“Cowboy Bebop” debuted on Adult Swim on an unsuspecting Sunday in September 2001, nine days before one Tuesday would shatter our sense of security forever: 9/11.
The rest of the shows on the mature animation block were comedies while “Cowboy Bebop” was anime, although unlike nearly anything else the genre’s American aficionados were accustomed to. Shinichirō Watanabe’s vision marries futuristic visuals with realism, with the series’ jazz score treated as something to be felt and then absorbed, like dry skin lathered in shea butter. Thus, the auteur shaped the Adult Swim brand’s lasting association with a vibe – that indescribable impression that made “Cowboy” character Spike Spiegel as much of a blue romantic as an ace bounty hunter.
Watanabe’s latest, “Lazarus,” calls on familiar hints while transporting us to a future near enough to feel like the present, anxieties included. In his version of 2052, the cause of the world’s problems is its presumed cure: a drug called Hapna designed by a celebrated neuroscientist named Dr. Skinner and promoted as a panacea for suffering — as in, all somatic and psychic ills.
Hapna’s affordability and touted lack of side effects led to its global usage, followed by Skinner’s sudden disappearance. Three years after its launch, however, he resurfaces to announce that the drug was designed to be fatal three years after its ingestion, even if someone only took it once. And, surprise, only he has the antidote, giving the public 30 days to find him before the first Hapna users start dropping.
“Lazarus” is named for the underground team assembled to find Skinner, and “Cowboy Bebop” aficionados may not be able to ignore surface parallels between this and Watanabe’s late ‘90s jam session.
There’s a kid hacker, a former agent who shoots straight and loves starring in honey traps, and in the fore is Axel Gilberto, an acrobatic parkour nut and escape artist recruited straight out of the clink where he’s serving an 888-year sentence. (Which, he explains, isn’t due to a horrific crime but legal math; each failed escape doubles a person’s sentence.)
Watanabe’s latest calls on familiar hints while transporting us to a future near enough to feel like the present, anxieties included.
Axel even resembles Spike, although he fights like John Wick, whose creator, Chad Stahelski, designs the action sequences. But those intersperse a plot that takes the team through wild cityscapes where we witness firsthand how people respond to knowing a countdown clock to their end is already in motion.
Some keep living as they were. Others, including a hedonistic club owner fond of abusing women, receive their just desserts, late though the hour may be. As with “Cowboy Bebop,” the action in “Lazarus” matches a sonic quilt connecting Kamasi Washington’s jazz sensibilities with electronic landscapes by Bonobo and Floating Point. Familiarity with these names or their musical styles isn’t essential. What matters is that the whole melds into an undeniable vibe.
Vibes, as a concept, have been maligned recently in the popular imagination.