Lazarus

The year is 2052—an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity prevails across the globe. The reason for this: mankind has been freed from sickness and pain. Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has developed a miracle cure-all drug with no apparent drawbacks called Hapuna. Hapuna soon becomes ubiquitous... and essential. However, soon after Hapuna is officially introduced, Dr. Skinner vanishes.

Three years later, the world has moved on. But Dr. Skinner has returned—this time, as a harbinger of doom. Skinner announces that Hapuna has a short half-life. Everyone who has taken it will die approximately three years later. Death is coming for this sinful world—and coming soon.

As a response to this threat, a special task force of five agents is gathered from across the world to save humanity from Skinner’s plan. This group is called "Lazarus." Can they find Skinner and develop a vaccine before time runs out?

(Source: Adult Swim, edited)

Axel Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Eleina Main

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Christine Main

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Leland Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Doug Main

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Skinner Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Police Officer Supporting

Lisa Supporting

Satake, Uki Japanese

Lindemann, Hersch Supporting

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Homeless Area Resident Supporting

Chou, Joseph Producer

Matsunaga, Masato Producer

Watanabe, Shinichirou Director, Script, Storyboard, Original Creator

Tobita, Tsuyoshi Episode Director

Reviews

May 18, 2025

suape

Recommended

Preliminary (7/13 eps)

I AM A LAZARUS APOLOGETIC.

plenty people parrot profusely peering past the plot’s purpose.

Preconceptions of how this show "should" feel like, cloud the judgement and enjoyment of so many—sad face.

Plot - This is a story we have all seen before—it's just someone's take on how it looks -> I think it's great.
The world these characters are in is literally just us + 30 years; so, yeah, I guess I understand how that can feel stale (I mean it's not like they're adding any plot device that is too crazy), but it feels nuts to fault them for it. Especially if it's because of some ... expectation of a hype show.
You know what this show is to me? Call of Night + Le "Bebop" Formula + sprinkles of "the writers read brave new world". I quite like that. I n f a c t -> I have been WAITING for something like this. There is something so comforting about a show that can transport you away and make you feel "CHILL". It's like Cowboy Bebop "Toys in The Attic" episode type vibe — I hope you know what I mean. It's chill, the underlying plot is everyone is going to die, it's chill, these guys are secret agents and there's plenty of fights, i t ' s c h i l l , there's robots and planes and explosions, BUT -> it's chill. You know?? I really, REALLY, dig that.

Character Designs - This is where I kinda understand where people are coming from—but not because of what you think, look: you see some character, slap "oh so this is Faye" / "this is spilke" / this is x, y, z... my man. That is missing the plot. Let it flow dude, you have NO idea who ANY of these characters are. There is no depth yet, and I mean SHOULD THERE BE? Like, I know we quickly can identify characters in trigun, shamploo, and cb since we've likely seen them multiple times over :: BUT :: how quickly did you get to understand their complexity, respectively ?? I understand that it might be going slow in understanding who these people are, and I mean ... TBH ....... they could mess up here .... they cooouuuld mess up; I might be DEAD wrong .... but, I think we'll get to appreciate their depth over more episodes if we just give it time and not slap other character molds into fresh batter.

Art/Animation - Fights are amazing. Animation is great. Not the prettiest/polished thing you will EVER see, but it looks great on the bigscreen.

Dialogue - The dialogue is literally how people talk. If you think you some dudes sound cool 24/7 -> no. It's quite calming. It gets annoying when they use some tech jargon, but I don't mind it not being perfect.

Music - Nice tunes, lots of replay value. Music plays quite an important role in how episodes feel like -> it feels more than just atmosphere.

I will say it again:

By looking at this show through a lens of what you think it aught to be, you will NOT enjoy it.

Just let it f–l–o–oooooooo–oooooww please trust me let it flow.

Like -> There are 6 minutes
!!!SIX MINUTES!!!
of the characters just chillin around for 6 minutes
!!! SIX MINUTES !!!
in episode 7. I LOVED EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF the 6 minutes.
!!! SIX MINUTES !!!
They're just chilling! Plot is super slowly progressing underneath yes, but, in the foreground they're: CHILLING for 6 minutes.
!!! SIX MINUTES !!!
I mean that's amazing right there. SO amazing.

watch it :P

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 30, 2025

anu17_

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (4/13 eps)

lazarus reveals the rot: western ideology grafted onto japanese form. what was once escape becomes sermon. art collapses under the weight of imported moralism.

visually strong, but narrative integrity is sacrificed to deliver surface-level political commentary. characters are thin, often reduced to identity tropes. dialogue leans on cliché and forced relevance. plot moves by convenience, not consequence. western influence overrides japanese storytelling, resulting in a confused, hollow product.

summary: lazarus is a technically competent but narratively compromised work, emblematic of what happens when external agendas override artistic integrity. not recommended for those seeking serious or original science fiction storytelling.

as for the generalities required by the site:

the story ... lacks originality, relying on well-worn dystopian tropes with heavy-handed political commentary. while the art style is polished and fitting for a sci-fi series, it doesn’t compensate for the lack of depth in the writing. characters are shallow, defined by their political roles rather than any meaningful development, and their actions often feel forced to serve the narrative’s agenda rather than react naturally to events. i suspect viewers looking for meaningful storytelling or nuanced characters will find this series lacking, but those who enjoy action-heavy, surface-level plots might still engage with it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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May 18, 2025

DoctorEmo

Not Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (7/13 eps)

Absolutely boring series where nothing happens, nothing matters and every episode wastes 23 minutes of your limited time on Earth.

Hapna, the magical painkiller, is going to kill the ultimate pain: Humanity. Anyone who took the drug is going to die in one month. The show tells you this multiple times, with a countdown timer after every episode and the characters constantly restating the premise. You would never be able to tell this is the case. Everyone in the show carries on like it's business as usual. No riots, no looting, no desperate mass-suicides.

The show never tells you how many people took the drug, or ... what percentage or portion of the world's population took it, but they imply it was the vast majority of them. 90% of the population, more or less. You're telling me that almost everyone on Earth is going to die in 30 days and they still feel like going to work? Going to their museum job open, airlines still flying? It doesn't feel like anything is at stake.

This lack of stakes or any real sense of urgency is carried over into the episodes themselves. Each episode is a slow, plodding, meandering waste of 20 minutes. Each episode starts with the characters discussing their next move to find Skinner. Then the episode trudges on with a lot of "vibey" scenic shots with subpar jazz music. Nothing happens, then at the end they find that the thing they were chasing was a red herring. Repeat for 6 episodes.

The characters are blank slates. Axel is an unstoppable god who can get out of any situation. He's never in anything resembling danger. You could throw him into an active volcano and he'd parkour his way out and not even break a sweat. His superhuman abilities make the action in the show feel even less consequential. There's a hacker girl who just hacks and does magic with computers finding things that don't matter, there's a boy whose entire character is that he is boy. There's a woman, who is trying to be Faye Valentine but failing miserably. She has no personality other than mildly snarky at times and she does the Watanabe face. There's black man, whose entire character is staring at nothing. He has the only bit of backstory so far, in which he beat up a professor. He's probably the only one with any real motivation, his whole reason for finding Skinner is probably because he's a professor he hasn't punched yet.

The visuals are mediocre. Everything is brown, gray and beige with that overly clean digital look a lot of modern anime have. There's no real soul or direction here, other than generic future and CGI. Tons of CGI. A ridiculous amount of it.

The animation is made to be admired by people who know nothing about animation or people 16 and under. The action is rotoscoped, with no real sense of weight or timing. It's like they traced over footage of poorly coreographed fights, paying no real attention to how the movements would look when drawn. There is very little in the way of anticipation, exaggeration or follow-through. It's very stiff and lifeless, with every punch and kick having most of their frames evenly spaced, making them look slow and floaty. Most of the actions lack good, clear posing. They just slap a few floaty 2D characters and put the camera on a tilt-a-whirl, spinning around them as they slide all over poorly composited 3D backgrounds like the jittery special effects in the Nostalgia Critic's intro.

I can say all I want about it, but the worst thing about this show is that it's boring. I was hate-watching it with a few friends, laughing at it, but the laughable moments are too few and far between. For each elevator fight scene, where the characters are morphing all over the screen and ending up in inhuman poses, we have hours worth of boring, static shots where characters openly state the most boring doomsday theories ever. The polar ice caps are melting! Oh no! Who cares? They don't even get into the fun theories. No one is getting mind-controlled by 5G or getting turned into grey goo by a swarm of microbots.

Maybe Skinner was right, we ought to call it a day.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Lazarus Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) IzanaSolos - Apr 26	133 replies	by KingNotSkilled »» 13 minutes ago
	Poll: Lazarus Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) IzanaSolos - Apr 19	290 replies	by KingNotSkilled »» 49 minutes ago
	Poll: Lazarus Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) IzanaSolos - Apr 12	169 replies	by KingNotSkilled »» 2 hours ago
	Poll: Lazarus Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) XArceusX - May 17	97 replies	by KiliianSleipnir »» 7 hours ago
	Just me, or is conversation incredibly stiff in this series?? oppaigamer - May 20	7 replies	by traed »» 9 hours ago