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In 2023, Adult Swim announced the production ofLazarus, the latest anime by Shinichiro Watanabe ofCowboy Bebopfame. Watanabe is largely regarded as one of the biggest anime directors of all time not just forCowboy Bebop, but for shows likeSamurai Champloo,Space Dandy, andCarole & Tuesday, so seeing him come back with a new project immediately generated incredible hype from fans and critics alike.
Lazaruswas one of themost hotly anticipated anime of 2025, and at first, it seemed to live up to the hype. The premiere made it clear that it would have all the same great animation and music that a Shinichiro Watanabe anime is known for, and the first few episodes did a largely good job of keeping to that idea. Unfortunately,Lazarus’ reputation has taken a notable dip in recent weeks to the point that most people are hating the show, and overall, it’s easy to see why.
Lazarus Has Some Of The Worst Voice Acting Of Any Shinichiro Watanabe Anime
Lazarus Is Surprisingly Hard To Listen To
One of the biggest draws to any of Shinichiro Watanabe’s anime is always the English voice acting.Cowboy Bebopis still largely regarded as having one of the best English dubs around, and since then, nearly every project of his to follow has had an all-star cast of voice actors and equally impressive direction to accompany it. Overall,the English dubs for Shinichiro Watanabe’s anime are some of thebest English dubs in all of anime, and they’re some of the few anime where most people tend to default to English audio.
Sadly, that level of craft is nowhere to be found inLazarus.Lazarus’ English dub is handled by Sentai Filmworks, a studio known for the inconsistent quality of their dubs, andLazarusis no exception, as the voice actors constantly give flat and unengaging line reads, none of which is helped by the very lackluster dub script. Much of that might not be the actors’ fault, as they’re only as good as the script and direction they’re given, but regardless,Lazarushas the worst English dub ofany Shinichiro Watanabe anime, and viewers have long since taken note of that.
Lazarus’ Slow Pacing Makes The Series A Chore To Sit Through
Why Lazarus' Writing Has Been A Major Problem From Day One
Lazarus’ poor voice acting could be excused if the writing made up for it, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. Nearly every episode ofLazarusfollows a pattern of the team following a lead on Dr. Skinner’s whereabouts, only to reach a dead end and have to start over from scratch next week; in other words,Lazarus’ biggest writing problem is that its terrible pacing is keeping the plot from moving forward to any significant degree. That’s impossible to ignore, and the fact that it’s still happening when there are only a few episodes left is ridiculous to think about.
What makes the slow pacing even worse is how lackluster the content within them tends to be. WhileLazarusisn’t without its fun moments, most episodes are the cast largely meandering about while trading slightly quippy dialogue, and even the action scenes Axel and other characters get involved with often serve little purpose beyond being a cool action scene, a far cry from Shinichiro Watanabe’s past projects.Lazarus’ writing fails because it doesn’t do enough to make the viewer care about the characters, and even as the show nears its climax, that hasn’t changed.
If there’s any show of Shinichiro Watanabe’s thatLazaruscan be compared to, it’s 2014’sTerror in Resonance.Terror in Resonanceis another short series from Watanabe, and much likeLazarus, it struggles to give most of its cast meaningful development and screentime and tells its story with very lackluster pacing, althoughTerror in Resonance’s pacing is too fast as opposed toLazarus’ pacing being too slow.The major problems withLazarusandTerror in Resonance’s pacing can be attributed to their short lengths, and it’s easy to see why both fall short of his larger resume.
Lazarus Is Failing Because It Tries Too Hard To Be The Next Cowboy Bebop
Lazarus Never Should Have Tried To Copy Cowboy Bebop
Of all the reasons whyLazarushas been failing, the biggest is its poor attempt at followingCowboy Bebop’s legacy. Between the heavy focus on action, the jazz soundtrack, and how much Axel Gilberto resembles Spike Spiegel, everything aboutLazarusreads as a clear attempt to cash in onCowboy Bebop’s enduring popularity. That doesn’t work, however, becauseCowboy Beboptook the time to get viewers invested in the characters and the world they inhabit, so at the end of the day,Lazarus’ writing hits none of the same highs asCowboy Bebop, despite trying to hit the same appeal.
Everything about Lazarusreads as a clear attempt to cash in on Cowboy Bebop’s enduring popularity.
What makes Watanabe such an iconic name in anime isn’t just the quality of his writing and animation, but for how that always comes out in such a wide variety of settings and themes, most of which are far removed from whatCowboy Bebopdid. The only other show to come close to copyingCowboy BebopwasSamurai Champloo, but it simply had a similar aesthetic while mostly being its own thing, soLazarus’ poor attempt at copyingCowboy Bebopfails even harder because it’s so far removed from how he usually handles his projects.
Making the situation even worse is how Shinichiro Watanabe might have been forced to writeLazarusin such an unappealing way. It recently came out thatShinichiro Watanabe’s original pitch for a new animewas a more lighthearted sci-fi story in the same vein asSpace Dandy, but Adult Swim producer Jason DeMarco said it had to be something darker and more serious. Watanabe was reportedly given full creative control beyond that, but even so,it’s easy to conclude thatLazarustakes so much fromCowboy Bebopbecause Shinichiro Watanabe wasn’t allowed to make the show he wanted to make.
Is There Any Hope For Lazarus To Have A Good Ending?
Can People Still Be Hopeful For Lazarus' Success?
With how muchLazarushas been failing in recent weeks, that begs the question of whether it can still have a good ending. There are still a few episodes left beforeLazarus’ finale, so it could still turn things around, but with how much it has to wrap up and how boring the writing has been,Lazarus’ poor writing will likely lead to it having an equally lackluster ending. It’s nothing but a shame thatLazaruswould turn out this way after so many years of hype, but unfortunately, there’s little that can be done about it at this point.
