Lazarus to debut in April with 13 episodes

[Top Gun]

Okay...but this is hardly going to be "Demarco's soundtrack." Even when he's not directing anime, Watanabe is a great music producer for other series (his choices for Shingo Natsume's "Sonny Boy" were fantastic). There's no universe in which he isn't making the calls on his own series.

[PokeNirvash]

Not to mention one of the composers he picked is motherfuckin' Bonobo. Love that dude's music.

 

Edited March 12 by PokeNirvash

[Jman]

Here’s the opening.

 

And for bonus points, DeMarco’s name is the first one you see for this Bebop-ass opening.   Give Shankar credit, he thinks outside the box.

Edited March 27 by Jman

[PokeNirvash]

Love that music. I could do without the open mouths across the board, though. (Two or three, I get, but all five?)

[Toonamiguy321]

The more I see of this, the more it feels like Demarco just trying to make a Bebop fanfic with donut steel characters. He promised to not make a new Bebop season, he didn’t promise to not make a new Bebop entirely with Schmike Schmegal and his pals. 

[Sketch]

How is this opening both not very hype and not very chill? It's this weird middle ground that comes off awkward to me. Fine song and okay visuals but the mix just isn't working for me and it's got nothing on the OPs of Bebop, Champloo and Dandy.

That said, everything I have heard from people who saw the first 5 eps as screeners have had no complaints about the show and giving out 5 eps is a vote of confidence in of itself. I'm keeping my eyes and expectations fresh for the Toonami broadcasts but that is at least somewhat reassuring.

[[classic swim]]

The intro not being 100% silhouette or abstract was a conscious effort.

You can take the good and the bad with that. The Bebop crew didn’t have to stand all BadassTM with the title logo. 

This theme song tells me absolutely nothing about why I should give Grace Arlene’s cunt hairs about any of the characters... but Bebop’s intro was like that too. I’m just gonna have to watch the show if I ever get to it.

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

That said, everything I have heard from people who saw the first 5 eps as screeners have had no complaints about the show and giving out 5 eps is a vote of confidence in of itself. I'm keeping my eyes and expectations fresh for the Toonami broadcasts but that is at least somewhat reassuring.

Gotta take that with a grain of salt though. No one wants to be the reviewer to say “this Watanabe project sux” because they will get absolutely destroyed by fanboys. It would have to be Uzumaki tier abysmal for someone to get up on that hill. Now, when the project is out to the masses, then if it sucks people will be more willing to say it because it’s more than just dude trust me bro. 
 

Plus, I stand by Ninja Kamui staying solid for 6 episodes until the CGI slop really started to take hold. Lazarus has to start AND end good for a W.

[Sketch]

Obviously it has to start and end good for a W and I'm not gonna say otherwise. But it certainly helps to start off well and not need to hold the audience hostage till it gets good.

However, I disagree that people aren't willing to criticize a Watanabe show, plenty of people looked sideways at Dandy and Terror in Resonance wasn't above criticism out the gate either. And mind you I'm hearing this from people who have been quite critical of Toonami's other originals as well as Watanabe's shows, some of which didn't even like Ninja Kamui early on and think Cowboy Bebop and Champloo are overrated.

Perhaps their expectations were low due to Toonami's track record but they aren't the types that give Watanabe shows a free pass. They're not concerned about becoming targets from fanboys for their opinions either.

I think you might even be overestimating the level of loyalty people have to Watanabe given a lot of people in the comments of the OP video don't even realize this is a Watanabe show despite the credits displayed. And for real where were these Watanabe glazers when Carol and Tuesday was airing? I don't think they were even that many for Terror in Resonance. Granted we are talking about the AS anime viewers who would actually acknowledge this show is airing and surely there's plenty that feel Watanabe can do no wrong but even a lot of those folks didn't dig Space Dandy, T&R, C&T and might not have even heard of Kids on the Slope.

[Top Gun]

I had to laugh when I saw the opening described as "the Bebop we have at home." It doesn't affect my cautious optimism for the series much either way, but I do think it would have been a good idea to go for something that wasn't quite so...on the nose.

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, Sketch said:

I think you might even be overestimating the level of loyalty people have to Watanabe given a lot of people in the comments of the OP video don't even realize this is a Watanabe show despite the credits displayed. And for real where were these Watanabe glazers when Carol and Tuesday was airing? I don't think they were even that many for Terror in Resonance. Granted we are talking about the AS anime viewers who would actually acknowledge this show is airing and surely there's plenty that feel Watanabe can do no wrong but even a lot of those folks didn't dig Space Dandy, T&R, C&T and might not have even heard of Kids on the Slope.

The difference is simple, anime generally doesn’t get handed out to review goobers to pre watch. Lazarus is an AS show so it’s working a little differently. TiR and C&R were just seasonal shows among the boatload there is 4 times a year. Since Toonami didn’t spoonfeed those to anyone, they just didn’t get discussed that much outside of diehard anime communities. 
 

Good luck criticizing Dandy in the presence of any Toonami fans who was there in 2014. You will be attacked for having the audacity to consider it anything less than 10/10. Among non Toonami viewers, opinions are much more varied. 
 

I hope Lazarus doesn’t suck, I really do. Especially since it’s gonna be the only show on the block for 2/3 it’s run minimum. But I also don’t trust the integrity of reviewers to go against the acceptable public opinion. 

[Jman]

It's pretty clear that all these years later, DeMarco still considers Cowboy Bebop the platonic ideal of what an anime should be, which is kind of hilarious when you consider that he has also repeatedly said FLCL was his favorite anime ever.  Bebop is everything that DeMarco thinks anime should be, it stars an adult cast, any sort of fanservice is quick and doesn't occupy the screen excessively (and I still think he'd edit out some of the more blatant Faye shots if he could), the action is stylized but still relatively down to earth, having more in common with John Woo than Go Nagai or the duo behind Kinnikuman.  But this is probably DeMarco's most blatant attempt so far to try and recapture that Bebop magic.  

I don't know how well this will do.  But I'm not exactly confident.

[Sketch]

11 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

The difference is simple, anime generally doesn’t get handed out to review goobers to pre watch. Lazarus is an AS show so it’s working a little differently. TiR and C&R were just seasonal shows among the boatload there is 4 times a year. Since Toonami didn’t spoonfeed those to anyone, they just didn’t get discussed that much outside of diehard anime communities. 
 

Good luck criticizing Dandy in the presence of any Toonami fans who was there in 2014. You will be attacked for having the audacity to consider it anything less than 10/10. Among non Toonami viewers, opinions are much more varied. 
 

I hope Lazarus doesn’t suck, I really do. Especially since it’s gonna be the only show on the block for 2/3 it’s run minimum. But I also don’t trust the integrity of reviewers to go against the acceptable public opinion. 

I think there's Toonami viewers that don't consider Space Dandy a 10/10 but Toonami viewers are more likely to love Space Dandy than the majority of the anime viewing public.

I will say the people who endlessly sing the praises of Watanabe are the ones that are probably still watching Adult Swim and at least gave Dandy a chance or outright loved it.

I think you should trust their integrity a tad more than that and none of these folks I'm talking about are really Watanabe dick riders. They are not concerned with going against acceptable public opinion and suggesting a Watanabe project didn't turn out well. I'm not saying their judgement is infallible but I've known them not to sugar coat it when it comes to DeMarco's pet projects. So I genuinely feel some relief that they say its good so far. But as you said, starting off well doesn't mean it will stay good and for that we'll just have to wait and see.

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, Sketch said:

I think you should trust their integrity a tad more than that and none of these folks I'm talking about are really Watanabe dick riders. They are not concerned with going against acceptable public opinion and suggesting a Watanabe project didn't turn out well. I'm not saying their judgement is infallible but I've known them not to sugar coat it when it comes to DeMarco's pet projects. So I genuinely feel some relief that they say its good so far. But as you said, starting off well doesn't mean it will stay good and for that we'll just have to wait and see.

Here’s the main reason I don’t trust them. 5 episodes is a lot to hand out early. That’s right on the edge of half the show. AS didn’t hand those episode out to just anyone, they are going to people financially incentivized to at minimum, not say anything outright bad about the show. The age of being able to trust the word of any kind of pre release review is long gone. 
 

I’ll be there with everyone else forming my own opinion, and as I said, I truly do hope this is good. 

[PokeNirvash]

Upon further thought, I've got a hypothetical fix that could make this OP really slap: use an existing Kamasi Washington track instead of making one new.

I mean, they're already borrowing music with the ending theme, so why not go the extra furlong?

[Sketch]

4 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

Here’s the main reason I don’t trust them. 5 episodes is a lot to hand out early. That’s right on the edge of half the show. AS didn’t hand those episode out to just anyone, they are going to people financially incentivized to at minimum, not say anything outright bad about the show. The age of being able to trust the word of any kind of pre release review is long gone. 
 

I’ll be there with everyone else forming my own opinion, and as I said, I truly do hope this is good. 

None of the folks I'm talking about are reviewing the show as a means to profit. They all write as a hobby. They're paid on passion but have torn down basically everything DeMarco has been associated with but like Common Side Effects,  Scavengers Reign, My Adventures with Superman and Invincible Fight Girl (maybe only one of them liked Unicorn). Most of them didn't even like Ninja Kamui before the general audience turned on that one and even nitpick the first episode of Uzumaki. If anything they are overly critical of the co-pros so when they say Lazarus is genuinely good so far, that's quite a vote of confidence to me.

I don't know if you ever read my initial reviews of Ninja Kamui, RATAM, etc but they aren't exactly glowing. I find these people to be of like mind and trust their tastes in entertainment in general.

[Top Gun]

ANN preview makes me cautiously optimistic:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/lazarus-anime-episodes-1-5/.222885

[Jman]

The review sounds like the most DeMarco shit ever.  Like he was standing over Watanabe the whole time giving notes.  The lack of show, don’t tell is particularly worrisome.

[OwlChemist81]

On 3/28/2025 at 1:52 AM, Toonamiguy321 said:

 

I hope Lazarus doesn’t suck, I really do. Especially since it’s gonna be the only show on the block for 2/3 it’s run minimum. But I also don’t trust the integrity of reviewers to go against the acceptable public opinion. 

Where the hell do you get THAT bullshit? We're gonna get 2 new episodes of One Piece this week!

[Toonamiguy321]

22 hours ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Where the hell do you get THAT bullshit? We're gonna get 2 new episodes of One Piece this week!

Yea I ain’t sitting through an hour of rerun trash to get to two episodes of something I don’t care about. Ask me again in May if one or both of those reruns are replaced by a new show. 

[brianycpht]

On 4/1/2025 at 12:18 AM, OwlChemist81 said:

Where the hell do you get THAT bullshit? We're gonna get 2 new episodes of One Piece this week!

One Piece is going to be ever present, so I’d assume it’s always going to be part of the lineup. Not worried about that 

But are we going to have any other premieres before 1:30?