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Rough around the edges but with an absolute heart of gold, this is how I would describe this very particular anime. Very often wrongly criticized for shifting the viewer's point of view onto the existential aspect of the work rather than trivialities such as the setting; what many people consider to be laziness or incompetence, I'd rather call efficiency and modesty instead.

Cutting directly to the interesting part, Haibane Renmei is above all a spiritual journey of self-acknowledgement and self-acceptance. To be more specific, it is about the equilibrium of the human psyche. In a setting where the coexistence of the Ego, Super-Ego and the Id ... is made physically obvious, preferring tonal and environmental storytelling over action and plot with heavy reliance on woven into the narrative literary devices, backed up by an aesthetically as well as thematically relevant juxtaposition of light and dark while ultimately proposing a cathartic internal resolution; all the elements required for offering a deeply introspective experience are present.

To be even more specific, Haibane Renmei is about learning how to put your self-awareness above your self-destructive tendencies, looking into the deepest parts of your psyche and use this newfound epiphany concretely by changing your approach to reality, metaphorically destroying the walls around your soul. The "changing your approach to reality" part is where the anime actively steps in by pushing explored altruistic values.

To live and exist with the others means to firstly understand ourselves.

And I use the term “understand” because we must not lose ourselves in front of reality. The walls around our consciousness must be kept up (as the walls of Glie). However we do not improve by destroying or ignoring them. We must be able to jump above them whenever is needed. And to do this is the meaning behind understanding ourselves. This is not an answer that wants to be a positive beacon of hope, nor a sea of despair in which the viewer should drown.
As much as the equilibrium is represented by grey feathers, also this answer stands right in the middle. You can live and survive in the outside world as soon as you find an equilibrium. You should never allow for the outside world to lead you to your own loss of self-awareness, or worse madness.

Dated production values aside, Haibane Renmei is an absolute classic and shines as one of the prime examples of the anime medium being a generally criminally underrated storytelling medium. Much better than something that must be analyzed, it is something that must be experienced in order to be understood.