Bonus Post: Carole and Tuesday

I don’t do reviews.

I mean, I did one, once, of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, but that was because it was fairly obscure and I told everyone I bought the DVD, so when I saw it – it was hugely fun – I thought I should say something. For, you know, closure.

This isn’t a review. It’s a reaction.

I got Netflix for Neon Genesis, but I also knew Carole and Tuesday was scheduled to drop on it.

I wanted to see Carole and Tuesday. I wanted to see it bad. I want to see anything Shinichiro Watanabe is involved with. As a trained animator I think he’s a brilliant director with an outstanding visual sense, and also a love of music that shows in everything he touches. He reminds me most of Friz Freling, who mixed a love of classical music with an understanding of Bugs Bunny to create some classic cinema.

Except that Watanabe is a better director.

In certain ways Carole and Tuesday does not let down. I mentioned how Beck/Mongolian Chop Squad was an anime series about a band with only  five songs, and three of them blew. The music in C&T is wonderful, as are the musical references (each episode is named for a classic rock song). The actors, in the dubbed version Jeannie Tirado and Brianna Knickerbocker, have enough in the way of musical chops to make it work.

Carole (left) and Tuesday

Watanabe’s eye for framing, for motion, for camera angle, remains brilliant. His vision as a director is magnificent. The direction is wonderful.

The animation is a bit lower in quality than his previous series. We have to remember that after Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo he gave us Kids on the Slope, Space Dandy, and Terror in Resonance. They ranged from really good but limited in appeal (Kids) to modestly bland (Terror) to fun but dumb (Dandy). I can’t imagine they made a lot of money, and so I have to guess he was on a more limited budget this time.

I haven’t seen the whole story yet, so we’ll see about the meta-plot; Carole is a really good character, Tuesday less so (she’s too whiny).

But I gots a beef.

Just the one, but a beef.

I come to this blog from my perspectives as a writer and animator. I let the animator out above. That’s something I can do that a lot of people can’t. The animator in me is saying, “Omm Watanabe Hum” over and over.

But as a writer, and a writer of science fiction, I have to ask this: Carole and Tuesday is explicitly set on Mars, for whatever reason. Does a smart guy like Shinichiro Watanabe not know that the gravity on Mars is roughly a third (37%, to be exact) that of Earth?

Everyone on the show walks normally. In one-third gee? Nuh-uh! Look at the tapes of the guys on the moon (one-sixth gee). People would be bouncing all over! Doubly so in the case of Carole, who was born on Earth and has Earth muscles.

Why don’t they look like they are on Mars? Why put them on Mars if we can’t see them acting like they are on Mars?

I mean, the subtext, as much as I have seen it so far, is fake versus real in music. Why would we need to be on Mars to see that? If Mars matters, why not get Mars right?

This is why I don’t have any hair left.

If you call it science fiction, you gots to get the science right.

Which does not mean I’m not liking it. I am, so far. We’ll see.

I always look at comments and feedback, and I’m sure I’m not the first to see what I’ve seen, so have at it. Just keep it clean and keep it on target…no personal attacks, okay? Thanks.