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This Week in Anime - Is Carole & Tuesday Worth Watching?




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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1543
PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:21 pm Reply with quote
Huh. I noticed the Mars Brightest arc was a tad too long, but not about its narrative pitfalls.
Probably because episode by episode it was still so damn entertaining. Even if they aren't developed each of this show's extras is so full of personality.

It's a shame that ANN couldn't cover this show episode by episode because there's just so much to unpack episode by episode. Like, where's the love for Ertegun? You can't not love Miyano Mamoru going full ham!
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1995
PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:29 pm Reply with quote
This thing is that I can see how they don't have a lot of time to show us too much music as that would mean minutes spent just getting us into Ertegun's House/Electronica or whatever it is he does which could take up time, expense and animation. I do feel his beats are not that catchy when we hear them. Should've got Daft Punk to throw them a few samples they left on the cutting room floor.

Otherwise Carole & Tuesday's pieces all hit their mark, as do Angela's. I do dislike the plot conveniences though.. OG Bulldog did deserve better. And the Mar's Brightest part could've been cut shorter with Carole and Tuesday being eliminated spoiler[(even sillier is that this entire part effectively achieves the same outcome anyway with season 2's beginning where they reject the contract, thus the competition was just a convenient way of bringing Angela and C&T to face each other that could've gone by in 2 eps if they dropped the whole Cybelle part, and the whole stalker thing would be covered in a different story or is effectively going to occur again in a more high profile way with Angela.)] and then spent more time on the season's final episodes which is the Tuesday family drama.

The show's still enjoyable though, but yeah as season 2 is finally bringing to light a whole host of things season 1 laid the ground for, it's obvious that the show is building towards a larger plot and message in mind than just a couple of girls playing music. We'll see how that turns out, but so far this show is a stand-out for the sum of its parts, and the dub is definitely the way to go.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:30 pm Reply with quote
For those who might be interested, I've been compiling the YouTube videos for the title songs:

Cour 1: https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=6349948#post6349948

Cour 2: https://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=6356786#post6356786

I've thought it a bit unfair to use some of the most talented performers in the history of popular music as the title song artists. They do tend to show up the performers in the anime. I mean Tina Turner? Aretha Franklin? Bruce Springsteen?

It's remarkable how all the title songs come from about 1965 to 1985. It must be the period Watanabe is most familiar with. Sakamichi no Apollon began with 1958's "Moanin'" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers so his jazz sense might date back further than his rock/pop experience. No Presley, who was Blakey's contemporary, for instance.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15457
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 8:39 pm Reply with quote
As a dirty pirate who could not wait, just realized the comments here about Ertegun and Tao do seem to payoff later in the second half. So there is that to look forward to. As well as the deal with a contract. But also themes that were only in the periphery in the first half.

But, there is a lot to C&T. I honestly don't even remember how much time the music competition took up, so maybe it is worse when one marathons that first half. Kind of feels wrong to place the show as being stuck in one way of sameness, since I think that it was genuinely a diverse and interesting show, that would throw in a new song and different kinds of artists all the time.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 7:38 am Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
Sakamichi no Apollon began with 1958's "Moanin'" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers so his jazz sense might date back further than his rock/pop experience.
I was under the impression that Watanabe's musical tastes had no influence on the song selection in Sakamichi no Apollon because he just used all of the songs mentioned in the original manga. Not having read it I can't say to what extent that's true, but I'm pretty sure that at least Moanin' was from the manga.
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Samiamiam



Joined: 31 Jan 2017
Posts: 227
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:52 am Reply with quote
I have mixed feelings on the show. Mostly because I don't really like most of the music (personal taste) and I disagree wholehearedly that the sci-fi setting is well realized. I think the sci fi elements are extremely tacked on/poorly thought out and actually detract from the show which has pretty good characters and fun moments. Especially when they do stuff like use instragram like jesus christ I was immediately taken out. I don't care if your sci fi world is realistic but it needs to be meaningfully different or at least interesting looking for me to care about. I do like Carole and Tuesday in particular though overall this is probably one of my least favorite Watanabe shows.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:54 am Reply with quote
vonPeterhof wrote:
was under the impression that Watanabe's musical tastes had no influence on the song selection in Sakamichi no Apollon because he just used all of the songs mentioned in the original manga.

I wondered about that, too. I don't read manga, so I wouldn't know.

Samiamiam wrote:
Especially when they do stuff like use instragram like jesus christ I was immediately taken out.

What did you think about the Timberland boots Carole wears or the Gibson guitar Tuesday plays? You're going to see some more anachronistic things in the second half like spoiler[a performance at South by Southwest. They even licensed the actual SXSW logo.]

And Tuesday's favorite performer is Cyndi Lauper???


Last edited by yuna49 on Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:54 am Reply with quote
vonPeterhof wrote:
yuna49 wrote:
Sakamichi no Apollon began with 1958's "Moanin'" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers so his jazz sense might date back further than his rock/pop experience.
I was under the impression that Watanabe's musical tastes had no influence on the song selection in Sakamichi no Apollon because he just used all of the songs mentioned in the original manga. Not having read it I can't say to what extent that's true, but I'm pretty sure that at least Moanin' was from the manga.


He might have picked the story for the song.
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Samiamiam



Joined: 31 Jan 2017
Posts: 227
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:55 pm Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
vonPeterhof wrote:
was under the impression that Watanabe's musical tastes had no influence on the song selection in Sakamichi no Apollon because he just used all of the songs mentioned in the original manga.

I wondered about that, too. I don't read manga, so I wouldn't know.

Samiamiam wrote:
Especially when they do stuff like use instragram like jesus christ I was immediately taken out.

What did you think about the Timberland boots Carole wears or the Gibson guitar Tuesday plays? You're going to see some more anachronistic things in the second half like spoiler[a performance at South by Southwest. They even licensed the actual SXSW logo.]

And Tuesday's favorite performer is Cyndi Lauper???


Its so dumb. The music references in general seem extremely thoughtless and disconnected from the actual music they play. Its sort of incredible what a range of music they just list off and how it seemed to have no influence on them as artists at all. That actually annoyed me beyond it just being bad worldbuilding. It really contrasts something like Given, which also lists off music references, but the music they play is so clearly inspired by the references that it really makes sense for the world and the characters. The show would have been better set in present in general, but more thought should have been put into it as a whole. Its just lazy.

I sound super negative, and I'm not actually that negative on the show as a whole. (Like I said, I'm pretty mixed) Its just pretty surprising to see people praise some parts of the production so highly that I view as actively hurting the show. The idea of Carole and Tuesday having a well realized futuristic world is laughable to me but some love it and think its very impressive, which shows that everyone has different tastes I guess.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:51 pm Reply with quote
The futuristic setting is especially weird since AI are almost to the point where they could do everything in show, setting the show maybe just 10 year in the future would have worked just as well, but without all the anachronism. But I'm willing to give them some slack because it might have been a decision from execs "We got the guy from Cowboy Bebop! He can do whatever he want, so long as it's futuristic stuff like Bebop".

I did find it funny that the article started by praising the only AI character in the show that's supposedly about character showing that AI can't make good entertainment...

And yeah they're not making things easy for them by constantly name dropping far better artist than those in the show. Honestly if they had dropped the AI aspect and the whole "C&T are going to revolutionize" the industry and instead just made it about current day girl trying to break into the scene, I think everything would have been much better and I can't see what they would have lost...
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1543
PostPosted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:22 pm Reply with quote
In a later episode there'a a real CV of someone born in 1981.

meiam wrote:
I think everything would have been much better and I can't see what they would have lost...

The tired intro about the seven magical minutes of Mars.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:51 am Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
I did find it funny that the article started by praising the only AI character in the show that's supposedly about character showing that AI can't make good entertainment...

https://www.wired.com/story/how-yacht-used-machine-learning-to-create-their-new-album/
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1995
PostPosted: Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:09 pm Reply with quote
The show being set in the future and on Mars I believe was done for two reasons.

- To distance some real world politics in the background (more relevant in season 2) from finger pointing towards any actual nations, whether America, or Europe or even Japan, to just be a general Mars Vs. Earth thing.

- To not only have a setting for more highly advanced AI, but also have more visually interesting ways of showing it. AI in real life today is kind of dull from a pure presentation perspective.

The world itself is fine, but outside of Mars and a few things said about Earth we are not given a lot to go off on. So in terms of world-building, the show isn't that great, but that's not its primary focus.

It's biggest issue is undoubtedly it's lazy writing and plot conveniences. Especially when there are simple things that would made it better.

For example, when spoiler[Tuesday hurts her hand and can't play guitar, the girls opt for a song that they made where the guitar never fit in, so they just essentially went with a song that was written without the guitar.

A far more interesting way of handling this is if we got to see Carole and Tuesday composing and practice playing a song with keyboard and guitar that they planned on using in a previous episode, but when Tuesday hurts her hand, they panic, but then at the last minute inspirationally recompose the song without guitar into something spontaneous that sounds entirely different, yet imperfect, but also entirely better than waht we heard before. And this, while an accidental discovery from necessity being the mother of invention, not only solves the plot point, but also impresses on us Carole and Tuesday's creativity under pressure to improvise on the fly, and we as the audience will feel that tension during the performance which makes the scene more exciting.]


There are so many missed opportunities and several other things that just happen to make things right at the last minute for convenience's sake, and this make the show less interesting that it otherwise would've been.

A better musical anime to compare it to would be BECK Mongolian Chop Squad. A big part being that we see how hard it is to play guitar and become a musician. That's what's missing from Carole & Tuesday. Sure we see obstacles get in their way to success, but it would also be more interesting to see them struggle with creating music too. For now, their music just happens, and the only really good scene was the first time they try to harmonize with each other in episode 1.
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MesousaGaby



Joined: 16 Oct 2018
Posts: 71
PostPosted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 5:41 pm Reply with quote
The Cybelle stuff was pretty f*cking bad.

That is all. Otherwise, the show is fine.
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