Lazarus

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.

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.

"LAZARUS" is set in the future, where the NSA "hired" a group of talented and skilled people, in order to track down Skinner, the creator of a drug that once taken does not let you fall sick. However, this pill contains a toxin that will cause the death of anyone that ingested it. The only person that has the vaccine is the doctor that disappeared. Hence, an international manhunt starts against time, in order to obtain the cure before humanity is completely wiped out. The premises are simple and straight-forward. All the different missions involving the task force are set in different parts of the world. There are episodes set in more exotic locations such as Turkey or Pakistan, but also in cold and inhospitable environments like Antarctica, adding a lot of variation.

The series shines especially on the action sequences, which are dynamic and overall well directed. We can see shootouts and bare hand fights accompanied by energetic electronic or jazz music. Watanabe did a good job with Axel that has the most compelling combats, thanks to his acrobatic abilities and the capacity of always finding a way to escape the most deadly situations. Overall all the characters have their own peculiarities and personalities, and even if they all fall into well defined tropes, they all have something unique that make this group engaging. Every single member of Lazarus served a specific purpose and actively contributed to progress the investigation, complementing each other. My favourite characters were Christine and Doug. The first is the perfect balance of a sensual and skilled agent that manages multiple times to trick others into giving out crucial intel, while the latter is practically the critical brain of the group that handles all the logistics.

On the other hand, I have to say that the plot overall feels lazy and uninspired. Certain dynamics are very predictable. The screenwriter played it safe, but this also means that there is very little on this TV show that stands out. It seems to watch the umpteenth spy story involving yet another global crisis. We have plenty of those and there are productions that made it way better than "LAZARUS". What saved the show were the characters that, as I mentioned before, have some unique peculiarities. Moreover the ending felt rushed and quite disappointing, with everything explained in the very last minutes of the 13th episode. All the efforts to create an international web of conspiracies and subterfuges was ruined by the fact that the story needed to be wrapped as quickly as possible. Clearly the series required a few more episodes to go full circle, maybe even a full second season, especially considering that the episodes do not even last 30 minutes. My final rate is 6.5.

It was a good show that explored similar themes of loneliness, much like Cowboy Bebop. The animation was solid-Mappa, as always, delivered incredible work. However, I felt the story lacked depth. While the characters' backstories were touched on, there were still many unanswered questions, and I didn't really connect with any of the characters, not even Axel. Given that Cowboy Bebop had twice the number of episodes, that's understandable. I wouldn't call this a bad anime, but I wouldn't say it's a great one either. If you're after action, good animation, a strong soundtrack, and themes similar to Cowboy Bebop, you might enjoy it. I hope that if there's a season 2, we'll see stronger character development.