It has been noted to me that there's a lot of misinformation in my writeup, but it seems mostly like vocabulary. If someone wants to do another w/u here, go ahead, I'll have mine deleted. Copy all of my stuff you want.

Haibane Renmei is an anime largely created by Yoshitoshi ABe, famous for Serial Experiments Lain. The focus of the story is on Rakka, the newest of the Haibane--a race of 'angelic' creatures which are born from large cocoons in an abandoned building. The style and tone of the series are brighter than Lain from the beginning, but I have yet to see past the fourth episode.

Synopsis

The Haibane are a race of 'angelic' creatures--basically, just human beings with wings and halos that hatch from eggs--that live in an abandoned building on the outskirts of a city. A large wall encompasses both the city and the surrounding area, keeping the world out and the townspeople and Haibane in. The exception is traders, who can only trade indirectly through the Communicator, one of a number of enigmatic priests who do not speak and mostly hang out in the temple. It is assumed that these masked, silent creeps have some protective role in relationship to the Haibane. The Haibane, by the way, are supposedly normal people who have somehow become Haibane as young people, and the outside world has forgotten them, much as they have forgotten their own past.

The series begins with Rakka's dream. It's a falling dream, and there is a crow. This is supposed to be very significant, I'm certain. Damn my insensitivity... Then she wakes up in a large liquid-filled cocoon (sans wings and halo, but wearing a nice white robe, you perverts) and breaks out of it. She wakes up in a room with the oldest (teenage) of the Haibane, and one of them Reki introduces her to Haibane-ality. She (Rakka) then grows wings. This is the highlight of the whole series. Sorry, folks, it's true.

The next few episodes introduce the town, the temple, and Haibane life in general. The Haibane are not allowed to have money, but instead write down their purchases (As well as the work they do, I believe) in a booklet they are given soon after 'birth', called the Haibane Renmei, for which the series is named. This is more than likely a bad pun on brocolli or some shit. (Just kidding! It actually means "Charcoal Feather Federation", or so the animefu review claims.) The Haibane also may only use things used by others first, in a general sense--the building they live in (Old Home) is broken down and abandoned, they can only shop at a thrift store, and can only have used things (clothing, bikes, mopeds... ). In general, the first four episodes are not very exciting.

Judging from the synopses on Amazon.com and Haibanerenmei.com, it looks like the series gets more exciting, and generally becomes somewhat Lain-like, to the point of being 13 episodes long. I will give more info as soon as I have more.

Note: jasonm tells me that Haibane Renmei, or "Charcoal Feather Federation", is used to refer to both the notebooks and the people who back them. I can't make much sense of it in my head, but that's how it is. I believe this is largely obscured by not knowing Japanese. (Dammit, English is ruining my life.)

Opinion

In the words of the Duke, "Generally, I like it." I will have to see the next 9 episodes to pass judgement, but I enjoy the tone and style of the series. The music is good and accompanies the story well, but is not crazy good like some anime. Again, I am in grave need of seeing some more of the series. (I've now seen the rest of the series. Status quo.)

If you're mostly into crazy wild action-packed can of kick you in the face like Lain or... whatever, this might not be the anime for you. So far, it's pretty soft and fluffy, as anime goes, except for the wing-growing scene and the ending.

Commentary (Rambling)

I can't help noticing that the pscyhosocial setup of the series is much like Lain and Niea_7. The main character is a young girl (who even kind of looks like Lain herself) who is tossed into an unfamiliar world where she is distanced from her peers and has general identity issues. The priesthood, and in particular the communicator, are psychologically similar to both the Knights and the representatives of the Tachibana General Corporation. I'm not saying that I think Rakka will turn out to be a computer program. I'm also not saying I think it's bad that there are a half-dozen such series in the mainstream.

Rakka's arrival into the Haibane world coincides approximately with puberty. I think this is an obvious, intended metaphor; she has entered a new world, where no one knows her, and she has forgotten who she was before. I believe there is a strong sense in which society conspires to make this happen in the real world, whether intentionally or not, with the result that a much greater number of children have social problems and identity problems than in the past. (Um, don't hold me to that. It's just a hypothesis.) This and similar messages are being sent by more than just this series--see Lain, FLCL, Donnie Darko... The general idea is common.

Availability

Volumes 1-3 (Episodes 1-10) are available in the U.S. already, with the fourth available in February '04 (at least on Amazon). The DVDs sell for $20-$40, depending on packaging and volume. I own volume one, purchased at Some Mall as a Christmas gift by my sensitive and caring sister and parents.

Sources/Information

• Haibane Renmei, official site: http://www.haibanerenmei.com
• Amazon.com, Volume 1: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/dvd/B00009WNVF/glance/104-3434299-4434313#product-details
• Animefu review, volume 1 - http://www.animefu.com/index.pl?node_id=12509
• Thanks to Starrynight and jasonm for various infos.

灰羽連盟

Synopsis

Haibane Renmei is a prime example of what Sylvar would call a "shoujo no bildungsroman", but it is hardly the cliché girl-on-a-journey like we've seen in Kino's Journey or (to a lesser extent) Melfina in Outlaw Star. The anime takes place in the walled city of Glie, and takes us through the first year of Rakka's life as a Haibane. Without any memories of who she was before she became a Haibane, the anime deals mostly with her struggling to accept what it means to be a "good Haibane". Once you get past the expectation that Haibane are angels (even though the religious symbolism is intentional, they aren't strict parallels), I think you'll find Haibane Renmei to be a pleasant addition to your anime catalog. At only 4 DVDs, it's not as much of an investment as, say, Dragonball or Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Episode Guide: Spoiler free for your protection!

DVD 1 - New Feather

1. Cocoon - Dream of Falling from the Sky - Old Home
2. Town and Wall - Toga - Haibane Renmei
3. Temple - Communicator - Pancakes
4. Trash Day - Clock Tower - Birds Flying over the Wall

DVD 2 - Wings of Sorrow

5. Library - Abandonded Factory - The Beginning of the World
6. End of Summer - Rain - Loss
7. Scar - Illness - Arrival of Winter

DVD 3 - Free Bird

8. The Bird
9. Well - Rebirth - Riddle
10. Kuramori - Haibane of Abandoned Factory - Rakka's Job

DVD 4 - Day of Flight

11. Parting - Darkness in the Heart - Irreplaceable Thing
12. Bell Nuts - Passing of the Year Festival - Reconciliation
13. Reki's World - Prayer - Epilogue

The Haibane

There are essentially two haibane homes in Glie - Old Home and Abandoned Factory (and there's a third in the city that's never mentioned in the anime, according to ABe). Occasionally, a fleck "the size of a dandelion seed" will fall from the sky and land in the nest. The fleck grows into an egg, complete with a Haibane inside. While in the egg, the Haibane has a dream. After the egg hatches, the Haibane is named according to what their dream was. At least, that's what the older haibane do. The young haibane tend to name themselves after what they want to do in life; a "dream for the future".

Younger feathers are sent to Old Home in the south, to live with the female Haibane that live there. While Old Home and Abandoned Factory aren't divided by gender, Abandoned Factory sends its young feathers to Old Home, and the boys are sent to Abandoned Factory when they get older. It's odd, though, because we see several female Haibane that live in the Factory as well.

The Haibane of Old Home:

• Reki - 'little stone' - her dream was about walking down a pebble-covered road; she doesn't remember it well...
• Nemu - 'sleep' - she was asleep in her own dream.
• Hikari - 'light' - she was surrounded by sparkling lights.
• Kana - 'river fish' - she was swimming in a river, like a fish.
• Kuu - 'floating' - she was floating in the clouds.
• Rakka - 'falling' - her dream (the opening of the first episode) was about falling from the sky. A crow tried to pull her up, but he wasn't strong enough.

The Haibane of Abandoned Factory

• Hyouko - 'ice' - ?
• Midori - 'green' - ?

The Young Feathers

• Shorta - 'shortcake' - ... he likes shortcake.
• Dai - 'carpenter' - he wants to be a carpenter.
• Hana - 'flower' - she wants to be a florist.

The Communicator

To the East, the Haibane Renmei have a temple that houses the head of the federation, the Communicator. He is the only person allowed to talk to the nomadic band called the Toga who come to Glie to trade. A sort of holy man, he represents the Haibane to the townspeople. The federation also controls the aptly named Haibane Renmei, notebooks which "provide for the Haibane's daily life". Essentially, you get pages in the notebook for working, and in exchange you can use pages of the notebook as cash -- a sort of cheap socialism.

The Communicator also judges those Haibane which have violated their laws.

The Wall of Glie

The city of Glie and the surrounding countryside is surrounded by a giant wall, which obstructs all view of the outside world. Even from the top floor of the clock tower, you can't see over the wall. It is said that crows are the only living thing allowed to pass over the walls, and that they carry the things the Haibane forgot when they entered the egg. No one is permitted to touch the wall.

Editorial Remarks

Haibane Renmei is without a doubt one of the most well-drawn anime I've seen. Visually, it's a step up from .hack//Sign and the remastered Neon Genesis Evangelion. The colors are crisp, but not overpowering. ABe and his team have a good sense of how to set up suspense and emotion. Unfortunately, they also use the triple take at silly, inappropriate spots. The voice acting aren't astonishing, but at least the american voice actors aren't atrocious. I prefer watching it subbed, but the DVD comes both subbed and dubbed.

The symbolism in Haibane Renmei is both deep but superficial to the story. This isn't Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, quoting Descartes every thirty seconds. It isn't Serial Experiments Lain either -- the focus of Haibane Renmei is more about ethics than metaphysics or epistemology.

On the other hand, it isn't lighthearted. While there is no graphic nudity, violence, and very bad language (Reki says 'Damn' a bit, but there are no F-words), there's a good bit of blood. Rakka and Reki both have self-mutilation issues, but both are resolved in positive ways. There's also some talk about the nature of sin and other religious things, most of which would be acceptable to your run-of-the-mill Catholic/Protestant. I'd say the youngest I'd let my kids watch the series would be around 14.

...If they had the attention span. Haibane Renmei is also not FLCL. The action takes place at a somewhat reserved pace. This is a bit odd, considering there are only thirteen episodes, but I didn't feel the plot drag very often.

E_M's Rating: 9/10

Pros: Good art, plot, and character design

Cons: Triple take, cutting.

"Haibane Renmei" - ("Charcoal Feather Federation")
(C) FUJI TELEVISION / AUREOLE SECRET FACTORY

Screenplay / Series Director : yoshitoshi ABe
Assistant Director: Takahiro Oomori
Character Designs: Akira Takata
Music: Kou Ootani
Art Director: Shinji Katahira
Based on the doujinshi by yoshitoshi ABe