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Abe Yoshitoshi - a name fans of Japanese drawing art will eventually get to know if they dig in deeper, but they are very likely to miss it if they're only seeking for cool action and funny jokes in anime and manga. Abe isn't interested in that kind of art, which in my opinion is a very good thing. I'm not here to discredit it though, nor am I against it. I will just say that it's refreshing to see an anime where you don't have constant dialogues or cuts.

Let me get this straight: I think it's easer to grasp what this anime is by ... answering what it is not. You may or may not know Serial Experiments: Lain, another -amazing- piece by Abe which can get praised by very similar, albeit then again very different characteristics I'm about to explain.

You see, Haibane Renmei is not about a big, giant plot. We're used to the fact that anime filled with questions will eventuelly end with big answers as well, which is why a lot of people get annoyed by shows like The Leftovers or, well, Haibane Renmei, where they get their in some ways rather mysterious premise, but not the easy answers they may be longing for. Well, sometimes it's not about the answers. Sometimes it's about the questions. You could say that about Haibane Renmei in a way, I think, and I like that about it very much.

However, while The Leftovers or Serial Experiments: Lain are revolving around these questions in a masterly written circle of insecurity, Haibane Renmei doesn't make you feel bad due to lacking knowledge. No, it just doesn't necessarily care. There is love in this world, friendship, daily life. Well, sure, of angel like characters, but do not make a mistake: even if there is some Christian symbolism in this show, it's because of the general felt existentialism and not the very fundament of the world. They just look like angels.

This love and positiveness is felt in every minute and second of this few episodes. The generally good to amazing soundtrack isn't constantly used and tearful minutes aren't either. No, Haibane Renmei is very modest. You get your handful of characters and most of them don't even seem really unique, but so, so grounded, so, well, so real. Why should there always be a stereotype? Why should there always be the one thing you can connect a character to? No, Haibane Renmei goes the path of reality and accepts that most people are very balanced between extroversion and introversion - not only one of the kind. Also, it denies the usual Anime cliché of "every character has this one problem to overcome and the main character will help him". While that is true in some ways, most of the characters are as balanced as their behavior seems. Thanks to that, the problems seem like actual problems.

The characters are most definitely the strength of this show, especially the dynamics between a handful of them. There are problems, after all, and you will get emotional involved, but Haibane Renmei doesn't do arcs. It's just like the general work: calm, yet at times surprisingly tense. The big, dramatic soundtrack is only used on a very few occasions, for example. The pictures are, well, kind of minimalistic. You get to know the places, there won't be any new amazing ones to find, suddenly but constantly, it's, well, it's what this anime is called originally: Old Home. Home. Surprisingly soon, you find yourself at home in this mysterious place which makes this show so perfectly pleasing to watch - it is precisely because you don't. You don't watch, you experience. That is, if you're open for extremely slowpaced anime which aren't interested in the big kind of thrill at all. Interesting thing though - these kind of anime tend to be the most thrilling in the moments when they actually decide to be. It's the unique thrill, like when someone calls you on your mobile and tells you that your house is burning. It's not normal. Not standard. It's not expected and, after all, it isn't necessarily wanted, yes, because you like it there, you like it in your house, you enjoy yourself with the Haibane.

Of course, not without asking questions. What is the point of life? Death? Where do we go? You can get a lot from this show, but it doesn't asks the questions for you, they come very natural through the flow of the characters.

While I'd rather disagree with the consensus in a sense that this isn't a major overlooked masterpiece, a word I seldom and only very carefully use for art, it is an unique and amazingly original show and in some ways like staying with new people for a week in the woods. At first completely foreign, but finally, in such a short time period - home. That is, what this show is to me. Home. May I return at some point.