Review of Haibane Renmei

Haibane Renmei is a story handling themes of trauma, memories and death. A young woman falls into a mystical land with no memories of her old life or what her name was. Being born out of a cocoon inside an old foster home full of human's with wings, she quickly realizes that shes not normal. She has been reborn as a human with wings, which this world calls a Haibane, a sign of holiness and good luck. She quickly realizes that she herself is not holy at all, noticing feelings of sadness and impurity for her inner thoughts of not deserving this title. Why is ahuman with so many faults a holy figure? Is a Haibane only holy because of their physical appearance? Noticing she is just like any other human except for the fact that she has wings, the main character noticeably gets more stressed knowing her place isnt to be a holy figure.

Everyone in the town treats beings like her with respect, some with the thought of thinking they'll gain something from treating them well. Is doing this bad? Will this relieve human's from their own sin, being nice to a holy being? No. Even the Haibane's have sins of their own which they must deal on their own to free themselves from such corrupt fate. A dark Haibane will never fly free. Some Haibane had been given black wings at birth, which the other Haibane call Sin-Ridden, a being with a faulted past. Human's and other Haibane's treat these as a token of bad luck, a supposed holy being, tainted with black sin.

Haibane's dissapear, like humans die. A character in one part of the show dissapears and flies away from the world that the characters live in. They call this a Haibane's Time Of Flight in the show. This is a symbolism of death within Haibane's which goes to show that even Haibane's have to go one day, reminding one of their limited time on earth. The message in death lies here. Grieving for her late Haibane friend, the main character falls into a depressive state, trying to do anything to even replicate the fun feelings they had with them by staying in their room and talking alone in hopes of a reply. Crying after them, yelling out their name, anything that makes them feel the comfort that the character's time had left on them.

They had to go. I enjoyed my time with them. Why does this have to happen? I just want to spend more time with them. I don't want them to leave.

The ones who have taken the Flight do not return. Ever. Are they the same as dead? They're gone, not dead. This is not the same. Yet, they will never meet them again.
As time moves on, the pain of one's Time Of Flight slowly starts to relieve for the cast, and it comes time to move on. The now later Haibane's room is scavenged and every member of the cast takes something important of the later Haibane's room and keeps them with themselves. It's beatiful, in a way. Everything is limited. Memories will stay golden if you let them. Do not grieve over something you haven't done with a person who is no longer there, be happy for what you had done with them. Time will heal all wounds, except sin.

One of the main characters is Sin-Ridden. Born with black wings, this character has lived her whole life being feared of, which made her noticeably grown shut from the endless betrayals and lies she has been fed for her whole lifetime, knowing she does not have anyone to truly rely on. No one to truly trust. This characters lives her way with fake smiles infront of everyone, pretending that if she is good, she will be purified from her dark wings. There was a myth that if a Sin-Ridden Haibane purifies herself of her own sin, she'll be able to have white wings again.

Meeting the main character, a newborn Haibane, she promised to make ends meet and try to cure herself one last time. If she truly takes care of this Haibane and treats her with everything she's got, will she be forgiven by the gods that gave her black wings?

If a faulted being is truly good to someone, will their faults dissapear?

No. Not everyone can forgive themselves and move on. A message in Haibane Renmei echoed through the whole show, which was to say that not everyone can forgive themselves. One who notices their own sin, has no sin.

This Sin-Ridden character still had the drive to push through and keep working towards a better future bit by bit, but she had not known the path to walk towards her enlightenment. Struggling to find her own self, she becomes cold and distant from others. Trying to fix her problem with fake acts lead to nothing but more agony.

In the end, this character notices that her own curse was inside of her, and not a curse given by chance. Daring to break out of her trauma, which was to call out for help on her inner sadness finally fixed the color of her wings. Trauma's are hard to deal with, but having someone be there to deal them with you is nice to have. Haibane Renmei's animation and touch on it's little details earns an extra point from me, since I absolutely loved the small details in animation and fluid humanity in each characters action.