Review of Lazarus

__Animation__ The visual quality of Lazarus is incredible from the very first episode, with Axel’s scenes providing breathtaking movement and choreography. During fights, there’s constant mix-ups with the camera, which felt unique and kept me engaged. Even during discussions there’s the way characters move their bodies helps to build their personality and, combined with detailed, though sometimes dead, feeling backgrounds, makes for a visual experience that stands on its own. __Plot__ The overarching Plot in Lazarus is something that could’ve been interesting but wasn’t developed nearly enough, and the result is largely nothing. Episode plots are similar in that there is not much to follow, and mostlyserve as a vehicle for action scenes and character moments. The weakest of these is the episodes dedicated to specific characters' backstories. At best, they are fine, but they almost all struggle with trying to cram an important character's story into 22 minutes. I understand that these episodes are intended to develop the cast, but due to their need to be resolved within the episode while returning them to the group, conclusions feel slapdash and arbitrary. The result was that I didn’t feel much delta in my impression of them or a deep interest in their backstories, even when it was my favorite character. Episodes that didn't focus on the main cast's backstory felt a lot better, allowing for more of a playful adventure dynamic.
__Characters__

I loved the cast interactions in Lazarus, even though the rapid-paced and largely episodic nature of the show didn’t leave room for full backstory arcs. This can lead to characters sometimes feeling shallow in their origins, especially with the one episode's attempts to give some context. Still, they managed to develop the cast well through small moments, their strong personalities, and the constant mixing up of the mission compositions. Though the designs weren’t spectacular, though I did like Elena’s outfits and Doug’s high-society look, but the characters were memorable and easy to distinguish visually.

A lot of people had issues with the characterization, and I *think* this may be due to the extremely poorly produced dubbed version, which most Westerners watched. The voice acting in the Japanese version, which was released multiple days later in places that are hard to access, had great voicework that added significantly to the experience. In contrast to the dub which I listened to for this review and which gives off a cheap and unserious vibe and presents a major detractor. Some favorite voicework for me was Dr. Skinner (Kouichi Yamadera), Chris (Maaya Uchida), and Axel's (Mamoru Miyano) performances, which added significantly to my impressions of their personalities.

__Handling of Themes__

The major theme of anomie is present throughout and is called back frequently. It’s shown in the way society and the people around the cast fail to respond to the upcoming disaster, and it ties into the themes of environmentalism. People in power are consistently shown to be flippant and uncaring, and it’s decently developed. Based on the discussion online I there are two major issues with how this is handled. I they maybe there could’ve been a more direct analysis on the societal aspects as I saw a large amount of confusion online. Second, the show unfortunately doesn’t seem particularly interested in providing a solution or analyzing why people felt this way, which may have also contributed to viewer confusion.

The environmentalist theme is developed through background details and statements on the progression of climate change. It’s directly commented on by the cast, and it somehow comes off as both heavy-handed and understated. Similar to the theme of anomie when applied to climate change, the series doesn’t dig deeper to think about why people can ignore the issue and what to do about it. I understand Watanabe's desire to comment on how our world is slipping towards catastrophe, but I found this implementation sloppy.

__Overall__

I found Lazarus to be an enjoyable week-to-week action show with a fun cast and good animation, but despite its desires, it fails to be something more than that. I think it’s worth watching if you have already seen far better series like Tokyo Pretenders, but you should make sure you have the Japanese audio. Final score: 7/10