Forum - View topicShinichiro Watanabe Shares His Thoughts on Lazarus and the Anime Industry At The Japan Society
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8628 Location: Penguinopolis |
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As much as I love Shinichiro Watanabe, Lazarus was far from his best work. It felt like badly reheated Cowboy Bebop.
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1584 |
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Watanabe is a great director, but that doesn't make him a good writer. It's interesting that he mentioned assembling a writer's room to work on Lazarus, and yet the writing is easily the show's biggest problem. After Keiko Nobumoto's untimely passing, I wish he had hired someone talented to oversee the show's scripts instead of doing the job himself.
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Gina Szanboti
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This would seem to require a following quote from Thomas, yet I couldn't find where he said anything, other than summarized interview questions. What did he say best about "it"? I had to chuckle at the claim that he didn't want to regurgitate the same thing over and over again. I lost track of all the ideas and visuals copied from Cowboy Bebop in Lazarus, from the OP on. |
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Metazoxan
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Yeah. I tried to like Lazarus, but everything about it just didn't hit the mark. The primary MC literally felt like Spike, but without the charisma. The rest of the cast was as forgettable as could be. The entire premise of the show makes little sense. Were apparently looking at an extinction level event ... But a wannabe suicide squad is basically our only hope? Even if you want to push the idea humanity would fail to cooperate even on the brink of doom (death is actually one of the few times humans will put aside their differences without question. I hate when writers ignore this and just tunnel vision on the worst examples of humanity), there was an incredibly small amount of people doing anything. Like we had people doing business and just acting normal when everyone is told they'll die in the next couple years. This just didn't feel natural and made the entire atmosphere feel off. The animation was nice, but sometimes it felt .... Pretentious? Idk something about some of the shots felt like they were trying too hard. Like the stars in the eyes thing. |
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Philmister978
Posts: 531 |
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I said this as it was airing, but I noted how it felt like everyone involved, including Adult Swim and MAPPA, had their own ideas and Watanabe just shrugged and accepted them while adding in his own at the same time. Because that's what the series ultimately feels like in the end. An overly complicated story that has both, no room to breathe while simultaneously focusing on things that prove to be mostly irrelevant by the end.
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MarshalBanana
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1769 |
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I also remember mentioning in the comment section of Lazaru's weekly reviews that it felt like the series felt like it was micromanaged by Cartoon Network, as if they wanted a hit series that could be a sort of spiritual sequel to Cowboy Bebop, but some said I sounded as a conspiracy-theorist, as if Watanabe's original vision was destroyed by Warner. I didn't mean that, and while Lazarus may have turned out just as Shinichiro and his team intened, I felt like the team at MAPPA was trying to make something that they though is what overseas fans, particularly in the U.S., wanted, but in the end they made something which is not particularly well done and that I believe it's going to fade into obscurity, aside from maybe some content creator making a retrospective in the following years. I don't know if Lazarus is the worst anime of 2025, but it's probably the most dissapointing to me, and the thing is that I actually watched every single episode right when they were added to HBO Max every Sunday, I usually drop series that don't hold my attention, even if maybe they're good but not for me, but Lazarus was one of the few times were I sit through a show which I thought it had a lot of problems just to see how it would end. The only positive things I can say is that it had great animation, cool character and background designs, great music, and it's the first anime I watched in its entirety in English, even if I'm not a native speaker, but the dub sounded good to me (the Neutral Spanish dub wasn't very good) |
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LastPage 3
Posts: 291 |
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That was kinda the point though? The series was mostly about our crew dealing with unfinished business as a result of the world ending and the apathy of their surroundings made for a good contrast. Does it make the most sense? Not really, but that's also missing the point a bit. I'm in a very small minority here, but I really enjoyed Lazarus for precisely this reason. It went by the beat of it's own drum. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20003 |
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Watanabe-san is a legendary director for reason, even if Lazarus isn't a good showcase for that.
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we love lain
Posts: 150 |
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Are there any strong examples that demonstrate Watanabe’s lack of proficiency with writing a story (enough to consider him not being good at it?) Not tryna say he’s a spectacular or even an impressive writer or anything, but i see comments like this circle around from time to time and I often wonder what examples people are pulling from. Terror in Resonance doesn’t really count as that was more so a hodgepodge of writers with no real head writer credit if memory serves me right. Watanabe is only credited for creating the premises of the series |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1584 |
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Usually, when no one gets a "series composition" credit on a show, that means the director is overseeing the writing themselves. In Lazarus's case, Watanabe was even credited for the scripts of the series premiere and the last two episodes, so he was clearly the head writer. He has a bunch of script credits on some of his other shows, but other than Baby Blue, the one thing he wrote by himself that I really liked was the Carole & Tuesday finale, which many criticized as too sappy but I found very emotionally effective. |
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we love lain
Posts: 150 |
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But that's kinda the point I'm getting at, right? Given all the writing credits he has, how many of them are really all that washed that he tends to be seen by some as an ineffective writer? (his ratio seems to be more demonstrative on the side of being competent than not). Unless, the claim isn't that he lacks competency in writing, but that he's just not as good of a writer in comparison to his acumen with directing; which that, I totally get. I think the guy does well-enough with writing, but given the examples of Lazarus and perhaps Terror in Resonance, he seems to struggle with maintaining logical consistency around big, sprawling plot points, as opposed to when he's handling smaller ideas, wherein he's able to better communicate the strengths of his writing through. And yes, I agree that his handling of the Carole and Tuesday finale was a good demonstration of competent writing, despite the sappiness of it and especially amidst what was an uneven show |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 15210 |
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Y'know how the saying goes - behind every good manga-ka is a good editor
That's what these guys need - a good editor behind them |
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PeteDocktor
Posts: 1 |
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The following quote from LeSean Thomas- The founder, curator and Host of Foreign Exchange - from folks who attended the NYC event & recorded LeSean's introduction statement went like this: " This is not an anime con. This is not a fandom event. This is about taking the monetized, transactional, cyclical, trending, subjective-based commercial space of the common, film and tv angle of anime in Hollywood, and placing it into a cultural diplomacy space. Its a "Craft Salon" where we speak in-depth about the craft of anime series creation, business and production. A cultural institution discussion....consider it like "Inside The Actors Studio", but for Anime series creators and producers...." This was the intro for the "Making of Lazarus" discussion (covered here) and the "Black American Music Traditions and the Anime of Shinichiro Watanabe" discussion (which was amazing, and sad ANN didn't cover that one as well). Both discussion introductions were said to prep the audience before he brought out Watanabe-san. ANN isn't always the best at journaling these kind of events I've noticed. Japan Foundation Institution eventually uploaded the videos of the full, Foreign Exchange Craft Salon Discussions from the 2024 event on Youtube. Pretty sure they will do the same for FE:2025 when it's ready. You'll be able to see the discussion in full by then. This article overlooked so many great moments from LeSean's questions & Watanabe-sans responses. Still a remarkable event and awesome that it was covered! |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 12752 |
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Thanks, that's a good opener. But I'm still left wondering what exactly the author thought he said that was putting "it" best, and what in particular Thomas was commenting on so incisively. The purpose of the event? The contributions of Watanabe? The societal impacts of his work? Why people would be interested in this? The day's weather? Could be anything! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm just baffled by "LeSean Thomas said something really cool, but I'm not gonna tell you what he said." I hope it just got accidentally deleted, but if not, I'm not sure what to say. |
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