WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Carole & Tuesday, currently streaming on Netflix.
From the Western influences in Cowboy Bebop to the hip-hop stylings of Samurai Champloo, Shinichiro Watanabe has always been one of the anime directors paying the most attention to American pop culture. His latest series Carole & Tuesday shows he's also been paying attention to American politics -- and that he doesn't like what he's been seeing for the past few years.
In the Part 1 of the show, politics are present but primarily in the background. We know that Carole is a refugee from Earth living on Mars and that Tuesday is the runaway daughter of presidential candidate, Valerie Simmons. Valerie's presidential campaign comes to the forefront in Part 2 of the series. Her platform is extremely anti-refugee and anti-immigrant but her xenophobic campaign climbs in the polls. And even before the election, new laws are punishing refugees and those who speak out against the government.
The most intense political commentary happens in episode 20, "Immigrant Song." Xenophobia is rising on Mars in the aftermath of a terrorist attack attributed to refugees. Carole's childhood best friend Amer, now known as the rapper Ezekiel, drops the song "Crash the Server" in protest against this climate of xenophobia. Performed by Denzel Curry and co-written by Flying Lotus, "Crash the Server" is a highlight of Carole & Tuesday's already outstanding soundtrack.
Shortly after his rap goes viral, Ezekiel is arrested for an expired visa. What's the name of the police force that arrests him? "MICE," in case you thought Promare naming its bad guys "Freeze Force" was too subtle a piece of political commentary. Skip, another musician, is also racially profiled by MICE and arrested for protest music three episodes later.
It's noteworthy that two of the most popular original anime of 2019 based their villains on ICE. It shows the American audience just how our country under the leadership of Donald Trump is being viewed in Japan and around the world. While Promare's creative team has claimed that the political issues in their movie were more about establishing a realistic background than sending a message, Carole & Tuesday's second part is all about sending messages.
More than anything, Carole & Tuesday reflects the helplessness many in America and elsewhere have felt surrounding politics over the past few years. Carole and Tuesday can both do very little about the tragedy that surrounds them; all they can do is keep making music. Episode 15, "God Only Knows," feels as if it could have been taken directly from the emotional experiences many had in early 2016, watching Trump's campaign rise at the same time inspirational music legends like David Bowie and Prince were dying.
In Carole & Tuesday's final episode, it turns out the show's Bowie/Prince analogue, the glam rock recluse Desmond, actually survived their apparent death. This serves as a hint of just how much of a fantasy the show's conclusion is. It's an inspiring and moving fantasy, but also a naive one. Carole and Tuesday gather all of Mars' best musicians to perform a protest song at New Years in support of Ezekiel and Skip. Meanwhile Tuesday's brother Spencer exposes his mom's advisor, Jerry, as the mastermind behind the terrorist attack and successfully convinces Valerie to end her presidential campaign.
It's here where the direct parallels between the show's plot and American politics fall apart. Valerie is persuaded to change her ways based on exposure to the facts, whereas the main takeaway from three years under the Trump administration has been that the facts don't matter nearly as much as many citizens think they should. We're in an age of "alternative facts" where politicians dismiss any information that doesn't conform to their views and convincing people to change their minds based on evidence is nearly impossible.
Carole & Tuesday's ambition in addressing real-world political problems is ultimately not matched by an ability to find real-world solutions. However, its fantasy of music bringing the world together does still inspire hope, and that's still worth something.
Carole & Tuesday is available on Netflix.