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... Sundays. ⏎ How was the first episode? ⏎Richard Eisenbeis ⏎ Rating: 3.5 ⏎ To be frank, I don't usually mesh well with Shinichirō Watanabe anime. While I wouldn't hesitate to call it a good show, I don't exactly worship at the feet of Cowboy Bebop and I found Space Dandy more annoying than enjoyable. Among all his anime, Carole & Tuesday is by far the one I enjoyed the most. Maybe my lack of reverence for the man is why I'm a bit harder on this first episode of Lazarus than most. ⏎ Lazarus is an anime that just oozes style. It's got creative directing, dynamic choreography, snappy one-liners, smooth jazz music, and a cast designed to look cool no matter what they're doing. The problem with this first episode is that it's nothing but style—there's no real substance behind it. ⏎ I know nothing about any of these characters—even Axel, who serves as our protagonist for this episode. Sure, we learn that he is a prisoner who is serving several life sentences (and who likes to break out of prison), but we don't even know his original crime. ⏎ On top of this, the plot is as shallow as the characters. A doctor made a drug that became wildly popular and has now revealed that everyone who took it will die—unless they manage to find him and get the antidote within the next 30 days. While a good motivator for our heroes, it also makes little sense the more you think about it. ⏎ On average, it takes around 10 years for a drug to be approved by the FDA in America, so this three-year death sentence thing would have been discovered before the drug hit the market. Moreover, even the most popular painkillers in the world aren't taken by everyone. While sure, a lot of people are probably set to die, it's not going to be the end of the world or even civilization, especially as there is time for society to prepare, as each individual has a three-year time limit (not to mention a cure is in the works). ⏎ There's the issue that, in all the reactions we see to the news, no one bothers to ask if what the doctor is saying is true—which makes me worry that the big twist of the show to be revealed in the eleventh hour is that the drug is actually safe and the doctor was just trying to make some big philosophical point about human nature by tricking the majority of Earth's population into thinking they were going to die. ⏎ However, in the end, I it this was a fun episode—not enough for me to overlook everything I wrote about, but enough for me to want to watch more. After all, maybe now that the show's spent its first episode showing just how cool it can be, it can spend the next fleshing out its plot, world, and characters. ⏎ Caitlin Moore ⏎ Rating: 3.5 ⏎ Lazarus...