Lazarus Episode 3 Discussion

O MY BLACK OPPRESSION,

O MY BAKLAVA EX MACHINA,

O MY GENIUS TEEN HACKER,

O MY SIBLING VOICE ACTORS,

O MY TRANSGENDER NAKAMURA,

O MY ECO ADVOCATE VILLAIN,

O MY SPIKE MUGEN RIPOFF,

I AM NOW SHINICHIROU WATANABE, WASHED PANDERER OF ALL WESTERN AUDIENCE.

Most of it is just grown ass losers screeching over a black guy and a trans woman lmfao

@James-LastOmnic

Is it any surprise that ignorant Japanese like Watanabe associate the West with africans, transgenders, homosexuals, racism, climate hysteria and refugees when that's what the media puts at the forefront?

You fail to understand wokeness.
Just having diverse characters does not make something woke, making false race baiting claims does. For example, claiming that no black person has ever won a Nobel prize and blaming that on racism. However, that statement is objectively false as a simple Google search can tell you, there have been several black Nobel prize winners (Obama, MLK, Nelson Mandela, just to name a few).

Having a Trans character also doesn't make something woke. Having a one dimensional stereotypical caricature of a trans person is (though that particular character is likely a one scene throwaway character, so it's hard to give that particular character any nuance). Gren from Cowboy Bebop is an excellent example of a Trans character that isn't woke. They have a back story, motivations, and character traits that are more than "being trans".

It makes you mental to act like people didn’t say the “How is that scene bad or forced?”, when there’s a lot. You act disingenuous and agree with mentals just because they have the same opinion as you.

I amnot telling you what to do, but telling you to stop embarrassing yourself as a human being. Stop creating false narratives and ironically nothingburgers while also defending disrespectful scenes.

Now that I think about it your point does make sense, especially on the climate hysteria part.
I don't have many information on this but I don't think Japans is that much involved within the whole climate change debate, at least on the more individual aspect of it. The only piece of media coming to my mind openly about ecologys is Final Fantasy 7 but other than that not much.
On the other hand ecology is so much pushed upon in recent western production almost every kid animated movie of the last 15 years have an ecology morale. It's also at the core of movies like Don't Look Up.
This all comes back to the lack of originality, Watanabe should either make something he really wants to or retire, because capturing the essence of Cowboy bebop with such lack of substance is hilarious. At this point I'm waiting for a Trump parody like in the last Bong joon Ho movie, trying to appeal this much to an audience that was already receptive to your work when they were clearly aimed at a broader audience instead of toonami manchildren is clearly a mistake from Watanabe. People buy into the theory this show was pushed by adult swim but to be honest I have no idea.




Also unrelated to you but the dude who was coming at me claiming I'm crying is actually a blackcel in eternal seethe about white people lmao, should have seen that coming when he called out that other dude.
"Wyt pipo stole all my culture buhuhuuu"
White people made the computer you are using my black fella, also the continent of Africa would still be a group of rival tribes slaughtering each other without my country and people. Be thankful to me much of Africa speaks french right now and has allowed you to be crying on the internet.

The scenes with Jill amounted to: reuniting with Axel and being like "hey I'm now a woman," briefly mentioning being a trans woman with a record who has gone through bankruptcy, and then that short conversation with Doug before saying bye to him and Axel. And the main Doug scene that's been the topic of conversation was, obviously, the scene where he brings up the racial bias he dealt with in academia, which serves to provide context for why he's looking for the one professor who had his back after he got in trouble for hitting the Dean. Unless something went completely over my head, genuinely, where's the disrespect? Is it in the way the scenes are presented or how the characters are portrayed? Cause they just seem like regular ass conversations.

Was that Skinner disguised there at the camp with the beanie and glasses?? That would be a fun twist if it was.

I'm going to hijack this dicussion just to mention that I noticed you are a MAL regular, I see your pfp and reviews on almost every show airing in the last few years and I've gotta say brother you have the shittiest taste I've ever encountered on this entire website lmao. You rate almost everything a 9 or 10 and of the many reviews I've read from you are so vapid and devoided of any substance I feel like they were written by a highschooler.
Bringing the fact you "watch a lot of shit" like it has any validy of your opinion when you basically change favorites every season is insane, for anyone in their right mind it just means you have no actual grasp on your taste in anime and just enjoy anything that your eyes come across. Considering you claim in your profile to "watch every anime every season", I do think that you don't actually ever have the time to sit down and reflect on the shows you're watching and that's how you end up having half the MAL catalogue rated a 9 or higher.

Bitterness aside I do have a legit take about Lazarus in relation to this discussion.

I don't think in any way possible that anything in Lazarus is "woke", I honestly find this word stupid as fuck and also devoided of any meaning, that's why me, personally, I have never and will never use this word in an analysis in my life.
However what I want to pinpoint is how dishonest the entire script and presentation is, which is blatant to anyone that has ever seen anything from Watanabe's career. All aspects of this show are reminiscing of his past works, in particular his 2 most popular which are Cowboy bebop and Samurai champloo.
The main character could have looked like anyone, not like Watanabe hasn't created widely different characters such as Dandy or Tuesday. But here the main character IS SPIKE AND MUGEN. He just IS a mix of those 2, he fights exactly like Mugen and has the exact demeanor has Spike, disagreeing with this would be pure delusional behaviour, on top of that each fight scenes he takes part of has the same Jazzy soundtrack as cowboy bebop to hammer the nail even harder.
The reason of this is that Watanabe doesn't want to create anymore, he just wants to live back his past success, he could have made this 13ep show a seriel story, but he chose to make it episodic, even though the plot suffers from it deeply and hasn't really progressed in 3 entire episodes. Why did he do that? Because CB and SC are episodic stories, and that's his style, a style suited for longer shows without core narrative which Lazarus isn't.
This whole premise of a drug apparently the entirety of mankind has taken without noticing it would kill them is absurd.
This teenage hacker prodigy who dresses like your average modern egirl in the year 2052 is absurd, and also waifu pandering.
Having only 6 people actively looking for a guy who made a drug killing the entire human race is absurd and immersion breaking.
Trying to justify your main villain as an eco terrorist is absurd, especially when it is treated shallowly like this: "don't kill the trees pwease".
This leads me to this episode. In a show which has already a lot of issues tackling its core themes of ecology, drug addiction and other cyberpunk-esque thematics. It is baffling how Watanabe dare waste his time including a small passage about black oppression in the mix, especially for once again, treating this in a shallow manner. Watanabe could have made an entire episode dedicated to this Doug character, who's so far one of the only good characters in the show but he chose not to. He'd rather just throw in some lines which are totally unrelated for the main plot to give a vague sense of background but it totally fails because this plot point is totally forgotten minutes later and will probably never be brought up again, for the only reason that the anime doesn't have time to waste on side thematics, yet Watanabe deliberately chose to.
The issue isn't having a passage briefly mentionning a character suffering from oppression, the issue is that this passage is too brieve to be important and comes from nowhere in a show already lost in its own script and story.

I could rant more about the whole lack of honesty this show displayed, for example the casting choice because I'm a an expert on seiyuu shit, but I don't think it's necessary because the issues this show has are obvious even to a casual audience. Right now it has a mediocre score even more MAL standards and is basically talked anywhere on the internet, remind you Watanabe has stated before the release of Lazarus that "it's the best show I have ever made, better than cowboy bebop". Thankfully, Watanabe's best show isn't chosen by him, because otherwise holy hell how bad we would have it.

@Marinate1016

Bro you have TEN FUCKING THOUSANDS forum posts on this very website since 2019, you have 415 REVIEWS and watch 50 anime each seasons.

Bro you are JOBLESS, you are unemployed who the hell do you think you're going to deceive with that lmao, you spend more time on this website a day that I do watching anime a month.

Watch yourself in a the mirror you're larping as a japanese anime expert watching anime 30 hours a week making review to circlejerk with fanboys at 28 YEARS OLD BAH GAWWWD.

You are illiterate and cannot either read or write, that's probably why your reviews remind me of 2000s anime forums, thank god I don't have the energy to dig through your youtube channels to see how much more time a day you waste talking about anime on the internet lmao.

So let me get this straight, it’s normal to you to ask someone for something or for someone, only to get a response about their struggle and their gender… It’s like you are disingenuous on purpose.

@James-LastOmnic Why the fuck are you hating against unemployed people? wow

Again the scene doesn’t help with it either. Because again it felt like it was forced in. Like I said we can keep going in a circle the whole thread, but it still feels forced.

Atleast you agreed it came out as awkward which is half way there. You now just need to realise that it felt like a quota he needed to do or better yet, make it look natural more than chatgpt.

Now that I think about it your point does make sense, especially on the climate hysteria part.
I don't have many information on this but I don't think Japans is that much involved within the whole climate change debate, at least on the more individual aspect of it. The only piece of media coming to my mind openly about ecologys is Final Fantasy 7 but other than that not much.
On the other hand ecology is so much pushed upon in recent western production almost every kid animated movie of the last 15 years have an ecology morale. It's also at the core of movies like Don't Look Up.
This all comes back to the lack of originality, Watanabe should either make something he really wants to or retire, because capturing the essence of Cowboy bebop with such lack of substance is hilarious. At this point I'm waiting for a Trump parody like in the last Bong joon Ho movie, trying to appeal this much to an audience that was already receptive to your work when they were clearly aimed at a broader audience instead of toonami manchildren is clearly a mistake from Watanabe. People buy into the theory this show was pushed by adult swim but to be honest I have no idea.




Also unrelated to you but the dude who was coming at me claiming I'm crying is actually a blackcel in eternal seethe about white people lmao, should have seen that coming when he called out that other dude.
"Wyt pipo stole all my culture buhuhuuu"
White people made the computer you are using my black fella, also the continent of Africa would still be a group of rival tribes slaughtering each other without my country and people. Be thankful to me much of Africa speaks french right now and has allowed you to be crying on the internet.

anime was always "woke" so cope. anime had gay kisses before any american cartoons did.

GL/Yuri BL/Yaoi

Just admit you like the so called "wokeness". Even attack on titan is woke. Someone asked a black guy why his skin is black, Mikasa brings up her mixed heritage.