Lazarus

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Getting Cowboy Bebop and Ergo Proxy from this one. Jazzy music in some places and some electronic one in others help with association.  Maybe a bit of Great Pretender, in a sense that the setup to get Axel felt close to a con. Looked very good, great dynamics, action was solid. My big complain, and reason for caution is that the chase sequence was like half an episode. Don't get me wrong, it was great, exciting, but it had too much focus, completely forgetting about anything else. I doubt this show is an anime version of Mirror's Edge to spend this much time on it, and if the purpose was to show how good Axel is at parkour... It was just too much, especially considering that we learnt about other characters roughly the same amount with way less screentime.

But the setup overall, the atmosphere - that's all good. There is clear danger, clear goal, a time limit and hints of potential collision between "greater good" and "personal good".

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Second episode was... Different. It worse in a sense, that it felt slower, potentially much slower than it should have been, yet that slowness was not helping build atmosphere, as it probably could (and possibly should not have). It was better in a sense that it still felt more balanced, since we did not get the chasing sequence for half the episode. We also had more Eleina, and some dialogues suggests that she is a badass.

But I am mostly posting this, because I forgot one important thing in my reaction to 1st episode: drugs do not mutate. Existing organism does not mutate in the first place, since mutation is technically happening during creation of the organism (or a organic cell to be more generic), but drugs are not even organisms. Even if that was the case, the way drugs are tested, they would have caught the mutation 3 years in, because testing takes a decade on average. I know we need to just accept it for the "suspension of disbelief", but I think it's important to nitpick this thing.

Another concern I have is... Why a small group? Would it not make more sense to get as many people involved in the search as possible? I also do not see much of a point in a competition here, but I know that it's just me.

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Episode 5:

They finally explained how tests were did not pick up anything abnormal. Kind of. I guess. Just some falsification of results, which still does not make much sense, though. Especially since monkey dying does not prove anything by itself. Then they also added this ridiculous claim that an mp3 can be converted to jpeg. I guess they just searched online, saw that there is a bunch of online converters that claim that they can do that, and believed, that it's possible. It's not. Well, you can represent a soundwave as an image, but it definitely will not turn into a readable text.

Also beginning of the scene in the lift felt erotic. Unnecessary so.

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Episode 6:

Why didn't they remove the bracelets or even tried to question them? I am also pretty sure that the cell had enough spaces between the bars for the kids to get out. And overall was very undercooked and rushed. But either way AI cult is not a problem if you have balls as big as this cat.

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Episode 7:

Eleina living the dream.

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Episode 9:

Yeah, right, I will never buy that their bracelets do not have microphones, at least. Disabling dashcam should not help, if someone is listening in.

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Episode 10:

Why did Leland need some referral if he already knew the doctor? Did he not have her contacts? Does not make sense if she was family doctor or something.

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Episode 11:

Phantom assassin is too flashy and attention grabbing. His sudden "back story drop" felt half-assed and out of place, too, even considering, that he probably be used in next episodes.

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Episode 12:

Why couldn't they send the picture to the blonde, for her to tell if that's the guy? Why did she have to come by in person? And the kiss felt completely out of place, since the characters did not really have any bonding time before.

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Episode 13: