The series also didn’t air normally. The first five episodes were shown one per week, but the rest were shown in pairs every other week. The station they were running on was doing some kind of maintenance, as I recall. You may have noticed the extra footage before opening or after ending themes, and that’s what was aired instead during the paired episodes.

Let’s see, where to begin here. About Rakka and Reki, as I’ve seen within six episodes, the series clearly follows the events of Rakka, and to me is about Rakka. There are allusions otherwise, as there are things told about Reki that Kana and the others simply do not have about them within the scope of the story. (There is a reason for including a screenshot of Reki alongside the “lonely” line.)

If anything in following commentaries I post contradicts this view, please keep in mind that I buffer these posts so I don’t have comments spoil things, and therefore my future commentaries lack mention of prior comments. As such, I must apologize that as I saw this episode, it was before your comment to watch the two closely. I frame my comments in the context of “having watched the series up until this point, and no further”, and will do so now. This is simply a side-effect of posting about series many people have already seen, as opposed to series that everyone is watching together for the first time.

Up to this point, the connections I’ve placed with the two are fairly limited. They have the same dream of “falling” (while otherwise their dreams may have been very different, simply both being about falling). The two spend time together, and Kuu acts as a mentor to Rakka. They quickly become close friends, probably in part because of that mentoring. Kuu is the youngest of the haibane at Old Home–excluding the young feathers–but Rakka is the youngest “haibane”.

Looking at Kuu’s flight, what could have held her back was the need to be a grown-up. By being a mentor to Rakka, Kuu now was a grown-up. She was still a child as human years go, but she’d matured greatly as a haibane.

It’s impossible (for me) to miss the friendship between Rakka and Kuu, but if there’s something you feel I’ve not seen in the time the two have spent together (in the context of up to episode 6, to avoid spoilers if anyone is watching the series, and reads these commentaries and comments!), I would love to know what it is.

Michael:

I could see it going either way, but I’m going to have to lean to your view of it here. It’s possible Kuu could have learned in the library while trying to be more like Nemu at one point, but I wouldn’t expect the details of how one knows their time is drawing near to be documented. Kuu’s “cup” is possibly her own personal way of understanding what’s happening, and other haibane may have different experiences with their last days in Glie.

I’m sorry for the spoilers. From now on I won’t attempt to answer your rhethorical questions. I’ll only correct any mistakes related to the past episodes, with one exception: Regarding your notion that Rakka is the main character, I see it differently. For me, Reki is the main character, whereas Rakka is the narrator. Of course Rakka’s story is very important in its own right, doubly so because her struggle frames her perception of Reki’s story, and thus what we see too. But I think that the anime is about Reki, in the final reckoning.

It’s an interesting question why Kuu knows about the Day of Flight. Someone told her about it, but since nobody told Rakka, it’s safe to assume that Reki and Nemu are negligent regarding the haibane education. It must have been some event — perhaps Kuu observed a flight departed from the Abandoned Factory.

IMHO, Kana does not think that the flight is a “myth” at all. She just does not want to accept the fact, that’s why she called it that.

The period when a haibane senses the flight lasts for about two days. Maybe a bit longer, if they are well attuned to their halo. I think it’s impossible for [someone] suddenly roll out of bed one morning and explode into the light. Such kind of people would undoubtedly fail their second chance problem or even not selected for Glie at all.

Many people, myself included, have hard time realizing that Kuu is a girl (even Kana was easier to accept). It’s true, and is intentional from ABe’s side: same happens to the shopkeeper of the cafe who employed Kuu.

Edited to fall under “general audience dialogue” guidelines. Thanks for your understanding. Management

Since I watch at least one episode in advance of what I post, to help avoid if someone puts a spoiler in a comment, next episode’s commentary covers when I’ve started to get the age thing down. Especially with a series like this, I can see it being difficult to comment on it if one has seen it some time ago, because it can be difficult to remember what happened when.

Information on days of flight, and other aspects of haibane life which it would be a spoiler to mention here, seems to be passed down orally among the haibane. There are written texts on the subject in the library, but none in the nests themselves. And yes, at first sight that’s a bit strange; even if none of the haibane as individuals ever thought of writing down what they knew, one would think the Renmei would have a textbook and put copies in the nests …