An enormous egg. A girl falling to the ground. A few children with folded wings. It’s time for this egg to hatch. I wonder, what does it hide inside? Is it the secret of life, or the secret of death? It’s everything and nothing. A beautiful girl in dry land, surrounded by walls that are forbidden to touch, bearing people with no origin or distinction. They don’t know where they came from, or where their destiny lies. These winged beings with halos floating above their heads don’t know where they came from or where they’re going. “Haibane Renmei” begins here, with no solid foundation allowing us to understand it. And it also ends here. So, what’s the story and what does it entail if it’s built this way? In our contradictory answers to this question lies the genuineness of this simple work. Nothing in it is definitively real or unreal.
Following the many narrative styles –which most Anime series adopt– the story begins at a point of emptiness in time and space, neither before nor after, a point less than an (idea) and greater than a seed of this idea (inception) where we find the characters in a bizarre mix of mental clarity and resolution without hope. These Haibanes are semi-heavenly beings, but they are not angels, for the idea of the angel is subject to laws that cannot be transcended, nor do they have any concept of transcendence. We can see these Haibanes living in harmony and familiarity, where the viewer can only feel boredom and seek the idea of a paradise that cannot be grasped in satisfaction and resignation. These beings do not know the purpose of their existence or their fate, they are eternal in this city forever. The story continues in this harmonious atmosphere until it is interrupted by the disappearance of a Haibane, and the pursuit of truth begins.
The main character of the series, Rakka, goes to find out the truth behind her friend’s sudden disappearance and fails. The truth is elusive, as elusive as Rakka’s body falling to the ground. Rakka remembers her dream about this, where a crow tried to save her from her inevitable fall, that is, from waking up as a Haibane. Rakka does not give up the search for truth and finds a crow digging in the ground and follows it, making it possible for her to search for a meaning within herself. The search ends with her finding the skeleton of this crow in the most miserable well in the city, in which she fell as if she were a wounded Joseph abandoned by his brothers.
Someone from the Toga group rescues her. They are the only ones authorized to enter and exit the city, as if they were appointed gods of this world. The viewer reads the scowl of this semi-religious group as if they were a poisonous evil. But the narrative dismantles the viewer’s perception by having them save Rakka. This Toga offers Rakka work, as the honor of these Haibanes is to work and kill the void, so they can stay in this world and protect themselves. This offer includes working in the forbidden city walls. Rakka rejoices at her closeness to the truth, where she hears the laughter of her friend near these deaf walls, but she asks where he went, and the Toga answers with his ignorance: ‘There is no use.’ The story seems to whisper to Rakka: ‘there is no use.’
And don’t strive, dear viewer, for the essence of the truth of this world, but for what it reveals. Rakka tests her quest in the main root, the character of Reki, who serves as the memory repository for the collective experience of the Haibanes, but she is surrounded by some mystery. Despite Rakka’s eagerness to uncover it, she learns that Reki cannot remember her dream, and thus lives without hope as she sees her brothers leaving and departing. Reki is the older version of Rakka, and their characters are shaped on the empty pursuit of this nonexistent truth.
The two characters strive to remove this deception about their purgatory by recalling Reki’s dream. Memory is the key to truth. Pursuit of truth doesn’t matter if memory is scattered. During their psychological adventures, Reki remembers her dream, as the punishment of the Haibane who doesn’t remember her dream is oblivion, which is the perfect punishment. But Rakka comforts Reki, and even supports her. At this very moment, the narrative reaches its peak; it reveals the great truth, which is rarely mentioned among the series’ analysts and reviewers: this world is the purgatory of those who committed suicide in their worldly life. What’s terrifying and amazing is that the torment of the Haibane is oblivion and not the fires of hell; because hell is at least a confession, whereas oblivion has neither confession nor hope.
Yes, what matters is memory. Our memory, the memory of those who have committed suicide, the memory of loved ones. Truth is just a marginal thing, it neither intensifies nor satisfies hunger. The proof is that dreams are a foundation of this world, as these dreams are more logical than the truth itself. The series makes great use of the eternal void and filling the void with work. The state of the Haibane is like Dante’s limbo at the beginning of hell, they are neither tormented nor indulged. They are waiting for a day when Christ will descend to save them. This is like the ‘day of flight’ in the series. This day comes for the Haibanes who held the core of memory. The chaos of forgetting is embodied in one of the books in the series, which talks about the creation of this world, but its parts are missing, and its pages are torn. The message of the series to the viewer is to fill the book of life and not to tear its pages, and to let others write in it. To search for memory, not for truth; for with memory, we can discern the face of truth.
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