So…. look at me reviewing anime on this site again, eh? Well, I picked the right one to do it.
Yep, looks like we got another Shinichiro Watanabe project in our hands, and like Space Dandy, this one landed on Adult Swim as a part of their Toonami Originals. Hearing about another Watanabe anime always gets me excited to tune in every week, plus hearing most of the staff involved also piqued my interest. Of course, given how this is a Toonami original, this generated some concern on social media, given how quite a handful of the recent Toonami originals wound up with mixed to negative reception.
However, I’m very curious about this will do. Let’s get into it!!
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?
Something about the plot and how many episodes in total had me questioning things a bit – it runs for 13 episodes, and I do feel like it should’ve been longer. At least, that’s what I thought of at first. However, the more I think about it, I can see why: the thing is that Lazarus has a month to find Skinner with no real time to waste, so I get why it runs that long. Not to mention they didn’t just dawdle around and goof off in the majority of that time, but I do wish that we got more episodes to flesh out some of these smaller plots. There were some mishaps and dangers that they encountered along the way (even in the start of the series when Lazarus was looking for Skinner in the 2nd episode), but there’s never something that feels superfluous. Each mission felt like they had a clear objective to accomplish, and they waste no time getting to it. There’s also Hapna, the miracle drug that ended up turning into a killer and you think that with that revelation, people would be rioting in the streets, causing chaos and tearing up shit and… not really.
While there was a lot of stuff going on like the stock market going down to a new low (yeah…..), most went through life as normal, waiting until they either dropped dead or if they found a cure for Hapna: some just see that they might as well embrace death as some lives were not living that great in the first place – a feeling that most people often have about themselves. The presence of doom is still there as we always glimpse the number of days they have left until humanity collapses, which is never really overblown or over-dramatized for shock value. Honestly, it’s not that far off from real life: we’re able to go through life as normal despite facing horrible things. The show’s pace is quite steady, nothing feels so slow that I want them to hit the gas, nor too fast that I don’t get to enjoy the moment of what’s happening.
Now let’s meet the team! First there’s Axel Gilberto, a 23-year-old who racked up a beefy jail sentence, going from 3 years at first to a whopping 888 after numerous escape attempts (it was originally on a minor charge). At first I figured that he would be the jokey smarmy badass type, but while he does joke around from time to time, he manages to have some moves and wit to him without taking it to a degree where he’s unlikable. He does kick some ass and his fight choreography is some of the best in this show. I have to applaud Chad Stahelski, known for directing the John Wick films and being Keanu Reeves’ stunt double in The Matrix, who did the action design/choreography for the show. Every fight scene with Axel feels so kinetic, energetic and amazing to watch. It’s probably the most excited I’ve been watching an action anime recently.
Let’s get back to the other characters! We also have Doug, the coordinator of the team. He’s the one that stays cool, calm, and collected under pressure; thinking about it, with him being a black character, I’m glad they made Doug that way because not every black character needs to be loud and obnoxious, but I will say out of the five main people, he’s the least fleshed-out of the group. Like we do get some background about his time in college majoring in physics and even looking up to Skinner as a role model, but that’s mostly it; he’s still a good character overall. Christine aka Chris is the badass chick type, and you know what? I accept it! She’s pretty cool in here and really knows her way around firearms. To some of the younger members of Lazarus, she plays like a big sister-type and honestly, I do love the dynamic around the team — in one episode, they were going on about their ages, and Chris guess that Doug is 40-something and he feels insulted. Like “40? REALLY!?” Moments like that are the small things that makes me like this show so much. There is also a mystery regarding Chris’ past life in Russia, and without going into spoilers: yeah, that was pretty rough.
Next we have Leland, the one who’s skilled in piloting drones. At first, he seems likely to be a smart-ass when first introduced, but as we find out more about him in each passing episode, he’s actually quite charming. There’s also episodes where he’s clearly not exactly made to fight like the other three considering he either runs or has to cross-dress in a club (yes that’s an episode). As for the last remaining member, we have Elaina: the youngest member of the crew and a world-famous covert hacker known as “Mad Screamer”; and yes, she’s the quietest one out of the group — I can relate. However, you do learn her backstory involves her old family being in a cult that worships an AI it’s called (and I’m not kidding) NAGA. Yes, NAGA. Make that if you will. Oh, and even though this person is a minor character, there’s also a rival hacker nicknamed Popcorn Wizard who’s actually a cool character. Yes, she only appears a couple of times, but I loved the “friendly rivals” dynamic between her and Elaina. You can see parts of her almost like Ed from Cowboy Bebop while still being her own character.
As for other characters, you have their commanding leader Hersch Lindemann. She’s sort of the Amanda Waller-esque character, especially considering she makes them wear bracelets that you can’t take off that’ll kill you if you step out of line. So almost like The Suicide Squad (yes, the James Gunn movie). Why? Because if I’m going to compare them to the Suicide Squad, it’ll at least be the good movie! Soryu, an assassin hired by a couple of guys from INSCOM, plays a part in the latter half of the series (mostly being hired to eliminate Axel); there was a few things in his past involving a government program called Hundun, and while it does get talked about a little, it’s near the end of the series so it’s not as in-depth.
While the action is thrilling and exciting to watch, I can’t help but love some of the smaller moments in here when it’s not focused on the action. A great example would be Episode 7, where they were looking into land that Skinner purchased. While that happens, you see how beautiful and mesmerizing the show looks, as well as how peaceful and serene the world seems at that moment. Usually when we see or hear MAPPA helming an anime production, it often inspires dread even if the show turns out good. But lately, MAPPA hasn’t been on the brain (or at least, my brain for what shows they’re animating) and they did an excellent job on the animation. Everything feels very kinetic like a painting coming to life, and it is stellar!
Of course whenever I watch a Shinichiro Watanabe anime, I also expect some great music, and they succeeded at bringing some stellar artists in here. Enter jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington alongside producers /DJs Bonobo and Floating Points to do the score. I know the temptation’s there to compare this to Cowboy Bebop, but while some influence from that series is here, the music still stands as it’s own thing and it’s pretty great. The main opening “Vortex” is the reason to not skip intros: the energy, the way Kamasi plays on the sax, and the climax… this is what anime openings should aspire to be. I did talk about the soundtracks on the Decibel Boost Album Roundup for April (both audio and written form) so I’ll just do a short version here: Kamasi has the jazzier parts handled, Floating Points does has bits of electronic but mainly leans into jazz beats, and Bonobo’s tracks have more of a world music feel (mainly filtered through ambient and trip-hop). I will say for a negative, the ending track “Lazarus” by The Boo Radleys, is just meh to me. Like the song is decent and I don’t feel like skipping it but it’s not something that ever wowed me compared to the rest of the series. “Dark Will Fall” and “Beyond the Sky” made some great insert songs, especially with the latter used in the introduction of Soryu.
Like many, I watched this on (HBO) MAX the day after it aired on Toonami. I watched the English dub, and this is another instance of a Toonami original using Sentai Studios to dub one of their titles. Yeah, maybe it started off a little iffy but it’s still a decent dub overall. I liked the performance of Jack Stansbury as Axel, I liked Jovan Jackson voicing Doug, and I got to give it to Luci Christian as the voice of Chris, as she does shine in some episodes (especially Episode 8).
Usually, this is where I sum up my opinion of the anime overall but I wanted to add something else in here and that’s regarding the broader perception of Toonami originals. Like I said earlier, it’s no surprise that most of the Toonami originals (especially after the Crunchyroll split), have received a very mixed reception, especially with the previous entry being Uzumaki, alongside other recipients like Ninja Kamui, Shenmue, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, Fena: Warrior Princess and the many FLCL sequels (possibly moreso Grunge and Shoegaze). The thing is… speaking for myself, most of them weren’t all that bad. In fact, I might liked some of those titles; the worst of them all is no doubt Uzumaki but even that was more ‘meh’ than bad to me. I’ve stated this elsewhere, but none of them ever ended up on my Worst of lists in prior years. I felt like Lazarus was going to be received in a similar way, and my hunch was correct
Although, I will say the user ratings hasn’t been a huge disaster. They mostly average in the 70% range or scoring a 3.5/5 or 7/10 on most anime database sites like MAL, AnimePlanet, Anilist, etc. to say the least, and while it’s been divisive, they has been some positive words coming from viewers on social media, with even some fan art here and there. It garnered attention with a nomination for the ASTRA Awards for Best New Anime (however, that award went to Dragon Ball Daima), it’s doing well on HBO MAX (sometimes popping up in the top 10 numerous times), and even doing well on iTunes — granted, iTunes isn’t exactly the grand-all of selling anime but hey, it helps. Also, you’ve probably heard of the saying that “Social Media Isn’t Real Life?” Yeah, that applies here, too, since I think people have sometimes taken their negative thoughts of the show as a basis to say that most of the Toonami originals have been objective flops but it isn’t always the case. I’d argue that the Crunchyroll original anime experiment was relatively worse on average with projects like Tower or God, Tonikawa, Noblesse among others, as well as the CR Original brand being pretty much dead. At least Toonami Originals are still thriving, especially with everything going on with Warner Bros. Discovery nowadays.
But that’s my piece on that topic. As for the show itself…
I’d say that Lazarus is one of the best anime to come this year so far. It’s not only the best action anime but just one of the best shows in general. Now some might disagree on that, and that’s fine. I get it, it’s your opinion and all, but you’re probably still wondering why I’d say it’s one of the best in spite of noting its flaws.
Because… we rarely get anime like this anymore. Something about this show feels special, like an event. Granted, yes I’m showing a bias here because I’ve liked the director’s work in the past, but in my opinion, he has never let me down and he still hasn’t.
Other action anime has been so bland and lifeless as of late, as most of it is shonen-aimed shows involving overpowered heroes with no personality besides being the best, plots that go on forever to the point where you stop caring about them, making the villains even more overpowered that the fights have gotten staler the more it goes on, etc.. I never had that problem with Lazarus. When there’s a fight happening, I stick to the screen and watch in awe. I see characters, both protagonist and antagonist, take some hits and I never got bored with it. The calmer moments of this series got me invested in the show as much as the action and yeah, some moments I didn’t care for that much but that’s like 10% of it, probably less.
This is an anime that everyone is not going to be on board with, but it delivered on being an entertaining treat and it’s something I would recommend, especially to people outside of anime. This might have more outside appeal that’ll get people hooked.
LAZARUS is available to stream on HBO MAX and Hulu (with the Hulu/Disney/Max subscription tier); it currently aired on Adult Swim’s Toonami block.