Review of Haibane Renmei

Falling. The earth way down, clouds quickly passing by. All of a sudden a crow appears, its claws clutching your dress, it tries to pull you up. It struggles, flapping its dark grey wings, unable to to stop your descent, stopping when it figures out it can’t be your saviour. Still falling, the ground bellow that even seconds before seemed so far away, is now quickly approaching. For the first time you actually grasp the situation you are in. Panic takes over and you wake up. This is all that our main character Rakka can remember as she emerges from a cocoon into a newworld, a world where humans and the Haibane coexist. The Haibane, also called the grey feathers are something like flightless angels, having wings and halos above their heads. Immediately she meets a group of Haibane, that tell her she is one of them and offer her that she stays with them in an old complex, called Old Home where they reside. This is how our story starts, with Rakka slowly getting used to her new life, making friends and facing some hardships on the way.

The story itself has to be one of the best fantasy stories I have seen. The shear amount of imagination that went into making this is unbelievable. While structured similarly to other slice of life anime, with the most of the anime focused around young women running what looks like an orphanage, taking care of young Haibane, and helping around town, there is a subtle buildup of suspense, coming form the things that are unknown to us, the spectators. This unfortunately brings forth the problem of pacing, as anime moves forward at a glacial pace, at least in the beginning. One more thing has to be pointed out, the ending is about as perfect as anime endings get.
To sum it all up we have very original story with a great ending, that is slightly let down by its slow pace.

While the problems our characters are something unique, unfortunately the characters themselves are not. It’s not that they is anything seriously wrong with them, as they are all well developed, but they just don’t seem on the same level of originality the story is on.
Our main character as mentioned before is Rakka, a newly hatched Haibane, born into this world without any memory except of the one dream of falling down. At first she is a little lost in this new world, but she soon starts feeling at home, making new friends. She is very likeable and reliable, if a bit shy just like every second anime girl, almost never showing any unsightly characteristics.
Next up we have Reki, the oldest Haibane in Old Home. She acts very responsible and serves as something like a mother to the younger inhabitants. Underneath all of that there are some much darker secrets that I wont go into not to spoil anything. All in all she has to be the best thought out and the most unique character amongst them.
Then there we have an extensive support cast of the other Haibane and a few of the townsfolk. Most of them are memorable and well fleshed out, and they all serve as a pice in the story, but they do feel a bit generic at times.
I have might have been a bit harsh on the characters in the previous paragraphs, but they are still great, but with such great story their flaws stand out much more.

The visuals of the anime are good, but they do show their age, and a relatively small budget of the studio. The backgrounds are beautiful for most of the anime, but the character animation leaves a lot to be desired, as the amount of details drops off suddenly when the characters are not directly in the foreground, and the movement does get a bit choppy at times. I have to point out the art that Reki makes in the anime as it is really beautiful. Also if you dislike fan-service this is the anime fotr you as there is none to be found here whatsoever. The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, but it is still adequate throughout the anime. There are some spots where both the sound and the visuals combine to make some seriously moments of pure beauty, but unfortunately they are not nearly enough of them. This is one of the few anime I have watched parts of dubbed, as I hadn’t felt the best and reading subtitles seemed like a drag, and I have to say the dub was surprisingly good, and in no way worse then the Japanese version.

In the end this was a remarkable anime, and one of the best I have seen in a while. The score it gets is a high 8, while it has a great story, the pacing and characters hold it back from becoming a true masterpiece. It also lacks a great audio-visual setting that might mitigate the pacing problems. I have to say I fail to understand how this anime is so unpopular, as it is currently situated around the 400th place. This is an anime I am able to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, except the most action hungry folks out there.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, and feel free to check out any one of my other reviews. I also gladly accept any positive or negative feedback, as well as any suggestions on how to improve my upcoming reviews.