YMMV / Haibane Renmei

• Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack... typical for Ko Otani.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: There are legitimate reasons to consider it to be taking place in purgatory in this case.
• Fanon: Yoshitoshi ABe purposely left a lot of the series unexplained, so that people could develop their own theories about the characters and about the world in which the story takes place:
  • Mado of Stone Mil is generally considered by much of the English-speaking fandom to be so well integrated with the main series that it is practically Deuterocanon.
  • It's generally considered that the series takes place in purgatory and that the characters are waiting until they deal with any baggage until they can be either reincarnated or ascended to heaven. The Haibane all died at a young age. You'll usually see Kuu having died in an airplane crash, Rakka by either suicide or accidentally falling, Reki by suicide, and at least one other character due to an illness. Another theory, however, is that everyone died from suicide and they're reverted to a young age when they become Haibane.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The Haibane are not angels but almost every analysis, review, article, and fan-work interprets them as such. If not that, then fans opt to believe they're not angels yet.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The anime is No Hugging, No Kissing but many fans ship Reki and Rakka together.
• Les Yay: Reki and Rakka have an intense, intimate, and profound relationship that forms the cornerstone of the entire story. It's not a huge surprise that they're a Fan-Preferred Couple.
• Mainstream Obscurity: was a well-known anime during the 2000s and was frequently cited on "must watch" lists. However, few people that praise it actually got around to watching it. Official streaming and home rereleases have helped this a bit though.
• Superlative Dubbing: The English dub has been quite praised by fans and critics of the show.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Some viewers initially mistook Kana and Kuu for boys. And it's not just viewers, some characters are confused, too.

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