Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Lazarus
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
ninjamitsuki
 Posts: 753 Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology) |
|
||
|
I keep falling for the Adult Swim original animes every time like Charlie Brown with the football.
"Surely this time will be different and we'll get something good" It's not different at all, is it Steve?! |
|||
|
|||
|
Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
|
||
I think you're reading it quite wrong (the thread I mean, not the show). I think everybody got the ecological message pretty well, more than a few of the episodes were quite hamhanded in that regard. And I don't think people were complaining about there being not enough fights when they say action, they're referring to action in general, like "the people here sure are yapping a lot about politics when they should be searching for Skinner" |
|||
|
|||
Top Gun
 Posts: 5292 |
|
||
Okay that line got me. 
|
|||
|
|||
|
Eilavel
Posts: 477 |
|
||
Many of my favourite shows contain 0 action. Its a bad thing for this show because the plot and dialogue are often rubbish, whereas the action is great, |
|||
|
|||
Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 12734 |
|
||
|
So let me get this straight: Axel was a guinea pig in a bioweapons trial and an escapee from the assassination school? oO How did he end up not a total psychopath? If he wasn't at the school, why did he have the necklace and know about Hundun? At least he wasn't also at the airport gassing, right?
I'm often half asleep watching this, so I'm sure a lot didn't register. What did I miss? |
|||
|
|||
|
DigiCom
Posts: 18 |
|
||
I don't think he was at the Assassin's School. The only reason he knows about Hundun is that someone Googled it. Apparently, it never occurred to Soryu to try Wikipedia... |
|||
|
|||
|
Zhou-BR
Posts: 1582 |
|
||
|
Heartfelt as it was, I felt bad seeing that homage to Keiko Nobumoto at the end, because she was exactly what this show was desperately missing: an actually good head writer. By the way, Watanabe wrote the last two episodes himself, and it's pretty clear he personally supervised the show's writing, so he should be directly blamed for all of the show's script problems.
In episode 12, Axel said the feather necklace was just something he wore to remember his childhood friends, and that was it. I was hoping at some point he'd be revealed to be part of some kind of secret super soldier experiment because it was the only way to explain how he could fight toe-to-toe with a master assassin and survive all those critical wounds, but no, apparently he was just immune to Hapna and really good at Parkour. |
|||
|
|||
|
meiam
Posts: 3674 |
|
||
A good message delivered poorly is worse than no message, because it doesn't convince anyone that doesn't already believe in it, and it makes people who do believe in it reconsider their position, seeing as its championed by people who have a very weak grasp on the subject and cannot conjure up anything interesting to say about it. At the start of the series, I talked about trusting the author and singled out the aspect that the member of Lazarus were seemingly all criminal but that this didn't actually seem to serve any purpose. A good author would be using this as a setup for a futur payoff, a bad one throws it in as a hook and forget about it. Here we have a bizarre situation where this was thrown in as a hook, while they forgot about setting up the actual pay off for why the team was formed (which anyway didn't actually pay a part in how they found Skinner). Also, what were they thinking when they showed Skinner in ep 3 with no member of the team noticing him? Did they really think it would be some sort of "OMG! He was there all along"? |
|||
|
|||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 12734 |
|
||
|
Ok, I went and looked, and now I vaguely remember that. So his childhood friends all died because...they ended up at the assassin school?
 I guess I don't get why his necklace was a memory token. What about a feathered wing reminded him of them? (I was thinking along the same lines that it would explain his mad skillz if he had been at the school.) Thanks for filling that in for me.
I still can't get over how much this series cribbed from Cowboy Bepop, to no good end. The scene where Axel first wakes up with Chris standing over him was straight out of the ending of "Ballad of Fallen Angels" (even the grand finale set piece was literally that). I think that contributed to my lack of engagement and glossing over plot points, because I kept being reminded of some element of the show that reminded me of Bebop and then zone out trying to recall the original thing they were copying (like the cars looking like automotive versions of the Bebop's personal ships) or which episode they lifted something from.  I guess for some reason I find it more acceptable to steal from artists you admire (like Watanabe does all the time - homage is practically his middle name) than from your own past work, which feels more like you've run out of fresh ideas.
|
|||
|
|||
VirgilTB4
 SubscriberPosts: 48 |
|
||
|
The memorial note to Keiko Nobumoto, script writer for many of Watanabe's best work who passed away in 2021, has me wondering if not having a trusted partner who could have helped better guide the story wasn't a large part of the problem.
I note that she did not write Terror in Resonance which Lazarus resembles, at least in tone, and which I found to be equally mediocre. |
|||
|
|||
|
TJ_Kat
Posts: 875 Location: Saskatoon, Canada |
|
||
I'm not sure infuriating is the right way to describe this ending; infuriating would have at least been memorable. This was utterly forgettable. So, I think I figured out how Soryu fit into the story. Sort of. Military villain guy was involved with the bio weapons research that lead to hapna as well as the human experiments on inmates like Axel. Since Axel survived, he was living proof of the illegal bio weapons experiments and had to be eliminated to cover that up. It's why he was also trying to sabotage the search for Skinner. Incredulously, he would sooner see humanity go extinct that have it get out that the US was developing bio weapons. Soryu was just the guy they hired to tie up a loose end. His overblown importance at the end along with his assassin school background were completely irrelevant. Okay, maybe I didn't figure anything out. |
|||
|
|||
|
Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
|
||
|
Alright after thinking more thoroughly for the past few days and talking to a few friends, I think I can give my final final review. I did the math for this show: Chris finds Skinner's heart meds and forgets about it and Doug & Axel literally find Skinner in the homeless camp (but can't see through his brilliant disguise of "hat and glasses") in episode 3. Chris refinds the pill (which she forgot) at the very end of episode 9 / start of episode 10 which finally starts to point the team in the right direction. Only 7 episodes out of this 13 episode series actually matter to the plot.
Now I am on record as saying this is not that, in and of itself, is not a crime. Obviously this show's closest inspiration/brethren is Cowboy Bebop, and that show has plenty of episodes that were not at all about Spike and the Red Dragon Syndicate or Faye's mysterious past or any of the other characters' plots. The difference is that that show was never really about any of those plots as a central thing. The problem is the timer. Watanabe handicapped the whole show from minute 1 introducing a 30 day timer, making sure that the show is all about finding the Hapna cure. But then they have a 5 person (6 person if you count Hersch I guess) central cast which means it's hard to really give too much focus on the characters themselves. Lazarus is a show that desperately needs padding to flesh out its characters, while simultaneously being a show that demands action to keep the main plot (the search for Skinner) on target. I don't know the solution, I thought that maybe it was that it just should've been a longer show and maybe Watanabe could have paced the clues out a little better while adding more stuff to flesh out the characters, perhaps the whole thing should have been more of a mini-series focused on the chase and the action with just fairly dull characters... actually 7 episodes comes out to the length of a pretty long movie, maybe it should've been that. Regardless, 13 episodes is the exact wrong length for this show to be. I read someone suggest that if Watanabe wanted to do so much with all the politicians being all corrupt and trying to wheel and deal behind the scenes (because he clearly did), perhaps a better structure would be to start the show with Hapna's toxicity being a secret at the start, without a clear time limit, then Lazarus can start hunting and then in maybe one of the later episodes Skinner's announcement comes out and makes everything go crazy. That's no magic bullet that'd fix the whole show but it would do wonders for why everyone acts so calm and why people don't ever seem to be freaking the hell out about imminently dying. In the end, this show makes me want to watch Terror In Resonance, because I haven't seen it and a lot of people say it's Watanabe's worst project, so now morbid curiosity has me wanting to dare to compare, because this is definitely the worst thing he's made that I personally have seen. |
|||
|
|||
Aura Ichadora
 Posts: 2348 Location: In front of my computer |
|
||
|
So... I liked this show. Honestly, liked this show a lot more than I thought I would, given that this came out following the horror (pun intended) that was Uzumaki. The animation was beautiful, loved the action scenes, the music was awesome, and the voice cast was pretty good at bringing the characters to life. I can't say I was ever bored watching Lazarus because of these factors. However, I do admit we either had a couple of extra episodes or had story beats incorporated earlier, since while I did enjoy the overall story of the series it could've been far better.
Like several people remarked, it would've been nice if Doug got an episode of his own versus the little bits we got of his backstory in Episode 3. I actually did like the idea of Soryu, Hundun, and INSCOM as barriers trying to prevent Team Lazarus from completing their goal, along with the revelation of all of the team being part of the airport incident, but I feel like all of it needed to have been added earlier in the series versus starting around Episode 9, if not been giving an extra episode or two to incorporate it better. It would've been even neater if the team actually talked to one another about the airport incident, to maybe give them the hint that they're more connected than they all thought, as I don't believe anyone outside of Chris really talked about it. And speaking of her, while I did like the chemistry between her and Axel, the kiss felt more shoed-in than I would've liked. It's not as though I NEEDED them to get together or anything, but still. Although, I think my disappointment in this is more thanks to Adult Swim because they used the kiss as promotion material and that disappointed me a lot. Really cheapened the moment that could've came off as more of a surprise. But at least she didn't get killed, as I was concerned would've happened during the Axel/Soryu battle... would've been very pissed at having a 2nd Luci Christian voiced character in an Adult Swim original being killed off for no real reason.
I did like this series, and gotta place it around the same level as Ninja Kamui or Housing Complex C for me: a series that has its flaws, but overall was a fun time and worth staying up (or buying 1-2 months of Max, thanks to my terrible CN feed that seems to be the ONLY channel that acts up with my cable package) for. I'd say it's above Fena: Pirate Princess, which I enjoyed for the animation/music/voice cast but then was disappointed with larger aspects of the story, and definitely way above any of the FLCL sequels or Uzumaki. I can definitely see why people do not like this series, but it's one I won't mind giving a few re-watches of in the future. |
|||
|
|||
animefan1238
 Posts: 314 Location: Ma |
|
||
|
Firstly, I enjoyed Lazarus. Not a top anime but a fun romp with a message(either environmental or human, you choose) and it really bugged me the reviews made it sound like its the worse show that came out in the past three years. But that's one opinion out of many.
I enjoyed the ending because it reflected current day. After a global event that gave people time to think and reflect they just spit on Father Time's face and resumed being the lowest life form on earth. The more things change the more they stay the same. |
|||
|
|||
|
Connor Dino
Posts: 426 Location: Anywhere. Because "hacked." |
|
||
Uhh if this reminded you of "current day" then we would have seen rich countries hoard the cure, leaving poorer countries to suffer and die...with the few exceptions being the countries who agreed to hand over their mineral rights to Russia, China, and (ugh, kill me), the United States. But sure, somehow everyone gets it. How very realistic and like today's world! What was that pandemic recently that demonstrated otherwise? Eh, whatever. Probably not important. |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group