https://blacknerdproblems.com/lazarus-review/

Shinichirō Watanabe is responsible for some of the best anime of the last three decades. 

Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Carole & Tuesday are on the top of my list of best anime for newcomers to the format right up there with Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Haikyuu. Y’all have been here long enough to know when I’m invoking those two, it’s *real* good. But these are series that need little to no introduction. When I type Tank!, a nontrivial amount of you are currently hearing a series of brass instruments followed by “Okay, three, two, one, let’s jam” followed by more brass.

You are more than likely here because you already know that Watanabe is one of the greats and this is his first project in six years, and it’s got Chad Stahelski of John Wick fame directing the action sequences, more jazz, and animation from MAPPA.

Lazarus, by pedigree alone, was always going to be good, so the question that is really on everyone’s mind is Lazarus going to be great?

I’ve watched the first five episodes, and my answer is a solid “maybe.”

The moment the show starts, the animation is ethereal and atmospheric. The opening narration quickly explains the premise of the show: Dr. Skinner released Hapna, the best painkiller ever developed to the world, and then vanished for a bit, before coming back and informing the world that anyone who took the drug was gonna end up dead unless they manage to find him. This exposition is prologued with the following line:

“If you find yourself unable to feel, then that is no different than being dead.”

And then the jazz kicks in, and it very much feels like a homecoming, especially when we meet our poster child, Axel Gilberto. Axel is in line with your typical Watanabe protagonist, although perhaps borrowing a few more moves from the Mugen school of acrobatics while still maintaining the swagger of Spike Spiegel.

Your pilot is a typical pilot, an introduction to the world and to the cast at a very high level. It’s entertaining enough, and the end credits countdown the number of days left to find Skinner before it all goes to hell.

The next few episodes manage to texture the world further as different characters provide different perspectives on their interaction with Hapna. And the sense of worldbuilding is fantastic. The 2050s set pieces manage to feel grounded while showing off a sleek futuristic sense of style and spectacle between all the slickly designed tech, whether it’s massive drones or new age motorcycles. You can believe that this is a world where such a powerful and mysterious drug can be developed, and you can just as easily believe the world’s reaction to the revelation that there is a mass extinction event on the horizon.

The titular Lazarus team is brought together with a little Suicide Squad magic. Everyone’s got some red in their ledger, and some are there voluntarily trying to get rid of it and some are there because it’s mandatory. The team of five is your typical composition of 3 men and 2 women, with four field agents and one running tech support from home base. The first string of episodes shows them in a wide variety of scenarios and shenanigans all in service of their primary mission, with each character getting to pepper in details here and there about their backstory and personality.

Is the main cast likable? Absolutely. Do they radiate a certain aura of cool? You bet they do. Are they still a little archetypical? Unfortunately.

Whereas Cowboy Bebop introduced their principle cast of four over 9 episodes (yeah, Faye showing up in 3 makes perfect sense, but it is wild that Ed doesn’t show up until *episode 9*) and Samurai Champloo and Carole & Tuesday had naturally smaller casts, Lazarus doesn’t generate that same level of endearment for its characters. Axel, Doug, Chris, Leland, and Eleina are entertaining to watch, but their shared screen time in pursuit of solving the grand serialized mystery leave me with only their vibe. Lots of things are implied, but nothing is really known, which can work to a degree, but Axel being a serial prison escapee is nowhere near as iconic as his predecessors.

All that said, Lazarus does stand out in pretty much every other field. The soundtrack is aural bliss, and the action scenes are everything you ever wanted from the vision of Watanabe and the direction of Stahelski. The John Wick DNA is evident and present, and we are thankful for it. The hand to hand is superb, the gun play is clean, the parkour is so much fun to watch. When the characters are in their bag, functionally being superheroes or superspies, the show sings. MAPPA’s animation is so good I continue to wonder how they keep managing to produce the sheer number of high-quality projects that they do. I was enthralled by each episode, so I can forgive the first five episodes for not quite getting their footing for their ambitious scale.

The entire premise of the story comes at a very specific time in our own history, where we are dealing with the aftermath of an opioid crisis and an insurance industry that actively seems indifferent to us. It’s telling that this is the second series that Adult Swim has put out this year about a so-called miracle drug (and you should definitely be watching Common Side Effects, especially since the second season has been confirmed). And that premise is inherently fascinating to me, and why I’m more than willing to keep watching the sleek spectacle.

Lazarus has a solid foundation, a compelling myth arc, clever storytelling, and a cast that needs just a few more dedicated scenes to their own backstory to really sell them. Lazarus also lives in the shadows cast by its predecessor series, some of the most iconic in anime. And only time will tell how far out it will make it, but it does have a decent running start.

Lazarus premieres 4/5 @ midnight on Toonami on Adult Swim, next day on Max.

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The post Saving the World from Big Pharma Never Looked So Slick – ‘Lazarus’ Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.