In my opinion the cast of 2002 show “Haibane Renmei” features some of the most tightly written characters and relationships I’ve seen in anime. The person responsible for the script and series composition to this anime is Yoshitoshi Abe and I believe he was able to give the main cast enough depth, as well as present their relationships in a very vivid and understandable way, that the ending result ended up being one of the most believable and grounded communities I’ve seen in anime.

The show has a very languid first few eps yet they are an absolute necessity as each one of them gives us a slightly better look into each of the side-characters as well as the world the cast of the show is inhabiting. Even though some episodes might feel slightly less important than the others, it’s all a very important step as the show is basically inviting you to become a part of the warm and welcoming community of Haibane. Each one of the characters have their own life, their dreams, their own relationships with others, their own problems. Despite their wings and halos, they all feel like real humans, made of flesh and bones, and that’s why any disturbance or problems their community is subjected to hits the viewer just as much as them, because they really feel like family to us.

Where the show shines the brightest however has to be with our main two characters. Our protagonist Rakka, just like us, is completely new to this fresh environment and we learn everything with her. She’s our eyes through which we look at all the new things we encounter and thanks to that we can relate to a lot of her problems and feeling on a very personal level. The problem with finding your own place in world and having a hard time learning to trust and depend on other people is certainly something to which a lot of people can relate. What makes her character stand out so much compared to almost any other relatable protagonist is also the final lesson we take from Haibane Renmei: other people can be important for you but you are also important for others and can you change their life as well as they can change yours.

Reki makes for a great deuteragonist because we learn about her life throughout the entire show together with Rakka, and that’s how we come to love her so much. Her past, her current emotions, her deeply seeded despair and pain, we learn about them all and we can’t help but feel sympathetic for that person since she was our protector and guide in this strange new world. She helped us to believe in the world around us and now we, both Rakka as well as the viewer, want to do the same for her. Reki survived a lot of hardships in her life yet she still was able to learn by the end how to forgive others and herself, how to let go of a lot of things and still be able to look into the future with a heart filled with hope. Both Rakka and Reki are mirroring each other in a lot of ways and that’s probably why their bond feels so believable and human. Haibane Renmei is a tale about humans and feelings that every human will most likely encounter in their life, and it makes it grounded and relatable thanks to it’s amazing characters, and in that aspect the show honestly reached perfection.