Lazarus

Episode 4

I will admit that last week's shaky episode had me worried that this would be one of those anime where that dreadful cliche of “all style and no substance” would be genuinely applicable. Shinichirō Watanabe is a preternaturally gifted director that could find a way into animating a trip to the DMV that somehow becomes the coolest goddamned thing that you've ever seen, but a season of television needs more than impeccable visuals and an undeniable instinct for badass action to justify its existence, and Lazarus has been dangerously lackadaisical in proving its bona fides in that regard. Thankfully, “Don't Stop the Dance” has no such issues. It may have taken a month, but Lazarus has finally delivered its first unqualified success.

To be clear, this isn't a perfect episode of television. You could still easily complain that this week's story is yet again much too simple for its own good. Just like previous episodes have done, “Don't Stop the Dance” sees Team Lazarus head out to track down some mysterious potential-colluder in Skinner's grand Hapna scheme, whereupon they engage in a bunch of fighting only to be left with a single crumb of a clue to point them in the direction of their next lead. In this case, the hunt for hacker extraordinaire Doctor 909 reveals that the would-be cyber-punk doesn't know a thing about Skinner's whereabouts, save for the fact that a pharmaceutical company called Delta Medicinal had data pointing to insider knowledge about Skinner's Hapna Truth Bomb. Presumably, this will lead the crew on another wild goose chase for another lone, vaguely promising hint towards yet another, even wilder goose chase. Rinse and repeat.

Here, I am more than happy to stick with Lazarus' usual formula, because we've now elevated the proceedings from “all style and no substance” to “all style and just enough substance to keep viewers thoroughly entertained.” It is a small but meaningful difference when it comes to action-adventure anime, primarily interested in overloading your optic nerves with ridiculously gorgeous and moody animation backed by an ear-meltingly smooth soundtrack. I don't need Lazarus to attempt some grand display of highfalutin art. I want the scripts to feel like someone bothered with second or third drafts before sending them off to be storyboarded.

In “Don't Stop the Dance,” all of the random, dessert-themed diversions and clumsy attempts at shoe-horned social commentary have been cut away to leave us with a lean, mean, and rollicking half-hour of television. Do I feel like I've learned anything substantial or revelatory about our team of heroes? Not at all, but Doug and Leland score some big points by being awkward dorks at the swanky club they have to infiltrate, and that goes a long way towards making me care about them, at least. Chris, for her part, shines as the star of the show by taking on a duo of skeezy tech-bro stock market trolls who spend their time hawking GenAI garbage and sexually assaulting women with date-rape drugs when they aren't gleefully preying on the market volatility of the medical-industrial complex. If nothing else, this episode has convinced me that Shinichirō Watanabe hates narcissistic social-media-vampire-yuppies just as much as most Americans do, and that he, too, would gladly have a beautiful blonde bombshell stomp them in the nuts and cart their asses to prison.

We don't live in a world where the real technocrat scumbags can see such justice - at least, not yet - so for now we'll have to make do with simply rewatching this episode of Lazarus over and over again and cheering for a more metaphorical victory. Next week, Team Lazarus looks to be taking on Big Pharma themselves, and I'm going to be straight up with you: The anime's going to get an automatic five stars from me if Axel and Co. end up recreating the ending of Fight Club with the pharmaceutical corps taking the place of credit-card companies.

Rating:

Lazarus is currently streaming on Max and Hulu on Sundays.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.