‘Lazarus' Is a Dark and Kinetic Adventure
Image A scene from 'Lazarus.' Credit... Adult Swim
Right on the heels of 'Common Side Effects' comes another animated pharmacological thriller, this time the Japanese anime series 'Lazarus,' which premieres, dubbed, on Saturday at midnight, on Adult Swim. The show is set in 2055, and a miracle pain killer that claims to free people from all suffering has become ubiquitous. Years after the mysterious Dr. Skinner released this drug, Hapna, he re-emerges with a second bombshell: After three years in your system, Hapna will kill you.
Humanity has 30 days before everyone who has taken it — which is just about everybody — succumbs. Unless, of course, someone can find Dr. Skinner and the antidote only he can share.
This calls for a ragtag team! Of course it does; 'Lazarus' was created and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, best known for his work directing 'Cowboy Bebop,' which is also a dark, funny, futuristic ensemble adventure. The show's other big draw is its fight choreography by the 'John Wick' director Chad Stahelski. The action sequences are the highlight of the five (of 13) episodes made available for review: a big jailbreak in the pilot, lots of urban scrambling, a zippy comeuppance for a sex-pest sleaze.
Our snappy hero and newest member of the crew is Axel Gilberto, an escape artist and underbelly-dweller who is serving 888 years in prison — your sentence is doubled every time you escape. He is recruited out of his cell and into a shadowy group that is determined to find Dr. Skinner and has the requisite position players to do so, including a hacker, a researcher and an icy boss.
Each episode of 'Lazarus' begins with the same visual montage, but each opening narration and narrator is different. The episodes end with a countdown of how many days are left until the Hapna apocalypse. This repetitive yet iterative framing feels like a ritual, and the show is filled with religious imagery and musings about the nature of divinity.
If Dr. Skinner can both cure and kill everyone, does that make him a god? Or just the world's most powerful drug peddler? If pain is a part of life, and there is no more pain, maybe we're already dead, and there's nothing left to pray for. If you thought the end was coming, would you change course or just surrender?
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