Carole and Tuesday Part 2: Anime with Amber Audra

Whatever happens, happens! Wait... Wrong anime.

Hi guys and happy holidays!

I hope you had a good Christmas and all got a chance to enjoy your yearly traditions! I don't have a ton but I can't say no to a Christmas day viewing of the Muppet Christmas Carol annually. Speaking of Carols, you may recall that I said I never felt like I gave the second half of Carole and Tuesday a fair shake. Why is that?

Well, let's get into it.

While the first twelve episodes of Carole and Tuesday suffer almost from a lack of ambition for a prolific creator like Watanabe, telling perhaps his simplest story yet, the second half throws all that to the wayside and picks up every plot thread mentioned in the first half and puts it under the microscope.

First I do think we need to talk about the huge problem, which we touched on briefly but it really hampers Carole and Tuesday in the second half: Netflix. This has been bitched about up and down and left and right for years so what I say won't shine new light on any conversation but the Sneed's model of content drops really fucks delicate content.

Formerly Chuck's. Is this a good joke?

Recently, during my second rewatch of Carole and Tuesday, I specifically decided to focus on the second half and I took things a lot slower. Predictably, this really made the content shine. 3 episodes one day, one the next, two the day after that. It made everything so digestible and lovely. Giving an audience now trained to binge 12 episodes that tackle a LOT of material that isn't easy to digest quickly was a mistake. Had this been on Crunchyroll or Adult Swim (A long time champion of Wantanabe) on a weekly basis, I think reception would have been different. The ramp up from "Idol Anime Jam Packed With Music" to "Perfect Blue with Political Espionage and Carole and Tuesday are Still There Too" would have been slow, interspersed with episodes that still focused more on music, making the show seem less disjointed.

Another thing I feel compelled to mention which I do feel I should have covered the first time because it was a micro controversy when Carole and Tuesday first aired, during the first half of the series. And that's transphobia. Trans characters haven't been handled perhaps the best in Wantanabe's work in the past, but I have seen it brought up as an argument in the case of Cowboy Bebop's Gren that including a character that can be read as trans at all was a progressive move. I'm a woman who was born a woman and has always loved to express myself with femininity. So I'm not going to be the definitive voice on transphobia in Carole and Tuesday but I don't love the fact that trans characters exist because some people reacted strangely to the atmosphere on Mars. It's weird to me. And if that's transphobic to you and turns you off of the series, I get it. I feel like Watanabe's attempts at inclusion and being progressive sometimes come full circle and turn into a parody of themselves, which is unfortunate.

One of the characters who was affected by the atmosphere of Mars was Angela's mother, Dahlia. In her past life on earth, she was a child star. By 20, her cute, boyish looks had faded and no one cared about her anymore. Grooming Angela since age 3 for stardom and now orchestrating her career shift from modeling to music is all to help her avoid the fate of irrelevancy that befell Dahlia herself. We didn't discuss Dahlia last week. But she's integral to Angela's development in the back half of Carole and Tuesday.

As is Tuesday's politician mother to Tuesday. Her entire platform hinges on the timely-at-the-time-of-release plot of deporting all Earth immigrants.
As for Carole's mother? We do find out more about her. The final song of the series is titled "Mother" and it's certainly thematically fitting.

However, sadly, the weakest part of Carole and Tuesday's second half is Carole and Tuesday's music. They had songs in the first half I loved and some I skipped on the soundtrack, which I listened to a lot (Stangela checking in ✌️) but I don't think I remembered a single song from the second half. Now I like "Army of Two" and I've woken up with it stuck in my head a few times but other than that? I have to agree with their gruff, drunk Rick Rubin-esque producer - Sounds like shit, girls. You want me to believe the AI addled society of Mars could be swayed away from their computer generated jams by a sleepy song like "Polly Jean" when DJ Ertigun and Angela are out here serbing "Lights Go Out"? Be serious, Shinichiro, I beg.

As mentioned, there is a subplot that is heavily indebted to Satoshi Kon's masterpiece Perfect Blue and fittingly, the character that finds herself questioning if she's the real Mima is Angela. It's a wonderfully done subplot and honestly, it's a bummer that it's just a subplot. Angela as a character seems to have so much to mine and every time the surface is scratched, something juicy bubbles up. A model since age of 3? Her mother, a former child star as well and her current manager? Her mother who has anger issues so severe Angela moved to her own apartment? The second half of the series takes the bitchy pop star and gives her a stalker and later kills her mother, Dahlia. The loss of the complicated relationship, followed immediately by the political imprisonment of her producer Tao, means Angela is completely isolated. What follows is, much like Perfect Blue, a little hard to decipher. It's difficult to tell what is really happening and what is a drug driven hallucination but Angela is taunted by a perfect AI copy of herself that Tao had made to use for practice on new songs while Angela wasn't available. Of course the real Angela always hated the thing. And for good reason. It's weird to one day walk in on an AI clone of yourself. Eventually, Angela collapses on stage at the Mars Grammys.

Unlike Bradley Cooper, she didn't piss herself.

Meanwhile, Tuesday has a political moment, something that's hard to avoid since the 14th episode opens with her mother proudly announcing how she will, if elected, deport all immigrants, as a roaring crowd cheers on. Eventually, a reporter comes sniffing around. He's much older and though nothing romantic happens, it seems like he's putting out vibes but he's just a weirdo with mommy issues who's trying to get Tuesday to hate her mom. It's honestly a little weird and I wish it went in a better direction. It had a lot of potential. I don't hate it. I think it had a lot of good moments but having so much hinge on a guy who hates moms is silly.

Carole's special status as the best friend and musical partner of Tuesday is never addressed but it's clear she'll never be deported because of her relationship to Tuesday. However her childhood friend and current rapper Amer will and the Presidential candidate wastes no time imprisoning him. Carole and Tuesday's musician friend Skip also is tossed in the clink, in a particularly sad scene to watch play out. This helps focus a good portion of the back half of the show on to minor characters we briefly met in the first half of Carole and Tuesday like pop star Crystal. We also get to learn a lot more about the girls manager, Gus.

Carole's story as an immigrant mostly comes via her past with Amer and through various people who claim to be her family searching for her and how that journey affects her emotionally. She reflects on her time on Earth and her time at the orphanage. And whether she even wants to know her parents. I think it would have been interesting to see her address these feelings through music.

Now, this might seem boring so far, like I'm just recapping the show for you but like I mentioned, I wanted to give Carole and Tuesday a fair chance, which I didn't feel like I did before and considering 1) what esteem I hold its creator in 2) how much I love the songs and the first 12 episodes, I wanted to do things right. This included doing a fair bit of research and reading the complaints people had about the show. I knew the transphobia was a common complaint when I watched the show years ago but I didn't know of others, some of which are valid and some of which I don't think are, and to understand why, I think everything discussed up until now is vital.

Carole is "the black best friend" who takes a backseat to Tuesday. This is not my place honestly so if anyone feels that way, I think it's valid. Countless TV shows and movies have cast a black girl with dreads as the sassy counterpart to a blonde haired, blue eyed lead so I understand why the pair is eye roll inducing. But I do think Carole gets more plot than Tuesday in the last 12 episodes. Other than the political storyline, Tuesday's story is just music and friendship. Carole is given family strife, romance, struggling with potential deportation as an immigrant, and a whole episode with Gus that centers on helping save the life of a Whitney Houston-lite diva who was Carole's childhood idol. (We don't need to talk about the... Morality of resurrecting Whitney for fanfic where she's saved in an anime through the power of music but lemme know if you want a newsletter talking about what musician influenced what character and if it was a good idea to include them! Obviously Marilyn Manson wasn't a good idea.)

Flora episode is filler. Speaking of the Whitney Houston-lite diva! This episode is apparently quite disliked for being a lull in the plot and returning to the "power of music" story from the start of the season. Again, ignoring the moral implications of resurrecting a dead diva to write fanfic about saving an anime version of her, I think this episode does a few things: It serves as a break from the heavier themes the series is careening towards like a Tesla when it sees a ravine. It also gives us our only real in depth look at Gus's past through the eyes of Gus, which helps us in turn see why he sought out Carole and Tuesday in the first place. And it also helps fill out more of Carole's backstory before meeting Amer and, eventually, her real father.

Tell me young Gus couldn't get it.

Angela's story is disjointed. I think this is where Netflix really fucks the pacing. This wasn't a show meant to be binge watched and watching it at a liesurely pace shows Angela breakdown unfold, honestly, throughout the series, starting with hints in the first half when she's distraught about her mother asking her to move back in home and her showing signs of PTSD from the abuse she suffered. Keeping that in mind and knowing she's incredibly overworked and has been probably since 3 years old, that Angela feels Tao finds her replaceable after seeing her AI doppelganger, that she's being stalked, and more, it's no wonder by the time her mother dies, she's about ready to lose it. I think both Angela and Carole's storylines are the best written in the show. Sorry, Tuesday. Your outfits are still cute!

Aaron is ugly and a loser. Yes. True. Who's Aaron? Other than an ugly waste of space, he's the equivalent of a crypto bro that Angela devalues herself by dating and why? He's a social climber. He's ugly. He's clearly poorer than her. What does he offer? Well, after listening to some of Jeanette McCurdy's book, particularly the part where she dates a man in his 30's when she is quite young, I guess I get it. An overbearing, abusive mother who you're completely codependent with but also kind of hate? Yeah, even the ugly loser will do as a form of escape.

Tuesday's political plotline was cringey. I saw this brought up when the show aired and I haven't seen it mentioned currently when looking into criticisms about the show but of course I didn't scour the entire internet, I'm only one girl, and even if it is something that aged well, I still want to address it. I think people suffered Trump fatigue when the show came out and didn't want an escapist anime, especially one that started as a very lighthearted story about the power of music and friendship, to tackle the issues they dealt with in their real life. But Carole and Tuesday was created by a Japanese team for an international audience. This isn't American Horror Story: Cult. And I admit the political portion of the show is why I felt really turned off of the second part of Carole and Tuesday but rewatching it now where there is more distance between myself and the 2016 election, I do feel like the story was well written and I think it's very interesting to see what a foreign group of writers and artists thought of America at the time, especially Wantanabe, who is someone that was very formative to me. I would literally not be an anime watcher if it wasn't for his works.

So hopefully this convinced some of you to give Carole and Tuesday a shot! A cozy little anime that truly goes in bonkers directions. From wholesome to holy shit!

Personally? My biggest complaint about Carole and Tuesday is the fact that the same voice actor that did George in Paradise Kiss does the Bowie-esque Desmond. Man! His voice affects my synesthesia perhaps more than any other man. It's literally like nails being shoved in my eyes. So sorry to that man! But I really wish he'd choose another profession. Again, huge apologies. But yknow, maybe he can do some commercials raising awareness about the more rare types of synesthesia and help find a cure!

Thanks for reading guys! I think this ended up being a long one! Funny because I figured I'd have nothing much to say about Carole and Tuesday, let alone enough for a 2 parter and honestly if I talked about all the musicians that inspired the anime pop stars, I could easily do a part 3 because I did notice the wiki missed some! Like GGK is clearly FKA Twigs! Cybelle is Soko!

Next week? Break out your skorts and Ralph Lauren socks. We're gonna Aim for the Ace!!!