After finishing the second half of LIDEN FILMS utterly inscrutable anime adaptation of Tow Ubukata's Bye Bye, Earth novel series, I had to lie down for an hour so that my poor, confused brain could attempt to parse all that it had experienced. I don't know whether that helped, but the color-drenched semi-conscious daydreams triggered by the show that flitted past my eyelids were certainly wild. Nonsensical as this twenty-episode fever-dream of a show is, I can't deny the potency of its mad imagery.

When I wrote about the show's first half last year, I mentioned I'd “probably stick around because I want to know what is going on, but I don't have much confidence anything will be explained with clarity.” My lack of confidence was well placed, as it takes until episode nineteen before the show deigns to explain anything about its setting, or the main character's circumstances, and even then it leaves so many questions unanswered. What minimal explanation is offered does indeed make some kind of logical sense, in the most basic fashion, in that it gives context for who the protagonist Belle Lablac is, and why she's different from everyone who surrounds her. It gives vaguely satisfying reasons for the behaviour of “Deus Ex Machina,” the deity that controls the strange Schwert Land society with its myriad demi-human animal hybrid people and their predominantly music-based culture. Sadly, many of these answers don't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

Most of Bye Bye, Earth's fictional mechanics are heavily fantasy-oriented, and Ubukata's attempt to legitimize them with a sheen of futuristic sci-fi falls flat, because he expects the viewer to accept wildly improbable hand-waving over coherent world-building. Even with a superficial sci-fi flavor, none of the world's mechanics can be explained with anything approaching logical science. The only way for a viewer to survive all twenty episodes is to give up on understanding a damned thing, and accept that most dialogue is mere flavor text without any deeper meaning to anyone other than Ubukata himself. With entire conversations comprised of little more than flowery Proper Nouns and verbose word salad, it's best to stop caring about the plot and let the lush visuals and gorgeous soundtrack wash over you.

Aesthetically, Bye Bye, Earth is a treat for both the eyes and ears, though only if experienced with the brain thoroughly disengaged from Ubukata's self-indulgent, obscure gibberish. I honestly don't know what made his work attractive enough to warrant such a beautiful production – and this is in a season where one of his later works, Moonrise, also scored a high profile adaptation, involving both Wit Studio and Fullmetal Alchemist's Hiromu Arakawa, no less.

Bye Bye, Earth's visual quality remains undiminished throughout its second half, as its large cast of varied, attractively-designed animal people clash in spectacular sword battles. Even when it's desperately unclear why characters are even fighting one another, spewing incomprehensible nonsense about their motivations in between luminous spark-producing sword blows, there's always something bright and shiny to gawp at. Later battles become yet more surreal, as the backdrops switch from the darkened Catacombs to lava-filled underground caverns filled with the god-tree's burning roots, to a shimmering blue garden of ethereal butterflies.

There's much confusing lore about what swords are, what they represent, and the spells carved into their blades. None of this is ever explained to my satisfaction, though the sword names do (a little predictably) tie into some fairly clever wordplay-related plot development. I mean, it's been signposted forever about how Belle's enormous Runding sword and its EREHWON spell would be significant. During her adventure, Belle becomes palpably distressed at the near-destruction of Runding by her former sort-of-lover Adonis the cat-boy, though it somehow gets better anyway, for barely-explained reasons. It's hard to know what plot developments matter in this show, when they can be reversed and hand-waved away by a few Proper Nouns and pretty colors.

Adonis is a frustrating character, as it's very hard to get a read on what Ubukata intends to say with him. Is he supposed to be an antagonist, a love interest, or both? I don't like him because of his attempted sexual assault against Belle in the show's first half, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Most of the time, his actions are opposed to Belle's, though I can't say I ever understood what he was trying to do. At the end of his story, Belle acts like all is somehow forgiven, and plants a wet kiss directly on his lips. Now the conclusion does become slightly hilarious regarding how many other characters Belle kisses – but most of these are chaste kisses on cheeks. Even a tearful Princess Sherry, who seems to share yuri-tinged feelings for Belle, only gets the briefest of pecks. That Belle's a heartbreaker, all right.

Perhaps the biggest reason I stuck with Bye Bye, Earth to the bitter, confusing end is Kevin Penkin's incomparably gorgeous soundtrack. I do love the ending song MOONWORK, performed by ASCA. It's a beautiful, atmospheric, and melancholy track. Much of the in-show tracks comprise new arrangements and adaptations of famous classical music, with the standout Beethoven's Ode to Joy in the climactic battle bringing real Neon Genesis Evangelion vibes. While Evangelion receives its fair share of criticism for its deliberately obtuse and obscure storytelling choices, that show at least operates on multiple narrative levels where it honestly doesn't matter that none of the random Biblical and Kabbala references stand up to scrutiny. All Bye Bye, Earth has going for it are its music and visuals.

It's unclear to me if Bye Bye, Earth's final episode coincides with the end of the novel's story or not. While the “plot” is definitively resolved, Belle's future is left open-ended. I think I've seen enough. I can't imagine being willing to endure another season of gorgeous but ill-explained nonsense.