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Lazarus, the upcoming original anime by Mappa, has gained a lot of traction already pre-debut. The anime has a lot of big names involved, which has convinced fans to add it to their Spring 2025 anime watchlist. Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop, is the director of Lazarus, giving it a huge impetus.

Watanabe has also directed Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy and other popular anime. Since he is also the writer of Lazarus, fans are excited about the series, and for good reason.

Lazarus‘ new visual proves that the anime is using nostalgia to its advantage

A new visual for the Lazarus anime is out, and fans have unitedly claimed that it reminds them of Cowboy Bebop. The visual highlights the main characters in different colored backgrounds. Cowboy Bebop also used pop colors in its animation and visuals, which have become iconic.

RelatedConnection to ‘Cowboy Bebop’ and John Wick Is...

It’s Musicals Week at IndieWire. With “Wicked” about to sparkle over theaters, we’re celebrating the best of the movie-musical genre.

It was the fall of 2018, and for a week or so, my co-writers, producers, and I were on a pitch tour, taking our idea for an original film musical around to every major studio in Los Angeles. As part of our pitch, we played a few sample compositions to give backers an idea of the vibe of music featured in the film and even sang a bit of one of the songs we planned on incorporating into the script.

For my collaborators and I, this was always a crucial element in getting our story across — this was a Musical, guided by song and informed by our characters’ taste and appreciation of the form. And every time my co-writers would burst into a duet as I narrated the circumstance,...

This week on The Anime Effect: Cosplayer, influencer and Satoru Gojo enjoyer Lena Lemon joins Nick and LeAlec as guest host to chat with fighting game commentator Tyrant about Dragon Ball games, while Evo champions Justin Wong (JWong) and IFC Yipes intimately describe their love for Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma . Episode 24 of Crunchyroll Presents: The Anime Effect is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your podcasts! If you're waiting to watch the video episode, it'll be live on Crunchyroll and YouTube at 7 p.m. Et. Listen or Watch on: Episode 24 Summary Nick, LeAlec and Lena Lemon chat about the brand-new Dragon Ball Daima trailer and which characters they want to see in the Honkai Star Rail x Fate/Stay night collab before diving into the deep connection between anime and the fighting gamer community with Tyrant, IFC Yipes and Justin Wong. All that and more,...

Film critic Andrew Sarris changed his profession forever when he introduced, to English-speaking cinephiles at least, the concept of “auteur theory.” The general conceit is that some rarified directors are so gifted, or commanding, in their control over the process of film production that they alone can give a film a “personal or unique stamp.” They are the ones who become the author of the movie you’re watching. If anyone. It’s a seductive theory which encourages the critic to look for points of narrative, visual, or thematic similarity between a filmmaker’s work. The more ideas or images that rhyme, the potentially more impressive the auteur’s command over the medium becomes.

However, while it is hard to dispute the existence of auteurs, the concept at times devalues the contributions of a film’s many other collaborators—especially if they’re, say, editors, production designers, or cinematographers a...