after having finished off the slightly inconclusive anime series neo ranga last week, i moved onto this new series last nite…haibane renmei. id read about it in the past, partly because its from yoshitoshi abe of lain and neia fame, but mostly because its an anime about angels. well…kind of. but anyone who knows me probably knows i have this odd predilection for all things angel-related. the story begins with a girl…rakka, who dreams shes falling from the sky, and then finds herself emerging from a cocoon. she meets a group of haibanes, “angels” with wings and halos who cant seem to remember their past or even their own names (theyre named for the dream they have. rakka just means “falling”). but they all live in a walled town and go about their daily lives with the other non-haibane denizens of the town.
odd premise, and ive only gone thru the first disc. but the series is pretty interesting, and a smidge quirky. case in point…haibane arent “borne” with a halo, theyre given one when they first emerge. rakkas doesnt want to stay over her head when she first gets it…so they jury-rig a head piece to keep it in place til it does. it then causes her hair to stick up from static electricity, and she later finds out that the “mold” they made her halo from was also used as a pancake iron by another haibane, hikari. hehe. im not sure what direction the anime will take…knowing abe, it will take a definitive turn for the contemplative. but im already taking to the series. thumbs up so far. ill hopefully finish off the series by next week, since its a rather short series.
You’ll want next to check out Abe’s Texhnolyze, which among fans is apparently agreed to be ‘more mature’ than Lain (?) but ‘less coherent’ (?!). This from a smattering of Yahoo-based review sites, so don’t consider it endorsement. I’ve ordered Texhnolyze from some bootleg Ebay operation and eagerly await its arrival, if only to put it on the shelf and never watch it. That whole thing about, you know, collecting.
Ah, it’s not an Abe Kobo (strike strike) Yoshitoshi production, come to think. He did the character design, nothing more. The series also boasts Lain scriptwriter Konaka Chiaki.
Right. Sorry.
That’s me referring to Texhnolyze above.
And now, a song!
reed – maybe some thinking before you click that post button?