English Dub Season Review: Bye Bye, Earth Season One

Overview:

In a world of anthropomorphic animals, Belle Lablac was born as the only human being. Having no fangs, fur, or scales, she was called “Faceless,” and she lived a lonely life with no one else she could identify with. “I want to be part of the world…” With such longing in her heart, she decides to set out on a journey to find her roots, carrying the Runding, a great sword as tall as she is. She doesn’t know how many adversities await her along the way…

Our Take:

I don’t even know where to start with this one, I’m almost as confused with writing this review as I was watching the show. Let’s get some of the good out of the way first. As much as I love isekai it’s still nice to see a show that is just fantasy without any isekai tropes. As of now at least, with the title of the show, I suppose it being an isekai is still possible but for the most part, it seems like Belle isn’t from our world. This does lead me to one of the bigger negatives for the show, it’s confusing! This anime could be an isekai and I wouldn’t have any idea because a lot of the themes and ideas go way over my head. I thought that maybe I was just too dumb for this show but I went to some online forums and everyone felt that way which tells me this story is a bit of a convoluted mess.

That’s disappointing for me because I like the setting and characters. After the first episode, I thought Belle being human was going to be a bigger deal but while she wasn’t treated great by any means it didn’t seem like she experienced anything worse than someone like Adonis did as well.

The characters don’t experience a lot of development except for maybe Adonis. That felt more like character assassination than development but it does set up something that could be interesting in the second season. Bye Bye, Earth is based on a fairly short light novel series so I imagine this second season will wrap up the story. While I thought Adonis and Belle were going to have a romance (I suppose it’s still possible) now it’s looking like Adonis is going to be the villain for Belle to fight. I have hope for the second season but this one was a slog to get through so it’s hard to recommend.