> [!info] > https://letterboxd.com/trognon/film/lazarus-2025-3/ Shinichiro Watanabe could direct a shampoo commercial and it would still generate hype: "This shampoo commercial is the new Cowboy Bebop, for sure." Every piece of his work, great and less great, is scrutinized and compared to see if it lives up to his more than two-decade-old masterpiece. Even his second most popular show is essentially a remix of Bebop, which is difficult to ignore. I'll admit that even Watanabe himself seems to send mixed signals sometimes. Lazarus reflects that. It's the most mixed-signal show he could have directed. It's so effortlessly a lesser Bebop that it feels, for the first time, genuinely disappointing. It feels like a Thursday in Watanabe's animation universe, a poor mix between Terror in Resonance and Bebop. Don't get me wrong, there's some secret sauce in here. Its character animation is graceful, the rhythm is great, the playlist kicks, and there are some nice action scenes. Every episode is a one-shot bullet moving at breakneck speed, a structure share with many of his emblematic previous works. Something that works great when you're telling a story about characters who wander and search for themselves, but far less so when you try to build tension and a sense of international drama. I know that at some point you need to accept plot holes, but here everything navigates through giant absences of consistency. The series' premise is silly: a painkiller without side effects that makes you high? Feels like a side effect to me. It's as thin as you can imagine, and every twist that develops only worsens the problem. Don't even get me started on the killer with no name arc. The series acts like there’s some serious sh*t going on, but none of it connects to anything that actually matters. Every character grunts when they "hide" something. Nothing they go through during the runtime feels earned. The writing is even less than an excuse to see sleek moves from the main character set to a matching soundtrack. What's truly frustrating is that his post-Bebop work has had excellent high points. The unapologetic joyfulness and lightheartedness of CAROLE & TUESDAY make it one of my favorites. But above all, Space Dandy, tremendous in its second half, is absolute proof that a post-Bebop path exists and is exciting. I'm sad for him that everyone continues to gravitate around Bebop when he's proven he can do other things that are different but share core elements. I don't think you could match the thing, so why try? Lazarus is certainly one of his more sterile creative works to date.