Forum - View topicREVIEW: Bye Bye, Earth Episode 11-20 Anime Series Review
|
Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 12797 |
|
|||
|
Over in the Series Discussion forum, I think this summed up my feelings pretty succinctly:
I kept forgetting that Tow Ubukata was responsible for this story, and it explains sooo much about why it's such a disaster.  As the review pointed out, I only stuck with it because of the gorgeous character designs, and other lavish visuals. Another poster in the SD managed to make some sense of it all, so I recommend checking that out if you care.
|
||||
|
||||
Thesarum
 SubscriberPosts: 782 |
|
|||
Did I enjoy this show? I find that a hard question to really answer. All I can really say is I watched it to the end, and it certainly was a thing. The character designs were pretty neat (except the freaky Belle-head-bird whose entire existence defies any sort of explanation), but 90% of the dialog was the fantasy-music-magic world equivalent of the Star Trek "Science Bits"... only even less self consistent and coherent. So much of what the writing clearly thought was deep philosophical pondering makes all those coasters and posters that cram your local gift shop look life-changingly insightful. But the fights were (mostly) well put together and cool! And the music and soundtrack were pretty good too. Too much anime spends far too much time narrating to the viewer the blindingly obvious, so we ought perhaps to give this show credit for swerving that trend. And generally I do enjoy piecing together the world and characters from subtle hints and details (Kowloon and Apothecary being two shows airing currently that do "mystery" particularly well). But that relies upon those details being present, and your characters having consistent .. well... characters. Understandable motivations and discernable goals and intentions no matter how weird the world they inhabit is. Almost none of the main participants in this story acted with the sort of consistency that would lead you to believe they had internal values that guided their decision making. Adonis being a particularly gross example of a character that sort of made sense until suddenly he made no sense at all. Bye Bye earth had powerful vibes, but not really anything at all below that surface. |
||||
|
||||
Covnam
 Posts: 4398 |
|
|||
|
I stopped watching the second season after 2 or 3 episodes. While I may still give it a second shot in between seasons, this review at least shows that nothing is lost if I don't.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 19170 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||
|
Very much in line with Kevin's take on the second half of the series, and for mostly the same reasons. This is a great example of what happens when narrative skill (this was Ubukata's first novel) can't keep up with the writer's ambitions.
|
||||
|
||||
PotatoGirl
 Posts: 113 |
|
|||
|
Confusing but beautiful? Sounds right up my alley!
|
||||
|
||||
Glordit
 Posts: 1206 |
|
|||
|
The entire show made sense for about 10 minutes towards the end, then quickly went back to being confusing and obscure.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Philmister978
Posts: 536 |
|
|||
|
The only thing carrying this bunch of episodes were the designs and the audio. The writing was just as confusing as ever and the visuals nosedived spectacularly in almost every other aspect to the point they got as confusing as the plot if they didn't look amateur hour.
Not looking forward to a third season if they have one planned between not explaining itslef better (or sooner) and having animation so uneven it looked like I was watching a "reanimated" colab than an actual professional product. It says a lot when Your Forma, a show I consider making a lot of cardinal sins when it comes to its writing, manages to make more sense than this show's writing. It's a good thing it, unlike the aforementioned Your Forma, can all be blamed on one guy here because between this, Mardock Scramble, the RWBY anime and Moonrise, Ubukata can't write for crap. It feels like Psycho-Pass was a fluke, and the second season was an absolute garbage fire. |
||||
|
||||
The_Daytona_500
 Posts: 185 |
|
|||
Ubukata was not involved in the original Psycho-Pass, only S2-3 and the S3 "movie" |
||||
|
||||
|
BlueFoot
Posts: 23 |
|
|||
|
I had high expectations after the opening scene, but the show (or, more likely, the source material) had other ideas. I'll give it this much though - even the poop joke was utterly incomprehensible. Now that's commitment to a bit.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Philmister978
Posts: 536 |
|
|||
That makes a little more sense, but my point's the same, it's probably the least offensive even if it's bad when compared to everything else he's been involved with. |
||||
|
||||
|
Eilavel
Posts: 550 |
|
|||
|
Ubukata also did Fafner, which I enjoyed, and Heroic Age, which is...ok.
However, both also had elements that were somewhat insensible. It just worked better because the show knew that and it was framed along the lines of weird being from the void. Very similar lines for his fully original compositions though [he also did GITS Arise, which like the later Psycho-Pass is inferior and forgettable but not awful]. |
||||
|
||||
Spike Terra
Subscriber Posts: 372 Location: Maryland |
|
|||
|
Hey I finally was able to respond to review before it was taken off the main page. I'm usually too late to formulate a response to most reviews and I don't want to post when I feel like the work has lost it's accessibility on the front page of this website (which now that I am writing that, it feels quite silly).
I have been enamored with Bye, Bye Earth since it's first episode. I've loved it's music, it's visuals, it's characters (though I agree with Kevin's point about Adonis) and most of all it's juicy lore. The flower animal system is a standout to me. On one hand, you got corpse ravens who inform your significant others / higher ups of your death , which is useful I feel has a lot of significance in tis world. And the other hand you have the flower puppies who I just think are neat but are no where near as important. The dual gendered mermaids were really cool to me, to the point where Benedict\Benedictine is my favorite character. Then there is the culture around the Solists who value their weapons over there own lives. Each sword having it's own name and power, even if I don't remember what half of them do. Hell I go one step forward and say that I loved the weird twist at the end spoiler[where it's revealed that the world was born from a lonely theme park ai. Whose events and attractions formed the basis of the world's strict cast system and laws.] The more I babble about this lore, the crazier I feel. I think I can go for awhile but I do understand why this show can be such a turn off to many people. Viewers end up practically drowned in terminology and there are a good number of scenes when it just becomes incredibly easy to lose the track of what's going on and why the events are happening the way that they are. Investment can feel like a chore, if everything feels so incomprehensible. I am glad a good portion of people stuck it out towards the end of the work. Lastly, I wanted credit that a good portion of my favorability towards Bye, Bye Earth stems from two things: 1: I vibed with just about everything that happened in the show (except for the SA that occurred in the first half.) 2: I consider myself a part of the soulsborne lore community, a group that goes out its way to overanalyze the often abstract lore of the from software games. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group