How an Anime Master Perfects the Cool Guy Action Hero

New York Times

15-04-2025

When it comes to creators who have defined contemporary anime, Shinichiro Watanabe is no less than a television auteur. His anime series, which include the renowned 'Cowboy Bebop' and 'Samurai Champloo,' are known for thrilling fight scenes, propulsive musical scores and fun, unpredictable characters.
Watanabe's signature is his magnetic Joe Cool protagonist. He's a cowboy, bounty hunter, itinerant with some moral gray areas, but he's ultimately a good guy who's loyal to his crew. While loafing around at a bar he may give the vibe of an impassive layabout. But during a mission he is a suave, athletic fighter with a hybrid style of tussling that draws from various martial arts forms and alludes to several of the great movers and fighters from history.
'Lazarus' is Watanabe's latest series, about a scientist whose miracle drug may wipe out humanity and the ragtag team of miscreants who must track him down. Recruited to that team is Axel Gilberto, a fresh yet familiar take on Watanabe's typical hero. Here's how the latest version of Watanabe's always athletic, always stylish leading man fits into his history.
The Original
Watanabe's original cool-guy hero is Spike Spiegel, the centerpiece of his popular space Western 'Cowboy Bebop.' Spike's attitude and style are a mix between two well-worn cinematic tropes: the unflappable Old West gunslinger and the cynical down-on-his-luck film noir detective. His body language conveys a sense of nonchalance, even indifference. When he's relaxed, his gangly frame is often reclined, and when he's up and about he saunters around, hands in pockets, arms akimbo, with a smooth, uninterrupted gait.
His fight style reflects this same fluidity; Spike is a master at evasive movement, great at narrowly dodging hits. Though he excels at both close range fighting and taking shots at a distance, his legs and footwork are really the stars of his combat style:
Watanabe based Spike's fight technique on jeet kune do, the style developed by Bruce Lee. Spike's focus on minute, economical movement and his deft modulation of distance while dodging and striking an opponent is reminiscent of Lee. But his fleet footwork in this fight — the quick pivot and fanned out steps — actually recall the floating butterfly steps of Muhammad Ali (which is fitting, seeing as Lee was also inspired by Ali's footwork).
The Outlaw
'Samurai Champloo' takes place in Edo Japan, where a waitress named Fuu employs two fighters to accompany her on a journey. Jin is the archetypal samurai character: a quiet, solitary ronin with expert, if traditional, swordsmanship skills. Mugen is a wild card: an outlaw used to working in his own self-interest who shares Spike's impulsiveness but is even more uncorked. Brash and hedonistic, Mugen is all id, and his fight style reflects this pugnaciousness.
Mugen is an offensive fighter, always launching forward into attacks, but what makes him stand out is his mix of breakdancing-style spins and capoeira with his swordfighting. He's versatile, often using the environment around him, vaulting off objects to get himself airborne.
Mugen's leg moves are vital in both his offense and defense. Near the end of this fight sequence with Jin, Mugen blocks a sword strike with the bottom of his sandal, which is reinforced with a metal plate:
This small detail is also a characteristic of Watanabe's heroes, who all have interesting footwear. Spike fights in oversized, bulbous shoes. And Watanabe's next hero, Space Dandy, sports large steel-tipped and steel-bottomed boots.
The Romantic
'Space Dandy' is perhaps the goofiest series in Watanabe's oeuvre. It features a shallow, harebrained, barely competent hero, but still offers a delightful parody of its creator's tropes.
Dandy — that's what he is and it's also his name — is more of a lover than a fighter, and yet he often finds himself caught in inconvenient scenarios. Dandy is the foil to typical Watanabe cool-guy protagonists: He's another misfit who's always getting out of scrapes with his ragtag crew, but he can't fight, he's a bad shot and he's not as smooth as he thinks.
In the above scene, Dandy shows off his speed and style with a series of Michael Jackson-esque dance moves in quick succession. Dandy's at his most agile when he's aiming to grab a woman's attention.
Though Dandy's flirtations fall flat, his moves do come through for him in another vital way. When he's accosted by a gang of aliens wielding laser-zapping spears, his floundering movements save him from an untimely demise:
Somehow even his clumsy physical gaffes seem to reflect some of the same dexterity and grace as Spike and Mugen's intentional dodges and deflections.
The ultimate irony of this scene is that the woman whom Dandy was trying to impress is the one who gets the big action-hero fight:
Scarlet flips and turns like an aerialist, then shows off some muay thai-style hand-to-hand combat, all while Dandy cowers on the floor.
The Latest Model
So much of the design and movement style of Axel Gilberto in 'Lazarus' feels reminiscent of the Watanabe heroes who preceded him. He's got much of Spike's fluid, evasive style of combat, and his devil-may-care attitude. He relies heavily on sweeps and parries like Mugen but torques and launches his body to more dramatic heights like he's a parkour master. He even has the wild mop of hair to mirror Spike's and Mugen's (Dandy's well-oiled pompadour, while also a dramatic 'do, is the exception).
Axel is so confident in his abilities that he enjoys breaking out of prison as a kind of hobby; he wears a smug face as he does a massive aerial over the head of a prison visitor and lands backward against a railing:
Even Dandy would have trouble matching Axel's flair, as this action sequence of him sweeping under, kicking at and catapulting over prison guards demonstrates the balletic quality of Axel's moves:
There's no hesitation or breaks in his stride as he progresses down the walkway, and, like Spike and Mugen, he leads legs first. He barely touches the guards as he disarms and deflects them. Though this is our first introduction to this character, we can already get a sense of his particular charms and talents — he's another Watanabe favorite in the making.