as much as how each mission goes.
As we're speaking about the animation, the animation's parkour and the action are amazing. I mean, up to the next level. Chad Stahelski, the one who directed the John Wick movies, designed the action sequences. You often wonder how John Wick could work in animation, and this anime proves it. I also like the vibe of the anime itself, as the score done by saxophonist Kamasi Washington, some DJ, and musicians Bonobo and Floating Points did an amazing job with the music. Sure, the world might end, and everyone would die, but I have to admit, the vibe kept the anime going along with the action.
Remember when I've said that this anime does have its problems? We've already talked about the story being constructed on the same pattern until later on, where the story picks up on the second half of it. The other mixed problem that I have with the characters. We do learn about these characters, how they got locked up, and their backstory. However, whether you're watching this in Japanese or in English, the characters are dull most of the time. Elaine does sound boring, yet she does grow on me a little bit as the story progresses. An episode where we learn a little more about Elaine was interesting. Kinda like a cyberpunk version of Midsummer, if you ask me. I thought Leland was tolerable until he did get on my nerves most of the time. Hell, when we got to his residence as well as learned more about him, I just couldn't care less. It may sound like I'm being cynical, but I'm just being honest. It's how their writing goes.
If you ask me who I love, I love Axel, Chris, and Doug. Their writing is great, as well as learning more about them. I do find it weird that there wasn't much chemistry between Axel and Chris since they've been working more than how they would spend their free time with one another. But I digress. Hersch is okay. Knowing more about her had me mixed for a while since there's more to what she currently does when it comes to Lazarus. The side-characters are fine as they are when they have their screen time for one episode or two. Skinner is interesting as he is the one who created the drug and warned the world as to why he had done so, which was explained in the final episode. When we get to the part where we do finally find him, it is pretty lame, in my opinion, but thankfully, the anime ended on a good note. Now for the voice acting, I think it's fine. The dialogue does get a good laugh out of me, even when it's silly on its own. Mind you, they cast are as human as you and me. I did watch a bit of the Japanese, and to be honest, I just find it the same as I have seen in English. It's up to you if you want to check this anime in Japanese or in English. Or in any language if it's available.
Speaking of, I like how, in the final shot, there was a dedication of Keiko Nobumoto in memory. I'm just a sucker for when in movies and in TV shows that anyone they'd worked with who'd passed away gets an "In memory of..." moment. Especially if that's shown in bad movies. True, this isn't up there like Cowboy Bebop or Carole and Tuesday when it comes to being a masterpiece. This isn't up there on the same level as I'd found Samurai Champloo. However, I will say this is worth checking out if you're a fan of Shinichiro Watanabe's works as long as you don't mind the story being serviceable and the characters are fine on their own despite not the best writing. As a fan of his works, I find it serviceable as a whole.
I'm gonna give Lazarus six Axel with his arms wide free fallin' out of ten. 6/10.
Cheesyb3n
I love Shinichiro Watanabe's anime, not just Cowboy Bebop, but also Space Dandy and Samurai Champloo; so when I heard about this anime, I was really looking forward to it. I'm sad to say that it's really disappointing. Unlike Watanabe's other works, the characters feel very one dimensional and don't have great chemistry with each other. Some of them feel like budget versions of Cowboy Bebop characters. I feel like I barely know anything about them, even after seeing the episodes where they got explored more in depth. The story could've been good, but the problem was that it took too long for any development.It's understandable that they couldn't have found Skinner quickly otherwise the show would've been over, but it felt like they made no progress at all through most of the show and suddenly got every lead they needed in the last few episodes. Normally I say this problem could've been avoided if the show was longer, but the structure of the show gives the feeling that they would still wait until the last minute for any developments. Some of the episodes also felt pretty poorly written or were just really clichéd. The episode on the oil rig especially felt like it could've been from literally any Hollywood blockbuster, with the twist for one of the character's backstory feeling really clichéd.
The show still had some redeeming qualities though. For starters the animation was amazing, as expected from MAPPA. The fight scenes were also really entertaining, which makes a lot of sense considering that John Wick director Chad Stahelski did the choreography for every fight in this show. The soundtrack to this show was also great, the variety of music genres by the different composers really added to it. Watanabe also managed to blend the songs well with the fight scenes as per his usual directing style.
Overall though, strong production values were not enough to save this show from being better than mediocre and the Adult Swim anime curse continues to linger on.
NkalaB
This anime is not as bad as it seems online, but there are a few valid key points that I have seen over this series. The high budget costs for marketing/hyping up the anime seemed to be better than the anime itself. Hyping up Mappa and the music producers such as Kamasi Washington and Bonobo assisted in getting viewers interested into watching. But at least, the soundtrack is a great strength or thread into Watanabe's works most of the time, but it is not as excellent as his previous works. The plot had more layers to explore as you get into the story, but it did feelrushed into some backstories of the characters, particularly Dr. Skinner. He barely did much, but his actions over everyone saved the show since he was trying to show the main protagonists what he has gone through.
The action in the series is top tier due to the efforts from MAPPA and other animation studios. The pacing of the show does get inconsistent especially with the days left to find the cure, especially after being halfway within the series.
I really enjoyed the plot twist at the end and the sticking to the theme and name of the show, which is Lazarus...to rise from the dead and fix the chaos of noise in the world. Also, add in the thread of people who were linked to Skinner, but really had no idea into the overarching plot can either help or build your enjoyment of the show depending on what you deem as enjoyable.
This show did really need another 13 episodes to be a perfect way to establish every minor mention of a character's backstory or involvement in their own pasts leading to the point of the plot of this show.
It can be recommended to beginner anime watchers, but not people who watch this medium as they will see the flaws instantly.
ZER0F00L
Around the World in 30 days meets Outbreak is a good idea on paper that is unfortunately very flawed when applied to this story. From the same visionary mind of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, its this knowledge that makes this review all the more heartbreaking when you know what they are capable of. 30 days is all the world has before everyone dies. A wonder drug that everyone took was secretly poisoned as its creator holds a psychological sermon for the entire world to find him and show humanity is worth saving. Introducing Lazarus our 5 person super agent team to trackhim down and save the world, made up of a sexy ex-Russian spy, a shy cute hacker girl, a no nonsense African American, a ditzy boy who's good with drones, and a "HE'S JUST SO DAMN COOL!" male lead protag who definitly wants to be Spike when they grow up, which leads to the first downfall of this show.
None of the characters seem real, or believable, and almost sound like they were given as notes to sell to a broader audience in the same way a Hollywood producer says "we gotta hit this demographic", that feels like the same Hollywood slop we see in every new action movie where the formula never changes, with dialogue that makes them sound like they came out of some 16 year old's forum fanfiction they wrote and posted, which leads to the next part of the writing.
The story, while the basis seems interesting enough, is held back by its very cheesy writing, and its not even skin deep approach to religion, politics, socio-economics, and government corruption, that it comes off like the aforementioned 16 year old who is totally not like other guys and knows the world is corrupt. We all acted like this when we were younger, thinking we new better, but when you hit a certain age you look back and realize you knew nothing. This isn't even good over the top writing in that way where its so bad its good, its just plain bad. Finally the actual story is so convoluted and filled with cliche's that you hit your limit at episode six and almost die of cringe, which only allowed me to continue thru cause I hoped we would now go so far downhill it would be fun, but sadly no you just continue to be on a bad roller coaster.
The animation, while beautiful, really struggles with anything not using natural or bright light, and every time a night setting or a dark corridor comes up, you feel like you're watching it thru a TV who's bulbs are about to fade out, and the only way to watch is to adjust the brightness setting on your TV. The action is solid, and if this was an anime from the early 2000's you may even say it is amazing. However there are a multitude of animation errors, clunky parts with bad CGI, which is a detriment to it as a whole, because it is a very beautiful anime when you can look past all these issues.
With their prior works you expect a banger sound track and once again you would be let down, as no singular track really stood out or will draw your attention back to the screen if you look away. It's a lot of violins and sad pianos and not much else. You half expect a fun jazzy transition here and there, which I can't even recall any particular fight music putting me in the mood to see the characters throw down to, perhaps I was to busy covering my ears from the dialogue of our main protag who again IS JUST SO COOL YOU GUYS!
It's a show I leave you to form your own opinion and I can see where it may have its own fans, just turns out that I'm not one of them. This anime sadly will not shatter or do anything different for its genre and is just fine at best. You may even call it average, but when you take it as a whole and other parts brining it down, even a mediocre story cannot bring it back from the dead.
ma1kawa11
When I found out that the Creator of cowboy bebop, one of my favorite series was releasing a new show and called it his masterpiece...I immediately added it to my watchlist. Unfortunately this show is not a masterpiece and cannot compare anywhere close to the quality of bebop. While the show was superbly animated, had good art, and a wonderful soundtrack... Unfortunately it's plot was just not good. The score I give it is purely because of that and how much of a sucker I am for good jazz. The op did that for me. Ultimately the broad plot of this show is an overglorifiedMcguffin chase that lasts thirteen episodes with faux high stakes attached. It also is unable to deliver a good ending but I will get to that soon. The world that we are set in attempts to be grounded in a supposed realistic idealized future reality, however it is very shallow in its implementation on close inspection. Technologies such as the hyperloop-like train equivalents are extremely inneficient methods of travel in terms of capacity. The writers seem to have fallen for the the fake future tech bullshit that so many people today fall for.
Most of the characters I do not have any problems with... Except for skinner who is a horrible antagonist. Lazarus fails completely at showing not telling when it comes to his character. For the entire series we do not see any of his actions from his perspective, only through others. Therefore the ultimate twist of the ending falls flat on its face because I do not care about him at all. It is fine to introduce a character off screen. Pulp fiction is I've of the best examples of this done well. However like pulp fiction you need to be able to actually see and introduce the character at some point before the halfway point so we can get a connection with them otherwise it will not work. Additionally skinner and his role as is explained in the last episode is completely unbelievable.
Lastly I want to talk about the series failure of religious imagery. Ultimately it seems that whoever was responsible for their inclusion has no understanding about Christianity and only wanted to include imagery because it had a cool name or it loosely had a plot point they wanted to take. For example take the city of Babylonia which has in it the tower of Babylonia. The writers mistook the tower of Babylonia for the tower of babel. They also tried putting it in a sort of half changed version of Babylon because the names sounded similar, ignoring that those two parts of the Bible are from very different time periods and have completely different stories accompanying them. Skinner claims to be acting as the seventh trumpet however his ideology is not compatible with someone who would make that claim. Pretty much all denominations and sects of Christianity which would interpret revelation in such a literal way are all very conservative in their interpretation of the Bible. Those kinds of people In America ( which is where this anime is set) are also normally correlated with these who deny climate change exists. This is a big plot hole in Skinner's character that is only due to the fact that someone wanted to include religions parallels because it sounded cool and without doing any proper research. Additionally, the sort of shallow reference to Lazarus... A man who Jesus raised from the dead was not lost in me... But the implementation of this in the plot was also just as disjointed as the rest. Because of this... Any critique or commentary about issues with Christianity that they writers could have been trying to to make just fell flat on its face.
That being said, if you don't care about these issues and are here for things other than a plot such as animation or action, this series is not lacking. The parkour is extremely well animated and within the city it gives off strong mirrors edge vibes. So you can enjoy the show for that. Just don't expect anything deep from the plot.
sylargbrl
– The world is screwed, let’s create chaos to mobilize everyone – (brief summary at the end) I think that regardless of whether you’ll like this anime or not, you need to look beyond that and realize that what it really aims for is reflection—on what’s happening in the world (both the anime’s world and our own). It brings attention to many real-world issues, like climate change, war, poverty, and organized crime. (+) - The fights—especially Axel’s—are a visual spectacle. There’s a lot of movement, parkour, and obviously many impossible things… but hey, it’s fiction (maybe?). - Every character has a backstory that’s gradually revealed, and it connects to howeverything began and why those five are the ones working on the Lazarus Project.
- Maybe the fact that there’s no preexisting manga could be a drawback in some cases, but they’ve handled it...well.
- The ending song is amazing.
(–)
- I think some storylines could’ve been stretched out across the whole series. At times, it felt like they gave too much importance to something that only lasted two episodes—without any clear reason. Maybe if the season had 15 episodes, they could’ve explored these things more.
What will you find in this anime? Action, drama, maybe a few tears, maybe you’ll see yourself reflected in one of the characters. And a mystery that does get solved, even if the ending feels a bit rushed.
nocturnesx
Lazarus puts forward a particularly interesting premise from the very beginning, and it is a show that mixes action with investigation, maybe even more of the latter, so those looking for some hardcore action might find it underwhelming. Music was a certified bop also. Although it felt a bit lacking in some aspects, the show is thought-provoking and slightly philosophical too (more depending on how deeply one thinks about it), especially since the world and problems aren't so different from ours. Wish it was a bit more fleshed out as a longer series, but there is symbolism, there is music, action & faith in (or lackthereof) humanity. May not be for everyone, but a short show that was most definitely an interesting and worthwhile watch.
YamiLoon
Lazarus makes a strong impression right out of the gate, with its dazzling visuals, cinematic action, and a unique futuristic setting brought to life by MAPPA and director Shinichiro Watanabe. It’s a stylish, high-octane ride with a pulse-pounding soundtrack and some of the slickest fight choreography ever animated, thanks to John Wick’s Chad Stahelski. What Lazarus does best is deliver a sensory experience; every episode looks and sounds amazing. The jazz-infused electronic score, paired with fast-paced action and gritty urban landscapes, gives it a distinctive flavor that fans of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo will recognize, though Lazarus definitely follows its own path. However, the show isn’t flawless. Theearly episodes struggle with pacing and character depth.
We’re introduced to the core group quickly, but emotional investment takes time, and not every character gets the development they deserve.
Dialogue can feel stiff at times, and the plot, while intriguing, sometimes leans on familiar tropes without pushing them further.
That said, Lazarus eventually finds its rhythm.
The stakes grow, characters evolve, and the narrative starts to pay off. While it may not reach the emotional heights of Watanabe’s best work, it’s still a bold, stylish, and entertaining ride that deserves credit for what it aims to do.
A must-watch for fans of stylish action, killer soundtracks, and futuristic dystopias. Just go in with tempered expectations, and Lazarus will reward you.
Karrr
The first issue was that everyone compared it to Cowboy Bebop. The second issue is that everyone somehow just... Glossed over the whole point of the story? It's really weird how a story that calls out complacency and ignorance of world issues for pleasure gets called "one of the worst animes made" and "mindless slop" simply because it wasn't as eye-catching or action packed as a previous work of the director. Almost as if the story talked about having wrong priorities. Really weird stuff 🤔 The muted colors? The flat voice acting? It's almost as if the story is MEANT to portray a bleak world wherenobody really seems to care about anything. Because they don't care. It's a story about nothingness and the problems that comes with nothingness.
It has its flaws, but it's really not as bad as people are saying it to be lmfao. Watch it with an open mind and don't compare it to anything else. It's entirely different stories.
