Last year, Adult Swim announced that Cowboy Bebop director Shinichirō Watanabe had started work on a new anime called Lazarus. We have not heard much about the series since then, but on Friday, Adult Swim surprised fans attending New York Comic Con by screening the premiere episode of Lazarus. The rest of us will sadly have to wait until the show debuts in 2025 to watch it, but in the meantime, Adult Swim shared a clip online.
In the clip, we meet Axel Gilberto, a fugitive on the run from the law. We’re also introduced to the group that appears to be hunting him down.
The show takes place in 2052, after neuroscientist Dr. Skinner helped develop a cure-all miracle drug known as Hapna that ushered in an era of peace. Skinner disappeared shortly after Hapna became available, but nearly three years later, he’s back with a warning: Everyone who took the drug will die three years after taking it. There are 30 days left until most of humanity starts dying off unless someone can find Skinner, who holds the cure.
“Lazarus” is a team of five agents who plan to find him and save the world.
Watanabe is considered a master of the form, but he wasn’t afraid to ask for help from equally impressive artists along the way. For instance, John Wick director Chad Stahelski consulted on fight scenes; Kamasi Washington, Floating Points, and Bonobo featured on the score; and the sound effects company Formosa Group (Dune, The Fall Guy, Blade Runner: 2049) brought “a Hollywood-level design” to the show, as noted by Polygon.
Lazarus’s Japanese voice cast features Mamoru Miyano as Axel Gilberto, Koichi Yamadera as Dr. Skinner, Megumi Hayashibara as Hersch, Maaya Uchida as Chris, Yuma Uchida as Leland, Makoto Furukawa as Doug, Manaka Iwami as Eleina, and Akio Otsuka as Abel. Yamadera and Hayashibara previously voiced characters in Cowboy Bebop.
All 13 episodes of Lazarus will air on Adult Swim in 2025.
