Half an hour before my interview with famed anime creator Shinichirō Watanabe, a handler from Adult Swim emailed me to ask if we would have our videos on. The question seemed odd until I read the rest of the message: “If so, Watanabe wants to wear his sunglasses for the interview!” The idea that the 59-year-old animator and director wanted to look cool while wearing sunglasses at 9 a.m. my time and 11 p.m. his local time—with my permission—was too good an opportunity to pass up. Who was I to turn him down? The moment his camera turned on, Watanabe left me stunned.
Watanabe, wearing sunglasses, sat with his arms crossed—as if emulating the Gunbuster pose—in front of his colossal collection of vinyl records, jam-packed in a bookshelf and with visibly worn spines peeking out of their plastic wrapping, ready to discuss his new anime. As the kids say, the dude was aura farming like crazy. The tone was set, and I was ready to pick his brain about how such a chill guy was so confident in declaring that Lazarus, his new joint, would be the culmination of his illustrious career so far.
The moment Adult Swim announced Watanabe’s new sci-fi anime, Lazarus, the burning question on everyone’s lips was whether or not the stalwart visionary was capable of scribing another thrilling tale evoking the same vibes as his seminal ’90s classic, Cowboy Bebop. With a storied resume including works like Macross Plus, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, Kids on the Slope, Terror in Resonance, and Carole and Tuesday—all of which have their distinctive styles and poignant stories—it is understandable that Watanabe would bristle at the public immediately pigeonholing his new series as the next Cowboy Bebop instead of recognizing it as its own entity.
Set in 2052, Lazarus sees the world on the precipice of unprecedented peace and stability, thanks to a revolutionary painkiller named Hapna. Created by neuroscientist Dr. Skinner, Hapna is mass-distributed with the promise of freeing the world from physical and emotional pain—a very in-vogue theme in animation this year. Three years after Skinner, humanity’s savior, disappears, he reemerges as its grim reaper, revealing that the drug he developed has a fatal side effect that will kill anyone who ever ingested it. After years of casual use and abuse of the drug, humanity faces mass extinction within a month unless Skinner is found. A special task force called Lazarus is formed to track down Skinner, uncover a cure, and prevent a global pharmaceutical culling.
Lazarus sees Watanabe collaborating with John Wick director Chad Stahelski for the anime’s action sequences. Additionally, its jazzy and electronic score is a collaboration between renowned saxophonist Kamasi Washington (who was mentioned in rapper Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”) and musicians Floating Points and Bonobo. Animation studio Mappa, known for shows like Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and the final season of Attack on Titan, is producing the show alongside Sola Entertainment.
In layman’s terms, Lazarus boasts a superstar troupe of creatives at the top of their respective games, making it a must-watch for anime fans beyond having Watanabe’s name attached to it. Still, as if suffering from his success, Lazarus has been anointed as Watanabe’s new Bebop—a distinction the legendary creator isn’t too fond of.
The Bebop elephant in the room
Despite Watanabe’s insistence that Lazarus isn’t a spiritual successor to what many anime fans regard as his magnum opus, the anime isn’t exactly divorcing itself from Cowboy Bebop comparisons—what with animation studio Mappa and saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s jazzy opening theme “Vortex” evoking the same look and feel of studio Sunrise and acclaimed composer Yoko Kanno’s blues band Seatbelt’s “Tank.” It also doesn’t help that Lazarus‘ parkouring lead, Axel Gilberto, is the spitting image of Bebop’s carefree hunter, Spike Spiegel. When asked whether Lazarus’ sonic and visual motifs were purposefully created for audiences to draw a connection to Bebop’s vibe or was it coincidental, Watanabe responded in kind, saying we’ll have to “cut him some slack.”
“It is the same director making those two series, there’s gonna be some similarities, so I would like people to cut me some slack on that aspect,” Watanabe said, via an interpreter. “But in no way am I doing the same thing on purpose, making a cameo, or paying homage to my previous works. Everything is for a reason, and I want you to watch it with fresh eyes,” Watanabe said. “Don’t look for similarities, just enjoy it for what it is.”
Giving a late, longtime collaborator her flowers
Not leaving well enough alone, I inquired whether the uncanny sense of déjà vu that myself and anime fans in the West are experiencing while watching the Lazarus previews had anything to do with the series being written alongside Watanabe’s late longtime collaborator Keiko Nobumoto—to which he agreed.
Anime fandoms and the press often fall into the trap of believing that the genius formative works are the result of a sole person’s (often a man’s) unyielding auteurism. However, much of the uniqueness of Cowboy Bebop‘s timeless story is as much a credit to Nobumoto as it is to Watanabe. In addition to working with Watanabe on both Cowboy Bebop and its feature film, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, she also contributed scripts to other Watanabe works, including, Macross Plus, Carole and Tuesday, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy. Nobumoto also played a role in writing Satoshi Kon‘s Tokyo Godfathers and creating Wolf’s Rain; she’s also credited as a scenario supervisor for Kingdom Hearts.
Before her passing in December 2021 after battling esophageal cancer, Watanabe mentioned that Nobumoto collaborated with him once again on the development of Lazarus. He also credited Nobumoto for giving Lazarus its distinctive Cowboy Bebop vibes, not himself.
“[Nobumoto] was a part of the project from the very start when we were developing the story and characters. We got a lot of advice from her during that phase, but she did fall very ill while we were trying to write the scripts, so we couldn’t ask her for the scripts,” Watanabe said. “So we took that on ourselves, all the knowledge that she’s given us, to finish writing the story. If Lazarus does remind people of Cowboy Bebop, it’s probably because we worked with Nobumoto together to write the story.”
Finding inspiration from an unlikely source
When asked whether he finds it disheartening to be solely known as “the Cowboy Bebop guy,” and have that hanging over him during press tours for new creative ventures, or if he takes it with a point of pride that his work has touched people, Watanabe offered a measured response that made it abundantly clear that his shades are not rose-tinted eyewear set on recreating past hits. Instead, they’re blinders zeroed in on capturing a not-so-distant sci-fi series that’s grounded in the present.
A huge part of Watanabe’s drive to create something new was spurned by his previous work on the Blade Runner 2049 animated short, Black Out 2022, which he directed with Sola DIgital Arts with music from Flying Lotus.
Although it had been a while since he’d worked on an action series, Watanabe recounted having a lot of fun working on Black Out 2022 and cites it as a big part of why he wanted to make something new in Lazarus.
Anchoring Lazarus in reality
Instead of confining himself to making an anime that felt futuristic, Watanabe was determined to create a series that felt less like speculative fiction and more like what life could actually look like in 2052. As previously mentioned in our Lazarus premiere review, covering its first five episodes, the show—despite being a sci-fi animated series—feels wholly grounded in reality. This is evident in its fluid yet weighty action choreography and the foley of its audio design, all of which anchor the anime in a realm of realism more befitting a feature film Hollywood production than an anime. Watanabe stressed he was willing to go to great lengths to meticulously ensure Lazarus harbored an unquestionable air of realism in every corner of its production.
“Writing a series set in the future, [and] making it feel more real—adding some reality to it—is very important. Even for shooting a gun, you lose a lot of reality once you starting inserting laser guns or beam guns. Aside from Space Dandy, which is more [comedic], my series try to be grounded in reality.”
To achieve the level of realism he desired out of Lazarus, Watanabe tapped sound effects company Formosa Group, whose past works include big Hollywood and prestige TV productions like Dune and Game of Thrones.
“Even for the sound effects, especially for like shooting a gun, I asked [Formosa] to use like actual gunshots and mixing some new sounds to make it sound a little bit different. I wanted some reality, even in the sound effects,” he continued, adding that he’d also requested production mix new sounds from an motorcycle bike instead of using old audio files to achieve a new layer of realism.
In addition to Watanabe’s aspiration to make the anime sound authentic, he also aimed for the action sequences to appear realistic. This involved incorporating Axel’s parkour style of martial arts, where he would improvise by running off walls, diving through narrow guard rails, and vaulting over adversaries, look like something a human being could feasibly replicate.
“A big part of it is trying to make something new every single time to differentiate my works. I always begin with a fresh mindset,” Watanabe said. “While I have done action series before, to differentiate it this time, we reached out to [Stahelski] to help us with the choreography for the series.”
As with Lazarus‘ gunshot and motorcycle foley work, Watanabe also wanted to incorporate the sounds from Stahelski’s production company, 87Eleven Action Design, into the anime’s action choreography.
Going beyond speculative fiction
In line with Watanabe’s commitment to realism in Lazarus‘ actions and effects, it was crucial for the anime’s story to be grounded in reality as well. Like Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects, Lazarus is teeming with mania over wellness conspiracies, an overwhelming distrust in big pharma, and self-destructive desires for escapism, all of which hit especially close to home with today’s world. To ensure that Lazarus‘ health-conscious sci-fi themes were less speculative fiction and more a reflection of the contemporary world, Watanabe drew inspiration from real-world events such as the opioid crisis and—most notably—the covid pandemic.
“[Lazarus] is not merely a simple metaphor for situations going on in reality. I wanted to pose the question of ‘What would you do if you were in this situation?’ to the audience. Even in the covid situation, there was a lot of different types of reactions. It was not plain black and white, it was on a gradient. I wanted [Lazarus] to be similar to that.”
A music recommendation for the road
Music plays an integral part with Watanabe’s works, and Lazarus is no different. In the lead up to the anime’s release, Adult Swim sent out social media blasts giving viewers a listen to three tracks from Lazarus: Bonobo’s “Dark Will Fall” featuring Jacob Lusk, Floating Point’s “Dexion,” and Washington’s “Vortex.” Seeing as how I’d been sat in front of Watanabe for the better part of 20 minutes as he answered one too many questions about Cowboy Bebop in front of his immense vinyl collection, I figured I’d ask him about five songs he’d been listening to in his day to day that fits the vibe of Lazarus.
My makeshift Genius quesition garned a chuckle as he let me down gently, saying “It’s a little difficult to pick out five songs off topic.” As if noticing the corners of my lips frown from having fumbled the final question of what was otherwise a dream interview, Watanabe bailed me out by humoring me.
“Are you familiar with the Boo Radleys?” Watanabe asked me.
“Mhm,” I replied, remembering the ’90s shoegaze and Britpop band name’s in the Lazarus‘ ending credits like a kid being asked a softball question from a pastor at Sunday school.
“The original Radley song [‘Lazarus’] came out in ’93 or probably ’94. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it, but I got really inspired after listening to it. That is a big reason why Lazarus came to be,” Watanabe said. “So if anyone does have this old CD, I would tell them to take it out and give it a listen.”
Should trekking to a record store for a CD of the Boo Radleys’ track prove impossible, we’ve got you covered:
Lazarus runs 13 episodes, kicking off April 5 on Adult Swim with next-day streaming on Max. Japanese with English subtitle episodes of the series will debut on Adult Swim and Max in May.
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