Serial Experiments Lain

[Terriermon]

I’ve seen some people with lain pfps, which made me rewatch this show, it’s a very confusing one so I would like to hear your opinions and theories on it. Favorite episode? What was the alien scene about? Will Despera ever get released?

Please refrain from mentioning the fact that trannys like this anime, everybody knows that already.

 

[babadook]

Tranny show

 

[Nicholas II of Russia]

And you don't seem to understand.

 

[MGRaiden]

The biggest example of a show being so famous, yet, no one watches it. It's up there with evangelion.

 

[Mr.Neutron]

I like it a lot. The concept of human connection is driven home best by her sister "Disconnecting" from the world around here. Very evocative show.

Plus it's short. I can't stand animes that drag on for way too long.

 

[C L E O]

I watched it before the troons co-opted it.

 

[ibeatmywife]

Be less gay, avoid anime

 

[Dreamland]

Heibane and Texhnolyse were more enjoyable, sorry

 

[Tiffany Skylar Johnston]

AND YOU DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND
A SHAME YOU SEEMED AN HONEST MAN
AND ALL THOSE 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 DONT EVEN FEEL A THING

I AM FALLING
I AM FADING
I HAVE LOST IT ALL

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

 

[Mr.Neutron]

View attachment 7228643

I watched it before the troons co-opted it.

>Me when other people I don't like also enjoy the things I like

 

[Rigor Meowtis]

The one where she eats cereal.

 

[Mr.Neutron]

In all seriousness though. Serial Experiments Lain covers some interesting themes.

I believe Lain is supposed to be a representation of God, of how all of our conscious experiences come together to form a godlike being. A representation of collective thought/experiences. In the earlier episodes Lain doesn't understand how there are so many different versions of herself with vastly different personalities, but by the end, her true self remains. She eventually consolidates herself into a singular being. For a normal person, this is impossible. To quote a Japanese proverb:

"The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and your family. The third face, you never show anyone"

Maybe not super well written or thought out, but that's what I gleaned.

 

[Schwarzwald]

It's a convoluted pseudo-intellectual mess with some interesting concepts that ultimately fails massively in execution. It was meant to be a polarizing exploration of Japanese and American attitudes towards new technology, globalization, and westernization, and it ended up a bizarre disjointed edgy chimera of works being pulled in ten different directions that mostly resonates with those with middle school brooding outlooks on life.

At least they tried something different and I'll give them credit for making something truly unique, but they really missed the mark versus what they were going for I think. It's an artistic and societal statement that didn't land or resonate as much as it's a cohesive narrative and story. Not the most offensive work produced by Japan by anime standards, however.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I dug the fuck out of Lain when it was the new hotness and my nerd crew included enough Coast To Coast and techie people that we were able to get a lot of the weirder shit, like one of us ran with the Knights of the Lambda Calculus when he was at MIT so he just about plotzed to see them referenced.

 

[Tablet County]

I love that the dissolution of 4chan means more animefags. Really breaks up all the circlejerking about how anime is for gay tranny pedophiles.






Anime is gay though, it just isn't for tranny pedophiles.

 

[Terriermon]

The biggest example of a show being so famous, yet, no one watches it. It's up there with evangelion.

Yeah, I noticed that a lot recently, when I’ve had discussions with people about this show I will mention certain scenes and they don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, sometimes they end up admitting that they didn’t finish it because it was boring or they just read the plot summary on Wikipedia.

Heibane and Texhnolyse were more enjoyable, sorry

I agree that haibane renmei is more interesting and has a story that is much more comprehensible, probably because it was written by a different guy. I haven’t seen texhnolyze yet, is it worth watching?

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Lain came out at a time when the Internet was just becoming mainstream, and some folks were savvy to have the foresight to say "Don't let this take over your life, it's not real, it's just a tool", and then kids began to grow up on the Internet years later because no one ever fucking listens to the skitzos for their grains of wisdom.

Seriously, the episode that shows kids playing an online game but in the real world because they literally cannot differentiate between reality and the Wired is harrowing because that shit happens now. It was almost incomprehensible to think about back then, so it was a twinge of psychological horror as a result. Now it's just downright horror.

Konaka J. Chiaki really and truly needed to make more anime, his outlook on the digital world (not just a Digimon reference) is so fascinating and so very Y2K in nature.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

@Terriermon

Will Despera ever get released?

No, it's been almost 20 years since the idea started floating around and (despite Konaka saying that he has most of the funding already) he hasn't shown anything new about the show. It also underwent an almost complete rewrite which makes this a Ship of Theseus situation

 

[A Very Big Fish]

I have never watched it, but from what I've gathered, it's a show for transsexuals, schizophrenics, and transsexual schizophrenics.

 

[Mr.Neutron]

I have never watched it, but from what I've gathered, it's a show for transsexuals, schizophrenics, and transsexual schizophrenics.

It's all on the Internet Archive and its maybe 3-4 hours of your time. Take a chance.