Review of Haibane Renmei
I was not sure what to expect from this anime before starting to watch it. I had never heard someone mention it before, not in a video or irl, I just saw it in my MAL recommendations and thought:"huh, that looks interesting". But I am very happy with what I got. What immediately caught my eye was the art style. The anime has a style that is in a way comforting and simple. There are no overexagerated visuals or insane animation techniques, because this show doesn´t need them to keep your attention. The thing about this show that kept making me want to watch the nextepisode was the mystery that surrounds it´s setting. We get thrown into this world and know nothing about it, but unlike other shows there isn´t a massive lore dump where a side character tells the main, and us, everything there is to know. In this show the viewer learns with the main character. We learn what she learns, and that´s it. "How does this work? why is that the way it is?" we don´t know it, but we don´t need to. The story isn´t about the world and how exactly it works. It´s about how the characters interact with it and each other, so if you are bothered by not finding out those minute details and aren´t happy with wacthing a show that is about people dealing with their problems and emotions, then the show is not for you.
Maybe it was the way I related to characters in the show, but it made me cry. That doesn´t tend to happen a lot.
I absolutely recommend anyone to at least give it a try like I did. :)