Lazarus had to rescue Chris because of their bracelet exploding if one of them is to be missing, so the stakes are pretty dire. Despite my thoughts about this being an ‘alright’ episode, I still liked the fact that everyone participated in rescuing Chris. Axel returns with his signature parkour scenes. Doug goes around sniping people to prevent Axel from having any obstacles. Leland controls a seagull drone to help locate Chris and also help Axel if needed. Eleina actually goes out of base and decides to hack into an oil rig’s security system with workers looking at her with awe—honestly, the best part about this episode. While Chris is tied up, she still gets her fair share of action scenes while restrained.

Back in Episode 3, Chris did tell Leland she was a ‘secret agent’ of sorts, and it was true. She used to work as a Russian spy in a secret organization before losing her life in a bombing incident at an airport and was able to survive miraculously. However, her organization doesn’t do well with betrayal, hence why she had to defect and change her name from Alexandra to Christine Blake. Despite this episode being about her past, it’s not elaborated too much, as the message of this episode is mainly that Chris’s past doesn’t matter as the group cares about who she is in the present.

Still, Chris and Inga’s tension felt like they were once lovers and that Inga’s reaction felt like a betrayed lover of sorts. The sapphic undertones were immaculate. It was pure doomed yuri…until Sergei came and shot Inga. That felt super homophobic. Heck, I hated Sergei from the way he was violent towards Chris and now he shot Inga. He’s definitely homophobic and misogynistic. At least let the two kiss or have some face stroking before killing her. Ugh, Sergei is definitely going in my hated characters list for sure.

Now that Chris is rescued and the group is whole again, it does make me wonder what’s next in their search for Skinner. With the reveal that Hersch and Skinner used to be colleagues, it makes the search for him more intense. Now, time will only tell if this anime will be able to go back to making the plot be urgent. Let me know your thoughts on this episode!

The fact that Schneider and INSCOM was the whole reason Skinner decided to doom the world did feel like it should’ve been revealed a few episodes ago. If Schneider’s goal was to make bioweapons, where are they? What are they? It felt as if Schneider’s reveal as the big bad was implemented a bit too late as he made a full appearance in Episode 9, which is a little too late for the villain to arrive, if you ask me… Also, the fact that all he gets is an arrest and tried in court does feel unsatisfying. I get that not all ‘final bosses’ need to be eradicated, but at least give him some humiliation? 

While Soryu is a good source of conflict, he does feel as if he belongs in a completely different plot point because he has no correlation to Hapna in any shape or form. It was as if this anime was planned to be two cours, but had to be scrapped. Heck, he and Axel don’t even have a direct connection—all Soryu has is an obsession to kill him whether it be for a contract or not. Soryu was part of a secret project where a Chinese man sought to find a killing machine. Soryu was the only survivor as he killed everyone but was sort of brainwashed to forget everything. Also, HQ and Soryu are split personalities as mentioned in the previous episode, yet it’s not that important. Still, I do find Soryu’s death a bit ironic in the sense that he’s this superhuman assassin who can kill anyone as if he was a deadly shadow, yet he meets his demise by being crushed by debris while trying to escape the falling building that HE caused after launching an artillery gun at an INSCOM copter. It’s a very human death, which is befitting for his character who was struggling to determine if he was a monster or not. I just wish he was implemented earlier into the story or had some sort of connection with Axel or the overarching plot instead of being shoehorned in last minute.

The whole confrontation with Skinner was alright. Like, Doug finally figured out that the blind homeless guy he tried to talk to was indeed Skinner. Fortunately, Leland was smart enough to figure out that they can find Skinner via the fantasy tulip. The whole reason Skinner doomed the world was because of the airport incident that all five Lazarus members were in, coincidentally. It was because he developed a cynical view of humanity that he didn’t even think twice about the good people in the world. Still, I don’t really get why no one was reprimanding him for his actions. He was just “here’s the cure since you asked. I guess the world isn’t so bad now” and then he died. I mean, it was obvious he was going to die, but it did feel too simple…

While everyone got a happy ending by rejoining Lazarus and saved humanity, I felt as if the story would’ve benefited if it there had been a second season… Still, for an original story, it did have some substance. I do feel as if Lazarus was going trying to focus more on action and the scenery rather than narrative and character building because the scenery and animation are all top notch, but the story’s lack of urgency to find Skinner and how each character’s backstories are just sprinkled in here and there feels more to be desired—heck, why Axel had a life sentence in prison was never even explained!

While I did like the Japanese voice acting, the English dub was a bit stifling at first, but they all got better as the episodes progressed to the point that I did watch the last few episodes in English dub. I do quite like the progression of Jack Stanbury’s performance as Axel and I also think that Scott Gibbs as Soryu was the best. For the Japanese dub, everyone did great, but I did think Kensho Ono as Schneider was actually a standout because he was completely playing against his typecasting, even if Schneider was underutilized as a villain.

Overall, this wasn’t Watanabe’s best anime, but it’s still a substantial watch. It’s the type of show that you watch once and probably not pick up a second time around, unless you’re trying to study the animation. It’s a solid 6/10. Let me know your thoughts on the anime as a whole!