Gettin' My Eps In: Lazarus S1E13

A season finale that at least somewhat delivers on expectations.

Lazarus
Season 1, Episode 13: “The World Is Yours”
Written by Shinichiro Watanabe
Directed by Kazuo Miyake
Streaming on (HBO) Max

There were two ways that the season of Lazarus could have ended, and I was at least a little bit uncertain about the direction it would take, partially because I didn’t know if it was going to be a single-season show or a continuing series. The team could end up saving the world from impending doom, or they could fail to prevent the apocalypse. The former seems like the obvious choice, but anime can sometimes be unpredictable, and it’s not unheard-of for series to go super-dark. But that didn’t seem likely, given that the show has generally taken an uplifting approach, celebrating moments of human connection and being generally positive about the ability of people to overcome the odds when things seem to be at their darkest.

And sure enough, the team ends up saving the world, which probably isn’t too much of a spoiler. That should have been the obvious outcome, given the way the last few episodes have spent a lot of time dealing with government officials trying to cover up conspiracies, which is something that nobody really should have cared about when all of humanity was on the brink of death. While the show occasionally devoted a moment or two to scenes of global unrest and hints that society was going to collapse into chaos, we never really got to see the expected riots, wars, mass murder, and other examples of death and destruction that would happen if the world was one day away from ending.

Instead of focusing on the impending apocalypse, this episode serves as a culmination of the lore-heavy background machinations that the latter part of the season has been exploring. We get revelations about how Dr. Skinner’s work had been used to develop chemical weapons, so the real reason he put the entire world at risk of being wiped out was to expose these illegal actions. That…doesn’t make much sense, especially when the series has spent a lot of time looking at how he had been trying to get countries around the world to do something about climate change and how his scheme was a response to the way humanity has mishandled its stewardship of the planet. Was all of that a ruse? Are we supposed to care more about the potential war crimes of a few government officials than about existential threats to humanity and every other species?

Another revelation that sort of explains the title of the series makes even less sense, although it’s something that you can probably give a pass due to the way series like this work. In previous episodes, people had been talking about an incident where Skinner was trying to smuggle some samples out of an airport, but a violent standoff between police and members of the military led to the samples being released, killing most of the people nearby. It turns out that all five members of the Lazarus team were present at this incident, but they miraculously survived, having undergone a mutation that potentially made them immune to the effects of Skinner’s killer drug. And that’s why the government gathered them together to hunt for Skinner, with them fortunately all having skills that complement each other perfectly so that they could undertake complex investigations and engage in action-heavy operations. That’s all very coincidental, but it’s the kind of thing you can wave away as an origin story for how the characters all got together.

But anyway, what actually happens in the episode? I’ve found that the action is often the best part of the series, so if you’re going to end the season in an exciting manner, you’d better have something cool happen, right? Fortunately, we get a pretty good sequence in which Axel has a rematch with the assassin who tried to kill him. He was seriously wounded in their last fight, having been impaled with a spear, and after he gets a mysterious text message about meeting under the eyes of an angel, he repeatedly reassures the doctor that he’s too injured to go anywhere. This is such an obvious lie that there’s absolutely zero surprise when she comes back and finds his bed empty.

It would seem like the text message was referring to a building that has been one of the prominent images throughout the series, the central tower in the setting of Babylonia City. It’s a building with a crazy, futuristic design, topped with a large angel statue that has wings that appear to be solar cells. And sure enough, Axel and the assassin meet on the building’s rooftop where they can have a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death. It’s not bad, although it doesn’t rise to the level of the best action in the series, but that could be explained away by saying that they’ve both been injured and aren’t at their best. However, the real fun bit comes when a helicopter sent by the government tries to shoot both of them, the assassin shoots it down with a bazooka, and the angel statue comes crashing down on top of them. In one of the most ridiculous/enjoyable moments the series has seen yet, Axel manages to survive by running and jumping across the falling rubble, a somewhat hilarious example of cartoon physics in a series that has mostly tried to maintain at least a semblance of reality when depicting action. It’s the kind of thing that nitpickers like to complain about, but if you enjoy over-the-top nonsense, you probably won’t mind.

(This scene also involves more backstory about the assassin’s origins in a secret training program where he snapped and killed everyone involved, but all of that seems like yet more exposition that ultimately proves to be unnecessary, so I’m mostly going to ignore it.)

The rest of the episode mostly consists of the team finally finding Skinner, who turns out to be in a homeless encampment that Doug and Axel visited earlier in the season. It’s a less dramatic confrontation than one would expect, but it works well enough as a culmination of the ongoing quest that has lasted throughout the season. And it ends with the team members all receiving a pardon and the offer to continue working together to do…something. They agree, which would indicate that at least one more season will be coming in which they will get to engage in crazy action and fight global threats of some sort. What exactly they’ll be doing remains to be seen, but hopefully the show will come up with something compelling.

In the end, I would say that this has been a pretty enjoyable series, even if it’s not necessarily among the very best examples of anime action out there. The season certainly lagged in places, making me wonder if it will be better to binge-watch multiple episodes in a row in any future seasons. But there’s been enough to enjoy here that I’ll probably keep coming back and hoping for cool action and stylish animation with nice music in the background. With an understanding of what to expect, I imagine I’ll be pretty happy with what I get, although I’ll always be hoping that the show will be able to find the perfect combination of elements to achieve greatness. Gotta keep that dream alive!