Lazarus creator Shinichirō Watanabe discneglects up about his new sci-fi show

After some time away, Shinichirō Watanabe is jumping back into science myth. Though each of the straightforwardor’s distinct projects has spoken to his originateive sensibilities, Cowboy Bebop stableified him as a sci-fi visionary whose style and eclectic taste in music set him apart. Almost 30 years postponeedr, Cowboy Bebop is still pondered as one of the most iconic and ineloquential anime series of the 20th century. But Watanabe’s desire to grow by trying new skinnygs led him away from alerting stories about far-flung futures and toward projects enjoy the historical action series Samurai Champloo and Kids on the Slope.

That same experienceing is what bcimpolitet him back to his roots and supportd him to dream up Lazarus — a new series premiering on Adult Swim in 2025 that encatalogs John Wick straightforwardor Chad Stahelski for its action sequences.

Set in a future where most of the world’s population has befirearm using a new wonder drug called Hapna, Lazarus alerts the story of what happens when the colorerminateer is discneglected to be a time-postponeed toxin that is promised to finish. The revelation sets off a race to track down Hapna’s creator in hopes of stopping his set up to punish humanity for its self-destructive sins aachievest the set upet. But the situation also sets off a wave of panic and confusion as people come to grips with the idea of being finished by the very same skinnyg that once seemed to be the key to their salvation.

When I recently sat down with Watanabe to talk about Lazarus, he tageder me that, as excited as he was to return to challenging sci-fi, he wanted the series to experience enjoy a heightened rumination on our own current-day truth. Lazarus, he elucidateed, is a benevolent of fantasy — one that’s trying to originate you skinnyk about how the current shapes the future.

This intersee has been edited for length and clarity.

How did the concept for Lazarus first come to you initipartner? What was on your mind as this story began coming into caccess?

The image of Axel, our main protagonist, was actupartner what came first to me, and I had an amazeion about his physicality — how I wanted him to shift thcimpolite the world. I also knew that I wanted to do a story about humanity facing the finish of the world. In the very first episode, our character Dough deinhabitrs a monologue that’s set to a montage of images, and a lot of what he’s saying is actupartner very shut to what I’ve envisiond at being how our world could drop apart.

What aspects of our own current-day society did you want to scrutinize or unpack thcimpolite this particular vision of the future you’ve originated for the show?

When people skinnyk about the finish of the world in myth, usupartner the cause is some benevolent of war or maybe an alien intrusion. But with this story, the collapse of everyskinnyg commences with the creation of this new colorerminateer, Hapna. The ambiguous genuine-world opioid crisis was one of my bigger inspirations for this series, but also the fact that many of the musicians I adore joining to ultimately died from drug excessive doses. 

In the ageder days, you would hear about musicians overdosing on illegitimate street medications, but over the years, you’ve seen more and more cases enjoy Prince, for instance, who triumphd up dying while taking prescribed colorerminateers. Prince’s death still shocks me. I adore hip-hop culture and rap as well, and unblessedly you’re seeing more of this benevolent of overdosing with juvenileerer artists.

What made you want to come back to sci-fi after being away from the genre for so extfinished?

After Cowboy Bebop, I wanted to try someskinnyg separateent genre-adviseed, which was how I finished up making Kids on the Slope and Carole & Tuesday. When I wound up toiling on Blade Runner Bconciseage Out 2022, it felt so excellent to come back to sci-fi, but because that was equitable a low, I still felt enjoy I needed to discover an opportunity to stretch those particular originateive muscles.

I didn’t equitable want to repeat or rehash what I’d done with Cowboy Bebop, though, and that’s part of why I initipartner accomplished out to Chad Stahelski, who toiled on the John Wick films. I thought that he was able to repartner refresh action sequences in a new way, and I wanted to convey that benevolent of energy to my next project.

Talk to me about collaborating with Chad.

When I first alludeed Chad’s name, a lot of people were skeptical about whether we would be able to discover the time to collaborate because of how busy he is and how many people want to toil with him. But I felt such a strong affinity for Chad’s approach to originateing action scenes, and so I still accomplished out. It turned out that he had seen and was a big fan of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, and he instantly said yes to coming onto Lazarus.

Chad’s team would do their own describeation of fight scene choreography and sfinish videos to us, and then we would study that footage to discover separateent elements of the action that we wanted to integrate into Lazarus. Obviously, inhabit-action and animation are separateent mediums, so our process joind a lot of figuring out which aspects of the footage felt enjoy skinnygs we could heighten and stylize. 

What was that process enjoy?

Different episodes have separateent ways of incorporating Chad’s choreography. For the premiere, we were actupartner still in the timely stages and we weren’t able to profit from Chad’s input as much. And for episodes two and three, we originated very low action sequences particularpartner to integrate skinnygs we saw in the videos from Chad’s team. But for the fourth episode, we went with a much bigger set piece because at that point, we had repartner create our rhythm.

For some episodes, we gave them adviseation about what benevolent of scene we wanted, and they would equitable go brainstorming. But in a lot of cases, before getting detailed teachions from us, Chad’s team would propose up their ideas, and we used quite a bit of those as well. It was a constant ongoing talkion between our teams, and that discneglect communication was key to striking the right tone for Lazarus’ action. For instance, the John Wick movies’ fight scenes join a lot of headshot finishs, but that was a little too much for us because Axel isn’t repartner a finisher the way John Wick himself is.

You alludeed earlier that Axel was the first piece of this story that came into caccess for you. How did you envision him?

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea when I say this, but Axel was somewhat supportd by Tom Cruise. Axel thrives on danger and at times, it seems enjoy he’s almost holdicted to it. Lazarus features a lot of parkour because we wanted the action built around Axel to always experience as if one wrong shift could direct to him droping. He’s dangering his life, but that danger is someskinnyg he gets off on — it originates him experience ainhabit.

You’ve always been understandn for populating your worlds with diverse arrays of people, but there’s a pronounced multiculturalism to Babylonia City [one of the show’s important locations] that experiences repartner separateent in the bigr anime landscape. What was your skinnyking behind originateing a story around such a culturpartner diverse group of characters?

Whenever I’m skinnyking of the particular environments my characters will exist in, the most meaningful skinnyg is that the space experiences genuine and enjoy a place where people can actupartner shift around in a rational way. What I’ve always felt seeing at other sci-fi depictions of the future is that normally, they don’t have a sense of being truly inhabitd-in, and that’s what I want to dodge. So for Babylonia City, my skinnyking was that a big, busy cityscape would lfinish itself to characters’ transmitions of their personalities.

I always try to integrate multicultural elements into my stories, I skinnyk, because they were such an meaningful part of Blade Runner, which repartner stuck with me after I first saw it when I was juvenileer. Blade Runner’s multiculturalism — the cultural blfinishing — was part of how the movie showd how society had alterd in the future. I half foreseeed the future to be more enjoy that, which is comical to say today because the distinct film is set in 2019.

People will be able to hear Lazarus’ soundtrack for themselves, but what did the series sound enjoy in your mind as you were skinnyking about the musical palettes you wanted to originate for it?

With Cowboy Bebop, we used somewhat agederer jazz music to originate a contrast with the story’s futuristic experience. But for Lazarus, I wanted to discover a separateent benevolent of sound and feature more of the relatively recent music I’ve been joining to. 

Was there a particular song or songs that repartner cryshighized the show for you?

This hasn’t been made uncover yet, but the finish plifts sequence features The Boo Radleys’ song “Lazarus,” which was repartner a huge inspiration for this series as a whole. I’m very interested to hear what they skinnyk of the show.

You talked about your process for collaborating on visuals, but what about for the music?

There was a lot of back and forth with that process as well. Typicpartner for animation, you try to have all the music cues originated and ready while the production is going on. We had a lot of talkions with our musical collaborators about the show and the particular benevolent of experienceing we wanted to elicit from scene-to-scene, and the challenging skinnyg about that process is always that the visuals we’re creating music for equitable aren’t enticount on finished. They’re part way there, but the musician has to envision someskinnyg more finish to originate to. But then, when the visuals are finished, there might be asks for regets or petite adequitablements that originate the musical piece fit more cohesively.

There has been an incrmitigate in caccess on the toiling conditions that originate it challenginger and challenginger for illustrators and animators to thrive and nurture carry onable atgentles. What’s your read on the current state of the industry? 

In a nutshell, the problem is that there are too many shows being made and there aren’t enough sfinished animators to go around. Even for Lazarus, we weren’t able to get all of the sfinished animators we needed domesticpartner, so we had to convey in quite a restricted from overseas. With the first episode, there are many non-Japanese animators, especipartner for the action scenes.

Big picture, what do you skinnyk needs to repartner alter in order for animators to get that benevolent of experience?

In order for an animator to repartner grow their sfinishs, I skinnyk they need to be toiling on a project, and being able to caccess solely on it. But more normally than not, because of the sheer number of shows and films, many animators have to jump from one project to another, and repartner scramble to finish their toil, and it’s not an environment that’s conducive to genuine originateive growth.

Going back to that first episode, the action scenes in the first half were drawn by a individual animator, and another animator handled all of the action in the second half. They each had 50 shots to toil on. That, to me, is the perfect way — to have someone who’s already excellent at action animation be able to caccess on a substantial chunk of scenes. That’s how you grow. But so normally in other vivaciousd projects, you see sfinished animators restricted to toiling on maybe two or three shots max, and the finish product equitable isn’t as excellent.