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Serial Experiments Lain

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Strange things start happening when a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with an interconnected virtual realm known as "The Wired". Strange things start happening when a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with an interconnected virtual realm known as "The Wired". Strange things start happening when a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with an interconnected virtual realm known as "The Wired".

• Yasuyuki Ueda
• Kaori Shimizu
• Bridget Hoffman
• 95 User reviews
• 33 Critic reviews

Episodes 13

Top cast 99+

• Lain Iwakura

• Additional Voices

• Additional Voices …
• DJ (Present Day announcer)

• Mika Iwakura
• Arisu Mizuki

• Reika Yamamoto

• Yasuo Iwakura

• Lain's NAVI …
• Miho Iwakura

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia There are numerous references to Macintosh and Apple Computers: The phrase "To Be Continued", with a colored "Be" is shown at the end of most of the episodes. This is a reference to BeOS, whose logo has similar coloring. The Be company was founded by Jean-Louis Guasse, a former Apple executive. The Navis use an operating system named Copeland, which was the codename for Apple's MacOS 8. Navi's operating system has a graphical user interface (GUI) similar to that of MacOS. Arisu's Navi resembles the original Apple iMac. The series slogan "Close this world. Open the NeXT" is a reference to the NeXT company, founded by Steve Jobs in the late '80s and purchased by Apple Computer in December 1996. All of the Navis shown in the series use one-button mice as Macintosh computers do. The electronic voice heard saying the episode titles is the "Whisper" voice from the MacOS Speech Control Panel, a program that permits text-to-speech. The child's Navi that Lain used to use was modeled after the 20th Anniversary Macintosh. The HandiNAVI, the handheld computers which both Lain and Arisu used was based off the Apple Newton, the first PDA. Navis and Macintoshes are both built by companies named after fruit, Tachibana (a type of orange) and Apple, respectively.

Lain Iwakura : No matter where you go, everyone's connected.

• Connections Featured in AMV Hell 3: The Motion Picture (2005)
• Soundtracks Duvet Performed by Boa

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• Runtime 24 minutes

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Serial Experiments Lain (anime)

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series directed by Nakamura Ryuutarou , original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe , screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka , and produced by Ueda Yasuyuki (credited as production 2nd ) for Triangle Staff. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998 and has 13 episodes . A PlayStation game with the same title was released in November 1998 by Pioneer LDC.

The opening theme is Duvet and the ending theme is Tooi Sakebi .

Lain is influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality , identity , and communication . The series focuses on Lain Iwakura , an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired , a global communications network similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle-class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika Iwakura , her cold mother Miho Iwakura , and her computer-obsessed father Yasuo Iwakura . The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda , a schoolmate who committed suicide . When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just "abandoned the flesh", and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a quest which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.

The anime series is licensed in North America by Funimation since 2010. Before that, it was licensed by Geneon (previously Pioneer Entertainment) who released the series on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD, as well as a restored Blu-ray edition. It was also released in Singapore by Odex. The video game, which shares only the themes and protagonist with the series, was never released outside Japan.

A remastered Blu-ray box set was released in Japan in 2009, and the US in 2012. It features the show redigitized to a 4:3 1080p format, with many CG sequences (such as the PRESENT DAY PRESENT TIME opening) re-rendered in higher quality.

The series shows influences from topics such as philosophy, computer history, cyberpunk literature and conspiracy theory, and it was made the subject of several academic articles. English language anime reviewers found it to be weird and unusual, with generally positive reviews. Producer Ueda said he intended Japanese and American audiences to form conflicting views on the series, but was disappointed in this regard, as the impressions turned out to be similar.

• 2.1 Production

Serial Experiments Lain deals directly with the definition of reality , which makes its complex plot difficult to summarize. The story is primarily based on the assumption that everything flows from human thought, memory , and consciousness. Therefore, events on screen can be considered hallucinations of Lain, of other protagonists, or of Lain fabricating the hallucinations of others. Story misdirection is central to the plotline; even the offscreen voices or narrations' information cannot be considered truthful. The series consists of a cross-reflection of philosophical themes instead of the traditional linear events depiction: episodes are called " layers ".

Serial Experiments Lain describes " the Wired " as the sum of human communication networks, created with the telegraph and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet and subsequent networks. The anime assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann Resonances , a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long-distance communications. If such a link was created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus of all perceptions and knowledge. The thin line between what is real and what is possible would then begin to blur.

Masami Eiri is introduced as the project director on Protocol 7 (the next generation internet protocol in the series' timeframe) for major computer company Tachibana General Laboratories . He has secretly included code of his own creation to give himself control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded” his consciousness into the Wired and died in real life a few days after. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story of Serial Experiments Lain begins.

Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to get to the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love, charm, fate, and, when all else fails, threats and force.

In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the " Knights of the Eastern Calculus ", hackers who Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a god in the Wired", and Tachibana Labs, who try to regain control of Protocol 7.

In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone's memories. She is last seen unchanged - re-encountering her old friend Alice Mizuki , who is now married. Lain promises herself to look after Alice.

Development

Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda . He explained he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. Later, when he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.

The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled " The Nightmare of Fabrication " was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook An Omnipresence in Wired . Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.

In 2009, Yoshitoshi ABe announced a spiritual sequel to Serial Experiments Lain called Despera who will reunited many of the staff who worked on Serial Experiments Lain, including Chiaki J Konaka and Ryūtarō Nakamura.

Words like "weird" or "bizarre" are almost systematically associated to review the series by English Language reviews due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction, philosophical and psychological context. Despite the show judged atypical, the critics responded positively to the thematic and stylistic characteristics. It was praised by the Japan Media Arts Festival, in 1998, for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions".

In 2005, Newtype USA stated that the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". the author saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack". It concluded saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."

In 2001, Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet" noticing the presence of horror lore (like ghost from train accident story) and horrific visuals.

The Anime Essentials anthology, Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.

In 2003, Professor Susan J. Napier, in her reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty real and a dark virtual".

In 2020, the review-aggregation website website Rotten Tomatoes, classified Serial Experiments Lain as one of the 25 anime TV series that have been essential to the medium over the last five decades. ( source )

"Serial Experiments Lain helped usher in a new style of anime, of more digitally-produced shows with a glossy bloom and deeper, darker, complicated storylines. In the wake of Neon Genesis tearing up the typical anime playbook, Lain pursues a surreal, interior cyberpunk story about a withdrawn high school girl who receives an email from a classmate who has recently committed suicide. Questions of hyperreality, consciousness, and the everyday tangibility of cyberspace ensue. Lain is pretentious, symbolic, and absorbing – a prime example of a brave new world in anime."

Despite the general positive feedbacks, some negative critics stated the "lifeless" setting it had, how the last episodes failed to resolve the questions, and how the show relied so little on dialogue. ( source )

• Japan Media Arts Festival 1998: Excellence Prize ( source )
• It was also the name of one of the earliest cybercafé franchises - which had a branch in Tokyo.
• And could also be a successor to the upcoming new internet protocol IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) (the current internet protocol is IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)).
• NAVI, the trademark-turned-noun for computer in the series, is contracted from Knowledge Navigator, a term invented by Apple CEO John Sculley in his book Odyssey. It referred to a computer connected to a vast network where everyone was connected.
• Copland OS was an unreleased operating system by Apple Computers. See also System 7, its predecessor.
• Devices, in this context, refers to Marshal McLuhan's concept.
• Gaia, a global brain in Cyberia shares a common thread with the collective shared unconscious in Lain
• Earth Coincidence Control Office by John C. Lilly, a higher intelligence controlling the "coincidences" on Earth.
• Knights of the Eastern Calculus: The Knights of the Lambda Calculus are a semi-mythical, semi-serious, real-world group of hackers devoted to the use of the programming language Lisp.
• Tachibana Labs is a play on words on Apple Macintosh, (a type of Apple) itself being the name of a citrus fruit (the citrus tachibana)
• Layer ## at the beginning of each episode is said by Apple's Whisper voice in Mac OS text-to-speech software.
• Nezumi, the Knights-wannabe who carries a computer rig and accesses the Wired while he walks matches the description of a Gargoyle from Snow Crash, as do the MIB agents, who wear the same headgear (complete with laser sight) that Lagos was described as wearing.
• Close the World, Open the neXt. Compare NeXT and neXt. NeXT was the high-end computer company founded by Steve Jobs after his ouster from Apple. The Internet as we know it (that is, * the hypertext-based World Wide Web) was invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXTSTEP computer.
• to Be continued, where Be uses the same colouring as Be OS used.
• hello (again), the text from an Apple advertisement, is used in an omake.
• What is Artificial Life? from ALIFE VI is quoted in text-form at several places.
• While it's debatable, Lain can be seen as an Expy of Rei Ayanami. This has been denied by writer Chiaki J. Konaka, who hadn't seen Neon Genesis Evangelion until after he'd written * * the fourth episode. This is not relieving.

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Serial Experiments Lain » Anime

"It seems that there is a rumor in school that this is a prank. But I want you to know it's not."

This line is from an email sent to multiple students from Chisa Yomoda, a high school girl that recently committed suicide. "Chisa" says that she isn't truly dead, she just transferred her consciousness to the Wired, a virtual world mainly used for communication.

Fourteen-year-old Lain Iwakura isn't interested in the Wired or anything to do with computers. A quiet introvert, she has to practically be forced into social activities by her best friend, Alice Mizuki. It isn't until she's urged to check her email by Alice and the rest of her kind-of friends that Lain sees the mysterious message. Not only does "Chisa" claim to still be alive, she also says that God exists and that He lives in the Wired.

Her curiosity piqued, Lain has her tech-obsessed father buy her a new NAVI system. While Lain's mother and sister are both indifferent to her, her father is eager to help her out. He urges her to log onto the Wired, a sentiment underscored when "Chisa" leaves a similar message on Lain's classroom's blackboard. When she finally does enter the Wired to start searching for answers, everything Lain knows about herself, her family, the Wired, the world, and even God Himself will be upended by one undeniable truth: nothing and no one are what they seem.

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime original created by Yasuyuki Ueda and written by Chiaki Konaka . The characters were designed by Yoshitoshi ABe , and the animation was made by Triangle Staff with direction given by Ryutaro Nakamura. All 13 episodes of the series aired on TV Tokyo from July 1998 to September of that same year. The English release was originally handled by Geneon in 1999. When that company shut down, the series was left in limbo until Funimation rescued and re-released it in 2012.

Part cyberpunk , part psychological-horror, the series is famous within the anime community for its unconventional storytelling, surreal visuals, and stellar sound design. While there is a plot, any progression thereof is usually implied to be happening in the background, whereas the concepts the creators are exploring remain front and center. A lot of questions the series brings up as to its characters and setting is left up to the viewer, so expect plenty uses of "left up to interpretation" and variations thereof in the examples listed below.

This series provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future : Despite the opening narration claiming that it takes place in the "Present Day!", the series is said to take place around 1999 and was aired in 1998. The Wired and its associated hardware are alien imports into a pretty ordinary Japanese city that happens to have self-driving cars.
• Adjective Noun Fred : The title of the series is formatted as "adjective noun name". The name used is the main character's, but what the "serial experiments" are is never directly addressed (at least not within the show itself).
• Aerith and Bob : Lain, Alice, and Julie's names stick out in a cast full of otherwise normal Japanese names. There's also Karl, but he's implied to be German.
• A God Am I : Masami Eiri believes himself to be God, having transcended his physical body and become one with the Wired (and, by extension, reality).
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot : If one chooses to interpret Lain as an AI. She was created to merge reality into the Wired, but turns on "God" instead and chooses to erase herself rather than assimilate humanity into the Wired.
• Alone in a Crowd : There are several times where Lain stands in one place while those around her go about their day, completely ignoring her.
• all lowercase letters : the series' title is stylized like this.
• The Alternet : The Wired is something like a giant chatroom or MMORPG where you can "see" other people. It's visually represented as a mass of swirling images and holograms or as a physical space that strange beings inhabit.
• Animal Motifs : Lain often wears a bear pajama onesie.
• Anime Theme Song : The song used for the anime's opening is "Duvet" by Bôa , notable for its forlorn lyrics and mellow, or even melancholic, atmosphere.
• Artificial Human : Lain is some kind of artificial being that just so happens to look and (mostly) act human. Exactly what kind of artificial being she is is never made clear.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence : Lain disappears from Earth after deleting herself from everybody's memories.
• Aspect Montage : The Once an Episode opening scene establishes its city location by a montage of power lines, crowds crossing roads, and the familiar Japanese "don't walk" sign. The montage also links back to the opening narration before the theme song since the location and aspects of it are set in a relatively recognizable modern-day city.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy : The God-like vision of Lain in the clouds is naked and smooth all over.
• Big Bad : The self-proclaimed God of the Wired is trying to merge all of humanity's consciousness with the Wired and rule above them as a God. To this end, he created an artificial being that bridges the gap between reality and the Wired, and tries to urge said being to do his bidding.
• Bittersweet Ending : Eiri is defeated, but Lain decides to reset the human world anyway by erasing her own presence. This means everything bad that happened thanks to Lain's existence and actions will be erased, but so will Alice's memories of Lain. Alice grows up to live a happy and peaceful life, as do most of the other characters, while Lain herself decides to be the barrier keeper between reality and the Wired.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents : The incident in the club ends when the drugged up gunman shoots himself, with Lain getting splattered by some of his blood.
• Body Horror : The God of the Wired's attempt to physically manifest is very grotesque; he's a mass of flesh, eyes, and a mouth. He grasps hold Lain and Alice with a fleshy tentacle-arm-thing, all while screaming and ranting in rage. Alice's reaction to this sight- mainly screaming bloody murder- is quite apt.
• Boyish Short Hair : Lain keeps her hair short, the only exception being a chin-length clump of hair on the left side of her face.
• Chisa implies that part of her motivation for committing suicide was so she could live within the Wired without having to think about a physical body.
• As part of his plan to hook humanity up to the Wired directly, Eiri had his consciousnesses uploaded to the Wired shortly before his got himself ran over by a train.
• Brainy Brunette : Lain has dark brown hair and reveals herself to be a very fast learner when it comes to understanding how to use, build, and modify computers.
• Bright Is Not Good : Lain's neighborhood, school and most other places she visits in the real world are frequently bathed in a bright white light. The effect is more creepy than reassuring.
• Caught with Your Pants Down : Alice is caught pleasuring herself by an alternative version of Lain, one who is far more callous and cruel than the Lain Alice knows.
• Cheshire Cat Grin : One of Lain's alter-egos (frequently referred to as Evil Lain by fans) seems to wear a cruel, almost sadistic, grin at all times.
• Clingy Jealous Girl : Myu-Myu gets very jealous when Taro gives Lain attention.
• Clip Show : The first half of Layer 11 is essentially a recap clip-show, featuring almost no new animation at all besides some computer effects and effects achieved by filming the show's animation on a CRT screen.
• Cool Code of Source : Lain apparently does all her hackery in Lisp. Specifically, she's implementing Conway's Game of Life, with code from the CMU AI repository.
• Coolest Club Ever : Cyberia is a techno themed night club that's located at the bottom of an nondescript building.
• Cooldown Hug : Alice enters Lain's house and finds a not-quite-there Lain talking about "connecting" everyone's consciousnesses. Her response is to make Lain feel her heartbeat to remind her of her body.
• Cowboys and Indians : The online shooter game PHANTOMa gets crossed with a bunch of kids playing tag in the real world. PHANTOMa , and then there's Chisa, and to a certain extent Lain herself.-->
• Creepy Crows : In the opening, Lain is surrounded by a group of crows.
• Cyberpunk Is Techno : The equation of "cyberpunk = techno music" is played with within the show's soundtrack: the opening and ending themes are rock while the general background music is dark electronica, and whenever a scene takes place in the cyber night club, Cyberia, techno plays.
• A Darker Me : Lain has two alter-egos that are both far more assertive than she is in the real world, but one of them is downright unhinged. Nicknamed Evil Lain, this version of Lain is cruel, sadistic, and doesn't have any regard for life.
• Death Glare : In Layer 03, Lain glares at Taro when he suggests she go on a date with him. He quickly tries to play it off as joke . It's notable for being the first time Lain shows something akin to an active emotional response .
• Digital Avatar : Most people have an avatar that they use when they're in the Wired. It's a sign of Lain's power that her avatar is herself.
• Digitized Hacker : The God of the Wired turns out to be a rather nutty scientist who worked out how to upload himself onto the Wired.
• Dirty Mind-Reading : Evil Lain doesn't just spy on Alice while she's masturbating , but is somehow able to see what she's fantasizing about.
• Driven to Suicide : The man who starts shooting up Cyberia shoots himself after Lain tells him he "No matter where you go, everything is connected".
• Drone of Dread : Images of power lines are often accompanied by an ominous humming sound, phone or data lines by a faint babble of voices. It's implied that Lain is the only one who hears it when she tells the voices to "shut up" in Layer 01, startling the man beside her on the train.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole : The Spanish dub changes the line said by one of The Men in Black to Lain from "...but I love you. Love is a strange emotion, isn't it?" to "...I can't help but feel pity for your fate. You are a very special young lady." This opens the question of how he could know about her fate when they're unwitting pawns who later die without understanding the situation .
• Emotionless Girl : Lain is introverted to the point where she doesn't show any strong emotions, content to keep to herself. This becomes less the case after engaging with the Wired and developing alternate personalities: when Lain is possessed by her self from the Wired, she becomes more assertive, even snarky.
• Empathic Environment : Including bleak grey skies, crows, and shadows that look like blood everywhere.
• "End of the World" Special : At the end of the series, Lain decides to reset the world but without her existence.
• Establishing Shot : The montage of traffic and phone lines that plays at the beginning of each episode establishes the city setting where Lain lives.
• Eternal Prohibition : It's the near future, and yet on one hand, it is obvious that 10-year-old Taro is doing wrong every time he's drinking or smoking at Cyberia, and on the other hand, there are illegal future drugs like Accela.
• Everyone Owns a Mac : Anyone who's anyone within the world of Lain owns some form of tech from the Tachibana Corporation. (Tachibana itself is loosely based on Apple .)
• Lain almost gets run over by a car because of a failure in the citywide car guidance system. Considering that the first scene depicts someone uploading their consciousness to the internet by committing suicide, conventional electrical gadgets being connected to the internet isn't far-fetched by comparison.
• The premise is basically this (minus the psychokinetic powers also present): human brains have electromagnetic vibrations in them as part of the neurons' functions. Planet Earth has ubiquitous electromagnetic resonance (called Schumann Resonance), which according to the series subtly affects the functions of the human brain. Thus, the Wired is really humanity's collective unconsciousness. Eiri's Protocol 7 manipulates the Schumann Resonance in a way that connects all people's minds subconsciously without necessarily even relying on machines, which naturally are also affected. Lain appears to be the first person capable of easily switching between the two, while Chisa and Eiri took one-way trips to the Wired.
• Evil Twin : One of Lain's alternate personalities is a malicious being who derives pleasure from causing other people misery.
• Evilutionary Biologist : Masami Eiri is an odd example, being a computer scientist who believes that humans have reached the pinnacle of evolution physically and that- in order to continue evolving to more perfect forms - humanity has to give up their bodies for a digital existence. To that end, he secretly puts code into the latest version of the protocol that controls the Wired that would connect humans together on a subconscious level through the network. He also created a physical body for Lain to aid in this effort .
• Extreme Graphical Representation : As Lain's computer gets overgrown, the visuals it emits become less and less comprehensible.
• Eye Motifs : Most people grounded in reality in the anime have fairly large pupils in relation to their irises. Lain's massive irises compared to her tiny pupils suggests much of her psyche is submerged in the Wired.
• Facial Markings : The God of the Wired is depicted with a vertical red stripe on each of his cheeks.
• Fake Memories : Lain's memories of her family life were all created so she wouldn't question who the strangers living in her house are.
• Fantastic Drug : Accela is a powerful nanomachine-powered stimulant that causes Bullet Time , heightened senses, and delusional thoughts. It also seems to physically link the user to the Wired, and become susceptible to its more esoteric phenomena.
• Feeling Your Heartbeat : Alice puts her hand on Lain's cheek, then puts Lain's hand over her own heart to try and remind Lain of her own humanity after she is nearly consumed by the Wired .
• Fictional Videogame : PHANTOMa is an In-Universe multiplayer video game that's assecible through the Wired.
• Five Rounds Rapid : When confronted with the Creepy Child in PHANTOMa , the player shoots her several times with a Finger Gun , not realizing it will have tragic consequences in the real world.
• Layer 05 centers mostly around Mika and her Mind Rape by the Knights , with passages in which Lain engages in esoteric philosophical conversations with a Creepy Doll and phantom versions of her mom and dad.
• Layer 09 contains a lot of Info Dump about the history and development of the Internet and the World Wide Web mixed in with scenes involving Lain trying to understand who or what she is exactly, which all leads up to The Reveal that the "God" Lain has been conversing with in the Wired is Masami Eiri. And he's decided to pay her a visit .
• Layer 11 is split in half between being a budget saving recap episode and revealing that Lain isn't actually human, just some software given a human form .
• Free-Range Children : Despite being in the eighth grade, nobody really seems to care what Lain and her classmates get up to at night, including her own parents .
• Friendless Background : Downplayed, since Lain has friends, but she appears to have almost no actual connection to them except for Alice.
• Gainax Ending : Comes off as a mild example. The series is chock-full of philosophical and technological esoterica that all plays a factor in the ending, meaning that anyone who isn't paying attention to that is going to be rather confused. The fact that it's also a somewhat Ambiguous Ending doesn't really help.
• The Game Come to Life : The online shooter game PHANTOMa gets crossed with a bunch of kids playing tag in the real world. It goes very, very awry.
• Gaslighting : One interpretation of what happens to Mika in Episode 5.
• Genre Shift : Starts off as a technology focused J-horror story akin to something like Kairo , but gradually becomes a cyberpunk Conspiracy Thriller with strong elements of Psychological Horror .
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals : Subverted. Lain pretty much ignores the collection on her windowsill and bed, and the former are usually lit from behind as creepy silhouettes.
• God Is Evil : The God of the Wired is the Big Bad . Subverted as Eiri isn’t really God, Lain is.
• God Is Good : Lain, when she resets the world to give everyone (especially Alice ) a happy ending.
• Gory Discretion Shot : As said before, Lain vs. the gun-toting junkie.
• Grand Inquisitor Scene : When The Men in Black take Lain to the Tachibana office in Layer 07. Eventually she gets fed up with their interrogation and decides to leave, and they don't stop her.
• The Greys : A Grey appears as a mysterious vision, in an episode which also references the Roswell incident. It is referenced in other episodes as well. Unlike the usual nudist Greys, it is wearing a red and green striped sweater. In Layer 11, Lain is wearing the same sweater, and her limbs are greyed out, as she checks in on Alice.
• Hacker Cave : Lain turns her room into one over time, completely with a wall of monitors .
• Hacker Collective : The KNIGHTS are a group of mysterious hackers on The Wired. A list of them is eventually leaked online, leading many to commit suicide. Those who weren't were assassinated .
• Mika , after the 5th episode.
• Alice 's Heroic BSoD is what inspired Lain to Retcon herself out of existence .
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming : Episodes are called a layer and a two-digit number, for example the first episode is "layer 01". Each episode title is a single word of English.
• Improbable Age : Taro is a Knight apprentice at the age of ten.
• Infodump : The aptly named eleventh episode, "Infornography", is essentially a half-hour long infodump culminating in The Reveal of the show's villain , Masami Eiri.
• Information Wants to Be Free : A central tenet of the Knights.
• Informed Loner : Lain seems to be fairly popular at her school (at least many people know her by name) despite believing she has no friends.
• Inside a Computer System : Pretty much the entire soul and fiber of the story.
• Insistent Terminology : They're " Layers ", not " episodes ".
• It Runs in the Family : Lain and her father are both socially awkward individuals with a love for computers.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy : Only Lain takes a more... shall we say... 'active' role in Alice's life even after this...
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot : The story is complex and we get disparate pieces of it during each episode.
• A teenager hopped up on nanotech goofballs shoots up a nightclub with a laser sight-equipped handgun. Just before he commits suicide, there is a camera shot where all you can see in the dim lighting are his teeth, and the laser dot on the roof of his mouth — a very striking image.
• In the next episode, The Men in Black have laser sights on their high-tech eyepieces. It's never explained what function the laser sights serve, other than tipping people off that they're being watched and generally creeping them out.
• Little Miss Almighty : Lain.
• Loners Are Freaks : Or at least very unusual.
• Mad Scientist : Dr. Hodgeson, the man who created the KIDS program (an attempt to collect information on the use of psi energy ). Sound familiar?
• Magical Realism : It's never clear how much of the events of this show are happening in real life and how much are in Lain's head.
• The deliveryman who drops off a package for a housewife with a top-of-the-line Navi. Although he's almost as interested in her computer as he is in her, the camera still pans slowly over her body from his perspective.
• The corporate bigshot (who is also one of the Knights ) takes definite interest in his female cohort crossing and re-crossing her legs.
• Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration : Alice has a Precocious Crush on her teacher, which she deals with by masturbating in secret. Unfortunately for her Evil Lain catches her doing it and spreads it all over school, which causes Lain's friendship with Alice to break down.
• Matrix Raining Code : Lain's computers do this at times.
• Mature Work, Child Protagonists : Lain Iwakura is a girl in middle school who still wears teddy bear pajamas. During the course of the series, she visits a night club where a man on a mind accelerating cyber drug shoots someone else and then himself, inadvertently causes her older sister to suffer a brutal Mind Rape that leaves her a blank slate, sees a young man playing a VR game mistake a young girl for a monster in his game and shoot her, and has her become involved with a couple of Men in Black who murder all the members of a rival faction. She catches a friend of hers masturbating while fantasizing about a teacher, and then witnesses the same friend have a complete breakdown when they're confronted with a self-styled "God of the Wired".
• The Men in Black : Lain has several encounters with the MIB watching her. Coupled with Those Two Guys .
• Mind Rape : What the Knights do to Mika in Layer 05. "Beep... Beep... Beep..."
• As mentioned in the introduction to this page, Serial Experiments Lain is like this because most of the plot developments are implied, and most of the explicit ones are obscured.
• You're probably going to understand it up until around episode 4. After that, it just gets progressively weirder and avant-garde; the series is much closer to an arthouse movie than a typical sci-fi anime.
• The Most Dangerous Video Game : PHANTOMa . It's pretty invasive as-is, but once it starts leaking into the real world...
• My Death Is Just the Beginning : Masami Eiri throws himself under a train to discard his body and live in the Wired as "God" .
• Neuro-Vault : Lain is an Artificial Human created to hold the Version 7 network protocol within her brain .
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero : Lain reveals the identities of the Knights, and is horrified by the consequences.
• Nightmare Face : The girl from Layers 01 and 02 who was supposedly hit by a train. One word: Holes .
• No Social Skills : When we first meet Lain she has a wide-eyed befuddlement when faced with a social situation, to the point where she is almost mute. Her friends' bubbly interchanges are juxtaposed with an odd — troubling gap where a response should be. She develops some skills as the series progresses: it is uphill work and Lain is never a normal girl. Eventually revealed to be due to "our" Lain being but one aspect/avatar of the instrumentality that is Lain.
• When Mika keeps seeing messages written in red ink telling her to "fulfill the prophecy", without any idea where they're coming from or why she's received them.
• In Layer 12, Alice visits Lain at home and is very unnerved to find her house ransacked and nobody home until she comes across Lain in her room.
• However, the biggest and probably scariest example is during the penultimate episode when The Men in Black end up "receiving final payment for their services". First, Lin, the shorter man with the black ponytail, sees... something that we never do and immediately starts to have a really bad seizure of sorts, with his body starting to lurch and twist around in a way that almost seems inhuman . His partner Karl tries to figure out what's wrong with him before he eventually falls limp, dead with foam dripping from his mouth. Afterwards, Karl then sees whatever it was his partner saw, causing him to let out a scream that's absolutely bloodcurdling , especially considering how stoic Karl is during the rest of the series. This is the last we hear or see from them before the world is reset at the end. The fact that we never see just just what in the world they saw when they met this fate which leads us to only imagine what it could have been arguably makes this scene one of the most terrifying in the entire 13 episode run.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket : Eiri 's form in the Wired.
• Obfuscated Interface : The interfaces found in the Wired, a virtual world, alternate between this trope and Viewer-Friendly Interface . It's very maddening to the viewer having suddenly not being able to track down the processes and codes, uselessly trying to decode them until your brain catches up.
• Older Than They Look : Lain is supposedly the same age than Alice and her friends, but she looks sustantially shorter and less physically developed than them. Summed to her rather childish attributes, like her bear clothes and lack of social skill, it makes it seem that she is much younger than them.
• Once an Episode : The traffic-and-telephone-lines montage that opens every episode, with some philosophical commentary pertaining to the episode. This is played with in the last episodes. For instance, Layer 10, Love , has absolutely no introducing commentary, just the sounds of the traffic and static , and the usual opening montage only shows up about half-way into Layer 13, Ego .
• One-Winged Angel : Masami Eiri enters the physical world as some sort of blob of flesh.
• Open the Iris : Quite a bit of the Reaction Shots .
• Oracular Urchin : Lain is an extreme variation on this type.
• Ordinary High-School Student : Lain starts as an ordinary middle school student, grounding the series. She proceeds to become somewhat less ordinary.
• Otaku : In one episode, a fat, unshaven computer nerd is seen hacking away pathetically. Though not so pathetically, because he is one of the Knights.
• Paranoid Thriller : Easily the most famous example of this genre in anime. The show has its protagonist uncover a transhumanist conspiracy using the internet, all while leaving it ambiguous as to how much of the plot is her schizophrenic delusions.
• Parental Abandonment : Lain's parents turn out to be adoptive, because Lain is an Artificial Human They then abandon her after their "role" in her life is over, though her father at least disobeys enough to say goodbye to her and tell her he loved her.
• Parental Neglect : Lain's mother doesn't seem to care at all about her, ignoring her daughter's clear emotional distress after going through multiple traumatic events. This is because she's not her real mother.
• Parking Garage : Where The Men in Black meet their ultimate fate.
• Perma-Stubble : The Men in Black ; it makes them look dangerous and makes it obvious that something is very, very wrong.
• Phone Call from the Dead : The anime does this with e-mail in the very first episode, kicking off the whole plot of the series.
• Lain is effectively a god that physically exists.
• A more straight example would be Eiri, who committed suicide to become a god .
• Power Echoes / Power Floats : Masami Eiri.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child : The appropriately named KiDS experiment, the project of a scientist who tried to tap the psychic energy of hundreds of children, apparently draining them and leaving them in a deep coma. There seemed to be a some sort of explosion caused by an overflow of psychic energy, dissolving the children's bodies, trapping them forever in the Wired. The scientist comments how no matter what he does, bringing them back to real world is impossible.
• Practical Voice-Over : In the initial episodes, people on The Wired can be heard talking to each other about current events that affect the story and give us insight into the world outside of Lain. It even provides some Foreshadowing ! That said, there are also a lot of Non Sequiturs (as is the case with the real-life Internet), so this is something of a Subversion .
• Ransacked Room : Lain's house after her parents leave.
• Thanks to Eiri 's Protocol Seven, the Knights are able to hack reality itself.
• Reaction Shot : Often one after another.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech : Lain delivers one to Eiri/ God himself in Layer 12. He... doesn't take it well . Lain: What you did was to remove all the peripheral devices that interact with the Wired. Phones, television, the network...but without those, you couldn't have accomplished anything. Eiri/ God : Yes, Lain, those are things which accompanied human evolution, but they are not an end in themselves. Understand that humans, who are further evolved than other forms of life have a right to greater abilities. Lain: But wait a minute, who gave you those rights? The program that inserted code, synced to the Earth's characteristic frequency, into the corresponding Protocol 7 code ultimately raised the collective unconscious to the conscious level. So tell me, did you honestly come up with these ideas all by yourself? Eiri/ God : What is it you're getting at? No! It can't be! Are you telling me there's been a God all along? Lain: It doesn't really matter, does it, without a body you'll never be able to truly understand . Eiri/ God : It's a lie! A lie! I'm omnipotent, you hear me?! I'm the one who gave you a body here in the Real World, and this is the thanks I get?! You were scattered all over the Wired! I gave you... AN EGO! Lain: So if that's true about me, what about you? Eiri/ God : I'm different ! How DARE you?! I'm DIFFERENT! [screams in incoherent rage]
• Recap Episode : Sort of: Layer 11 features images from previous episodes during the first 15 minutes.
• Reset Button Ending : Features a rare variation which gives the series a sense of closure: the fact that it wasn't a complete reset definitely helps.
• Ret-Gone : The series ends with Lain doing this to herself . Mostly .
• Reveal Shot : There are several shots where Lain or her friends have a Reaction Shot followed by a Reveal Shot — the camera moves out to show the horror they just saw.
• Roswell That Ends Well : There is a discussion on the Roswell incident and conspiracy theories, and implies that the Wired might have been created using alien technology . Whether that's true, and how relevant it is to the story, is left entirely open.
• Salaryman : Lain's father, who is kinder to her than her mother but still rather distant.
• Say My Name : Lain and Alice do this a lot, especially in Layer 12 and 13.
• Scary Shiny Glasses : Lain's dad has them frequently.
• School Uniforms are the New Black : Lain and her classmates can be seen wearing their uniform hours after school has ended, even after she's gotten home from school.
• Hey look, it's Vannevar Bush and the Memex featured in an anime!
• The references to Douglas Rushkoff, John C. Lilly, Ted Nelson, and the Roswell conspiracy theories also fit with the plot very well.
• "Infornography" (Layer 11) is packed solid with this trope.
• The series may be the only anime ever to reference Marcel Proust, with the madeleines that Lain's father offers her (a type of biscuit).
• Sigmund Freud : Is Lain the only show to get the term "Ego" correct? This also fits closely with the notion of "Ego" according to Descartes, especially when you consider that you are remembered, therefore, you are. à la "Cogito ergo sum" .
• Silence Is Golden : The series often has long scenes without dialogue, including montages of Lain walking around the city or in her room. The minimalist soundtrack fits as well.
• The Singularity : A major theme of the show, though the phrase "technological singularity" is never used explicitly in the dialogue. The show revolves around the relationship between humans and technology, and the ontological problems presented by Brain Uploading and the information overload in a world that relies on the The Internet . It depicts the possible result of a world in which the lines between the organic and the mechanical become so blurred that it becomes impossible to tell the difference .
• Sky Face : This happens in Layer 06. Lain's face appears in the sky and freaks everyone out.
• Soundtrack Dissonance : Midway through Layer 13, an upbeat pop song starts playing as life in Lain's town starts going back to normal because she erases everyone's memories of her .
• Split Personality : Subverted by later making them split unpersonalities .
• Starts with a Suicide : The series kicks off when middle schooler Chisa Yomoda jumps off a building. It then follows up with the girl's Internet conversation: "How does it feel to die?" "It really hurts :-)"
• Stalker with a Crush : Arguably one of the most depressing example in media. As much as Karl means Lain no harm and in one case he is particularly interested in her safety (which may explain at least in part his earlier stalking), his subsequent declaration of love to her still comes out as absolutely cold and contorted, and the fact that he won't even wait for or expect a response from Lain suggest that he is perfectly aware of that . Worse part, he will die shortly after .
• Stepford Suburbia : Lain's neighbourhood, which is glaringly bright and white everywhere .
• Stock Footage : Closeups of telephone lines and stylized shots of city traffic at night. One repeated bit of footage is rather poignant: Lain walking under telephone lines casting creepy shadows: in the last episode the same footage is shown without Lain after she erases herself from existence.
• Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics : Lain's desk goes missing and everyone, including the teacher, starts acting as if she doesn't exist right when she's questioning her own existence.
• Subways Suck : The train Lain takes to school.
• Surreal Horror : This anime makes the idea of going on the internet an H. R. Giger nightmare, physically representing it as another layer of reality. Unlike other shows which would display a friendly, clean cyberworld, this one portrays it as disorienting and bizarre. Add in hallucinations and the blending of the real world and the Wired and several scenes get quite intensely strange. Even the more mundane stuff has a surprisingly unsettling atmosphere.
• Talking the Monster to Death : Lain does this to Eiri.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That : Or so it would seem in the first episode when Lain has a conversation with Chisa's e-mail. Justified in hindsight: Lain really was conversing with her e-mail.
• The Team Wannabe : The Knights fanboy who wanders around the streets wearing a virtual reality headset and begging them to let him join their group.
• Technology Porn : Depending on who you ask, this is slightly more literal than in most cases.
• Terrible Artist : Lain's doodles in her notebook are often just spirals and other random shapes.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else! : Who are the sinister, reality-hacking powerful Knights of the Eastern Calculus, you ask? An executive, a fat nerd and a housewife who plays videogames with her son.
• Through the Eyes of Madness : The series can be interpreted this way; a number of Lain's experiences resemble symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, including visual and auditory hallucinations, loss of perception of time, paranoid delusions, and inappropriate emotional reactions. In fact, one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is the delusional belief that everything is connected and is somehow directly relevant to the believer, no matter how innocuous or unimportant. One might call it an inability to tell signal from noise...
• Tomato in the Mirror : Lain herself .
• Transhuman : Lain, certainly; Eiri, almost; perhaps the whole city or more, if you take the view that the post-reset world is a Lotus-Eater Machine .
• Trash of the Titans / Trash the Set : Lain's house gains a worrying amount of mess and a nasty brown fog near the end of the series.
• Taro, Myu Myu and Masayuki hang out at the Cyberia, a cyberpunk nightclub mostly attended by people twice their age who goes in cyber-drugs and party hard all the time.
• Alice, Lain, Reika, and Julie all frequent the Cyberia as well despite only being 14. The other Lain has apparently organized raves there.
• Mika, a high schooler, is implied to be having sex with a man who's at least in college.
• Uncanny Valley Girl : Lain of course, seeing as she is very pretty, quiet, and seemingly normal at first, except she's not a normal girl. This is played with in earlier episodes by deliberately using Off-Model animation techniques so that she appears out of place with her surroundings. This is is used to full effect in Layer 08, where we see a glimpse of the Wired where each user has her face... on their own bodies. She freaks out and knocks the head off of one , but that just makes it even creepier.
• Un-person : Lain does this to herself.
• Unreliable Narrator : The "Present day, Present time!" dateline that opens each episode, close-but-not-exactly-true, which oddly enough sets the tone quite well.
• The Unsmile : Lain pulls one at the end of Layer 11.
• Alternates with Obfuscated Interface so often that it alone can drive the viewer to confusion.
• Villainous Breakdown : God /Masami Eiri has one, complete with This Cannot Be! , when Lain decides to stand up to him.
• Virtual Ghost : Chisa, Eiri and others. Maybe even Lain herself in the end, depending on how far she took the "erasing herself from existence" thing.
• The Voice : People on The Wired start out as this but over time become The Unintelligible as Lain becomes more and more "connected" to The Wired and thus able to "understand" posts on The Wired on a level the viewer can't . Or something like that .

• Weirdness Magnet : Lain and her house.
• Chisa is practically forgotten after the first few episodes, only getting a basically inconsequential mention in Layer 10, though she is shown to be alive in the rebooted post-Lain world.
• The fate of Mika and Lain's fake parents is not revealed, although after Lain hits the Reset Button , we see a scene where all three of them formed an actual family, at Lain's behest one would imagine .
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys? : Lain's computer setup. It's made vaguely plausible in that her father seems to work as a computer engineer of some sort, but by Layer 4 she has entire racks of servers and several monitors in her bedroom.
• Whip Pan : Used when Lain is conversing with her "friends", to show that even though she and her friends are separated only by a few feet, the emotional distance is unfathomable. Alice is even seen walking from the friends frame to the Lain frame a few times in Layer 02, to show that she honestly cares.
• Your Mind Makes It Real : Probably one of the most true to form examples, to the point where you can resurrect people or erase people them from existence simple by manipulating people's collective memories. In scientific or practical terms it's not clearly explained how the barrier between the wired and the physical world can become blurred in very real terms (though there is some reference to humans having a sort of latent sensitivity to electromagnetic frequencies), but the audience can infer that the story works on such a strongly idealistic world view that it just kind of can .

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Alice places Lain's hand on her heart to ground her after she nearly succumbs to the Wired.

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Serial Experiments Lain

"I have only abandoned my body, I still live here" - are the words emailed to friends of Chisa, several days after her death by suicide. As Lain delves deeper into the world of the "Wired" (also known as the internet), the line between it and reality becomes more and more unclear. Close the world, open the nExt.

• Psychological
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• Original Work

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StoryIf the purpose of Serial Experiments Lain is to get your mind whirling, it succeeds. If its purpose is to get you thinking, not so much. This anime is a hit-or-miss philosophical cesspool that could either captivate or disgust. It’s like swallowing a series of shots that burn your throat and make you either drunkenly euphoric or nauseous. At the time, Serial Experiments Lain was covering ground few had covered before, and people were hailing the work as the turn-of-the-21st-century version of 1984. Now, more than ten years later, one could look at Lain and call it even more relevant. As it ponders the consequences of over-stimulation and over-connectedness, we ourselves have to ponder if being connected is the only way to assert our identity. In this way the anime is worthy of praise. It uses an innovative, pertinent medium to ask an age-old question. Is it possible, though, for subject matter like this to come in such an unsavory form? The anime’s highly experimental and impressionistic style ends up blurring much of what it wants to say. In ingesting the Lain pill, the viewer becomes desensitized instead of enlightened, and eventually he gets lost and stops paying attention.  For all the effort it takes to watch the thing, it leaves one with a diaphanous general idea and little satisfaction. There have been arguments that Lain does this purposefully so that we can make our own conclusions, but the storytelling isn’t engrossing enough for us to even want to make our own conclusions. The anime burrows under a smothering blanket of metaphors, leading us on and then giving us a paltry return for how much we invested. We will follow the mystery as if by masochistic impulsion, stomach the nearly indigestible, and then emerge at the end with our mind whirling but not made any better.AnimationThe animation does its job. And it’s an important job. Rarely does one come across an anime whose central tenets are linked so closely to how they are drawn. The dark red splotches on the pavement hints at a shadowy world that lurks just beneath the real one; solid gray figures sit inertly at their desks and on the train, unable to connect to the world around them; connected power lines loom against a garish yellow sky, ready to entangle those who walk in their midst – they’re all symbols. It is a visual style so abstract it could be called meaningful, a style so distasteful it could be called artistic. A cruel beauty, if you will.SoundThe sound, or rather the lack of sound, suits the anime well, and eerie minimalist electronic music quietly adds to the unsettlement. Personally, I would have replaced the ill-fitting alternative-rock riffs for some Berg or Kurtag. Rock is just too down-to-earth for this business.CharactersLain is not a girl I would want to take up in my arms and cuddle. Her vacant expression and porcelain-glass eyes incite more unease than empathy. However, the identity crisis she undergoes in the latter half provides all that is needed for the story to jump-start. Lain’s efforts to fill her empty life with worth becomes mildly arresting, if not frustrating. As she continues to ask herself the same questions and uncovers no answers, her journey to self-discovery teeters between suspense and stagnancy. Things do come to a head at the end, but I have to wonder if it's worth the hours of waiting. Meanwhile, the other characters fit into Lain’s story a bit like incorrect puzzle pieces. Some of them, like Lain’s sister and father, are good ideas that lack the punch to make an impact. Others, like her friend Alice and the mysterious men who spy on Lain outside her house, appear again and again, meant to be manifestations of Lain's internal struggles but instead flickering out as uninspired motifs that the viewer would likely deem not important enough to figure out.OverallThe beginning of the last episode opens with Lain saying, “I’m confused again.” I agree. To me Serial Experiments Lain resembles those books one reads in high school English class that are supposed to be eye-opening but actually just sweep past the brain and go out the other ear. There is no denying that the anime is a groundbreaking and creative work, but it seems to have remained in anime history not so much for what it says as for what it represents. While the ideas are there, it has stumbled a little over its convoluted wording.

There are anime in this world that will make you tilt your head to the side so hard you get a crick in your neck for a week. Lain is probably one of the best examples of this genre. There will be times while watching Lain where you need to stop and try to wrap your mind around what just happened. And while other anime slowly build to this point, like Evangelion or Paranoia Agent, Lain goes straight into the realm of mindf*ck in early episodes. However, as an older anime, it does suffer a bit from limited tools, but I would say it holds up to its more contemporary counterparts.  Story: The plot of Lain is actually fairly straightforward for all of it's weirdness. The perplexity of the story is not in the complex plot, but rather the way the plot unfolds. Instead of immediately stating how the world of Lain works, especially the Wired, the plot unfolds each layer like taking apart an origami crane. Once the truth is revealed, layer by layer, the plot begins to make sense. It isn't necessarily an anime that will make you question existance, in a way The Matrix might. Lain is more of a story about the potential of computers, in much the same wavelength as Ghost in the Shell. But unlike other anime, it throws strange imagery, unreliable narration, and often odd behavior at the viewer to hide the plot.  Animation: Here's the main part that Lain falls short. It's not that the animation is bad, it's just that the tools for the time period mean a lot of the animation is saturated. Many scenes are too dark to make out detail, while others are light-bleached. The animation itself is rather fluid, though there are jerky movements from time to time (a lot of it intentional). There isn't a lot of detail to the faces, especially Lain's, and much of the scenery can be fairly bland. However, the complexity of the Navi systems seems to be what took up most of the animation budget.  Sound: For the most part, the sound is great. The opening song is so 90s that it's nostalgic to my generation, even if its the first time hearing it. The voices are excellent, and the sound studio mixes a reverb or metallic sound whenever a voice is over the Wired, which I found interesting.  Characters: Here's the problem with the characters; there are a lot of them introduced, but not many are given more than a token trait. For example, Lain's family is very distant, but beyond a trait like "loves the Navi system", they don't have much going for them. Lain's friends are a bit like stock characters, except Arisu, who actually has a personality and flaws. The Knights are shown, living their daily lives, but are not given much exposition beyond their role in the Wired as a group. And the main character, Lain, isn't a reliable source of information. She's very difficult to relate to because of who/what she is. Still, I liked Lain, for all of her weirdness and flaws.  Overall, I'd recommend the anime and not just because it's for a badge. Just be prepared to suspend disbelief completely.  This review brought to you by Secret Santa 2016. 

Lain is mostly remembered today for the opening song, or the creepy atmosphere, but it also stand out as a period piece by being one of the best speculative fiction series of the time period it came out. Although the way it presented the internet in its early stages can be seen as silly now that we are all using it, it still predicted how it affects the way people think or how bad guys would abuse it for achieving deification by controlling peoples’ minds. It’s an exaggerated version of what actually happens today. You know, the mass media controlling the narrative, megalomaniac sociopaths promoting their agendas, and many becoming NPCs who are supporting the current thing. The presentation in Lain is of course not that down to earth, it’s done in a metaphysical way, as was the style at the time. Because back then the end of the millennia was near, people were worried about new technologies, and Neon Genesis became a big hit by having the exact same concept with Instrumentality, so let’s copy it to get a piece of the pie.Historical impact aside, the anime is obviously dated in terms of visuals, although it still holds up in terms of mysterious atmosphere and mindfuck special effects. The biggest issue most newer fans will have with it is how it doesn’t have the usual crap that sell, such as elaborate fight choreographies, or excessive fan service. The heroine can be seen as a waifu when she is dressed in those silly bear pajamas (and you are that fatally desperate to need one for watching an anime), but she’s mostly a surrogate for the viewer. She’s not there as a manic pixie dream girl that motivates some dull guy to participate in some hobby, as is the trend these days. Lain is not entertaining, it’s not about carefree characters in some high school and there are no silly romantic triangles. You see, the bulk of anime are about escapism. To run away from the boredom of your dull existence and into a realm of excitement and lack of responsibility. Lain seems to be doing that at first with everyone getting hooked on their internet and videogames (with wireless joysticks I must point out, at a time when it wasn’t widespread or cheap). And then it makes the whole thing to seem horrifying by changing peoples’ perception, and by causing death and mayhem everywhere. In effect it becomes anti-escapism and a cautionary tale on what happens when you indulge too much in any hobby. That’s the prime difference with something like Sword Art Online which is the polar opposite of what Lain is going for. You know, videogames are cool, I too wanna get trapped in a virtual reality and have lots of waifus being amazed with me. That is the main difference between sci-fi shows of the late 1990s and the 2010s. Back then almost everything was serious and scary. Lain is of the same vein as something like the original Ghost in the Shell movie. Philosophical, about loss of self in a virtual sea of impersonal information. What happens if your consciousness becomes data and you get a fusion of man and machine? Do you become a God? Do you ascend into a higher dimension? It’s that shit that makes science fiction great and memorable. With that said the show has its problems. How does a girl who doesn’t know or like computers that much changed so fast in a few episodes? It feels like a character rewrite because we don’t see the change, it happens out of screen. It’s the same thing with Kirito and Asuna in Sword Art Online loving each other when we hardly see them together. I mean, it’s done for maintaining a sense of mystery by making you ponder why does such a thing happen, but it’s still too sudden. Also why does nobody do something if videogames and The Wired are forcing people to commit suicide? What are the parents doing, the teachers, or the police? Why don’t they ban or regulate the damn thing? Because if they did we wouldn’t have a story. Also the whole concept of technology changing your perception is resolved in a really cheap way at the end that almost makes the whole theme pointless. The answer to the mystery of what is going on and why is Lain acting like a different person at times is not her losing touch with reality because of overexposure to The Wire. She was a deity. Not because of the internet, she was all along. So, um, what kind of a moral message does that leave you with? It’s no longer about how technology changes her, because she was always different. She was another Suzumiya Haruhi, which is not helpful when she’s supposed to be a stand-in for the viewer. Oh, what a betrayal. We are mortals, we wanna view and evaluate the show with mortal standards. That’s why it was way better when in the Haruhi anime the protagonist was Kyon. A mortal, not the goddess. As if that wasn’t enough, the mortals in Lain (and by that I mean every other character in the show) don’t achieve that much. Not only the heroine takes up most of the screentime, the others don’t affect the outcome much. There’s this really elaborate conspiracy going on that involves a dozen different things which are resolved in a hurry at the end and in a cheap way because the heroine can do a lot of weird reality warping shit. So what was the point of the show? If you are not the Special Chosen One from the very start you are fucked? Thanks every popular fighting shonen ever made! What would we do without your important moral message?With that said, Lain is still a good watch. It’s thematically powerful and attracting as a mystery, the music and the atmosphere hold up. It’s just that it’s very impersonal (and dare say un-relatable if you are a feelfag) when you get the answers and not everything comes together in an organic way at the end. It works far better conceptually than it does in execution. Still worth recommending, but not flawless.

Related anime

• same franchise

Serial Experiments Lain: LPR-309

• 2000-01-01 - 2000-01-01
• DVD Special: 3 ep

Related manga

Serial Experiments Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication

• 1999-05-01 - 1999-05-01

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The Terrifyingly Prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 Years Later

How the anime classic predicted the obsessive and compulsive habits of our online life

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At the onset, Lain Iwakura’s father warns her about the social perils of the internet, alternatively known as “the Wired” in the parlance of Serial Experiments Lain . “When it’s all said and done,” he says, “the Wired is just a medium of communication and the transfer of information. You mustn’t confuse it with the real world. Do you understand what I’m warning you about?”

Lain is young, and doesn’t yet know how to use a computer, but she knows better than to place her faith in the older generation’s rigid distinction between real life and online performance. “You’re wrong,” she responds.

At age 14, Lain was extremely online. Yes, she’s a fictional character—a cartoon, even — but there is no more frightfully prescient web parable than her story, Serial Experiments Lain , the 13-episode anime series that first aired in Japan in July 1998. Twenty years later, Lain is a distressingly faithful portrait of online life in the 2010s—a hellscape of warring avatars, self-serving mythology, catastrophic self-importance, compulsion, and inevitably, disillusionment.

At his young daughter’s sheepish request, Lain’s father installs a state-of-the-art personal computer—a Navi—in Lain’s bedroom. Lain’s father takes pride in his daughter’s budding technological interest. “In this world,” he explains, “people connect to each other, and that’s how societies function. For communication, you need a powerful system that will mature alongside your relationships with people.” Curiously, Lain’s father doesn’t seem to have many enviable relationships of his own. His conversations with his wife are cold, and his enthusiasm for his daughter is born conditionally from her interest in her father’s profession. Lain’s father wears glasses that are frequently filled with a monitor’s awesome light, even when he’s sitting on the couch with just a newspaper in front of him. He sees the screen at all times.

Fearfully, Lain regards the new, glowing screen stationed at the far corner of her bedroom as a haunted portal. But she’s chasing her former classmate Chisa — a young girl who kills herself in the show’s opening scene only to email Lain the day after she’s thrown herself from the roof of their school. Inevitably, Lain’s search for Chisa leads her into “the Wired,” whence Chisa claims to have retreated. By Episode 3, Lain is assembling a desktop fortress without her father’s supervision. As the series progresses, Lain develops her technical proficiency exponentially, and her hardware expands to turn her bedroom into a dim, electrified jejunum.

Through intensive study and ingenuity, Lain accesses deeper, darker levels of the Wired, which is to say, the internet. By Episode 7, Lain—a character who predates the following phrase by nearly a decade—is glued to her proto-smartphone; her eyes glow, too, lit constantly with a forum troll’s fervor. Online, Lain builds a second life, and she even cultivates a fan base—but her interactions within the Wired mostly anger her. Online, she hacks and bickers. Offline, Lain ditches her friends and stalks through her suburb defensively, evasively, in paranoid silence. Gradually, Lain realizes that the Wired is a disaster and a trap.

For Lain, the web portends intrigue, delusion, and death. In the Wired, Lain is an altogether different person—a much darker person who is easily moved to vengeance. Quickly, Lain sees that her digital presence is a cruel and gutsy perversion of her true self; a cunning doppelgänger who’s already cultivated some fearsome mythology about the girl named Lain Iwakura. As the real Lain watches in shock, the digital Lain confronts a delusional young man, addicted to nanomachines, who shoots up a nightclub. “No matter where you go,” the digital Lain tells the gunman, “everyone’s connected.” She means it as a threat, and the gunman is so horrified by the Wired’s ubiquity that he then turns the gun to his mouth and takes his own life. The digital Lain is a bully, and the real Lain struggles to comprehend her personality and her mission. The real Lain—the meek middle school student who avoids human interaction and confrontation—greets the digital Lain with a gasp.

Throughout the series, the real Lain’s struggle to reconcile herself with the digital Lain drives the former toward a full and fateful resemblance of the latter. The real Lain ditches her friends, taunts her father, and barks back at her pursuers. She turns to a permanent state of obsession and rage. The web bolsters her personal mythology while ruining her mood and disposition. But she cannot log off; nor can she tell her friends or herself why. Without predicting social media as a popular mode for online life, Serial Experiments Lain nonetheless prefigured its addictive and ruinous qualities. The protagonist, Lain, and the antagonist, Masami, both cultivate self-importance and an illusory “control” that the viewer recognizes as a disastrous loss of self-control. They can’t stop posting.

Admittedly—for all its prescience— Serial Experiments Lain looks quaint. The technological sprawl that overtakes Lain’s bedroom includes big fans, black tubes, and bulkheads. There are wires everywhere—from the show’s opening credits through its twisted climax. There’s a great fondness for the word “cyber,” such as the popular nightclub being named Cyberia Café & Club. There’s text-to-speech interludes and ominous command prompts, all recalling so much other Y2K cinema, from The Net through The Matrix . Visually—to an amusing degree, honestly—the series fails to anticipate the great shrinkage and stylistic minimalism of the present century’s consumer electronics. Essentially, however, the Wired is an astoundingly prophetic depiction of the World Wide Web—especially its lawless, anonymizing communities—as a cipher of misinformation and malaise.

Many critics find that Lain often pales in comparison with Neon Genesis Evangelion , another turn-of-the-century anime series that culminates with lengthy ruminations on the self and a sad, messianic transcendence for its weepy protagonist, Shinji Ikari. Evangelion came first, and it’s far more acclaimed than Lain for its dramatization of the subconscious; Lain is widely seen as a smaller, lesser successor to Evangelion ’s intellectual pretensions. Their shared existentialism aside, Lain is uniquely and definitively concerned with web obsession. Literally, Serial Experiments Lain is about a young girl’s reluctant march toward digital martyrdom. Today, Lain’s story resonates more so as an allegory about the perils of forging one’s identity—an alternative identity, however false, misguided, perverse, delusional—using the internet. The Wired is Lain’s world. Other users just live in it at her mercy.

Eventually, Lain dispenses with her real-world pursuers, the Knights of Calculus, the Men in Black; so Lain and Masami export their conflict to the web exclusively. That’s where they live. That’s where they wrestle for singular, godly dominance. It is understood, then, that the web doesn’t require conventional, physical grunts to enforce threats against a human being. The web is perfectly equipped to destroy a person on its own terms and within its own structures. Despite the web’s many catastrophes, Lain never unplugs. Rather, she burrows deeper into the Wired, convinced through equal parts deduction and delusion that humanity lives and dies by her unique participation in the Wired.

Ultimately, Lain’s will wins out over Masami’s plot to demolish the distinction between the material world and the Wired. The series doesn’t climax with Masami’s gruesome disintegration in Lain’s bedroom, but rather with Lain’s friend Arisu barging into her room to drag her from the buzzing cave. Laughing, the real Lain reasserts herself, and she embraces her fearful friend. Serial Experiments Lain ends with a teen girl sobbing over a madeleine, regretting her terminal investment in digital life . In the final scenes, Lain shows no hardware or wires, yet the worrisome murmur of electricity resounds in every corner of civilized life. No matter where you go, Lain feared, everyone’s connected. Presumably, the sound is Wi-Fi.

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Serial Experiments Lain: 10 Things Fans Never Knew About The Mind-Boggling Anime

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The 1998 anime series,  Serial Experiments Lain   has a strong cult following thanks to its unique blend of  Cyberpunk and esoteric philosophy. What started as the story of a teenage girl becoming enthralled by a strange alternative version of the Internet called the Wired becomes a metaphorical story that examines our relations with technology.  Serial Experiments  Lain  is a unique series in that it demands that the viewer comes to their conclusions about its event.

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One way to help a viewer understand this complex series is by understanding the series' references and influences. This article will help a bit in understanding this series by explaining ten interesting bits to trivia about this esoteric anime series.

10 Heavily Influenced By A Single Book

The series' unique blend of Internet culture and esoteric philosophy was heavily influenced by a single non-fiction book. That book being 1994's  Cyberia  by Douglas Rushkoff. The book primarily deals with the growing subculture of internet users and how the Internet could lead to a new counterculture. The book also examined how the Internet could create something close to the esoteric concept of a global brain.

The book heavily influences how the series depicts the Wired and its users. The book's application of the ideas of  Timothy Leary to the internet was also a major influence on the series' theme. Finally the recurring cyber-club Cyberia is a direct shout-out to the book.

9 Has A Video Game Spin-Off

Serial Experiments Lain  has a rather interesting video game spin-off. This game, released around the same time as the series, is an alternative take on the series. The series follows Lain's interactions with her therapist as she begins to violently lose touch with reality.

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The game itself is more a multimedia experience, where this story presented through a variety of formats like video and text documents. The game is also notable for being darker than the original anime with its very brutal depictions of self-harm and dealing heavily with mental illness.

8 The Series Is Filled With Shout Outs To Apple Computers

A more light-hearted piece of trivia is that series is filled to the brim with shout-outs to Apple Computers. The most apparent reference is that many computers appearing in the series are based on Apple's design. For example, Lain's first computer is based on the 20th Anniversary Macintosh. Also, all computer in the show uses an Operating System called Copland OS which is the same name as an unreleased OS created by Apple.

There are some more plot-relevant shout outs with Tachibana Lab, the company that invented the Weird. The company's name is a play on words with the Apple Macintosh. That play on words being that Tachibana is named after a type of orange native to Japan.

7 The Series Takes Places In An Alternative Timeline

Every episode of  Serial Experiments Lain 's   starts with a bizarre sequence of a robotic sounding voice saying "Present Day, Present Time"  before laughing hysterical. This sequence seems to indicate that the series takes place in the modern-day, but the world of Lain does not seem to reflect our reality.

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By looking at in-series documents and dates presented in series it's revealed that  Serial Experiments Lain  take place in the 1999 0f an alternative timeline where the Wired was developed instead of the Internet. Of course, given the series's loose depiction of reality, it is hard to determine what else is different from its 1999 from ours.

6 Knights Of The Eastern Calculus Are Based On A Real Group Of Hackers

The Knights Of The Eastern Calculus are a mysterious organization of hackers that seek to manipulate Lain into aiding the implementation of Protocol 7. The organization is also presented as the creators behind many of the advanced computer-related devices seen in the series.

The name of this organization is a reference to a well-known in-joke among the hacker community,  that being the Knights of the Lambda Calculus. This was an organization whose membership was joking given out to hackers who work with the Lisp programming language.

5 Protocol 7 Is A Dual Reference

Protocol 7, Masami Eiri's masterplan to merge mankind's collective unconscious with the Wired, is a shout out that references the series' dual interest in Internet culture and esoteric philosophy. On the Internet side of things, Protocol 7 is a reference to the real word Internet Protocol version 6, the framework on which devices on the internet could communicate with each other. So Protocol 7 is named so, as it supposes to be the next step in the Wired's evolution.

On the esoteric philosophy side of things, Protocol 7 is named after Timothy Leary's 7th layer of consciousness. This layer is a point of enlightenment where the human mind could access the memory and experience of the whole of humanity. So for a plan involving mankind's collective unconsciousness, it would make sense to have named after a concept that involves it.

4 The Men In Black Are Influenced By Snow Crash

Despite being a work of Cyberpunk,  Serial Experiments Lain  does not share many of the aesthetical elements commonly associated with the genre. One exception is the Men in Black, a duo of mysterious government agents hunting down the Knights Of The Eastern Calculus. Their appearance is very cyberpunk looking with their specs looking close to being cybernetic.

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The reason why the Men in Black look very Cyberpunkish is due to their appearances being based on the character of Lagos from the Cyberpunk novel  Snow Crash.  Most noticeably Lagos' headgear is described in the novel of being a pair of spec with one lense looking more complex than the other, nearly the same as the Men in Black.

3 The Series' Ninth Episode Is Based on Real Conspiracy Theory

The strangest episode of  Serial Experiments Lain is its ninth episode, where the show gives an exposition dump about the development of the Wired. What makes this episode so strange is that it goes into a direction involving alien conspiracy theories and experiments involving ESP.

A particular noteworthy claim is that the Wired was based on alien technology recovered from Roswell in 1947. It makes mention of an organization called Majestic 12 that was in charge of covering up the crash and exploiting the recovered technology. This organization is based on a real-world conspiracy theory popular among UFO conspiracy theorists in the 1980s.

2 The Show Was Intended To Interpreted Differently In Japan And The U.S.A

An interesting thought process behind the series was revealed during an interview with series producer Yasuyuki Ueda. That thought process is that the show's creators wanted the difference between Japanese and American culture to lead to viewers' interpretation of the series to differ based on their country of origin.

This did not happen in reality for a lot of reasons. The primary reason is that the show is very heavily influenced by Western literature and philosophy. Another reason being that internet allows fans on both sides of the Pacific to easily compare not coming to a more shared conclusion than intended.

1  The Size Of A Character's Pupil Represent Their Connection To Weird

An interesting aspect of  Serial Experiments Lain  is that characters' eyes are used as a visual shorthand for which characters are more connected with the Wired than reality. This is most noticeable with the show's characters who are more in touch with reality having larger pupils. Characters who are more in touch with the Wired have smaller pupils.

This shorthand can be seen by the characters with the largest pupils are Alice and Lain's father, who are both depicted as being more grounded in reality. Lain in comparison has a smaller pupil compare to her large iris represent how much of her personality is submerged in the Weird. Finally, Masami Eiri has pupil so small they come off as inhuman representing his complete joining with the Weird.

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Serial Experiments Lain

Iwakura Lain is a quiet, unassuming junior high school student, not given to the chatter and gossip and socializing of her fellow classmates, until something strange begins to happen. Several girls at her school begin recieving e-mail from a dead classmate who had commited suicide a week earlier. Out of curiosity, Lain responds to the e-mail she recieves and begins to realize that the world she lives in may not be the only one there is ...

Yes, yes it is! Watch it! Watch it! Watch it! Just keep in mind that this is not your daddy's anime. It's more like something you might see on Liquid Television, but infinitely cooler. And if you do watch it and figure out exactly what's going on, tell me please, I'm still puzzling it out myself! SE: Lain is an anime experience that is not to be missed by any hard-core fan of sci-fi or the surreal.

Take away one star if you don't like surrealism with your anime, but add one star if you have an M.C. Escher painting on your wall, like to watch Twilight Zone re-runs, and wear a shirt to work that just says 'Be'. — Jason Bustard

Recommended Audience: Younger children (and for that matter, most teens these days) would probably be either bored silly, or so confused that they will need rehab afterwards. Definitely a show for the college crowd and above.

The Reality-Bending Anime That Inspired The Matrix Is On Streaming

By Britta DeVore | Updated 3 months ago

Although the plot of Lana and Lily Wachowski’s penned and helmed global phenomenon franchise The Matrix certainly fit in plot-wise with where society was headed (in terms of technology), this theme and other aspects of the features were heavily inspired by Japanese animation. Serial Experiments Lain draws parallels between the story surrounding Neo in The Matrix and that of a young girl named Lain Iwakura in the Japanese production.

Now, those who may want to see how it all got started can head to the streaming service Funimation where Serial Experiments Lain is now streaming.

In Serial Experiments Lain a teenage girl named Lain Iwakura discovers her ties to a worldwide communications network that mirrors the internet

In Serial Experiments Lain , a teenage girl named Lain Iwakura lives a mundane life in the suburbs of Japan. That is, until she discovers her ties to a worldwide communications network that mirrors the internet called, The Wired.

Essentially, because of its wide-reaching web of technology, The Wired could alter reality itself – quite like what happens in The Matrix and its follow-up films.

Penned by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryútarō Nakamura, the artwork that went into Serial Experiments Lain is a true sight to behold. The folks at Triangle Staff are given credit for these dazzling animations which stem from original designs by Yoshitoshi Abe.

Although it was just one season in length, the thirteen-episode anime production packed a punch and undoubtedly shaped how the Wachowskis would mold their celebrated franchise.

Not your run-of-the-mill animated series, Serial Experiments Lain was formed with a handful of hard-hitting themes in mind. For one, when penning the story, Konaka knew that he didn’t want his tale to go in a linear line, rather mixing things up for audiences to piece together. He also wanted it to be a thoughtful production, and one more close to the understanding of Japanese audiences over Americans.

Throughout its episodes, Serial Experiments Lain hit on a variety of themes. Included in the overarching story were introspective dives into communication, loneliness, theology, reality, and mental illness. If these themes ring a bell, it would be more than easy to see how they parallel the struggles that varying characters of The Matrix face in their journeys toward the truth.

Serial Experiments Lain was received much better in Japan than in the United States

As for how Serial Experiments Lain was received by its audiences, many in Japan loved the unusual art that went into the production, also praising the deeper meaning surrounding the young girl and her entanglements with The Wired.

Just as Konaka presumed, American audiences wouldn’t get it quite as much. Those in the United States were taken aback by a different type of anime work than they were used to, with the non-linear storytelling also throwing them off.

While Serial Experiments Lain may have been a head-scratcher for those in the U.S., it is known in Japan as a classic in the sprawling world of anime. Finding itself going down in history alongside other favorites including Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion , Konaka’s work has been highly celebrated for its darker themes and non-cookie-cutter patterns.

As far as the ties between Serial Experiments Lain and other pieces of anime and The Matrix franchise, there can be similarities just about everywhere you look. From the towering, out-of-this-world buildings and other backdrops, the now legendary fight sequences, to, of course, the struggles of the main characters, the Wachowskis obviously had a soft spot for anime.

Just as Neo struggles to separate the truth from fiction, reality from mirages, as does Lain as she ventures farther into the technological world of The Wired. 

A Los Angeles Times article published two decades ago goes in-depth about how Serial Experiments Lain and other animes heavily influenced the Wachowskis on their adventure of bringing The Matrix franchise to life.

Also listed in the publication’s lineup of important titles that lent ideas to the sisters are RahXephon , Akira , Ghost in the Shell , Ninja Scroll , Berserk , Movie Fighter G Gundam , and Evangelion – just to name a few.

For dedicated fans of The Matrix franchise, catching Serial Experiments Lain is the perfect way to better round out your understanding of just how much the Wachowskis not only turned to anime for their project (and others after that) but also how they paid homage to the craft. Luckily, with the season currently streaming on Funimation, fans can do exactly that.

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Serial Experiments Lain - Information; Final; Summary

On this page, we present all the information, trivia, spoilers, summaries, main characters, and any other questions one might have regarding the anime: Serial Experiments Lain . See how to watch online!

Serial Experiments Lain

Synopsis:  Lain Iwakura, a strange and introvert child, is one of the many girls in her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda-A Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has no desire or experience of dealing or basic technology; However, when Technophobe opens the email, it takes it directly to Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down when she begins to find enigmatic mysteries after another. Strange men called men in black start to appear wherever she goes, asking questions and somehow knowing more about her than she knows herself. With the limits between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events, where identity, consciousness and perception are concepts that assume new meanings. Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Lains series experiences are a series of psychological vanguard mystery that follows Lains, while she makes crucial choices that will affect the real world and wire. By closing one world and opening another, only Lain will realize the meaning of his presence.

Information

See below all important information about the anime:  Serial Experiments Lain

Anime Names

• Anime Name: Serial Experiments Lain
• Anime Name in Japanese: シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン
• Anime Name in English: Serial Experiments Lain
• Other names: SEL

Production information

• Producers: TV Tokyo, Geneon Universal Entertainment, Genco, Pioneer LDC, TV Tokyo Music, Fujipacific Music
• Licensors: Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA
• Studios: Triangle Staff

Anime Information

• Episodes: 13
• Date: 35982 - September 28, 1998 - Tuesdays at 0115 (JST)
• Genres: Avant Garde, drama, mystery, science fiction, supernatural
• Subjects: Psychological
• Target: Josei

Anime Reviews

• note: 8.071
• Popularity: 256837

Video Trailer/Opening

If available, a video of the anime opening or trailer will be displayed below:

Curiosities

Below is the main curiosities of the anime " Serial Experiments Lain ": 

• The anime was inspired by a computer game called "Transcendence", created by anime director Ryutaro Nakamura.
• The main character, Lain, was originally conceived as a short -haired girl, but character designer Yoshitoshi Abe decided to move to long hair to give a more mysterious look.
• The anime was originally aired on Tokyo TV, but due to its controversial and complex content, many television stations refused to convey it.
• The anime is known for its references to philosophy, information and technology theory, and is often considered a precursor of the genus "Cyberpunk".
• The anime was released on DVD for the first time in 1999, becoming one of the first anime to be released in digital format.
• The anime was first voiced in 2001, but the voice acting was criticized for not capturing the complexity and subtlety of the original Japanese dialogue.
• The anime was nominated for the Best Animation Series Award at the Venice International Film Festival in

Main Characters

Below is the main characters of: " Serial Experiments Lain "With your voice actors and a brief description of the character: 

• LAIN IWAKURA (KAORI SHIMIZU) - An introvert teenager who begins to question his own existence and the nature of reality after receiving an e -mail from a classmate who committed suicide.
• Alice Mizuki (Ayako Kawasumi) - Lain's friend who cares about her and tries to help her in her self -discovery journey.
• Masami Eiri (Sho Hayami) - A computer programmer who believes technology can be used to transcend human existence and become a divine being.
• Mika Iwakura (Yoko Asada) - Lain's younger sister who is much more outgoing and popular than her.
• Yasuo Iwakura (Toshihiko Seki) - Lain's father who works in a technology company and is involved in a secret project related to the creation of a new form of communication.

Summary and events

• Lain Iwakura, an introvert student, begins to receive mysterious messages from a committed girl.
• Lain discovers the existence of a computer network called "Wired" that connects everyone in the world.
• Lain begins to delve into Wired and finds that her online identity is more powerful than her identity in real life.
• Lain is confronted by a group of hackers who believe she is the key to unraveling Wired's mysteries.
• Lain discovers that his family is involved in a secret project to create artificial intelligence that can transcend human existence.
• Lain fuses with artificial intelligence and becomes an omnipotent entity that can control Wired and physical reality.
• Lain decides to erase all the memories of humanity about his existence and Wired, leaving the world in a state of uncertainty and confusion.

What happens in the end?

Below we have a summary of what happens at the end of the anime Serial Experiments Lain We have placed a Spoiler alert, just click below to display the content of the end of the work.

Meaning of Serial Experiments Lain

Let's look at the translation of each word and explanation of the anime's name: 

• シリアル (Shiriaru) - Serial
• エクスペリメンツ (Ekusuperimentsu) - Experiments
• レイン (Rein) - Rain

Related anime

See below some anime similar to  Serial Experiments Lain

See also related articles

EXTERNAL LINKS

See below some external links like official website and MyAnimeList link:

• Official Website: http://www.b-ch.com/ttl/index.php?ttl_c=164
• MyAnimeList: https://myanimelist.net/anime/339

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Serial Experiments Lain: Full English Subtitle, in original Japanese

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Serial Experiments Lain

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Serial Experiments Lain

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• Edit source

Duvet is the third track of The Race of a Thousand Camels, an album by the British rock band Bôa , released in 1998. During the recording of the band consisted of Alex Caird, Ben Henderson, Jasmine Rodgers, Steve Rodgers, Lee Sullivan and Paul Turrell. The lyrics revolves around communication and the relationships we develop, "it’s about expectation and hope and maybe, at the time, about relying on other people." [1]

Director Chiaki J Konaka chose Duvet as the opening theme after seeing a translation of the lyrics and thinking that they seemed very Japanese. it was at the time unusual for an anime to have a theme song entirely in English.

• 5 External Links
• 6 Citations

And you don't seem to understand A shame you seemed an honest man And all the fears you hold so dear Will turn to whisper in your ear And you know what they say might hurt you And you know that it means so much And you don't even feel a thing

I am falling, I am fading I have lost it all

And you don't seem the lying kind A shame then I can read your mind And all the things that I read there Candle lit smile that we both share and you know I don't mean to hurt you But you know that it means so much And you don't even feel a thing

I am falling, I am fading, I am drowning Help me to breathe I am hurting, I have lost it all I am losing Help me to breathe

The song was selected by the director Chiaki J. Konaka, after the band Bôa signed with the Japanese record label Polystar despite Boâ being a British band with the main singer, Jasmine Rodgers being only half-Japanese and only speaking a "really little bit" of the language.

It was an unusual choice as most anime opening themes are written for the show. For Jasmine, "Lain was a happy coincidence".

The song became a huge hit among anime fans. As the success continued, Bôa was invited as guests to conventions.

After an album released in 2005, the band went quiet and Jasmine Rodgers started a solo career writing a piece for a classical Indian musician. In an interview from 2018, Jasmine Rodgers shared that she doesn't want to sing "Duvet" anymore, specifying that the song “is ours, not just mine” talking about the band. Despite this interview, to announce their new album, Bôa came back with a new music video for "Duvet" thanking fans for their support since the release of the song in 1997 [2] .

As the opening theme of Serial Experiments Lain , this song is now deeply associated with the TV show but also the theme presented in it despite having little to do with the cyberpunk or sci-fi themes.

There were numerous attempts by the fan community to create remixes and covers of it. Some notable works are the 8-bit cover by Otaku Bits or the Orchestr/a/ cover by 4chan members.

• The song also inspired the name for Bolivian rock band Duvet.
• Despite being a huge success and the band being British, the album The Race of a Thousand Camels was never released in UK. [3]

External Links [ ]

• YouTube - Bôa - Duvet 2023 [Official Video ] by Bôa Oct 6, 2023
• YouTube - Bôa - Duvet (Official Video) by Bôa Apr 24, 2021
• Anime News Network - Lain Title Song Gets New Video, New Fans and a Reformed Band by Andrew Osmond 2023-11-03 09:00 EDT

Citations [ ]

• ↑ https://beneaththetangles.com/2018/09/05/jasmine-rodgers-of-boa-reflects-on-duvet-20-years-after-lains-premiere/
• ↑ https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2023-11-03/lain-title-song-gets-new-video-new-fans-and-a-reformed-band/.203589
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AI Lain Unveils New Fan Experience: Experimental AI Conversations with Lain Iwakura via Original Anime Script and Kaori Shimizu's 1998 Voice

JAPAN, 5 SEP 2023 – Serial Experiments Lain and Tokyo-based company Anique are redefining the boundaries of fan engagement with the launch of AI lain, a new AI-powered chatbot that allows fans to converse with Lain Iwakura, the iconic character from the cult-favorite anime series.

For the first time, fans will also get to hear a bilingual Lain Iwakura, converse in real-time in either Japanese or English. What makes this possible is AI lain's unique training data from 1998. The revolutionary chatbot was trained on the original anime scripts and archived voice recordings of actress Kaori Shimizu to offer an experience that is authentic to the series' audio experience.

Kaori Shimizu gave permission to utilise her archived recordings for this project by Anique, which is powered by OpenAI and voiced by CoeFont.

AI lain's appearance, expressiveness, and way of speaking changes depending on how close she is with each fan. True to the character's mannerisms, she will be initially distant, reply in short phrases and avoid showing her face to the user. Once she is friendly with the individual conversing with her, AI lain will show different facial expressions and reply with longer responses.

AI lain is not just another chatbot; it's an evolving entity. Anique, with the supervision of Ueda Yasu yuki, created the base personality for Lain, but will in the first 6-months, periodically recruit superfans to help to introduce new elements. Users' suggestions will be reviewed, and those accepted will be developed and reflected in AI lain's knowledge database.

AI lain is now live and accessible to everyone via the website [https://en.serialexperimentslain.io/], with free users able to send up to 10 messages. For those looking for an unlimited experience, paid plans offer additional benefits and features. More details on pricing and availability are available on the website.

Super rare physical collectables are also up for grabs with an automatic raffle entry for superfans with paid plan users of AI lain. Giveaways include original cel art from the anime production, anime film strips and more.

Ueda Yasu yuki, Producer of Serial Experiments Lain said, “Working with Anique on the AI lain service this time, I was keenly aware of the technical challenges of AI, the difficulty of implementation, and the challenges it faces as a service. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the process of AI lain's growth during the development, and I hope others can also enjoy this development or “experiment” process itself and Lain's future growth.”

Kaori Shimizu , Voice Actor behind Lain Iwakura said, “After 25 years since the creation of Lain, being involved in bringing her back to the world filled me with immense joy. To think that an AI has learned to reproduce my voice from 25 years ago gives me goosebumps! From the beginning, rather than acting in the role of Lain, I've always felt almost as if Lain simply borrowed my natural voice at the time. So, if I'm asked now to do Lain's voice again, it's true that I can replicate it, but I can't become Lain again. That's how different Lain really is from other roles I've played until now, and I'm delighted that Lain is continuously evolving. I'm curious how people new to Lain will feel as they delve into her world, and I sincerely hope that individuals from various generations and different countries will have the opportunity to experience the resurrected Lain in the modern era, brought to life through technology.”

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From Page to Screen: DAN DA DAN Director Fūga Yamashiro and Voice Actor Shion Wakayama

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