Shinichirō Watanabe has never done something quite like Lazarus before.  Sure, the 59-year-old anime director of Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, and more isn’t new to science fiction, nor is he a stranger to suspense thrillers like Terror in Resonance. But a globe-trotting, sci-fi spy thriller about a secret task force assigned to apprehend a brilliant scientist before he kills off all of humanity? That’s a new one, and from the sound of it, that’s just the way Watanabe likes it. “I would’ve done [more Bebop] if it felt right,” Watanabe told Polygon last year. “I have to feel like I want to do it. There are no shows in my filmography that I didn’t want to do.” The 13-episode anime, which premiered on Adult Swim and Max earlier this month, centers on a cohort of agents — among them Axel Gilberto, a brash 23-year-old convict — who are recruited to track down Dr. Deniz Skinner, the Nobel laureate scientist behind Hapna, a miracle pharmaceutical that’s revealed to threaten the very future of all humanity. Polygon had the opportunity to speak to Watanabe through an interpreter ahead of the series’ debut earlier this month to discuss the themes of Lazarus, finding the right musical collaborators to bring the anime’s futuristic world to life, and how Axel Gilberto might fare in a hypothetical clash against Watanabe’s other scruffy-haired protagonist. [Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.] Polygon: There’s a lot of references to religion in the first episode of Lazarus. How did you want to explore religion alongside the other themes present throughout the series? Shinichirō Watanabe: I think you’re talking about the cold open starting from episode 1. In terms of religious depictions, I wanted to use it as a metaphor for human suffering, and religion is basically a way to cope with human suffering. [In Lazarus], I wanted to replace that religion with Hapna, which would remove all the pain from humanity.  There’s depictions of many different types of religions in the cold open [because] if I narrowed it down to a specific religion, I would receive a lot of comments. So that’s why we chose the whole array. Lazarus is sort of a spy thriller, which is something you haven’t done before in the past. Were there any genre considerations you wanted to explore with Lazarus? Did lacing in a bit of mystery pose a new challenge for you as a storyteller? While it’s not a style I’ve ever done before, I’m a big fan of classics like 007 and Mission: Impossible. But I can’t be doing the same thing they’ve done. So I’ve tried to mix it up a bit to give a fresh take on it. Lazarus has a ton of references to contemporary culture, nodding to the Avengers, SoundCloud, and even poverty among the transgender community. What is your news diet like, and how do you incorporate it into your creative process? On the inclusion of pop culture references like Avengers and SoundCloud: The story is set in the future, but having everything new has no key points of relatability. So in terms of adding some reality to it, I added those familiar kinds of things […] so it felt a little bit more alive and more real. I’ve always had my antenna targeted towards overseas news. There’s a lot of shows that translate the news from overseas into Japanese, and I’ve been watching those for a long time. So even for Cowboy Bebop, I got the idea for the series watching those kinds of shows. This series feels more focused than your previous anime, especially considering that it’s 13 episodes instead of 24 or 26. Did it feel like the story just lent itself to less time, or did you have a different goal with Lazarus compared to your previous anime? The initial offer for the series was for a 13-episode series, which is why it became like that. But in terms of making a 26-episode and a 13-episode series, the difference is that in a 26-episode series, I was able to mix in a lot of breaks in between and have a little fun and make some joke episodes. But we couldn’t have that this time around.  In terms of 13-episode series, it did help in terms of cutting the fat. If I continued to think and come up with ideas for the series, it would just become endless. So it did help in that aspect. There are a lot of elements in Lazarus that seem to “rhyme” with your previous work on Cowboy Bebop and Carole & Tuesday, like AI DJs and female hackers. Are these elements you find yourself drawn to in your stories, or feel there’s more to say with them? Please excuse me for this one; it’s more of a force of habit and it’s the same person making it, so my preferences are going to show. [laughs] The soundtrack for Lazarus has Bonobo, Kamasi Washington, and Floating Points composing it, and it’s very beautiful. And I wanted to ask, were you a fan of their work before working on Lazarus, and why did you think their combined sound fit the series? I’ve been a big fan of them for a long time. The first two people we offered and reached out to were Floating Points and Bonobo, and the reason why is since the series is set in the future, I wanted a more futuristic dance type of vibe. Specifically for Axel, the way he parkours through the city, or jumps onto a helicopter, I wanted a kind of dance type of groove to those kinds of scenes.  Of course, those two are very good at dance tracks, but it’ll become very one-note at that point, which is why we also reached out to Kamasi Washington, and he did add a very nice variety to the mix. Even though the setting is futuristic, I think his jazz tracks and jazzy vibes did bring a lot to the table.  Speaking of Axel, I wanted to ask you about Lazarus’ protagonist. In a lot of ways, he feels like a foil or a mirror to Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. Where Spike is very laid-back, Axel is very proactive and erratic. I wanted to ask if those two ever met one another, who do you think would win in a fight?  [laughs] You ask a very difficult question. Both of them are very powerful, so it may be hard to figure out which would come up on top.  What do you want most for audiences to take away from watching Lazarus? What is the one thing that you really want to impress upon your audience with this series? I don’t want to force my own impressions onto the viewers, so I want them to watch the entire series and get their own impressions about what the message is for the series. I especially want everyone to think about whether Skinner was in the right or in the wrong for what he did. Lazarus is available to stream on Max.