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Shinichiro Watanabe Looks Back on Carole & Tuesday's Success

Carole & Tuesday director Shinichiro Watanabe held an interview with the J-Wave Tokyo Morning Radio on January 20 looking back on the anime's success. J-Wave posted some of the highlights of the interview on its website on Thursday.

In the interview, Watanabe talks about how he has been a passionate music lover since he was young, and that working on Carole & Tuesday felt like his calling. He also reflected on how fortunate he feels that fans have found the music in the anime appealing, because he had the impression that young Japanese people these days don't listen to as much Western music.

"My generation isn't fluent in English either, but we still got raised on Western music anyway. One of the reasons I wanted to make Carole & Tuesday was because I wanted people to listen to Western music," he said. "I hope it can become a gateway for some people."

Looking back on the series Watanabe said that he wanted to express how important music is to people, even as it remains a non-essential aspect to survival. He explained that by setting the story on Mars while portraying many aspects of the anime using real-life references, he is able to convey a sense of reality to the story and reinforce the theme that a love of music is a consistent aspect of the human existence.

Watanabe expressed his happiness that the series is already having its third concert. He said that he was always hoping during the anime's production that the people handling the music would be able to perform at concerts. "My dream of creating a work that inspires a concert has been granted," he said.

The anime premiered on Fuji TV's +Ultra programming block on April 10. The show also premiered on Netflix that same week in Japan only, with new episodes streaming on Thursdays on Netflix. The first half of the 24-episode anime series debuted worldwide on Netflix on August 30, and the second half debuted on December 24.

Source: J-Wave