Adult Swim Offers First Look at Shinichiro Watanabe’s ‘Lazarus’ at NYCC

Adult Swim surprised fans today at New York Comic Con by screening the full premiere episode of Lazarus, the new globe-trotting anime thriller from Shinichirō Watanabe (Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy). Currently in production, a first look of the highly anticipated Toonami original anime series was also released.

Celebrated for his enduringly influential series Cowboy Bebop, Watanabe returns to the sci-fi action genre with the new series that follows secret agents hunting for a vaccine to save humanity after a seemingly miracle cure-all drug turns deadly. The Japanese voice cast was also revealed today and includes Cowboy Bebop stars Koichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara.

Synopsis: The year is 2052.

The world looked to be on the verge of an unprecedented era of peace and stability, and the painkiller drug “Hapna” developed by a lauded neuroscientist Dr. Skinner had a lot to do with it.

Hapna spread throughout the world as a “miracle drug” with no side effects, freeing humanity from pain.

Until, that is, Skinner suddenly disappears off the face of the earth.

When he reemerges after three years, it is as a devil who brings countless deaths and the end of civilization. Hapna turns out to be a drug that has a fatal, retroactive effect, one that appears three years after first taking it; it was a death-trap for anyone who took it, even once. Humanity will start dying off in 30 days. The only way to save the world is to get at the cure that only Skinner holds. For that we must first find him.

“Lazarus” is a team of five agents gathered from various corners of the world to do just that.

Can they save humanity? And what is Skinner’s true purpose?

Japanese Voice Cast:

• Dr. Skinner – Koichi Yamadera
• Hersch – Megumi Hayashibara
• Axel – Mamoru Miyano
• Chris – Maaya Uchida
• Leland – Yuma Uchida
•  Doug – Makoto Furukawa
• Eleina – Manaka Iwami
• Abel – Akio Otsuka