Lazarus Episodes 1-5 Review

It’d be difficult for any TV series, let alone an anime series, to be greeted with higher expectations than Lazarus. And, as Lazarus proves, it’d be equally difficult to live up to those expectations. The series comes from Shinichirō Watanabe, creator of the undisputed anime masterpiece Cowboy Bebop. With action overseen by John Wick director Chad Stahelski and a soundtrack featuring original compositions by the tantalizing trio of Kamasi Washington, Floating Points, and Bonobos, it would seem Lazarus promises nothing but slick and exciting visuals, storytelling, and atmosphere. In the first five episodes, only some of those promises are fulfilled. The opening chapters of Watanabe’s mildly compelling mystery anime remain watchable not because of the style on display or how much we care about the characters, but because of its heightened, apocalyptic stakes.

The beginning of Lazarus gives you no time to breathe: It instantly hits you with bucket loads of context and double-exposed imagery that define its vision of the future. The year is 2052, and a miracle painkiller called Hapna has exploded in popularity across the globe, ending humanity’s relationship to pain and putting a large chunk of the population in a perpetual sleepwalk. Believing this was a mistake, the drug’s creator, Dr. Skinner, announces that within 30 days, everyone who has ever taken Hapna will die. The sensory overload and intrigue surrounding this information is almost enough to paper over the clunky dialogue and poor acting (in the English version, anyway) that relays it.

Dropping such a nuclear event in the first episode is a bold decision. My brain was flooded with curiosity as to how the world would react and questions of how this was even possible, and why someone would decide that genocide on this level was the answer. It’s completely ridiculous, but Dr. Skinner’s speech announcing his intentions is packed with enough shock, intrigue, and mystery that it propelled me through the next four episodes – despite some of the less interesting turns they take.

Watanabe opts for a cold visual approach with Lazarus, with desaturated colors and metallic production design. That chilliness – also reflected in the steely, detached members of the Suicide Squad-like team looking to get a cure from Dr. Skinner – means that the plot and action need to deliver in order for the show to remain engaging. On this front, the results are mixed.

The style of action on display is apparent from the scene that introduces Axel, an inmate being recruited for the dangerous mission at the center of Lazarus. Taking advantage of the situation, Axel uses his almost superhuman kung fu and parkour skills to escape, something he apparently has done over 100 times. The 2D animation is slightly aided by CG in these fight scenes, to great effect. It puts us extremely close to the action – with punches flying right past us – while still letting us understand what’s happening on screen, thanks to the added mobility of the camera in CG. Even when the combat on Lazarus feels a little familiar – Stahelski’s blessing and curse, having now reshaped action filmmaking twice over as a stunt performer and coordinator in The Matrix movies and the architect of the John Wick franchise – the way it’s presented still feels intense and spectacular.

Yet there’s still room for Lazarus’ action to improve in future episodes. Axel and his colleagues are so capable at hand-to-hand combat that there’s no tension or peril in these scenes – despite the unerringly good soundtrack’s best efforts to establish those feelings. As such, I’m thankful for the one thrilling sequence that bucks this trend, involving a helicopter and a Green Goblin-esque glider.

A bigger problem is just how functional the characters are. They’re a group of hyper-competent spies who are too aloof to seem like they care about their assignment – which is, as a reminder, to prevent the deaths of billions of people. Lazarus frustratingly shies away from emotion in the middle of this doomsday scenario in favor of a cool factor that never actually feels that cool. Axel is meant to be the character we see this new world through, but he seems to find everything so easy, like he knows he’s going to survive no matter the challenge. I want to feel the effect of each hour passing, bringing us closer to doom. I want to understand the exhaustion and panic that must come with being tasked to save the world. Instead, Axel treats everything like a game – which could make for an interesting character arc past these five episodes, if Lazarus hadn’t sacrificed my investment in him as a person from the get-go. (A similar constraint affects the side characters as well.)

Watanabe has something to say through Lazarus, but it’s watered down and held back in these five episodes. The message about the way modern society sees and deals with pain is limited to monologues at the start of each episode, in which various characters detail their first encounters with Hapna. In a short span of time, a lot is said about how people desire numbness, and how readily available and monetized it is. But these first passages of Lazarus only touch on these topics briefly, leaving the big questions posed in the premiere – about Skinner’s motivations and how the world at large might react to its impending doom – to be answered (or not) by the episodes to follow.