Lazarus

I finally finished Lazarus today after watching Episodes 12 and 13, pleased to say it ended beautifully. One of the coolest, satisfying anime endings you'll see in recent days.

While the premise of tasking a young but able crew to find a an ingenious scientist that holds the cure to his own fatal creation which has doomed humanity in 30 days seems an intriguing premise, the lack of style one would expect from a Shinichiro Watanabe anime (as he has somewhat proven with his previous anime animated at MAPPA "terror in resonance" in 2013), makes for a dull lackluster first half of the show, since he chose the story over visual uniqueness.

The melee combat action was good but at times felt like an add-on to the focus of the show. The choice of music in most scenes was really good, especially to note is the synthesizer music used at end of Episode 7 "Almost Blue" which was soo foreboding and heartrending.... Also noteworthy is the international locations the cast visits especially Islamabad!

The girls Christine, Eleina were very pretty, cute and hot but the main character, Axel, drives the badass action of the show and his faceoffs in the last episodes with a rival were enjoyable.

Its not the most mind-blowing TV show around but it was worth watching and you definitely will want to stay to see this "find me before time runs out" story play out. 11:45am 1.7.2025

*SPOILER FOR EPISODE 13* I feel sad for Dr. Skinner he really was a kind old homeless man till the end... And everything made sense when they revealed what happened to him at the airport. Mrs. Hersch crying for him was so pretty, she really did love him. And the music waning down and Axel laying on the couch in the barber shop with the cat... That was one of the most poignant, hearttouching, coolest anime endings I've ever seen 😭 11:02am 1.7.2025.

Lazarus doesn't really do anything unique or mind-blowing. Like his previous works, the protagonist on a wild goose chase in search of something. In this case, he's in search of a doctor who holds the only cure for a medicine that will eventually kill everyone who took it ever. The premise is actually pretty tame, realistic, and contained compared to other Watanabe's works. The characters aren't really standouts, even the protagonist. I would say it's worth the watch if you like his other works Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, Samurai Champloo but Lazarus honestly falls short of all of these titles by far. The dubbing also isn't good and breaks the gloomy vibe. I'd suggest the sub if you really want to not break immersion because sometimes the English VA is just...bad. The soundtrack, as per usual from Watanabe, delivers. The score during most scenes helps enhance the gloomy aesthetic that it's going for. Not a bad work by any means but it's not a must watch either.

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.

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...