There is a special kind of power in returning to the media of your youth and realizing that your younger self was watching an entirely different show. Over the past year, I’ve been revisiting some of the key anime and manga of my formative years—Neon Genesis Evangelion, Serial Experiments Lain, and my undisputed favorite, Haibane Renmei - and I've come to a striking realization. While Haibane Renmei (the purgatorial masterpiece) has always felt like a key text to me, I’ve also had to accept a basic truth: Evangelion and Lain are right up there with it. Now, I always loved these two but my re-evaluation hasn't come from the giant robots or the cyberpunk aesthetics but from the abstract, deeply polarizing internal monologues that bookended both these series which have finally clicked into place.

As a younger teenager, I found their navel-gazing head-trip endings confusing or even self-indulgent. However, as an adult with a life lived, I have come to realise that they are among the most honest representations of the human condition ever animated: not many shows looked at the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and treated them seriously back then and the fact that these three series did that in an accessible way is pretty mind-blowing.

At the age of fourteen, the Hedgehog’s Dilemma in Evangelion was a cool philosophical trivia point - the idea that we, like hedgehogs in winter, want to huddle for warmth but inevitably prick each other with our spines. It felt poetic in an edgy, detached way. Now, after years of navigating real-world relationships, heartbreaks, and the complexities of intimacy, that dilemma feels less like poetry and more like a scar. Adulthood is a constant negotiation of those spines. We crave to be known and validated, yet we are terrified of the vulnerability that being known requires. We push people away to preserve ourselves, then find ourselves shivering in the cold.

Returning to Evangelion as an adult means recognizing that Shinji’s paralyzing fear isn't just petulent whining - it is the very real weight of realizing that to love someone is to give them the power to hurt you. We spend our lives trying to find the sweet spot on that graph: close enough to feel the warmth, yet far enough to avoid the sting.

If Evangelion is about the internal barriers we build, Serial Experiments Lain is about what happens when those barriers dissolve in the digital age. Re-watching Lain in the present feels almost prophetic. In the Wired, Lain exists in multiple versions—the shy girl, the bold digital entity, the cruel observer.

As an adult, this mirrors the exhaustion of the modern Persona. We project ourselves into different Wireds of our own lives—our LinkedIn professional self, our Instagram and Facebook curated self, our private, lonely self—seeking a connection that bypasses the physical pain of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma. But Lain warns us that when we are everywhere, we are also nowhere. It serves as a bridge: if we can be anyone to get validation, how do we ever live with who we actually are when the screens turn off?

This is where Haibane Renmei completes this triad. Where Evangelion deals with the terror of being an individual and Lain deals with the fragmentation of the self, Haibane explores the weight of being a guilty one. Its central philosophical hurdle is the Circle-of-Sin, a paradox that feels agonizingly familiar once you’ve carried the weight of your own mistakes for a few decades.

The logic of the Circle-of-Sin is a trap: To recognize one's sin is to have no sin. But then, are those who recognize their sin without sin? If you believe you have a sin, you are caught in the circle.

As an adult, this hits home because we often become our own harshest jailers. We believe that if we just feel bad enough, we can earn our way out of our guilt. But Haibane Renmei argues that you cannot find your own way out of the circle alone. You cannot self-validate your way out of shame. You have to accept the help of another; you have to allow yourself to be forgiven by the very other that Evangelion warns will prick you with their spines.

Ultimately, these three series function as a roadmap for the maturing psyche. They move from the external chaos of robots and computers to the internal silence of the soul. Through the lens of adulthood, the Human Instrumentality of Evangelion is no longer a sci-fi threat; it is the very real temptation to stop trying—to stop being an individual and sink into a sea of easy validation and collective numbness or ennui where everyone is one.

To truly wake up is to navigate the triad: you must acknowledge the fragmentation of your digital masks (Lain), break the self-perpetuating cycle of your own shame (Haibane Renmei), and finally accept the inherent pain of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma (Evangelion).

The final episodes of Eva resonate so deeply now because they represent the moment of synthesis. They tell us that the A.T. Field - the barrier of the soul - is not just a wall that keeps people out, but the very thing that gives us a shape to love. The Congratulations isn't for winning a war; it’s for the quiet, monumental decision to remain an individual in a world that makes being one incredibly difficult. I used to think these shows were about the end of the world. Now, I see they are about the courage it takes to truly inhabit it.

Returning to these stories isn't just an exercise in nostalgia for me; it's a kind of progress report on the soul. We never truly watch the same show twice because we are never the same person twice. If the anime of our youth once felt like an escape from a world we didn't understand, revisiting them as adults feels like an invitation to engage with that world more deeply. We are no longer just watching Shinji, Lain, or Rakka; we are recognizing ourselves in them. And in that recognition, there is a strange, quiet comfort: the realization that while the world may be heavy, we finally have the strength to carry our own spines.

LINK- Serial Experiment Lain - Cult Manga Review

LINK- Haibane Renmei - Cult Manga Review

LINK- The Anxious Generation: Book Review (and Some Thoughts)

LINK- Japan: My Journey to the East

LINK- Utopia for Realists- Book Review

LINK- On And On And Colston ( Or, How We Kinda Sort of Learned to Talk About the Legacy of Colonialism and the British Empire)

LINK- ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ LINK: Elden Ring- Videogames As Art

LINK- Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties- Book Review (and Some Thoughts)

LINK- Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World- Book Review (and Personal Reflections)

I recently wrote a retrospective about how manga and anime had been an integral and formative part of my youth and teenage years. It wasn't just the zeitgiesty and cult appeal of the shows, although there was plenty of that for hipster-like credibility, but it was more the way the medium made me appreciate the wider world and the innumerable questions I had about my place in it.

Sure, there were certainly existential shows like Evangelion, which deeply made me think about various aspects of faith and philosophy, but my absolute favorite anime of all time is a bit of a forgotten hidden gem—it's Haibane Renmei. This unique series offered a beautifully woven narrative that resonated with themes of redemption and self-discovery.

This particular series holds a deeply special place in my heart and always will. Discovering it, as I did in the early 2000s, felt like a true revelation during a time when I was grappling with an existential crisis—an experience common amongst many young adults suddenly thrust into the uncaring and cold job market after years of comfort and routine provided by the education system. The story and art by Yoshitoshi ABe was unlike anything else out there and the muted colour palette really stood out to me.

Rakka, a young Haibane, emerges from a cocoon in the mysterious ‘Old Home’ in the village of Glie . She has a delicate halo and, after a Cronenbergian body horror scene, sprouts small gray wings, but has no memories of her past. Named after her cocoon dream of falling, Rakka learns to navigate the strange town while following the strict rules that keep the Haibane from leaving their walled town. As time goes on, Rakka and the other Haibane worry about the mysterious disappearances of their kind on the ‘Day of Flight,’ as they know little about their fate or future. What follows over 13 episodes is a character study on community, grief and, ultimately, salvation.

The series is a complex combination of slice of life anime, mixed with some body horror and then a large sprinkling of existential questions that have always plagued us all our lives. On one hand I hate that it doesn’t get talked about as much as other series. On the other I’m glad it doesn’t because it feels like this special little piece that you have to actively seek out or just stumble upon. It’s definitely an experience and every time I revisit it I am moved by it even if I can't eloquently articulate why.

For anyone who is a Fumito Ueda fan of games like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, I feel like they would appreciate this series because the stories are told in a similar manner in the way that they don’t tell you all the answers, you feel like you are given a tiny glimpse into a wider world with lots of lore you aren't party to. Also the music is down by the same composer, Kow Otani, and it is just phenomenal. The series also introduced me to the works of Haruki Murakami, whose Hard Boiled Wonderland apparently inspired some of its story.

The hopeful rather than nihilistic nature of the show really appeals to me - the early 00s anime ennui has not aged too well with many other series but with Haibane it is hope that has kept the show alive in my, and many others', heart. The idea to do better and be better is something that people can get behind; it makes you contemplate life and the human condition itself and that is something very special indeed in this late state capitalist hell scape we find ourselves in.

Finally, I have some thoughts about the series and wanted to share them. I have done it in a stream of consciousness way as I can’t articulate it all in a cohesive way with a though-line just yet. I am processing it and, as each year I read more and learn more, the meaning and symbolism are fluid for me:

The journey of Reka over the course of the series is touching as her self-loathing leads to her looking for redemption.
Asking for help, and recognizing that it's okay to ask for help in the first place, is something we can all struggle with. Reka embodied that struggle beautifully in the latter half of the series.
The haibane are all named after their dreams and whilst we do not know what their dreams mean I know some interpretations online see it as the method of their death or suicide; Kuu from floating in the air (jumping off a building) , Nemu from a deep sleeping (sleeping pills), Kana from floating in a river (drowning), Hikari from dazzling lights (electrocution) and Reki from small pebbles on a moonlit path (hit by a train).
The Day of Flight is when Haibane ascend or pass over. It should be a celebration but can be tragic for those left behind as they are left mourning the loss of a friend.
The crows are like psychopomps or harbingers for Rakka as they foreshadowing, signal and signal key events that occur. Whilst Rakka is depressed after Kuu's flight she is guided by a crow to the Western Wood and undergoes a transformation whilst stuck in a well. It reminds me of the story of Toru in Haruki Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle, where the well acts as a physical manifestation the subconscious mind.
The Sin-bound are the Haibane who have black or dark spotted wings or who do not remember their cocoon dreams. But one who recognises their sin has no sin - this is the circle of sin as explained by the Communicator.
Rakka goes through talk therapy with the Communicator who helps her when she gets out of the well but is lost in the Western Woods.
The Bell Nut Festival is a way to commemorate the end of the year by giving thanks to those who have helped you over the year. Reki reconciles with her frenemies at the Old Warehouse but still feels alone and abandoned. She succumb to her loneliness and her quest for self-annihilation manifests in dramatic fashion but only by trusting in the power of her relationship with Rakka does she realise that she has changed the world for the better by existing within it- she is and never was alone. All she needed was to ask got help.
The fact that this anime was talking about the powers of talk therapy and Salvation years before it became mainstream blows my mind and makes me incredibly happy. It is a wise anime that only gets better with age in my humble opinion.