Shinichirō Watanabe

I KNEW That Was Where Skinner Was!

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Lazarus Ep 12 Review

We are reaching the climax of the story of Lazarus, and things are coming down to the wire. The team has a solid lead on Dr. Skinner’s location (and you won’t believe where he’s hiding), but rogue government agents threaten to ruin everything. Eleina’s collapsed with a fever. Doug’s been captured by INSCOM agents working for the deplorable Schneider, who has also taken Hersch captive. And to top it off, Axel’s clinging to life after a near-death experience fighting the mysterious Soryu. But when you hit rock bottom and survive, the only way to go is up. Now it’s time for Lazarus to make their counterattack, find Skinner, and save the world!

Popcorn Wizard is So Nice

Despite how dire things looked for several members of Lazarus, luck/plot armor has ensured that all of them has weathered the worst of the storm. Thanks to Popcorn Wizard, Eleina safely recovers from her fever until it breaks. The fact that she even recovers from what should be a fatal Hapna fever is even lampshaded by the fellow hacker, who jokes how she might be immortal. That might not be the case, but more likely, Eleina might have an immunity to Hapna. More importantly, Popcorn Wizard, AKA Lin, admits that she’s working to keep Skinner safe. And the reasons are rather heartwarming.

Who would have thought that Popcorn Wizard was one of the islanders with analgesia? Since Skinner enabled her people to move away from their doomed islands, though, her gratitude makes sense. Skinner isn’t an inherently bad person, just one fed up with the self-centered people in the world. Given how Schneider is almost certainly the reason behind the attack that led to Skinner’s crash out, though, one cannot blame him. In fact, this episode makes us hate Schneider even more now.

The Ego on Schneider is Ridiculous

As it turns out, there’s a reason why Schneider chose to go after Lazarus in the first place. Somehow, he got it into his head that there was another purpose behind the team’s formation beyond finding Skinner. He thought that they were secretly attempting to gather blackmail information on the government, namely him. Given how his crimes include using Hapna for illegal experiments on prisoners and covering up a botched seizure as a terrorist attack, he must have thought finding Skinner would expose him somehow.

…Yeah, me and Aaron both agree that Schneider is dumb as freak. He thought that exposing his crimes was more important than preventing the end of the world? Whatever he has done doesn’t matter if the majority of mankind wouldn’t be around to see judgement passed on him. Furthermore, Lazarus may have never thought to look into his dealings until he decided to get in their way. He brought on a self-fufilling prophecy, and almost doomed the world in the process. And while he has yet to face justice, his back is already against the wall. Abel of the NSA was able to convince the President (who’s dying from taking Hapna in the clinical trials) to sign an Executive Order to move on Schneider. The man can only keep INSCOM in the dark for so long. And once Lazarus finds Skinner, he’ll either die or rot in jail forever.

I KNEW THAT WAS SKINNER!

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In the meantime, thanks to some help from Popcorn Wizard, Doug and Eleina turn the tables on their pursuers and elude them. Even better, Lin gives them what they were looking for: Dr. Skinner’s location. Remember back in the third episode, when Axel and Doug went to that homeless camp and I thought I saw a background character who looked like Skinner? As it turns out, I WAS RIGHT! Skinner has been hiding out with the homeless the whole time right under Lazarus’ noses! Thanks to some fast-travel, though, Eleina, Doug, and Chris start to converge on Skinner’s location, and without a moment to spare.

So, What About Soryu?

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That just leaves one last problem: Soryu. After Abel’s assistant bails Dr. 909 out of jail to help them, they manage to confirm Soryu’s identity: he’s the same man that Schneider was speaking to pretending to be Soryu’s handler. In reality, Soryu has a split personality brought on by trauma of something called the “Hundun Project.” It’s not made clear what it is, but it sounds like an illegal government assassin program. And having lost his quarry the first time, Soryu is determined to finish the job. Not for the money, but for the love of the game. The good news is that Axel is still alive and in the care of Skinner’s doctor. The bad news is that the preview for the series finale reveals that he’s headed to a final confrontation with Soryu. Worse, it looks as though the doctor he was sent to find is already dead.

The end is finally in sight for Lazarus, but the stakes are at their highest. If they don’t find Skinner in time, or Axel dies, then they could trip at the finish line, and billions will die. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to see how this story ends! It’s had its ups and downs at times, but the past month (in-show) has been a heck of a ride. Let’s hoping the finale proves worthwhile.

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I Give “Close to the Edge” a 4.5/5

Wait, Is Axel the Key to Everything?

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Lazarus Ep 10 Review

Six days; that is all the time the world has left before the first users of Hapna start dying. Time is running out for the majority of humanity, and Lazarus still has no idea where Dr. Skinner could be. Yet all is not lost, as the team might have not just one, but two possible leads they can use to track down Skinner. One of them requires Leland to face his past, while the other reveals an astonishing connection to another member of Lazarus: Axel.

Society is Falling Apart

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With less than a week before Hapna becomes fatal, society is starting to break down. People are starting to break out in fevers from Hapna, hospitals are being overwhelmed, and governments are shutting down. No sense in remaining active if most of humanity dies. And herein lies a slight problem with how the story of Lazarus is going: the lack of time.

Skinner claimed that he has the cure for Hapna on him, hence the entire purpose of Lazarus is to find him in time. However, even if they find him now, mass-producing the cure in time will be next to impossible. Millions of people are going to die before they get their hands on it. Maybe the story will pull off something amazing, but unless the cure can be spread via aerosol form, people are going to die. And one of the team might be among them.

Wait, Leland is HOW RICH!?!

In any case, Lazarus might have a real breakthrough on their hands. That pill that Chris found at Skinner’s estate wasn’t the cure for Hapna. What it was was an antiplatelet medication used by people who have had artificial heart transplants. They realize that Skinner must have gotten surgery after going into hiding, yet finding no records of it, the team starts looking into a rumored clinic for the elite that does procedures in exchange for high amounts of money. That’s when Leland comes in to help them, revealing he has a secret he’s kept from everyone.

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It turns out that Leland comes from money. He’s the illegitimate child of a deceased aristocrat whose family he’s on poor terms with. To make things even more awkward, as the only surviving son, the family rules say that he’s the head of the family, much to the anger of his older half-sister. Their reunion is an incredibly tense one, and one that Doug and Axel have to see firsthand at his own request.

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Family can often be messy, especially in situations as complicated as what Leland grew up with. However, in a nice change of pace, the older sister isn’t just upset about Leland being the heir instead of her. She’s also upset at how little he’s tried to get to know his family. With the world on the verge of ending, people want to get their priorities straight. So, Leland agreeing to spend a few days with her is, honestly, a very touching thing.

In the end, Leland’s sister pulls through, and she gets him to see Skinner’s doctor, who confirms that he did get an artificial heart. Normally, that comes with a stream of data they can track but, Skinner being Skinner, he encrypted it. Furthermore, it doesn’t lead them to Skinner, but Eleina figures out that it’s being monitored by their old friend, Popcorn Wizard, in Pakistan. That leads her and Doug to head to Pakistan on another lead. As they do so, though, Elenia starts to show signs of a fever.

Uh-oh.

Axel Could be the Key to Everything

As promising as that lead might be, there’s another one that might be even more promising.

Remember the incident where Chris faked her death? The Schiphol Airport incident. Official reports say that it was a bio-chemical attack by terrorists, but as Hersch and Abel, the head of the NSA discover, that was a lie. In reality, government incompetence led to a shootout between INSCOM and Airport security, with Skinner caught in the middle. The firefight wound up unleashing an airborne, prototype version of Hapna. That is what killed everyone, and it left Skinner a changed man.

If you recall, INSCOM are the ones who hired that assassin to kill Axel for unknown reasons. Those reasons might have become a lot clearer in this episode, though. As it turns out, that same Hapna prototype was tested on prison inmates. And out of all of those inmates, only one managed to survive: Axel Gilberto.

Axel is in Trouble

This revelation could change everything. When a disease is threatening a large population, such as humans, there’s often going to be a small number of people with a natural immunity. Is it possible that Axel is immune to Hapna? Or was it just a fluke? Either way, it’s enough to get Hersch to send Axel looking for the prison doctor responsible for the test. Unfortunately, that’s when the INSCOM assassin, Soryu, makes his move.

This is not good. Not only would the death of Axel mean killing off the main protagonist, but if Axel really is the key to curing Hapna, then INSCOM could be dooming mankind to extinction. With the preview for the next episode showing a full-on battle about to take place, it could be the most important episode of the series. No matter what, Axel cannot die.

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This is going to be good!

I Give “I Can’t Tell You Why” a 4.5/5

The Second Coming of Vicious

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Lazarus Ep 9 Review

If a show gets to the point where even it wonders why things aren’t going fast enough, then you know something is wrong. Ten days are left before the first people to take Hapna start dying, and Lazarus is no closer to catching him. And now, they’ve come under the scrutiny of the US Government, which is looking to shut them down. And what’s worse, some of them are willing to go off the books and hire the second coming of Vicious to take care of one of them.

So, after their excursion to rescue Chris in the previous episode, the people in charge of Lazarus are not happy. From their perspective, the team, whose sole job is to find Dr. Skinner, has just been messing around. Thus, they bring Hersch and her boss before a committee to complain about them not doing their jobs.

While the audience knows that Lazarus has been looking for Skinner this whole time, it would make sense why the US government is losing patience. This is essentially the show calling itself out for the fact that it’s made little headway in advancing the overall plot, something that fans are already doing on social media. The suits even bring Leland in to have him testify against his teammates, though he doesn’t take the bait. However, as Axel and Doug themselves discuss, there is a very real chance that they could get silenced after they fulfill their job. And they’re right to think that, as we soon learn.

Everything gets put on the back burner, though, as Skinner decides to up the ante with another announcement (Start at 20:12):

Skinner Changed the Game

This completely reframes the entire mission. If they don’t find Skinner, he will die, and so will any chance of curing Hapna. It might not make sense for Skinner to not take the antidote, but given how he seems to view humanity as a problem, he’s holding himself to those standards. That, and even if only a handful of people survive, the world will be very empty for thousands of years.

Though Lazarus might already have the cure for Hapna in there possession. As Chris is getting dressed, she finds the pill that she took from Skinner’s home. I guessed it was either a clue to his whereabouts or a flat-out cure, but the fact that it’s being brought up now means it’s important. It could be the key to solving everything.

There are bigger concerns now, though, as members of the government are after someone from Lazarus: Axel.

Vicious Has been Reborn

For some unknown reason, members of INSCOM see Axel as a threat. Perhaps it has something to do with how he wound up in prison in the first place, but apparently, it’s enough for them to warrant hiring a black-ops assassin to take him out. And the final minutes of the episode are dedicated to exclusively showing how dangerous he is in what can only be described as the second coming of Vicious.

If Axel is the modern-day Spike Spiegel, this assassin is Vicious. And if he is after Axel, then Lazarus is going to have a hard time.

This entire episode was, for all intents and purposes, meant to set the show up for the final act by raising the stakes. There are only ten days left before Skinner dies, the US Government goes after Lazarus, and now there’s an assassin after Axel. The stakes have been raised to new heights. Hopefully, the last four episodes will see the team finally make headway!

I Give “Death on Two Legs” a 3.5/5

The Most John Wick Episode of Lazarus

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Lazarus Ep 8 Review

Of all the things we could eventually learn about the members of Lazarus, being a former Russian spy was never considered. Yet that is exactly what happens in the latest episode of the series as Chris’ life is put in danger thanks to her past. And with there only being a limited amount of time before things get worse, Lazarus has to put their search for Skinner on hold to mount a John Wick/Jason Bourne/James Bond-style rescue attempt. At the very least, though, this episode does capture the feel of those gritty spy movies fairly well.

Chris Worked for WHAT?!?

At the end of the last episode, Chris was returning from her part in the team’s latest attempt to find Dr. Skinner when she ran into someone who knew her. The next time we see her, she’s held captive on an abandoned oil rig in the Barents Sea by Russians. Apparently, Chris had once been a Russian spy, but after faking her death, she defected to the United States. However, she had to leave her handler/likely lover, Inga, behind, much to her fury. Either ignorant or uncaring of the fact that Chris is trying to help save humanity, Inga goes rogue to get revenge. Thus, Lazarus has to put everything on hold to rescue their teammate.

On the one hand, it feels rather frustrating that the search for Skinner gets put on the back burner for this episode. With less than two weeks left before people start dying, time is not on their side. On the other hand, the fact that all the members agree to this rescue mission demonstrates how tight-knit they’ve become. Even Axel, the most laid-back of the team, immediately wants to rescue Chris. If Axel wants to do that, then that’s a sign that things have gotten serious!

This is Just Like John Wick!

Thankfully, despite being a side-quest in the grand scheme of things, this episode more than makes up for it with the overall plot and action. It feels very much like something out of a modern action movie like John Wick or Jason Bourne. From the way that Chris manipulates her captors to escape on her own to how Lazarus mounts their daring and high-tech rescue, the entire thing feels on point. The fact that they’re up against Russian Special Forces only helps to highlight how much danger they’re in, as the members experience several close calls. Even the ever-lucky Axel could end up dead if he makes one wrong move.

The true highlight of the episode, though, comes during the climax. Just as Chris looks home-free, Inga has her at gunpoint and dead to rights. For a moment, you can’t tell if Chris will make it out in one piece or not, but then she and Inga have a heart-to-heart about her decision to leave so she could keep Inga safe from their leaders. The reveal that they were lovers is played very much for drama, and for a moment, Inga wavers. Tragically, one of her own men then shoots her before being killed by Axel, leading Inga to die in Chris’ arms. It’s a very emotional moment, and one you would never expect from someone like Chris. By the time the oil rig starts going up in flames, you can tell that Chris is emotionally exhausted by what happened, but also grateful that her team came to save her. The fact that Axel says he doesn’t care about her past only serves to emphasize how close they’ve all gotten.

As big a distraction as this rescue op was, this might be the best episode of the series to date. However, the clock is still ticking, and they only have 12 days left before Hapna turns lethal. They need to start getting more leads soon, or things are going to get ugly!

I give “Unforgettable Fire” a 4.5/5

Oh, Skinner, Where Art Thou?

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Lazarus Ep 2 Review

Twenty-nine days. That’s all the time that humanity has to find Dr. Skinner and the cure for Hapna. Otherwise, everyone who has ever taken the “miracle” drug is going to start dying. And since almost everyone has taken the drug, the human race faces extinction. Now, it’s up to Lazarus, a ragtag task force of misfits, to get to Skinner and save the world like superheroes.

There’s just one problem: they have no idea how to find Skinner!

Firstly, though, let’s gush over the OP to Lazarus. Whether it was Watanabe himself or the people who worked with him to create the anime, they must have been taking a page from Cowboy Bebop. From the way it makes extensive use of big, stylized text in the background while having the main characters remain shadowed or in black-and-white in the foreground, “VORTEX” takes a lot from Bebop. In addition, the music, while more subdued compared to “TANKI,” still has the notable inclusion of the jazz music that Watanabe is so fond of. It’s clear that Watanabe is aiming to make Lazarus the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop, and so far, he’s succeeding!

A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits

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The first half of the second episode is largely focused on one of two things: introducing us more to the members of Lazarus and exploring Dr. Skinner’s motives. When it comes to the former, the show seems to adopt a “less is more” attitude regarding their backstories, though it does establish that each of them has things in common. They’ve each committed crimes of some sort, ranging from petty theft to hacking on a global scale. Each of them is insanely talented in an area of expertise:

  • Axel is an all-rounder and a genius escape artist.
  • Doug is good in combat and can think well under pressure
  • Christine is skilled with multiple firearms
  • Leland is an expert on piloting drones
  • Eleina is a master hacker notorious around the globe

Furthermore, each of them admits to having taken Hapna, meaning they’ve got skin in the game and a reason to locate Dr. Skinner.

As for Dr. Skinner himself, the premiere already established that he made Hapna a deadly trap because he was fed up with humanity. This episode elaborates on that by giving us an exposition dump about his backstory, and it soon becomes obvious why he came to this mindset. He devoted his entire life to helping others, to the point where he gave up the money he could’ve gotten off patents for his drugs. In addition, he was a major voice in the fight against climate change, urging people to do everything they could to undo the damage humans have done to the Earth. As is often the case in real life, his pleas were met by apathy and silence from those in a position to do something about it. Hence why he likely made Hapna a trap; he decided mankind wasn’t worth saving.

And I don’t blame him.

Look, Mankind Needs to Get its Act Together

As much as I want to see mankind’s continued existence, there are times when I cannot help but wonder if it would be better if we weren’t around. That being said, I feel the ultimate solution is for us to spread across the stars so the Earth can have some breathing room. I still have faith in mankind’s ability to grow and change, and it feels like Lazarus is being set up as a symbol of that optimism.

In a layman’s terms, Lazarus might be a story of optimism vs cynicism, but we won’t know until the story is finished.

Oh, and Lazarus has armbands that will melt their hands off if they try to go AWOL. They’re basically the Suicide Squad meets the Avengers.

A Wild Goose Chase

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The back half of the episode sees the entire group splitting up to track down leads on Dr. Skinner. Unfortunately, the man seems to have covered his tracks very thoroughly to make things as hard as possible. Case in point, Axel and Chris head to a survival shelter they think Skinner purchased, while Leland and Doug head to the office of the company he bought it from. At first, the deserted atmosphere of both makes it seem like there’s a greater conspiracy at work, especially when people show up and start threatening the team. In a humorous twist, though, not only is the person they find not Dr. Skinner, but the people shooting at them weren’t even looking for him. They spent a whole day on a wild goose chase for a man who ran out on his debts.

This is going to be harder than we thought, and there are only 28 days remaining. It can be easy for someone of Skinner’s intellect to disappear, and it could take years to find him. Lazarus has less than a month before humanity faces extinction. In the meantime, though, I’m going to be enjoying this potential second coming Cowboy Bebop.

Join the chase. Catch an all new episode of #Lazarus next Saturday at midnight! Only #Toonami, on adult swim.

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— Toonami Squad (@toonamisquad.com) April 13, 2025 at 12:38 AM
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I Give “Life in the Fast Lane” a 4/5

Shinichirō Watanabe Presents Lazarus

Aside Roderick J "Jay" Friz Anime, Anime Reviews, Toonami Announcements , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lazarus Ep 1 Review

Shinichirō Watanabe, one of the greatest directors in anime history. The director of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy. Next to the late Akira Toriyama, no other man’s works did more to help anime gain a foothold in the West than Shinichirō Watanabe. As longtime fans of Toonami and lovers of anime in general, it wouldn’t be right if the D&A Anime Blog didn’t cover his newest creation, Lazarus. And judging by the first episode, we are going to be in for a banger!

A Doctor Decides to End Humanity

The year is 2055, and humankind is facing potential extinction. Three years earlier, a man named Dr. Skinner released a painkiller called Hapna, a miracle drug that could potentially end all disease and pain. Most of mankind started taking the drug, and a while, it looked like the world was on the path to utopia. But then Skinner, who had gone into hiding a year earlier, gave mankind a message: Hapna was a giant trap.

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In a nutshell, Skinner said “screw all of humanity, we’re unworthy to keep living. You have a month to prove me wrong.”

From the outset, Lazarus is already showing all the hallmarks that make Watanabe’s works great. The cyberpunk, retro-futuristic aesthetic. The use of smooth jazz as background music. The incredibly attractive main characters with cool attitudes. It feels very much like Lazarus is meant to be a spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop, and nowhere is this better seen than with the main male lead, Axel Gilberto.

The Second Coming of Spike Spiegel

If Spike Spiegel was the Lupin III of the 90s, then Axel could very well be the Spike of the 2020s. Hes got parkour skills that would make an Assassin’s Creed lover green with envy. He’s got Spike’s amazing sense of fashion and the confidence that made him a great husbando. And he’s got Lupin’s uncanny ability to talk his way out of any situation. In the span of the first episode, he proceeds to break out of the prison he’s in, outrun the police, and outsmart a police officer that doesn’t recognize him until it’s too late. The best part? He was serving 888 years in prison because he kept escaping like it was a game to him. The only reason he gets caught by the task force being assembled is because he’s caught off-guard.

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While Axel serves as the main focus of the episode, the premiere does introduce viewers to the other members of the titular Lazarus. Each of them is quirky in their own way, and they all seem to have their own unique talents. One is a college student who’s great with drones. Another is this girl who’s a master hacker. There’s a man whose good with guns, and we have this woman who feels like an expy of Faye Valentine. I can’t remember who is who yet, but I’m sure that will change in the next episode or so.

This is Gonna be Fun

Overall, Lazarus looks to be another big hit from the mind of Shinichirō Watanabe, but there’s another reason why the anime could be one of the big hits of the spring season: its name. Lazarus is often a name associated with the act of resurrection. There’s the biblical Lazarus, who was raised from death by Jesus. There’s the Lazarus Pits from DC comics, able to grant long life and revive the dead. And now we have the team, formed in order to save mankind from possible extinction. It’s possible that Dr Skinner is bluffing and that this is one big test to see how humanity will react to potential annihilation. However, I doubt that anyone would make such an announcement without be willing to back it up. Either way, this si going to be one fun adventure.

I Give “Goodbye Cruel World” a 4/5