Lazarus is already slated to become next year's biggest series. With so many iconic names and companies working on the project, anticipation for the title has gone through the roof. Shortly after the first trailer for Lazarus was released, giving fans a peek at the quality they can expect, some of the minds behind the series attended a special Toonami at San Diego Comic Con. For the first time, Shinichiro Watanabe revealed the character profiles and spoke about his experience creating the series, as well as revealed a surprising fact about a connection between his works and his fellow director Chad Stahelski's work on the John Wick franchise.

Cowboy Bebop's Watanabe Reveals The Connection Between John Wick and new project Lazarus.

While the announcement that the John Wick would be teaming up for an anime series was originally surprising, Watanabe revealed during SDCC that the team has been a long time coming. As it turns out, both directors have been fans of each other's work for quite some time. During the Toonami , Watanabe revealed that Stahelski was actually the first director he thought of when imagining the action sequences for the anime, as he wanted the series to be heavily action-oriented. The two of them had actually briefly worked together on The Animatrix all the way back in 2003 when Stahelski was still a stuntman, but Watanabe originally thought it would be hard to reach out to the John Wick director and get him to work on an animated series.

Despite his uncertainty that Stahelski would accept the offer, the producers reached out to the John Wick action director, who immediately jumped at the opportunity because he had already been a massive fan of Watanabe and specifically his work on Cowboy Bebop. In fact, he credited Cowboy Bebop for influencing him and his eventual work on John Wick. Now, things come full circle as Lazarus is the perfect way for the two iconic directors to collaborate, each taking inspiration from the other during the project.

The lucky fans who got to attend the at SDCC were then treated to the real-life action sequences shot by Chad Stahelski that will later appear animated in Lazarus, showing the absolute dedication both directors have to make both the action and story high quality. While the release date for the series has yet to be confirmed, Adult Swim teased that Lazarus would be coming sometime in 2024. For now, fans can watch John Wick through different eyes to see if they can spot the influence of Cowboy Bebop in the action scenes.

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork