Lazarus

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.

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.

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.

I'm loving this show man the concept ,the story ,the lore they are giving little by little ,the animation, the sound design and the action is great too it's grounded but it's good you know and also they have given some thoughts on world building it's looking good man and the vibe of the show is really cool the character's are likeable you know the main character has some mystery to it and the side character are interesting too i wanna see them how they all come together as a team looking forward to it.

So yeah if you wanna watch something good ,something new it's for you.

And i don't know why people are not liking the show, i mean i get the not liking part you know everyone has different taste but just fully hating the show not justify.