Carole & Tuesday | First Impressions

I’ve been patiently waiting for this anime to start ever since it was announced that Shinichiro Watanabe was creating an original anime with Studio Bones. I wasn’t going to let the series getting picked up by Netflix stop me from watching this episode when it was released. I put on my pirate hat, kicked my feet up and enjoyed episode 1 of Watanabe’s Carole & Tuesday. I thought I should give you guys my first impressions of the 24 episode series. Let’s jump right in!

Carole & Tuesday takes place in the future on Mars… Nani? In this time, we have two characters on a mission to be heard no matter the cost. Tuesday, a girl from a rich background, leaves home to pursue music against her family’s wishes. Carole a part-time worker in Alba City also on the pursuit of music. Two lonely girls only looking to be understood and find the missing piece in their lives find each other. This is really all we know at this point.

After finishing the first episode, I feel that I’m just over the moon. I knew I was going to enjoy this series but man, it’s already sitting around top anime of the year for me. The quality alone is just overwhelmingly good reminding me of Kyoani’s Violet Evergarden’s debut last year. Studio Bones can bring such a variety of results in their animation and this is probably one of the most polished works I’ve seen from them.

I’m pretty happy with the progression of the story up to this point. We’ve had many characters introduced and learned that this takes place on another world in the distant future. With all that information being presented, I didn’t feel like I was being overloaded with all of this new information. I just want more dammit! We didn’t have to wait a long time for the two to meet and the chance meeting just felt so right with probably one of the best introductions I can ask for these two. Everything just feels so natural.

I thought the choice in voice actors was pretty interesting. We have Miyuri Shimabukuro cast for Carole. I really only know her for being Yuuna in Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs and Nagisa from Hanebado. For Tuesday, we have Kana Ichinose, who I know mainly as Ichigo from Darling in the FranXX. Both of these choices seem to be up and comers in the industry and both really fit the roles from what I’ve seen so far.

I for one LOVE the character designs. I thought the choices for them were simple but very stylish. When you have a story where we are many years in the future on ANOTHER PLANET there are many different choices you can have for this. I also like what we have for Carole and Tuesday for the ED with both outfit choice really fitting their styles. Even if you look at the character designs for all the other characters, they look pretty clean and also show their personalities.

The music is just so engaging. We didn’t get much of it this episode but it was cool to listen to their first jam session. One thing to note here if you didn’t know is, they decided to go with English vocals throughout the series being the first ever anime to do this. To accomplish that goal, they cast two singers through a worldwide audition for Carole and Tuesday. Nai Br.XX cast as Carole and Celeina Ann as Tuesday. They also performed the OP and ED.

The MV for the OP

Shinichiro Watanabe has brought some great anime series to us. He has been able to create and bring to life some of the most compelling stories while making music such a crucial component. Knowing what he is capable of, it seems like he has the best team behind them to bring this original creation to life. Dare I say it, he is probably bringing us one of the best anime of 2019.