Lazarus

I watched anime when I was in middle school and I put this on every Saturday night, and.... it's terrible. It feels like a poor man's attempt at writing a Call of Duty campaign (replace Makarov with Skinner) but it's so weeb-ish.

Every episode is essentially -mission briefing -villain of the week that's somehow connected to the big bad (just like Call of Duty) -2d flat character making 2d flat jokes -the choppiest fight scenes ever -villain of the week losing for being a misogynist and giving info that leads to the next mission.

It's like when you go to anime move in theater and all the nerds laugh at unfunny jokes, this is what watching this feels like.

I was more of an Outlaw Star than Cowboy Bebop fan anyway.

I would give it a 5, but I like Eleina.

Edit I'm watching the cult episode. Holy Jesus.... It's like the writers watched "Top 10 scary cults" vid on YouTube and wrote characters based on it.

It's like someone gave the writers the cult episode from the simpsons family guy South Park and king of the hill and told them to give their own modern take on it.

Except there's no modern take and they somehow made the the take more flat and outdated then something from the 90s and a cartoon.

An interesting series from which I expect a lot in terms of animation and entertainment.

Firstly, because the technical team is of high quality and it's a MAPPA production.

Although the first 2 episodes are easy to watch, the series doesn't escape the flaws of current productions:

• A basic scenario if you're a fan of Japanese animation that's afraid of going too far.

• a main character who's impossible to stop (prison, technology, policeman...) but a girl comes along! We know where this illogic comes from...
• a bunch of kids more intelligent than the population as a whole...

Given the media hype, I hope the anime will have the guts to take off beyond the usual mediocrity of series with an American touch.

To be continued...

Within seconds of watching the first episode, the abysmal voice acting was apparent, and not just from one or two characters but across the board. It's very obvious that they did not give the English voice casting an adequate budget. What's shocking about this is the fact that this series was created by the same guy responsible for Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, two of the best voice acted anime series ever created, but this show has bad voice acting even for an average anime.

Aside from that, Lazarus is extremely derivative and has a boring/generic setting. The whole premise of the show (so far, anyway) seems like it was thought up in a matter of minutes. It honestly feels like Watanabe is just kinda over making anime, and this was something he did simply because a really good offer came along.

Definitely don't go into this series expecting something on par with the likes of Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. It's nowhere even close to that level of overall quality or artistic vision.

I like this show, but it lacks the real depth Of his past animes, like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, it's about middle of the road good. The characters don't get explored enough, and it doesn't have the intensity. All in all, it fell short of expectations. I was so hyped when this was announced, and now it's already been forgotten. Maybe Watanabe just doesn't have what he used to when he was younger when it comes to creativity? Honestly, that's what I get from watching this series. It's not terrible. It's not great either.

Cool concept, great music, solid animation, but the writing is abominable. Some of the worst dialogue ever recorded for animation. Characters are just inscrutable with near-incoherent motivations. Even when they explain their choices and motives, which is what they spend most their time talking about, the logic is flimsy at best.

I kept watching just to hear more from Kamasi, Bonobo, and Floating Points and to see if the story would ever make sense. There are moments, but way too few. The payoffs have weak setups, sometimes none at all. Sometime a plot line seems to set up something but goes nowhere.

Bottom line: almost all style, minimal substance.