'Carole & Tuesday' Is a Decent Showstopper

Carole & Tuesday was on my radar as soon as it debuted in the spring season.  But I didn’t immediately add it to my anime watchlist because I felt it was crowded already.  But midway through the season, I learned for the first time that it was being directed by Shinichirō Watanabe.  Thus, I promptly proceeded to catch up with it.  For surely, if the legendary director of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Kids on the Slope, Terror in Resonance, and Blade Runner Blackout 2022 was the one behind it, it must be worthwhile.

The 24-episode anime series is set in Mars in the future, wherein the red planet is already terraformed, populated, and well-off, and follows two aspiring young musicians, the runaway rich-kid Tuesday Simmons and the orphaned street performer Carole Stanley, who cross paths one fateful day and immediately click with each other.  With the former on the guitar and the latter on keyboards, the girls proceed to make their own songs to sing – a novelty, since songs are now usually created by efficient AIs.  Supported all the way by their self-appointed manager Gus Goldman and initial fan Roddy, the songwriting-singing duo embarks on an uphill battle to make a mark on the current music scene.

Since Carole & Tuesday is a Shinichirō Watanabe production, I kind of expected a lot from it going in.  Through Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, Watanabe had already proven that he can masterfully blend together different genre flavors to create an outstandingly unique show.  Thus, I was excited with what he would do with Carole & Tuesday, which is a combination of musical, science fiction, and comedy-drama.  Moreover, he also had proven with Kids on the Slope that he’s very much capable of showcasing believable and appealing animated musical performances.   All things considered, I expected it to blow me away in the end.

As it turns out, Carole & Tuesday is indeed a darn good anime.  However, it isn’t as tight and polished as I thought it would be.  Plot threads aren’t quite tied up convincingly, and the musical performances – particularly in the playing of the instruments – are not as clean, realistic, and dynamic as the musical performances in Kids on the Slope.  Thus, for me, it’s Watanabe’s weakest anime series since, well, ever (for the sake of fairness and transparency, let me state here that I haven’t seen Space Dandy yet, so I wouldn’t know how Carole & Tuesday would measure up to that.  But people say Space Dandy’s great).

The narrative is a bit rough around the edges.  It seems like it starts off suggesting it’s going to head toward this direction, but it ends up doing something completely different.  And, no, it’s not subverting expectations with it.  It doesn’t come off that way.  It’s more like Darling in the Franxx episode 20-type of storytelling detour, but not as messy and random.  I don’t know.  But that’s just how it felt to me.

Most particularly, it felt to me at first that it was all about critiquing the modern music industry, how it’s getting more and more artificial, cold, and commercial – as if every new song is spewed from a conveyor belt, scientifically crafted to appeal to the maximum amount of consumers possible (actually, music producers right now are using AI in their attempts to create the next hit; it’s not really a “future” or sci-fi concept).  But it never really provided an ultimate insight for it, or if it did, it was so fleeting and flimsy that I didn’t notice at all.  Which is a shame, because whenever the show tackled this, it enjoyably did so in a simultaneously cynical and satirical manner.

There are efforts to bring depth to the story – with mixed results.  When it keeps things simple and personal, it gets effectively heartwarming or poignant.  The show is at its most satisfying narratively and emotionally when it’s all about the characters – specifically Carole, Tuesday, and Angela – dealing with their struggles and grinding toward their dreams.  In addition, its greatest emotional point for me is when (SPOILER) Carole meets her father for the first time.  Again, simple and personal stuff.  However, whenever it attempts to get political, it comes off as slightly pretentious.  The “big messages” coming out of these are unearned and flat.

It also makes the mistake of overhyping its climax, and this proves detrimental in the end.  At the very beginning of the first episode – and at the beginning of every episode after that – it foreshadows this so-called “miraculous seven minutes” that the eponymous duo will supposedly pull off down the line.  The whole show is essentially building up toward this particular big-deal event.  This turns out to be the (SPOILER) final scene of the anime, wherein Carole and Tuesday gathers other artists and they all sing together in the name of a relevant advocacy – sort of a “We Are the World” all-star collaboration.  It’s okay per se.  But the build-up to it treats it as if it’s something transcendental.  Thus, although their song is legitimately moving (“Mother”), the moment itself feels underwhelming due to the overhyping.  Moreover, it doesn’t help that there’s no denouement or epilogue to clean things up afterwards.  The anime chooses to end itself there and then.

In my opinion, the peak of Carole & Tuesday is during its talent show arc.  That’s the midway point, so in other words, I enjoyed the first half more than the second half.  That may be because the first half was simply more worthwhile and focused while the second half was more uneven.  Or it had always had that unevenness from the start but I was just less forgiving during the second half because it was already heading into the home stretch.  Regardless, I thought the first half was stronger in general (though there are some strong episodes in the second half, too, e.g. the episode on the aforementioned emotional meeting between Carole and her father).

Carole & Tuesday doesn’t quite make an impeccably terrific whole.  However, it has many notable parts that I found delightful.  First and foremost of these is, of course, the soundtrack.  I love many of the songs – especially “Hold Me Now” (which also served as the ED of the first half; another reason why I enjoyed the first half more), “Army of Two”, “Day by Day”, “Mother” (the finale song), and of course, “Galactic Mermaid” (a major reason why that talent show arc is amazing).

Speaking of “Galactic Mermaid”, the scene where it plays out is comedy gold.    There are a couple of moments where this show gets genuinely hilarious.  But none ever comes close to the Mermaid Sisters’ epic performance.  It’s honestly the funniest thing I’ve ever encountered on TV and film this year.

The characters are also compelling.  Carole, Tuesday, and Angela aren’t exactly “Best Girl” material, but they are interesting and have thoughtful arcs.  I wish the story explored the character of Tao more, but as far as the supporting cast in general goes, their roles serve the story sufficiently.

To sum it up, Carole & Tuesday isn’t perfect, but it hits enough high notes to be a decent showstopper.  With its numerous musical references (for starters, it makes use of real-life songs as episode titles) and its catchy and soulful original songs, it can be a music lover’s delight.  And, despite its flaws, the story is still stable enough to permit its splendid parts to be enjoyed.  Add relatable characters and gorgeous animation on top of those, and Carole & Tuesday has enough merits to be a fun, fresh – even beautiful – anime overall.  It probably won’t end up in my list for top 10 anime series of 2019, but I will remember it fondly nonetheless.  Not bad for Shinichirō Watanabe’s weakest anime series.