serial experiments lain｜Anime

2022.05.20

Serial experiments lain is a media-mix work that consists of a serialised magazine project, an anime work and a game work produced simultaneously and interrelated. The project started in 1996 and the work was released in 1998. The main theme is the collective unconscious in the online age, and it also has a psycho-horror aspect. The animation director is Ryutaro Nakamura, who has worked on TV series such as Tomorrow’s Joe 2 (Ashita no Joe 2) and COBRA THE SPACE PIRATE.

Synopsis

‘Existence is defined by the connection of awareness=consciousness, we are all connected. Memory is merely a record.’ The story of Lain, a 14-year-old girl, unfolds under the worldview of “Memory is just a record”.

One day, the protagonist Lain Iwakura, a junior high school student, receives a text message from her classmate Chisa Yomoda, who supposedly committed suicide. In the film, the internet functions as an infrastructure under the name Wired. According to her, it is a space where ‘God exists’ and ‘no body is needed’, and in order to understand the truth of this, Lain develops a strong interest in Wired.
The boundary between Wired and the real world gradually becomes blurred, and Lain’s everyday life begins to erode. As the boundary between Wired and the real world gradually blurs, Lain comes face to face with the truth about this world and herself.

serial experiments lain | Recommendations

“serial experiments lain” is a work that makes us realise how interesting difficult anime can be. The drawings, world view, direction and story as a whole express the gloomy atmosphere very well, and it is a work in which you can strongly experience the style popular in the 90s after Evangelion, and if you watch it for a long time, you will be immersed in the world view, and the noisy sounds flow throughout the work, making you feel as if you are dreaming. The sound plays noisily from beginning to end, giving the viewer the sensation of dreaming.