"Serial Experiments: Lain" (1998) TV series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

7 July 1998 (Japan)

Genre:

Animation | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

Strange events begin to occur as a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with interconnected virtual realm of "The Wired".

Plot Keywords:

Computer | Suicide | Child Suicide | Tech TV | Anime

Cast

Bridget Hoffman

...

Lain Iwakura (13 episodes, 1998)

Runtime:

24 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Certification:

Italy:VM14 (DVD rating) | South Korea:18 | Australia:M | Spain:13 | Germany:12 (DVD rating)

Company:

Pioneer LDC

Trivia:

The two MIBs actually have names. The name of the short, Asian MIB is Lin Sui-Xi. The name of the tall, Caucasian MIB is Karl Haushofer. His character was the only one to be addressed by name during the series.

Quotes:

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

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Kaubôi bibappu: Brain Scratch (#1.23)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Duvet

couldn't leave his rant unanswered

I feel like I have to say a few things about zetes's rant. For one, it's kind of depressing when people watch 4 episodes of a show and feel like they know everything about it. To put things in perspective, this is like watching the first 35 minutes of a movie and being convinced that it's worthless. But onto his points:

1. Yeah, a lot of effort does go into making the show more mysterious, but eventually it really does touch on themes that would appeal to those looking for something intellectual, especially functionalism, descriptive materialism, and the problems with a wholly materialistic interpretation of identity. Don't expect hardcore analytic philosophy, just a nice sprinkling of references and some interesting perspectives.

2. When you first start watching the series, it makes absolutely no sense, and every episode just seems to be adding to the complexity by introducing new aspects. But by the time you finish it, I guarantee that all of these things will make perfect sense (even why Lain's family seems so shallow and undeveloped). In this sense, the series creates perfect order out of total chaos, an aspect that I particularly liked.

3. I'm not going to pretend to be a film critic, but the directing seemed pretty effective at creating the kind of atmosphere that the series needed. And many of the episodes ended with great "what the hell just happened?" moments, that forced me to revise all my theories and definitely made me want watch more.

No offense to zetes, but you shouldn't watch this anime expecting to find character portraits or traditional "slice-of-life" drama. Just like any good existentialist movie ("Donnie Darko" comes to mind here) it won't make too much sense until you've watched the whole thing and maybe even thought about it a bit. So if you feel like you won't be satisfied unless you get your moral straight-up, then this series isn't for you. It'll make you think and will only provide you with more question, not answers.