Carole and Tuesday is an anime that is one of its kind—only a 24 episode anime yet filled with social commentary, speaking about what our society has become the past years. This is analysis of the show's social commentary.
_AI usage in music industry
_ Carole and Tuesday was first released in 2019—yet it has already predicted the reliance of people on AI technology, specifically on music industry.

Everyone knows how much AI has done to all of us in the world. Nowadays, not only you can use it to make your homework or even your job (using ChatGPT) but you can also create an entire film, a book, a play, and especially MUSIC using AI. Some of you may have heard of an AI generated music of Kanye West and Drake not too long ago. It shows how scary it is for an AI to easily mimic a voice. If early AI can do something like this, what about in the future?

Carole and Tuesday is set in a cyberpunk-dystopian setting where in the future, most of humanity are in Mars. With this, technological advancements has been made and of course, AI has been used rampantly. With it being a music show, the anime shows us that majority of musicians have been reliant on AI technology to create music. Enter our two leads, Carole and Tuesday who makes music the traditional way—without AI.

It is interesting that this show portrays the usage of traditional way to make music as something "unusual" or "unique" that even some characters are shocked, or make it a big deal that they are making music "naturally". The people in the show are too used in hearing AI music that hearing a "naturally made" song is deemed as "refreshing" or something that is out of the norm. And that people in the show are conditioned into thinking that non-ai music is deemed as bland. Of course, as what has been said, the characters in the show are too used in hearing AI music. Enter the "rival" of our lead, Angela.
Angela is a star—turned to a singer. She makes an AI generated music that appeals to the crowd. With AI generated music being the norm, it is no wonder why she appeals to the crowd over our two leads. Over the course of the show, C&T and Angela have been clashing whether it be in a competition, or in the music charts. Carole and Tuesday can barely keep up in the Industry dominated by AI. Both the leads having "slow progress" in becoming a successful singer in AI driven music industry is great, because it tells how the society have adjusted their taste in music due to the emergence of AI over the past years, and how AI has changed the perception of people in arts and media.

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Migration between Mars and Earth
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Set in a cyberpunk-dystopian setting, majority of characters in the show have settled in Mars. Due to the massive development in technology, people all over the Earth have migrated to Mars. But what is left on Earth now that people have migrated?

Earth in this anime is portrayed as something dystopian—dry lands and refugee camps spread all over. Migration from Earth to Mars has been happening, and also served as a major conflict in the show. Mixed with politics, we have political candidates running for position in the show, seving as an overarching storyline, and one of them is Tuesday's mother. Over the course of the series, there has been numerous debate over the immigrants. Political parties treats them as a threat of humanity on Mars and are being discriminated upon. Earth on the other hand, is dying pitifully and yet, there has been no action has been made to heal the Earth and instead people settle on other planet instead of restoring the Mother Nature. This presents us a question on how would lawmakers react and make response as Earth slowly deteriorates—will they find a way to heal it or find a futile measure to survive, leaving the Earth dying?

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A light in the darkness
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Being centered on musical industry, the songs in this anime stands out due the incredible composition especially its lyrics. Each social commentary in this show are addressed subtly through music. In light to recent issue about the dying Earth, its message has been spread through Carole and Tuesday's performance during the Grammy's. Below is the excerpt of the lyrics—a call for action about the dying Earth.

"Where you gonna turn when

Your whole world is burning?
This is the beginning
Don't give up

'Cause after the fire, new maps are drawn

Nothing to cry for, new dreams are born
Out of the ruins, flowers will grow
People rebuilding, stone by stone
After the fire, fire, fire"

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Million Voices Are Strong

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Freedom is the strength to make you right

Amillion voices are strong
But together we are one
Together we can change the world
Together we're the missing piece
Mother, come and heal this Earth
Mother, you're the love we need

In the latter part of the show, musicians are stripped out of their freedom of speech and thus their expression through music is limited—another social commentary on how politicians and lawmakers manipulate the mass media. With this, expression through art is limited and music, Ai or naturally made, as an artform is dying. People always forget the most cliche yet important thing—unity. By becoming as one, the voice and plea of the masses can be heard. Not only this powerful moment an act of rebellion and protest against unlawful politicians, but is also a call for change—a reminder of what's currently going on with the Earth right now as it is dying, and to remind the society to wake up and stop being blind to societal problems. This last segment tells us that people have been way too comfortable in their lifestyle in Mars, but forgot how the Earth is dying.

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LGBTQ+ Representation
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The show portrays queer characters in subtle way and dont tell it directly. There has been a mixed reception about the representation of queer community. Others have stated that it's a dangerous portrayal of queer characters, or is it? Let us talk about them one by one.

1. Ex wife of Gus

Early in the show, we are introduced to the ex wife of Gus who shortly came out and is actually planning to remarry a women. It is a great example of a "late bloomer" who discovered their gender identity at later stage of their life. She was written delicately as late bloomer and also loved how she gave Gus a closure about her identity.

1. Angela's mom

She is often complained about her "violent" nature which is a bad way to portray transgender. While yes, violent stereotypings are honestly awful, however what people dont get is that she is supposed to be villainy and "violent". The series tries to portray a parent with failed dreams trying to achieve it through their child (a common trope too) so her character was intentionally villainy since she's pressuring her dreams to Angela. Her being "violent" is her character and isnt tied up to her being queer.

1. Pyotr

During the talent show arc early in the series, Pyotr is one of the contestants in the show. Pyotr is queer, which he confirmed it during his performance at talent show where he sang about a song of him being finally comfortable coming out. The song's title was "Love yourself" the lyrics was fitting and meaningful for his identity.

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1. Desmond

Desmond is a non binary/intersex character and so far there has been any problems about them as they also had a short mini arc about them falling in love with a man.

1. Mermaid Sisters

This one is where I can say that the representation was a bit off. Not only that their performance was awful, being used as comic-relief characters that dont fit, but also they became violent at the end of the show. Their performance was disastrous and not fitting for the show as it is unrealistic. Had this been executed in another manner, their performance could've been funny... only with context this is just awful.

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1. Cybelle

Cybelle is a creepy admirer of Tuesday, and also really violent. This one also where the representation was not that good

Overall majority of the queer characters have been done well with some drawbacks. It is a flawed representation—yet its effort in representating the community is appreciated, as some of the representations were actually great.

Other social commentary
I will never forget one time in the show, a white policemen arresting one of the black characters in the show. Another subtle commentary of police brutality and racism.▶ Video

Drugs under pressure. On the second half of the show, we are introduced to some mini arcs in the series, and one of them is about Flora—a famous artist and also an acquaintance of Gus. She was given backstory about her being addicted to drugs due to constant pressure in musical industry and was then inactive as an artist. Her mini-arc is one of the most emotional as we saw Flora slowly regain hope through Carole and Tuesday singing Flora's song.

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_Carole and Tuesday as musical show
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Shinichiro Watanabe is one of a kind director when picking and composing the songs in this anime. You can tell how much soul and passion are put into this when listening to the music compositions. Each lyrics speaks thousands of stories—music as freedom of expression.

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Our two leads, Carole and Tuesday, has had an amazing slow journey to become successful in the musical industry. Their progress has not been rushed, and their story about becoming successful is done in slow manner—which is what I appreciate as it is a realistic portrayal. Just as how we see them become successful, we also saw them at their lowest.

The audience for this pivotal first gig consists of only ten people—But these ten will have a bragging rights of saying 'I was there'.

In the first part of the series, we get to see the subtle slice of life moments of our two leads. Working part time jobs and making music—,with the help of their manager, Gus. Through Gus, they have landed on their first gig—one of the first stepping stones.

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Following their gig, they have landed another opportunity—to perform at a festival. It all sounds too good to be true to perform to a big festival right away, thats probably what Watanabe thought. In this segment, we get to see our two leads being pushed and dissed against by the audience, leading to unsuccessful performance. It is great that in this show, we get to see the characters failing and not succeeding with what they want because it all sounds boring if we let the characters "win" all the time.

Following their unsuccessful performance, another opportunity was opened to them, to compete in a talent show. In this arc, I have encountered pacing issues with it being too long as all songs performed by the contestants have been featured. It also became messy during the Cybelle incident, which is written in baaaaaad way. Not only that, I feel like Angela's perfrmance isnt as good as how the character in the show make it out to be. Both Cybelle and GGK are so much better than her, but it felt like Angela won for the sake of it.It felt forced, her songs are nothing extraordinary and just your average popstar girlypop. However, despite my gripes in this arc, this served as a great exposure for our leads as they also interacted with new characters that let them having another opportunity in becoming successful. And of course, all of the songs are bangers.

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For the second part of the show, this is where we see the more serious side of this show. If on the first part we get to see our two leads having sevaral exposures, on the second part we get to see them rising the industry by recording singles and albums. During the second half, they have attained countless opportunities and met new people that will help them become successful. This is where we get to see some mini-arcs of the characters. One of the mini arc that stood out to me is about Ezekiel—Carole's long lost childhood friend, and also an immigrant from Earth.

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This second segment also shows the social commentaries I have stated above. We also got to see how politics has been tied and related to the musical industry. In this more serious side of the show, it fleshes out its worldbuilding, relating musical industry to politics and it was done magnificently, as what I have stated on the analysis of social commentaries above.

Conclusion

Carole and Tuesday is a musical show that is more than just about music—it shows the reflection of the society and how its societal problems remain unsolved due to society's blind treatment of its problems. Despite having its issues, as all shows have, it remains to be one of iconic work of art telling countless issues that needs to be addressed.

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