The following contains spoilers for Lazarus Episode 2, “Life in the Fast Lane”.
Shinichiro Watanabe’s Lazarus is already making a name for itself thanks to its gorgeous visuals, awesome fight choreography and endlessly replayable soundtrack. However, it’s what lies beneath the surface that is certain to pull viewers into Lazarus’ world. The mystery of Dr. Skinner’s whereabouts and why he caught humanity in the grand trap known as Hapna is the thing that inspires viewers to stick around. While there’s no telling what the answer Lazarus’ mystery will turn out to be in the end, there may have some clues hiding in plain sight.
Even before the anime released, Lazarus’ previews hinted at Dr. Skinner’s nefarious plot to commit mass murder using his previously unassuming miracle painkiller, Hapna. In Lazarus Episode 2, “Life in the Fast Lane”, Axel and his fellow Lazarus teammates realize finding Dr. Skinner could be much harder than anyone expected. While things won’t get any easier for Axel and his companions, viewers watching from the outside looking in have the advantage of seeing things from the perspective of the creators and writers of the show. In that way, Lazarus’ biggest twist may have already been secretly revealed, and it all has to do with the potential inspiration behind the villain’s name.
Dr Skinner’s Name Could Indicate The Truth of His Intention With Hapna
The Real Life Dr Skinner Might’ve Inspired the Character of Lazarus' Main Antagonist
In Lazarus, Dr Skinner is a genius scientist who has won innumerable awards and achieved international fame for his discoveries. Interestingly, he’s far from the only “Dr. Skinner” viewers may have heard of. Lazarus’ Dr. Skinner shares a name with one of the most well-known real world psychologists in history, BF Skinner. Interestingly, BF Skinner is most well-known for his research on human behavior, particularly with regard to his theory of Operant Conditioning. He is also known as one of the fathers of behaviorism, which is a theory that emphasizes how a person’s experiences inform who they become.
BF Skinner’s theory states that human beings respond to stimuli based on whether they receive a positive or negative outcome. People are conditioned to act the ways that they do only because of the experiences they’ve had with those actions in the past. If someone finds that raising their hand causes them immense pain, they’re likely not to raise their hand anymore in order to seek the path of least resistance. On the other hand, if they’re rewarded with a piece of chocolate every time they raise their hand, they’re likely to raise their hand much more often. Applying this theory to Lazarus’ Dr. Skinner has surprising results.
We have become fixated on short-term gains in a never-ending battle against our fellow man. This struggle has irreparably destroyed the environment of our planet, taking the lives of countless people in the process. And so, as a scientist, I’m forced to come to this conclusion: that is the true nature of the human race.
— Dr Skinner
Dr. Skinner invented Hapna, which is a drug that essentially removes all pain with no side effects. As a result, the normal actions people would generally take in their day-to-day lives would no matter apply, as they wouldn’t recover the same negative stimulus response anymore that nudges them in the other direction. While it could all just be a coincidence, the connection makes sense. If Lazarus’ Dr. Skinner were truly named after the real-life BF Skinner, it could help inform a lot about what the anime’s Skinner is actually trying to do with his announcement about Hapna.
Dr. Skinner could’ve easily just allowed Hapna’s effects to kick in without saying anything, which would seem like the most logical course of action for a villain who felt he was doing the right thing by ridding the world of humanity’s destructive influence. Instead, it’s possible that, like the real-life Dr. Skinner, Lazarus’ Skinner is merely conducting an experiment to study human behavior, but on an unimaginably grander scale and without concern for medical ethics.
Lazarus Episode 2 Reveals Dr Skinner is Not the “Mass Genocide” Type
Dr. Skinner Seems to Be a Relatively Good Person – At Least in the Public Eye
Dr. Skinner’s real reason for creating Hapna with this built-in death trap is still unclear as of Lazarus Episode 2, but his connection to the real life Dr. Skinner could help provide an explanation. It could be the case that Skinner is interested in how people react to the news of his announcement, and whether it genuinely influences how people act at all. After all, this isn’t actually the first time Skinner has warned humanity that it needs to take action or face the consequences.
In Lazarus Episode 2, it’s revealed that just before Dr. Skinner disappeared from the public eye three years prior to the events of the series, he had delivered a speech to the United Nations. In it, he tried to plead with the leaders of the world to change their approach to the environment, as the Earth was on the verge of an irreversible catastrophic event. Of course, none of them listened. Considering his failure to inspire action in humanity when he felt it really counted, it could make sense that Skinner then became radicalized due to what he perceived as having no other option.
The guy’s practically a saint.
— Axel
Importantly, despite the horrible act Dr. Skinner seems to have inflicted on humanity, he was never the kind of person who seemed capable of such a thing. In Lazarus Episode 2, the group learns that before he disappeared from the public eye, Skinner was, in Axel’s words, “a pretty decent guy.” Even despite how much he wants to save the world, it seems entirely out of character for Skinner to kill countless people to prove a point. Skinner was someone who genuinely seemed to care about individual people, so it wasn’t as if he worked on a general “ends justify the means” philosophy.
If Skinner’s entire scheme really is just to teach people a lesson, it could very well be the case he never planned for humanity to die to begin with. It’s possible Skinner could’ve just been completely bluffing about everyone who took Hapna dying in 30 days, and nothing will even happen. That said, there’s at least one more hint in the series’ nomenclature that suggests something will absolutely happen when Skinner says it will; it just won’t be the thing everyone expects.
Lazarus’ Title Could Be Hiningt at the Series’ Ending
The Religious Influence on Lazarus Has Been Clear From the Start
Lazarus’ Dr. Skinner seems far from the kind of person who would just kill people to prove a point, but merely lying about Hapna’s effect doesn’t seem to be a strong enough influencer to really make humanity rethink its grave mistakes. Instead, Dr. Skinner could’ve had another plan up his sleeve, and the title of the anime, Lazarus, could actually reveal how it all ends. Of course, in-universe, Lazarus is just the name of the team that Axel joins alongside Chris, Douglas, Leland and Eleina to find Skinner and save the world. While the genuine reason for that name has still never been revealed yet, the meta-explanation for the series’ title could be very literal.
Lazarus is an anime that wears its religious influences on its sleeve, as the series is absolutely steeped from head to toe in Judeo-Christian iconography from the prologue to the end credits. Talk of “devils”, “angels” and “saints” are all over the dialogue in just its first few episodes alone, and that’s to say nothing of the literal religious symbols, from crosses, to a dreidel, and even the city’s name of Babylonia (an obvious reference to the Tower of Babel from the Book of Genesis). It shouldn’t come as any surprise, then, that the name Lazarus comes from a character in the Christian Bible. The Biblical story tells of a man named Lazarus, who died of a disease. Four days later, Jesus was said to bring Lazarus back to life, doing so to demonstrate the power of God.
This little angel here is always keeping me safe.
— Axel
If the Hapna incident was all a behavioral experiment conducted by Dr. Skinner to study how humans act when they truly believe they’re going to die, perhaps Skinner could have taken a hint from the biblical story of Lazarus. If that were the case, the Hapna pill might not really kill its victims atc but only put those who took it in a near-death state resembling a coma, only to wake up days later like Lazarus in the Bible. When Skinner announced that someone would have to find him to get the cure, maybe he did so with full awareness that saving everyone from Hapna wouldn’t require a literal vaccine. Instead, maybe Skinner’s “cure” is to simply have people focus on finding him to get away from the monotony of their everyday lives for a time, and recognize why taking action before it’s too late is so important.
The tragedy of Skinner’s character in Lazarus, especially if this connection to the real-life Dr BF Skinner is entirely intentional, is that he helped contribute to the very conditions in society that he most detested. By introducing a drug that fundamentally changed how people are affected by their actions, he fundamentally changed how human beings behave. Perhaps the entire creation of Hapna, as well as its ability to heal pain, was just a behavioral experiment to start, and Skinner had ulterior motives from the start. Considering who he appeared to be as of Lazarus Episode 2, though, killing millions of people doesn’t seem to fit Skinner’s personality. Of course, it would not at all be uncharacteristic for the main character of one of Watanabe’s anime series to die, either, so seeing Axel – along with the rest of those who took Hapna – actually die in the end is never quite off the table.
Lazarus is currently available to stream on HBO MAX.
