I don't know whether folks that visit here are interested in Anime, but I just finished watching a 13-part series titled Haibane Renmei (which was based on a doujinshi by Yoshitoshi Abe), and was struck by similarities between the two stories.
At any rate, if you like YKK, you might give Haibane Renmei a look-
- Peter Van Overen
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
I do think that there is a small similarity in that they are about ordinary people doing ordinary thinks in an extraudinary world. It gives them a common feel, but much of the atmosphere is quite different.
- NoSanninWa
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
I'll second the recommendation for Haibane Renmei--it's my favorite anime series. Since it's from Pioneer, we should hopefully be seeing a US release before too long.
- dn
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
I ran across a reference to a book that seems to be at least a partial source for the walled city in Haibane Renmei.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International) by Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (Translator)
Haven't started reading the book yet.
- Mike Webster
Thursday, March 13, 2003
In my original post I also meant to mention an interesting film by Hirukazu Kore-eda titled Afterlife which might interest folks that liked Haibane Renmei- another view of people in transition between one life and another. Thought-provoking-
My girlfriend was telling me that I would like Haruki Murakami's books while we were discussing all of the above- Something else to add to the queue of things to read.
- Peter Van Overen
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Yes, I can see where Haibane Renmei would be related to YKK. In fact, *smile* the same person who recommended YKK to me also sent me all 13 Episodes of Haibane Renmei, so I would venture to guess that you are not the only one who sees this connection. And I can really see your point although I have only watched up to about episode 4 or 5 so far of Haibane Renmei.
- Saraphina
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
hajimemashite! hope I dont offend nobody by doing this, but since the topic is haibane renmei I just feel like sharing a link to this yet most extensive site about the charcoal feathers with lots of deep background comments (=spoilers). . http://cff.ssw.net/index.htm
My english isnt enough to let me go very much into details, all I would like to say is if you like one you will definitely appreciate the other. Yes, ykk and cff are very much my favorites . .
- Helge
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Thank you so much for the link! What a wonderful site! I can't wait to show Adonis!
- Saraphina
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Haibane Renmei has a similar pace as YKK and both stories are filled with a certain melancholy that stems from the beautiful, but decaying world around the characters.
- Mart
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Indeed, watching Haibane Renmei gave me a distinct impression that it must have been inspired from Murakami's "End of the World" from Hard Boiled Wonderland etc. etc. During the first few episodes I was waiting to see some sort of shadow separation, but that never seemed to happen.
Then, Murakami's bizarre tale of the internal End of the World is itself a great foil for YKK's quite real end of the world. Murakami's work in general doesn't really quite fit into the YKK mood, though a couple of his works (South of the Border, West of the Sun, or some short stories such as Tuesday's Women come to mind) do have that relaxed attitude about them. Especially his early work, where the Boku often has a totally nonchalant attitude about whatever seems to be occuring.
YKK is, however, it's own entity and while I've found things similar I've yet to find anything that so elegantly captures its mood.
- mattt
Sunday, October 5, 2003
Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.
- Z
Thursday, October 9, 2003
I actually ran into YKK while looking for a Haibane Renmei forum, and am now hooked. I give me bout a week before I break down and order all the manga plus the art book from nippon-export.com....
- Haniel Goertz
Monday, July 5, 2004
Yes, this is the only other title I can think of that captures some of the same... essence of YKK. Essentially that melancholic displaced feeling. I've only seen a few episodes though, otherwise I'd have commented myself.
Mind you, if we're going on about similarities, I do know another series about a naive green haired robot who does domestic duties and cries a lot...
- Andy Tucker
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
Andy, you've got me wondering now. Which anime is that? Is it To Heart?
- Ian Darrow
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
One feature that both series share in common is the mystery of the setting. In both series, the characters and situation are never explained to the reader. Clues are dropped where appropriate. Discoveries are made. But the past remains hidden from the readers and the characters. Supporting characters may know more than they reveal - but they are not talking.
This storytelling device is very refreshing. So many science fiction and fantasy stories are burdened with too much background and exposition. Fans and bad writers are obsessed with the "backstory." In YKK and Haibane Renmei, the story is a treasure hunt for the reader as well as for the characters. The situation of the characters is revealed in time, but never explained.
In YKK and Haibane Renmei, the situation of the characters is less important than their reaction to it. That fits the old wisdom that life is less about the hand you are dealt and more about how you play it.
- Loran
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
@ Ian.
Yup, that's the one, with the extraordinarily cute HMX12 Multi. I think that's just about the ONLY similarity mind you, can you see YKK having arisen from a computer dating game? I think not.
- Andy Tucker
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
I think anyone who would enjoy YKK would enjoy both Haibane Renmei and Kino's Journey.
- JC
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
I think anyone who would enjoy YKK would enjoy both Haibane Renmei and Kino's Journey.
- JC
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
I don't really find Haibane Renmei being similar to YKK. To me it portrays much stronger feelings than in YKK. Haibane Renmei was truly touching (I almost cried at the end) and it's mysteriousness very enchanting. YKK is really food for thought which was the very reason I became quite fanatic about Kino's Journey (I know it as Kino no Tabi) I'm not sure if it was based on manga as I haven't found any traces of it.
- Joonas Rajamki
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Joonas;
I am sure this is covered in another thread, but I don't remember exactly where. Anyway, Kino's Journey is from a set of novels, as one of us found out when they ordered it from amazon-Japan and opened the books to find text, not drawings!
I hope that someday, Kino's Journey, as well as Juuni Kokki's source novels get translated into English.
ja,
- Ian Darrow
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Both Haibane and YKK are great series. While I was listening to Yoshitoshi ABe's speech in Animecon III in Jyvaskyla, Finland (some pictures can be seen here: http://koti.phnet.fi/otaku/animecon/animecon3.html) I was surprised to hear that ABe-sensei began drawing not before the age of 19. I think this can be seen in his works. They are not like copy-another-anime to another-anime that can be seen too often. They are original. I don't know about the background of Ashinano-sensei.
To me Haibane Renmei looks much more realistic than YKK. (Not a plus and neither a minus, just an observation.) The setting of Haibane as a whole is an effective image of our life: we don't know where do we come from, we don't exactly know where we are, all we can do is to try to manage in this life and world as we can. And some day we will leave to somewhere we don't really know.
YKK has a more defined world, though it leaves space for reader to fill.
- Jari Lehtinen
Saturday, August 21, 2004
I just finnished watching the entire series. And my opinion on it is like...
Whoaaaaa.... so speechless
It's unique, original, tranquilizing, sad yet hopeful.
In the end, I only regreted that I have watched the whole series and can only wonder when another masterpiece like this will appear. This is truely one of a kind.
As for similarity to YKK. Yes there's similarity in terms of mood and the emotions they both evoke. Although I think Haibane Renmei is better, more emotional, mysterious, and has a stronger plot line. But that's just my opinion, may be simply because YKK is yet to be completed.
- Malchiel
Friday, August 27, 2004
If you liked Haibane Renmei that much you should check out Serial Experiments: Lain
It's a very different setting, but has a similar flow.
- Brad
Sunday, August 29, 2004
:) I tried lain, but unfortunately it's not formy. It seems to lack the relaxing, peaceful atmosphere that both YKK and Haibane have.
- Malchiel
Saturday, September 4, 2004
I just coldn't get info Haibane Renmei. There is this really complicated world, but all the regulations are meaningless. You can go ou of the city, because I told you so; you can use money, because I told you so; your tme fro redemption is limited, and it is out when I tell it so; and so on. I can't recall a single one of these arbitrary laws that was justified, explained, or even made any sense. It makes for a very bureocratic world, and at the same time one in which the author can make up anything at anytime. The charachters are very good but a great deal of time is used in meaningless rules and regulations, but then a few "deus ex machina" show up to prove that it was all inconsequential to the flow of the history.
YKK has a much greater challenge to the author, and Ashinano met it fantastically well. The fact that he has been exposing his world for more than 10 years and yet neither revealed nor hid it from we readers is truly awesome.
- Z
Saturday, September 4, 2004
Wronnnggggg!!! that's where you went wrong!!! all the rules and regulations have meanings. In fact their meanings were sort of foreshadowed from the very beginning of the series, when Recca was in the caccoon. Watch carefully what she was saying! And you'll understand the reason for the rules. Uhm... of course you'll have to make the connections yourself. But the rules were there for a reason. I could speak more about it, but it'd be a major spoiler, besides 1/2 of the fun of the series came from thinking it through even after it's ended.
Also your comment regarding there are a few Deus Ex Machina sounds like an oxymoron. Pardon me, unless I missunderstood, there should only be a single Deux Ex Machina. Since there are a few, aren't they normally called the "Lead Characters" of the story? *cough *cough To top it off a Deux Ex Machina was supposed to be the solution to end all matters, however not one character in the movie could have done their part without another's help.
Sorry, if you had showed a better understanding of Haibane Renmei may be I could appreciate your opinion that YKK is better. Which could very well be to some people. But that doesn't mean that Haibane Remei was anywhere near as bad as you seemed to imply.
- Malchiel
Saturday, September 4, 2004
Actually, I never said that one is better than the other. The two are so conceptually different that it really suprises me that people group the two together.
YKK is "Hard Sci-fi" (which happens to be my favorite genre), which has strong boundaries to what one can do with the narrative and the charachters. It HAS to be physically and scientifically sound. No magic powers, superbeings, etc. , only extrapolations of current knowledge. It requires a lot of research and construction, and it is very easy to paint yoursef in a corner, so to speak, with the story flow.
HR is a spiritual jouney, like Dante's Divine Comedy. It is Jacob's Ladder with cute winged girls. Nothing in that world is physical, not even the charachters. It's just souls of the dead passing thru another ring in the spiritual purgatory. You can do anything you want with it, since it's all an illusion anyway. Just a backdrop to let the charachters grow.
People enjoy it, and that's very fine with me. I liked it because it brought back good memories of a trip to Tuscanny that I did years ago, but I was expecting more charachter development, instead of exposition of what they can or can't do. I guess the idea was to avoid making the show too "lofty" or religious, but it left me wanting just that. Plus my favorite charachters got almost no time at all. I do want to read the book, though.
If you like HR, maybe you should check out the first "ONE - Kagayaku Kisetsu e" OVA, which has a similar theme. It is based on a erotic game but has no sex scenes (the second OVA does, though). It's very hard to follow if you haven't played the game (I didn't), because it assumes a lot of previous knowledge, but it comes together at the end (mostly). At least to me, it did had the surreal atmosphere and the dreamy feeling that I found lacking in HR. Seriously, by the middle of HR I was expecting a whole episode of Rakka filling out a tax exemption form or applying for a permit to do a roofing job...
- Z
Monday, September 6, 2004
Just popped up into my mind after reading the previous post: The whole idea of seeing the afterlife (let's just suppose it is "afterlife" we see in HR, ok) as one helluva big bureaucracy is nothing new, of course, but it is fun to see every time. If anyone is interested in seeing a *real* Afterlife Bureaucracy Unit in work, take a peek at Yu Yu Hakusho.
About the question why people seem to group the two together, it looks simple. These two (HR,YKK) seem to give food for thought. Naturally it has almost nothing to do with genre or conceptuality, but I bet it works here.
- Jari Lehtinen
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Just to let you know, there's a Haibane Renmei image and art board at http://shii.oppresstheweak.com/hr/
- Martin Random
Friday, March 25, 2005
Quite same, but quite different at the same time. From anime maybe the closest thing, yes.
- Drake
Monday, March 28, 2005
I think that it's nothing more than, for a lot of reasons, people who like Haibane are likely to like YKK also (and vice versa). It's the phenomenon exploited at Anime Planet so well (animeplanet.com)
I know there's a thread buried down there somewhere where we all discussed anime and manga that YKK fans would also like. I just can't locate it quickly.
Hiro
- Hiro
Monday, March 28, 2005
I'm a fan of both YKK and Haibane Renmei -- if I might be permitted a moment of heresy here I'd say Haibane Renemi is better than YKK but HR doesn't have the manga backstory of YKK and doesn't have an ongoing storyline.
I'm just back from the annual Eastercon, the British national Easter SF convention where I gave a series of program items as an introduction to the best in the anime field, emphasising series with a link to SF and fantasy. I used both YKK and Haibane Renmei as examples of how the Japanese creators told their stories and how different their techniques were to the way SF and fantasy tropes are used in Western fiction and visual media.
- Robert Sneddon
Thursday, March 31, 2005
There are a lot of themes of existentialism flowing through both HR and YKK. YKK describes a state of humanity where the teleological promise of a palace of glass in the future has been shown to be bankrupt. Instead, humanity is on an ambling, slow decline. Whatever apex humanity may enjoy has happened and already passed. Instead of living in the past or the future, YKK people are free to live in the present for the sake of living, and are thus freed.
HR deals with the dual split of peronhood known as "facticity" and "transcendence." One who murders is a murderer, one who sins is a sinner.
Someone defined by their facticity, or their past deeds, is a sinner so long as he has sinned. Someone who has sinned but resolves to never sin again is one who does not sin, as defined by their transdendant free-will.
Haibane Renmei characters are stripped of their "facticity" by losing their memories and their place in the world. Instead, from the moment of birth, they are the very definition of purely transcendant beings, defined only by their free will and subsequent actions in the world. In this way the Glie "memory wipe" is a device to allow those who have sinned to be relieved of their burden of sin for as long as it takes their transcendant free will to redefine their personhood as one without sin.
So yeah I like both.
- Martin Random
Thursday, March 31, 2005
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