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LeSean Thomas' Film Discussion Series for Japan Society to Host Cowboy Bebop, Lazarus Director Shinichiro Watanabe

Japan Society announced on Thursday the Foreign Exchange 2025: Cross-Cultural Conversations with Anime Visionaries film and discussion series that will take place in its location at New York City on November 17-22. Creator and director LeSean Thomas (Yasuke, Cannon Busters) and producer Justin Leach (Star Wars: Visions, Leviathan) will visit classrooms to talk about animation and film from November 17-19. Then, director Shinichirō Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Lazarus - pictured right) will join them from November 20-22 for discussions about their anime and hold public screenings for Lazarus and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, among others.

Japan Society will also host a pop-up exhibit featuring Watanabe's selected production art from Lazarus. NYC's Rough Trade Records will host an autograph signing for Watanabe on November 22.

Watanabe directed Lazarus, the new original 13-episode anime that premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block on April 5. The anime's opening theme song "Vortex" by Kamasi Washington was nominated for "Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music" at the 77th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

Watanabe directed such notable anime productions as Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, Carole & Tuesday, and Terror in Resonance. He also directed the "Blade Runner: Black Out 2022" anime short. Watanabe's short film "A Girl Meets a Boy and a Robot" screened at the 26th Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada in July 2022.

Thomas' Cannon Busters animated series premiered on Netflix in August 2019. Thomas previously funded a short pilot film for the project using Kickstarter. Thomas (Children of Ether, The Boondocks) published the first issue of his original Cannon Busters comic in 2005 with Udon Entertainment and Devil's Due Publishing.

Thomas' Yasuke anime debuted in April 2021 worldwide on Netflix.

Leach began his animation career in college as a comic strip artist. After graduating, he moved on to Blye Sky Studios, where he worked as an animator for several projects including Titan A.E. and Ice Age. Leach began working as a "technical animator" for Production I.G in August 2000, and he is one of the few Americans with personal experience in the anime industry. He has worked on the Last Exile television series, the Ghost in the Shell: Innocence film, the animation sequences in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, and he served as a producer for Kick-Heart.

Leach is the producer of the Star Wars: Visions Volume 3 anthology project that debuted on Disney+ on Wednesday. He is also the producer for the anime series of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan novel, which premiered on Netflix on July 10.

Source: Press release