Serial Experiments Lain
Created | Updated Jul 31, 2003
A ruthlessly hip anime, that manages to be really good at the same time. Something of a cyberpunk acid trip that makes The Matrix look positively bland. The story begins with a girl killing herself, but reappearing in the form of strange emails to our reticent protagonist, Lain. Lain is sometimes cute in her bear pj's and goofy haircut, and she also has a creepy edge to her. She builds a supercomputer in her bedroom. She seems to be wanted by secret agents. She seems to have contacted God on the internet. Are her parents real, imagined, aliens? Is her sister going insane? Is Lain even a real Japanese teenager, or a real person at all? The 13 episode series does really answer anything completely, but I was entranced by this other world that seemed very familiar, a world that could be just a few year in the future.
A world where the "wired" is getting mixed up with reality is a mixed up world indeed!
Lain, the anime, captures a sterile atmosphere that is unique to the genre. The visions of future technology are sometimes subtle, sometimes utterly fantastical, but generally interesting. The wooden behavior of Lains parents gives her household a uneasy quiet. Lain's sister seems to slip into insanity and ends up seeing herself in ghostly form in a unnerving sequence. There seems to be an incessant 60Hz buzz of power lines that scribble their way across the sky.
Serial Experiments Lain is for sale in the USA on DVD and VHS. I've heard there is a Playstation Lain game which seems like too weird an idea for me to even imagine.
A world where the "wired" is getting mixed up with reality is a mixed up world indeed!
Lain, the anime, captures a sterile atmosphere that is unique to the genre. The visions of future technology are sometimes subtle, sometimes utterly fantastical, but generally interesting. The wooden behavior of Lains parents gives her household a uneasy quiet. Lain's sister seems to slip into insanity and ends up seeing herself in ghostly form in a unnerving sequence. There seems to be an incessant 60Hz buzz of power lines that scribble their way across the sky.
Serial Experiments Lain is for sale in the USA on DVD and VHS. I've heard there is a Playstation Lain game which seems like too weird an idea for me to even imagine.
