DVD Reviews:  Haibane-Renmei Vol. 1 New Feathers

Haibane-Renmei is a new and original series, the word Haibane is the name given to the young people who are reborn with wings. These “creatures” are of strange origin, and no one remembers or knows how they arrive.  In a small forgotten town the Haibane live in a deserted dorm house, the town members allow the Haibane to work for services.  The Haibane are people who are born into this new world and after just a few days they grow angelic like wings of grey; and when a new member of their order is born the adventure begins. 

The series is actually very good you will find that in no places will the episodes jump forward with explosions of information leaving you left behind.  The characters have real presents and straight from the start they come across as such individual and interesting people.  The first DVD is all about Rakka the new Haibane, she is born in a huge cocoon and when it finally hatches she is met with eager eyes and helping hands.  Every Haibane is named after the dream they have while in the cocoon, Rakka is named after falling because in her dream she is falling from a great height, but what she didn’t mention was that there was a crow trying to help her.  In the first DVD the crows of the town are seen as a bit of a nuisance and I think that Rakka is hesitant to tell the others the truth.   

Every Haibane must work and when Rakka comes along she must find out what she is going to do in the town and in episode four she goes to work with each of the other girls to see what she could do.  There is also an order of men who worship the Haibane and perform the communicating tasks for the town members when the Toga come to the city.  The Toga are the men who travel from great distances to trade with the town members but only the communicator must speak to them, he is the leader of the order. 

The first DVD is really just an introduction to the Haibane world, and the new member and her start to self discovery.  I can see that the animation of the entire series is going to be fantastic, at no point do fast moving characters blur or become distorted.  Extras include a creditless opening, the original Japanese trailer which is just the opening but in Japanese, an overview of the episodes on the DVD and of course some other trailers that were made.