Carol & The End of the World

Easily one of my favourite animated shows of 2023, Carol and The End of the World is a very pensive and surprisingly mature show compared to the usual adult comedy cartoon schlock.

If you are looking for the next Family Guy, or Big Mouth, best let this show be and go check out other things because this show isn't got you, but if you are looking for a relaxed and pleasantly animated experience with a dash of humour and a lot of heart, this is the show.

Not every episode is perfect, and it does occasionally dive a little deeper into cringe comedy territory than I would usually recommend, but the show is at it's best when it lets the characters simply interact with each other in emotional and genuine ways--sometimes with complete sincerity and sometimes with a bit of comedy.

The show also looks very nice. It manages to take the usual adult animated comedy style and inject it with a whole lot of visual flair through unique character design, impeccable colour/lighting, and some beautiful animation.

Overall, it's a moody, pensive viewing experience that experiments a lot with the the structure of storytelling and uses the animated medium to it's advantage. It won't be for everyone, and it makes no attempt to appeal to a general audience, but unlike so many adult animated comedies that are driven by derision and hate, this one is driven by love and compassion. And in the face of a world ending apocalypse, that's what is truly important.

Carol & the end of the world is yet another entry into the quiet, mature sci-fi animated menagerie of 2013 alongside Fired on Mars and Scavengers Reign. It is a bit more comedic than both, but still relatively down to earth and not as extravagant, since it deals with very real problems like depression, introversion and impostor syndrome.

The character designs are rather unique for an adult animated series, with Carol herself having this tear drop shaped eyes that quite encapsulate her character.

As someone dealing with depression and a life crisis, Carol is very relatable to me, seeing her struggle to find something to do as everyone is having their bucklists fulfilled.

Overall a very solid cartoon.

This has everything a good show needs, such a delightful surprise at the end of the year. The pace of the series is wonderfully slow, this has sadly become a rare thing in modern productions. The voice actors do a great job. Carol is relatable for anyone who is at least at times, on a deep journey to find out what makes them happy. I love how the show highlights the extraordinary in the ordinary.

I also really enjoyed how the show reveals more and more gradually what drives the other characters. I really recommend it. Watching it felt like an odd meditation and if you let the message in, it really gets you thinking about your own life and what matters to you.

In my estimation, there can only be a 1 or 10 rating for this show. I've never seen anything like it - so boring, yet so gripping and provocative. My rating was a 1, and a 1, but I somehow made it to episode 3 or 4, and somehow it became a 10.

What's provocative about it? It evokes feelings in me like ... am I Carol (a male version)? Episode 9 is fabulous (more on that in a second), but episode 10 is brilliant. I may say I have a bucket list, but like Carol, I really just want a sense of purpose and to be with nice people. How the creators of this show put this together - i.e., the mundane alongside the apocalypse - is beyond me and brilliant.

Do I understand episode 9? Maybe, maybe not. Was Carol dreaming or was it reality? I suspect dreaming, but who knows (or cares). It was beautiful - the animation, the vibrant and sometimes odd colors, the story. And Carol's story was beautifully intertwined with an enjoyable story about her parents throuple (another amazingly odd yet beautiful storyline), as well as the sweet (but complex) story of her one-night stand and his son.

The show should win an award but it won't. It would be very hard for me to recommend this show to someone because they might easily rate it a 1 and move on to more typical fare. And finally, I don't know if I truly understand the story and its implications. I'd like to watch it again, but I honestly don't know if I can make it through it again.

Again, congratulations to the creators for creating something so unique and thoughtful - for those that want to think a bit. And if you hate it, I don't blame you.

If someone brought it to you no one would complain when they get it, but nobody would really feel much of anything either.

I quite like the concept of this show, but I feel that they could have done much better with the execution of it.

Maybe an anthology could have worked?

TLDR: Overall I wouldn't recommend this show to people if they have anything better to do, but it was a nice background watch.

Some things that I liked:

• The animation was pretty nice, when they used 3D it didn't feel too out of place
• I think that almost all the characters were at the very least mildly entertaining
• I quite liked all the side stories

Now for some of the stuff that I didn't really like:

• The main character... I just didn't click with her, her personality was eh, her voice was eh (very flat and emotionless), and worst of all I didn't really like her design (her eyes touching each other bothered me every time I noticed it...)
• The nudity, yeah it made a statement in the first episode, but after that it felt needless... If anything it took away from situations...
• The world building also kind of bothered me, how is the world still functioning if everyone is off having fun, it bothered me every time they had to do anything out in the world.