Review of Haibane Renmei

Overview: This is my 5th year on MAL and this will be my 300th review! I would first like to thank all the people who have given me helpful feedback over the years and all those that have encouraged me to keep writing. It's been a fun journey so far. For such a big occasion, I decided to pick an anime that's actually legitimately great. No caveats, no buts, it's just flat out an amazing anime. This will be the first in a trilogy of reviews in which I'll be looking at great anime that don't quite have the popularity they deserve. The first in this trilogyis Haibane Renmei from 2002!

Background:

Haibane Renmei was released 17 years ago by a small studio called Radix that is now defunct. While always a critical darling, it wasn't a blockbuster financial success either in Japan or really anywhere else. It never aired on TV here in America, but Pioneer did release an English dub for DVD. I personally thought the Pioneer dub is quite awful and I would highly recommend you view the original Japanese dub with subtitles. Pioneer clearly lacked faith in this project, because they put their D-tier actors on this one. This was the opposite of what they did for Cowboy Bebop.

This may change, but at this point in time Haibane Renmei is the poster child for underrated. Not only is its MAL score far lower than it derserves, but its popularity is well outside the top 500. Not a single one of my offline anime friends had heard of Haibane when I started watching. I asked them to ask all their friends and they hadn't heard of it either. It's odd because you CAN get casual fans to watch more artsy anime. Even the most casual anime fans have seen Evangelion. Most of them have seen Serial Experiments Lain. With Haibane, not only have the vast majority of anime fans never seen it, they haven't even heard of it! That's honestly quite sad, because this is a series I think a LOT of people would really enjoy and get something out of!

Story:

There is a mysterious town called Glie that is surrounded by walls. Every once in a while, a cocoon forms and a child emerges. Sometimes they are small children, while other times they are young teens. When the youth emerges from the cocoon, they are asked what they dreamed of when inside. That becomes the basis of their new name. The story begins with a young girl emerging from her cocoon and being given the name "Rakka" taken from the word "falling". Her dream was that she was falling from a great height and a crow was trying to save her from hitting the ground. Rakka can't remember anything personal from her past life, but remembers speech and what objects are. She is told that she is now a Haibane and has a halo placed above her head. She then immediately starts sprouting angel wings, which is an extremely painful process. Rakka is nursed back to health by a kindhearted older Haibane named Reki. It is explained that Haibane must work a job in town and live a modest life to strive towards forgiveness for their sins. It is not immediately explained what these sins are, but it is made apparent later. Haibane that achieve redemption undergo the "Day of Flight" and ascend to heaven. Those that can't find redemption after a certain amount of time has passed are called "Sin Bound" and ultimately face oblivion.

This really pains me, because I want to talk more about the plot and characters, but I also REALLY don't want to spoil anything. The good thing about Haibane though, is that it isn't absurdly esoteric. If you plan on watching this, you probably won't need a critic to explain the true nature of Glie or what the girls did in their past lives to wind up there. The series never ends up saying it outright, but it's really not difficult to figure out.

Rakka: “We Haibane just appear suddenly and soon we disappear. What’s the meaning of our brief existence?”

Reki: “I believe there is meaning. You just have to find it”

Haibane is both an existentialist anime and also a character journey about depression, sin, and redemption. An important element of Haibane is that in order to achieve forgiveness, one must first recognize the sin and then ask someone for forgiveness. Nobody can forgive themselves. In order to find inner peace, you need to open up to other people. However, this is possible because none of us are truly alone. Japan has a HUGE problem with youth suicide and depression, so it isn't surprising that many anime have tried to tackle this. However, I can't think of any that have done it better than Haibane. Certainly Evangelion is also in this category, but Eva spends half its time being a subversion of the kids pilot giant robots genre...or introducing superfluous plot elements like SEELE...or being up its own ass. Haibane though manages to deliver its message pretty flawlessly. It never really gets distracted from its goal and deserves some major applause for that.

Art:

The man behind Haibane's writing and creation was Yoshitoshi Abe, who also did the character designs and helped with the art. Abe is an artist by trade and normally leaves the writing to his friend Chiaki Konaka, with whom he collaborated on Lain and Texhnolyze. If you liked the art and character designs from those series, you will be quite pleased by Haibane. While Studio Radix was never a major powerhouse, this anime looks pretty darn spectacular for 2002. The only exception being the hideous CGI windmills. Why Abe?! Why did you do it?!!

Sound:

The Soundtrack is fairly minimalist and you probably won't be humming the tunes all day. However, it does its job of helping to establish the atmosphere. The soundtrack was handled by the highly talented Kow Otani, who also did the soundtracks for Outlaw Star, Gundam Wing, and most famously Shadow of the Colossus.

Overall:

Haibane Renmei is a DAMN good anime. I was honestly split on whether to give it a 9 or a 10. To be honest, if I had seen this in my teens and it was one of my first 150 anime, I would have given this a 10 without question. The only real issue for me is that the first half is a little slow. Episodes 3-5 especially are purely "slice of life" and add little to the overall show. They just flesh out minor side characters that don't end up being important or effecting the plot in any way. These minor characters like Nemu, Kana, and Hikari perhaps add a little to the world building, but that's it. If you do watch Haibane though, I'm begging you to just reach episode 7 and the back half is amazing! If you're looking for an underrated gem or just something a little different, I would highly recommend this series!