Haibane Renmei

Why are there so many retarded rules in this world?

Also, is there a rule against fucking the Haibane?

Just like the real world

>don't touch the wall unless you want to scrub our toilets for the rest of your life
>don't talk to the toga unless you REALLY need to
>Don't talk to strange birds
Where the hell do you live, user?

Because it makes sense?
Do not touch the wall because it is cursed.
The togas are important people
Do not get into the free candy van

I probably wouldn't have as much to complain about if the organization was a little more straightforward with their reasoning.
They're so frustratingly enigmatic for seemingly no reason.

I know, right?
It was a cheap shot to make things "mysterious" but hey, it does make the viewers think.

Everything just felt so needlessly sinister with them. I was expecting a Claymore-esque group of baddies that are purposefully misleading everyone, or just a bunch of senile old men who are misinterpreting ancient texts.
Why are THEY the only ones allowed past the wall?
Why are THEY allowed to control the talking privileges of everyone?
What all do they know about the Haibane and the Flying Day?
Nothing is ever explained, so it just feels like they're treating the Haibane and the viewer as children that don't need to know things because they deem it so.

Which haibane would you fuck?

All of that serves to build the atmosphere of the show, which is the most impressive part of it in my opinion. You have to think of them like a religious authority, but in a pre-abrahamic religion. And the Haibane are children, though to different degrees. Giving the viewer more information than the characters would run the risk of making the characters look stupid or incompetent. So I think the lack of clarity is justified in this case.

I think the rule is that you just can't be a virgin. Gotta be used goods, and all that.

>sexualizing the Haibanes
Seriously?

Wouldn't have sex with any of them until a committed relationship. And I'd only date Kana, Reki, Nemu and maybe Rakka.

I mean, it was a great atmosphere, I just feel like it was misplaced and they didn't resolve enough. In the end, they're just complacent with not knowing much about anything and perpetuating the cycles.

I wanna make Rakka cum a million times

That's against the rules.

They're fallen Haibane, that's the secret. That's what they know. That's why they know so much.

You didn't notice the bit of dialogue that one has with Rakka?

>they're just complacent with not knowing much

A major theme of the show is accepting that you can't know everything about the world and your place in it.

It's not complacence at all, for instance you clearly get a scene of Nemu crying over the fact that she can't understand why there could exist people so flawed as them. The resolution to that plotline being that she creates her own meaning and origin story and finds comfort in it, even if the true nature of the world will always elude them.

Anyway, this whole discussion of symbolism and world-building always feels like missing the point to me. The backbone of the show is the relationships, all these obscure aesthetic elements are there to add emotional tones to each of the character's personal conflicts.

Do their wings twitch when they orgasm?

Probably.

I feel like even then they're really making some baseless assumptions just for the sake of the power-grab.
Like, them saying right from the start that nobody from your past life will remember you. How the hell can they say that unless they meet everyone left on the planet? It's just a control thing to make the Haibane stay in the town.

>Nemu crying over the fact
She wasn't really crying

Didn't she just fall asleep again?

I'm talking about the flashback scene where she's sitting on the hill overlooking the town with the librarian. They look out into the distance and Nemu tears up, I think the librarian hugs her. The implication is obviously that Nemu is thinking about the nature of the world, and since it's couched in the plotline that she was investigating all the artifacts, it's clear what she's crying about.

ABe said in an interview that from day one he intended for all those elements to be left to interpretation. I mean whether or not you agree with that is up to you, but it wasn't just like they were supposed to be explained but ran out of time or forgot about it. I think it all makes sense once you put together all the similarities their world has to purgatory, but that's just me.

Here it was.

It's interesting how there's a shitload of exposition in this show about the world, yet so many of the character interactions are done through suggestion and implication (with exceptions, like Reki and Rakka's relationship). This was like my 3rd rewatch of the series, and a lot of the side characters' feelings and motivations make a lot more sense to me.

Reki is not for fucking, she is for sweet missionary love making and conception and marriage

Israel

I feel like Reki would be really into guiding and nurturing you during sex.

You'd also have to have tons of cuddling to deal with her post-coital crying sessions.

I thought it was about depression

it is, among other things

I think the show was definitely made with purgatory in mind if not explicitly written in the script/plans. Then they just scrubbed out the explanation to make it more "mysterious". After all if things get explained clearly it loses a bit of its mystique.

It's not like Big O where things went completely off the rails.

>don't touch the wall

From an interview with Yoshitoshi ABe about Haibane Renmei:
"Whenever I talk to American people, I feel that they, compared with Japanese people,
cannot leave things ambiguous (I'm not saying it's a bad thing, of course).
For example, many questions in this interview ask for clear answers to ambiguous parts of the anime.
Haibane Renmei is, as the title suggests [hai means "ash-grey" in terms of color],
a story with various things in gray, that is, a story with many ambiguous factors.
It is not a story to find answers, but one to wonder about the answers.
In regard to things whose answer is not clearly shown in the story, think for yourself and apply your own answers to it.
That will surely make the story very special to you."

>Nothing is ever explained, so it just feels like they're treating the Haibane and the viewer as children that don't need to know things because they deem it so.
That's the answer, though. The Haibane are in fact being treated as children, at least in the vaguely theological "children of God" sense. And when you're a child, the world is full of rules that don't make sense, and adults punish you if you break them.

ABe describes the divide in whether people can like it as related to an east v west difference in tolerance for ambiguity, but it seems more like a difference in potential religiosity. Can you accept the Higher Authority arranging the world to do what's best? Even if you can't really be sure They exist? That kind of acceptance of ambiguity.

Also, >It's interesting how there's a shitload of exposition in this show about the world, yet so many of the character interactions are done through suggestion and implication
This. Just, this.

Because you're a sinner

Reki's cigarette.