Humanity will rise from the dead! Maybe. In the anime series Lazarus, which streams on Adult Swim and Max, creator/writer/director Shinichiro Watanabe has applied pieces of his Cowboy Bebop toolkit – unlikely heroes, hyperized action, a distinctive soundtrack – and applied them to a near-future world where the savior who ensured better living through chemistry has become a fugitive pariah holding humanity hostage. The 13-episode Lazarus, which streams in both Japanese and English-language versions, is animated by MAPPA, features action sequences coordinated by John Wick director Chad Stahelski, and includes original music from Kamasi Washington, Bonobo, and Floating Points.
LAZARUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “How will the end of the world come upon us?” It’s a rhetorical question from Doug (Jovan Jackson), because the Lazarus operative already knows the answer: humanity willingly gave the keys to its destroyer.
The Gist: Lazarus takes place in 2055, as societies all over the globe are under threat of destruction. Dr. Deniz Skinner (David Matranga), a brilliant scientist and Nobel laureate, once bestowed a gift on the world: Hapna, an incredibly cheap, incredibly effective painkiller with another incredible feature: no side-effects. But once everybody was Hapna-hooked came the rug-pull, with Skinner suddenly returning from an unexplained three-year absence to break into communications platforms across the planet with a message of warning. Hapna will mutate inside of everyone who ingested the drug. (Which is a number in the billions.) It will transform from a painkiller to a just plain killer. And this will begin to happen in just 30 days.
Skinner’s shocking announcement is made with a strange blend of radical altruism and taunting evil. He has a Hapna cure, but will not share it. He is in hiding, but willing to be found. He developed a drug that lied about its very nature – a pain reliever becoming a pain creator – but swears he is not personally a herald of the apocalypse. Humanity will have to decide for itself how to proceed, at least until it begins to end. And as world governments scramble to reassure their citizens that a Hapna cure is possible, and the citizenry responds to Skinner’s doomsday announcement with riots and bedlam in the streets, the Lazarus team swings into action.
To find Skinner before anyone else, Lazarus’s Hersch (Jade Kelly) is putting together a team. It includes Doug, a capable agent-type; Christine (Luci Christian), who rides a chopper and has an itchy trigger finger; Eleina (Annie Wild), a teenage hacker; Leland (Bryson Baugus), a kid whose specialty is drones; and Axel Gilberto (Jack Stansbury), Hersch’s newest recruit.
Not that Axel wants to be recruited. He would rather continue his life’s work, which seems to be the study of height and distance-defying feats of parkour, combined with trying to escape from whatever prisons try to hold him. (An extended early action sequence finds Axel flitting from construction crane to construction crane and free-falling through John Woo-like flocks of doves as he escapes his latest holding cell.) It remains to be seen what What Lazarus intends to do with either Skinner or his Hapna cure, should they find him. But with the team reluctantly in place, they’re also on the clock: There are just 29 days left to save humanity.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There is a different near-future world on display in the Adult Swim/Max animated series Oh My God…Yes! A Series of Extremely Relatable Circumstances. And these days Cowboy Bebop streams via Hulu.
Our Take: What kind of A-hole screws everybody, but announces it like that’s actually a benefit? Glad that kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life. Anyway, it becomes one of the immediately intriguing things about the story in Lazarus. Like, what is Skinner’s deal? Assuming the Hapna creator is found, what contingencies proceed to kick in? But while those questions are valid, the immediate team-building in Lazarus leaves a little to be desired. We’re not sure why Axel and his flights of parkour gymnastics are the key to locating someone who is a global threat, and the series doesn’t seem super interested in telling us. Nor are we sure what Lazarus is about, besides its stated intent to find Skinner. Is it an independent agency? What are its larger aims? A reference is made to The Avengers, so for now we’ll assume Lazarus sees itself as noble.
In episodes that fly by at less than 25 minutes, maybe what’s initially more interesting than unfulfilling storytelling dynamics is how Lazarus embraces its look and feel and sound. The musical emphasis for which Shinichiro Watanabe is famous pops up all over this series, with jailbreaks set to expressive jazz signatures and futuristic landscapes – like the reaching upward spiral of Babylonia, a skyscraper as a full city – depicted against a steady electronic music pulse. And within any ragtag team, there is always the possibility for unpredictability, which we like. Perhaps, as this thrown-together group of Lazarus operatives gets to know each other, we’ll be inspired to follow them further. They all admitted to personally ingesting Hapna, so, time’s a-tickin’.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “We call ourselves Lazarus; welcome aboard, Axel Gilberto.” Hersch’s welcome message also includes word of the tracking monitor they attached to Alex’s wrist. So don’t get any ideas about not feeling welcomed. Or leaving.
Sleeper Star: We’re a fan of how the animation in Lazarus renders Eleina’s hacker lair, a spherical, 360-degree holographic display that she can operate with Minority Report-style movements.
Most Pilot-y Line: Dr. Skinner: “Whether we as a race are worth saving or not is something I leave for all of you to decide.” OK dude, sounds good; thanks.
Our Call: Stream It, perhaps with an ounce or two of patience. While a pedigree that includes the creator or Cowboy Bebop’s creator and the fight maven from John Wick is impressive, It feels like there is a lot of story still to develop with Lazarus. In the meantime, we’ll focus on the grooves and cool visuals.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
