Cowboy Bebop director’s upcoming anime gets new trailer, and fans are worried

The new sci-fi anime from Shinichirō Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop, just got another trailer, and although the footage is good, viewers are keeping expectations low.

Lazarus is the upcoming anime directed by Shinichirō and animated by MAPPA, an original TV show set in a dystopian future. Featuring action sequences overseen by Chad Stahelski, mastermind of the John Wick movies, it’s an anime show with some huge pedigree.

New York Comic-Con 2024 has brought a fresh snippet, focusing on a single scene. In it, we see a man being hunted through a subway station by a number of drones, giving us looks at the fluid animation and the police technology of the universe.

It’s a solid clip, though we’re left none the wiser on the plot’s finer details – so far we just know it’s about a taskforce tracking down a scientist who goes AWOL after creating a drug that kills users after a set period of time.

Nonetheless, people are enjoying the tease, though they’re wary due to Adult Swim’s involvement. “After the showing that Ninja Kamui delivered, I’ll hold off excitement on this for a while,” says one user on X/Twitter.

“Please don’t be like Ninja Kamui,” another adds. “So are you also pulling a bait and switch here like you did with Uzumaki?” says a third.

Both of these series had pretty steep drop-offs after making an impression with their premieres, but for different reasons. Ninja Kamui started strong but lost momentum as the season went on, whereas Uzumaki, a mini-series, seemed to deteriorate in real-time between Episodes 1 and 2, the second featuring much worse quality.

Adult Swim hosted both, and they’ve soured the network’s reputation somewhat. Given the people involved, Lazarus perhaps comes with more assurance, but we can only wait and see. The event revealed that all 13 episodes are now finished.

It arrives sometime in 2025. Check out our guides to Solo Leveling Season 2 and My Hero Academia Season 8 for other releases coming next year.