Lazarus (LAZARUS ラザロ) is an anime television series produced by MAPPA and Sola Entertainment for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim.It was created and directed by Shinichirō Watanabe.The series aired near-simultaneously in Japan on TV Tokyo and its affiliates and in the United States on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block (along with an Adult Swim Canada simulcast) from April to June 2025.
Plot
In the utopian year 2049, the world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has discovered a miracle analgesic drug known as "Hapna" that completely relieves the user of any pain, shortly before disappearing off the face of the Earth.Three years later in October 2052, Skinner resurfaces to the public in an online video to announce the drug has a three-year half-life and that soon, everyone who took it will die.
A task force of five agents, called "Lazarus", is assembled to locate Skinner within 30 days and get him to divulge a vaccine before the first wave of Hapna users die.[2]
A 23-year-old Brazilian man who was originally in jail for three years on a minor charge, but has since racked up several life sentences totaling 888 years due to his habit of finding ways to break out of whatever prison he is sent to. Incredibly agile and seemingly fearless, he can use his wits and his physical parkour abilities to escape almost any situation. He is a straightforward and friendly person, but he also exudes a somewhat solitary persona.
Douglas "Doug" Hadine (ダグラス・"ダグ"・ハディン)
A 23-year-old Nigerian man who is intellectual and the coordinator of the Lazarus team. He has great physical abilities and stays calm and collected under pressure. He is sensitive and delicate, paying attention to the small details. He also has a high level of pride. In college, he majored in physics as a student and once looked up to Dr. Skinner as a role model before the Hapna revelation. During his collaboration within Lazarus, he develops a friendly, playful relationship with Axel, even jokingly rejected him during one of the dialogues.
Christine "Chris" Blake (クリスティン・"クリス"・ブレイク)
A young Russian woman who is generally cheerful and frank, talking to anyone in a friendly manner. She is a gun specialist skilled in many kinds of firearms. Chris drinks a lot, is optimistic, and has a rough big-sister type personality that does not flatter men nor women. Her original name was Alexandra (アレクサンドラ), but she changed her identity after faking her death to escape a Russian special forces unit and to protect her former lover Inga from potential execution for betraying her homeland. Chris was affectionately referred to by Inga as Sashenka (サーシェンカ). In the second half of the show, it seems that Chris developed some feelings for Axel after he protected and saved her, giving him a kiss as a final wish when she and the other characters were almost resigned to the death of the world.
Leland Astor (リーランド・アスター)
A 16-year-old teenage boy from Canada who is skilled in piloting drones. He reads the situation and speaks accordingly, but he does not say what he really thinks. He also does not like to talk about his family due to his complicated background. One of his hobbies is egosurfing. He is the sole surviving male heir to the prominent Astor family estate.
Eleina (エレイナ)
A 15-year-old teenage girl from Hong Kong who has communication issues and has trouble joining in with people's conversations, but is also one of three world-famous covert hackers known as the Mad Screamer (マッドスクリーマー). As the story progresses, she becomes more open and bold, also developing a friendly rivalry with the Maldivian hacker Popcorn Wizard.
Associates
Hersch Lindemann (ハーシュ・リンデマン)
The commanding leader of the Lazarus team, an older woman who acts as their point of contact with the U.S. government. She has many connections with large corporations and national organizations. She is efficient and does her job without being swayed by emotions. She can be frightening when angry.
Abel Anderson (アベル・アンダーソン)
The current director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and founder of Lazarus. He is unfazed and always remains calm. His overly rational way of thinking has led to his colleagues spreading rumors that he is actually a human AI.
Elizabeth "Liz" (エリザベス・"リズ")
The current deputy director of the NSA. Liz assists Abel with the operations of Lazarus.
Members
Axel Gilberto (アクセル・ギルベルト)
A 23-year-old Brazilian man who was originally in jail for three years on a minor charge, but has since racked up several life sentences totaling 888 years due to his habit of finding ways to break out of whatever prison he is sent to. Incredibly agile and seemingly fearless, he can use his wits and his physical parkour abilities to escape almost any situation. He is a straightforward and friendly person, but he also exudes a somewhat solitary persona.
Douglas "Doug" Hadine (ダグラス・"ダグ"・ハディン)
A 23-year-old Nigerian man who is intellectual and the coordinator of the Lazarus team. He has great physical abilities and stays calm and collected under pressure. He is sensitive and delicate, paying attention to the small details. He also has a high level of pride. In college, he majored in physics as a student and once looked up to Dr. Skinner as a role model before the Hapna revelation. During his collaboration within Lazarus, he develops a friendly, playful relationship with Axel, even jokingly rejected him during one of the dialogues.
Christine "Chris" Blake (クリスティン・"クリス"・ブレイク)
A young Russian woman who is generally cheerful and frank, talking to anyone in a friendly manner. She is a gun specialist skilled in many kinds of firearms. Chris drinks a lot, is optimistic, and has a rough big-sister type personality that does not flatter men nor women. Her original name was Alexandra (アレクサンドラ), but she changed her identity after faking her death to escape a Russian special forces unit and to protect her former lover Inga from potential execution for betraying her homeland. Chris was affectionately referred to by Inga as Sashenka (サーシェンカ). In the second half of the show, it seems that Chris developed some feelings for Axel after he protected and saved her, giving him a kiss as a final wish when she and the other characters were almost resigned to the death of the world.
Associates
Hersch Lindemann (ハーシュ・リンデマン)
The commanding leader of the Lazarus team, an older woman who acts as their point of contact with the U.S. government. She has many connections with large corporations and national organizations. She is efficient and does her job without being swayed by emotions. She can be frightening when angry.
Abel Anderson (アベル・アンダーソン)
The current director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and founder of Lazarus. He is unfazed and always remains calm. His overly rational way of thinking has led to his colleagues spreading rumors that he is actually a human AI.
Elizabeth "Liz" (エリザベス・"リズ")
The current deputy director of the NSA. Liz assists Abel with the operations of Lazarus.
Key antagonists
Dr. Deniz Skinner (デニズ・スキナー博士)
A three-time Nobel Prize recipient neuroscientist from Turkey, who has deceived humanity with his seemingly cure-all wonder drug, Hapna, which is later revealed to be a deadly poison that will kill everyone who has taken it after three years. He claims that the first wave of people will die in approximately 30 days following his announcement, unless they can track him down.
Schneider (シュナイダー)
A lieutenant in the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), he is deeply involved in the development of Hapna for use as a bioweapon and is secretly planning to disrupt Lazarus' activities and eliminate Axel, a key figure in the project and the lone survivor of INSCOM's confidential Hapna clinical trial on inmates at an Arizona prison. He personally hires a ghost assassin known as Soryu to kill Axel.
Soryu / HQ (双竜 / HQ)
Soryu is an assassin known as the Ghost Assassin (幻の殺し屋), and HQ is his agent who negotiates with clients. In reality, they are actually the same person suffering from dissociative identity disorder due to the Hundun Program that was conducted on him back in his homeland of China. He accepts Schneider's murder-for-hire request of killing Axel for US$30 million. Some of the weapons he uses on the job are string, throwing knives, grenades and rocket launchers.
Other characters
Kobayashi (小林)
A businessman who owns survival bunkers in the U.S. state of Arizona and whose company, Kobayashi Shelter Sales, owes a lot of money.
Jill (ジル)
A transgender woman who was an acquaintance of Axel's during their time in prison. After her release, she adopted a female appearance and now runs a homeless village.
Claude Klein (クロード・クライン)
Doug's mentor in college. He collaborated with Skinner, but became jealous of Skinner's talent and fabricated research results, leading to his firing as a professor and his eventual homelessness.
Billinda (ビリンダ)
Skinner's grandmother who lives in Istanbul. She raised Skinner after he lost his parents. She is known for her baklava, a baked confectionery.
Sam Stephenson (サム・スティーブンソン)
A private investor who made a huge profits by selling off Delta Medicinal stockbefore they crashed during the Hapna scandal. A party animal who enjoys messing around with women at the nightclubs he owns.
Production and release
The series was announced by Adult Swim in July 2023, and was directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, most notable for directing the Cowboy Bebop anime series.[2]Chad Stahelski, who is notable for directing the John Wick film franchise, designed the action sequences.[7] For music composition, the series features a score by jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, and producers, DJs, and musicians Bonobo and Floating Points.[7] Animation for the series was done by MAPPA, while Sola Entertainment handled general production.[2][8]
A teaser trailer for the series was shown at Adult Swim's "Toonami on the Green" panel at San Diego Comic-Con two days later on July 22.[9][10] In July 2024, it was announced that the series would air in 2025.[11]
In an interview conducted in October 2024, Watanabe said that the opioid crisis was one of the inspirations he had for creating the anime.[12] The effects of climate change also played a major role in the series.[13]
Watanabe also talks about how the production team worked closely with Stahelski so that they could be provided with fight scene choreographies and on how the team needed to recruit animators outside Japan due to a lack of experienced domestic animators that could animate such sequences.[12] In a November 2024 interview, Watanabe mentioned that he held the John Wick films in high regard on how the fight scenes were choreographed.[14]
In December 2024, a new visual was released along with the announcement that Kamasi Washington performed the opening theme song "Vortex", while the Boo Radleys performed the ending theme song "Lazarus".[15] "Dark Will Fall", performed by Bonobo featuring Jacob Lusk, and "Beyond the Sky", performed by Bonobo featuring Nicole Miglis, are used as insert songs at the beginnings of the first and ninth episodes, respectively. "Dark Will Fall" is also used as the ending theme for the final episode.
In January 2025, it was announced that the series would broadcast in Japan beginning in April 2025 on TV Tokyo and its affiliates, accompanied by the release of a new visual.[16] Adult Swim followed up with an announcement shortly thereafter on Instagram that the series would also air the same month on its network.[17] In February 2025, it was announced the series would air on April 6, 2025, in near-simultaneous broadcasts in both Japan and the United States.[18]
In an interview with Cocotame in April 2025, Watanabe mentioned that his plans for the anime started back in 2018 after working on Carole & Tuesday, with actual production starting in 2021.[19] Watanabe states that during most of their remote meetings they were shown action sequences, which were shot with the help of stuntmen for scenes that Watanabe wanted to animate.Otherwise, hand-drawn and CGI were used as alternatives.[19] Early into production, Keiko Nobumoto, who was originally set to be a co-creator and writer, died due to esophageal cancer on December 1, 2021.Watanabe noted that her spirit lived on during production for the series, which was ultimately done as a tribute to her.[13][20]
Each episode title is directly named after music albums, singles or extended plays from around the second half of the 20th century.
Episodes
Reception
Lazarus received mostly positive reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 92% based on 24 reviews.The site's critics consensus reads, "Recalling the entrancing atmosphere of Shinichirō Watanabe's past works if not quite matching their high bar for originality, Lazarus is a kinetic anime with no shortage of provocative ideas."[24] The series was on the top 10 streaming charts worldwide, with its Netflix Japan streaming peaking at sixth place.The series was also in the top 10 on Amazon Prime Video Japan, HBO Max in several international countries, and Vidio in Indonesia.[25]
Ryan Gaur of IGN gave the first five episodes of the series a score of 5/10. He described the anime as a disappointing directorial return for Watanabe, as he felt the series was deprived of the energy and joy of his previous directorial works. He criticized the lead characters as acting too unbothered and invulnerable to the dangers they faced at that point. However, he also stated that the apocalyptic stakes provided an intriguing concept, and that the action scenes showed a few instances of creativity, leaving the door open for a possible revised opinion once all the episodes were released.[26]
Accolades
On July 16, 2025, Lazarus was nominated at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music".[27] In 2026, the series has been nominated at the 10th Crunchyroll Anime Awards for "Best Original Anime".[28]
Potential sequel
Despite Adult Swim promoting the final episode as the series finale,[29] Watanabe mentioned the possibility of a potential sequel in July 2025, stating "Since there are still many problems left in the world, the team will continue to be active. Their story is far from over."[30]
A 16-year-old teenage boy from Canada who is skilled in piloting drones. He reads the situation and speaks accordingly, but he does not say what he really thinks. He also does not like to talk about his family due to his complicated background. One of his hobbies is egosurfing. He is the sole surviving male heir to the prominent Astor family estate.
Eleina (エレイナ)
A 15-year-old teenage girl from Hong Kong who has communication issues and has trouble joining in with people's conversations, but is also one of three world-famous covert hackers known as the Mad Screamer (マッドスクリーマー). As the story progresses, she becomes more open and bold, also developing a friendly rivalry with the Maldivian hacker Popcorn Wizard.
Donald McDonald / Visionary (ドナルド・マクドナルド / ヴィジョナリー)
On the surface, he is a popular DJ known as Visionary, but his true identity is the big-time hacker Doctor 909 (ドクター909), who hacked and leaked insider information from Delta Medicinal to Sam so they could both make money. He later makes a plea deal with the NSA and cooperates in discovering the true identity of the mysterious assassin known as Soryu.
Ahmed Rahman (アーメッド・ラフマン)
The CEO of Delta Medicinal, which conducted clinical trials of Hapna on monkeys and humans. He has been suffering from sleep deprivation since Skinner revealed the true nature of Hapna to the world. He cooperates with Lazarus in orchestrating a fake Hapna vaccine launch at an emergency conference in an attempt to lure Skinner out.
Lynn (リン)
A big-time hacker who calls herself Popcorn Wizard (ポップコーン・ウィザード). She infiltrates Delta Medicinal's internal network and engages in a hacking battle with Eleina, with whom she eventually befriends by the end of the series. She is originally from the Maldives, which is now submerged due to rising sea levels caused by global warming, and suffers from analgesia along with some other former Maldives residents. Lynn feels indebted to help Skinner in any way possible due to him buying up all the islands so that its local residents, including herself, could afford relocating.
Billy (ビリー)
Head representative of the new age religion known as the Tower of Truth, which worships Naga as a deity. He was an associate professor at MIT, but was so fascinated with Naga that he stole him from the lab and founded the Tower of Truth commune.
Hanna (ハンナ)
A childhood friend of Eleina, who was born and raised within the Tower of Truth commune. She secretly envied Eleina, who ventured out all on her own into the outside world at a young age.
Naga (ナーガ)
An artificial intelligence beyond the singularity and supreme deity of the Tower of Truth commune. Developed at MIT and based on Skinner's neural network, it is programmed with a desire for dominance and recognition.
Inga (インガ)
The leader of a Russian special forces unit. Alexandra (Chris), a former comrade, was her same-sex lover. When she recognizes Chris in Fiji, she kidnaps her and takes her hostage to a Russian oil rig in the Arctic Ocean.
Sergei (セルゲイ)
Inga's subordinate who physically assaults Chris in anger due to her abandonment of the Russian motherland at the oil rig hideout in the Arctic Ocean.
Hayes (ヘイズ)
A captain at INSCOM and fellow Green Beret of Abel's. He was involved in concealing the secrets of the development of the Hapna bioweapon together with Schneider, but was killed by Schneider after he was about to snitch him out to the colonel due to Soryu failing in his mission to eliminate Axel.
Isabella (イザベラ)
Leland's older sister and member of the Astor family. She has mixed feelings towards Leland, who left the Astor household due to being an illegitimate heir born from his father's mistress. She could not inherit the Astor family's estate due to being a woman.
Millie (ミリー)
A physician who works for a private medical society for the privileged and wealthy. She once performed artificial heart surgery on Skinner.
