Serial Experiments Lain

[Kari Kamiya]

sometimes they end up admitting that they didn’t finish it because it was boring or they just read the plot summary on Wikipedia.

I showed my mother SEL, and she bailed at episode ten, so she read up the ending on Wikipedia and said it was dumb.

'Course she's never really liked anime and is convinced it's done as cartoons on purpose to get the kids to watch it (despite knowing not all animation is Disney/Ghibli, she just can't comprehend/accept adult animation is entirely separate), but she was willing to watch some stuff with me if she was interested in continuing (wasn't often). Sometimes I wonder if my late-grandmother would've watched it all the way through with me.

 

[SquareNerd]

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Also binging the show in a hotel room on your laptop is an absolute mood. Recommended.

 

[Miller]

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

I've never watched the anime but I like this version of the theme:

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

A YouTube essayist did a full dive into the series, including the Japanese only PSX game that got outshined by the anime. It's standard case that it looks terrible to play, but holy shit it's brutal.

On the show, I remember seeing it and that's about it. Some iconic imagery but it was weird for weirdness sake.

 

[Dreamland]

I haven’t seen texhnolyze yet, is it worth watching?

Story density is somewhere between the two, and a lot darker. I heard someone say once that the series form a trifecta where:
Texhnolyse is about the limitations of the flesh.
Lain is about the challenges of the mind.
and Heibane is about the suffering of the soul.

Make of it what you will, I liked the series but i know many who don't.

 

[biglurker]

Its pretty good, and on the level of EVA in terms of being completely misunderstood. (trannys who only watched the dub especially)
What a bunch of stupid faggots won't tell you though is that it has terrible pacing.
If you aren't being carried by the story, visuals, and music you might as well stop watching because you will end up getting lost.

TL;DR for spoilers on its meaning. Although, you should go into Lain blind.
Its about the evils of replacing human interaction completely with technology, and how transhumanism is wrong/dehumanizing. I could go into austistic detail, but I don't feel like writing an essay right now.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

What a bunch of stupid faggots won't tell you though is that it has terrible pacing.

This is why it's best to binge as much as possible, or if you can't, you better have a damn good memory or be taking notes. Some stuff just will not be returned to.

I think 13 episodes was the right amount for a show like SEL but holy hell yes, it does move at a snail's pace. And it aired late at night at the 1 o'clock hour, I dunno how anyone managed to stay wide awake for it every week outside of being night owls themselves or hopped up on shit-ton of caffeine.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

duvet by boa my beloved

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

hopped up on shit-ton of caffeine.

Maybe that's the correct way to watch SEL

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

Yeah late night alone on a laptop is a very dank way to roll for Lain

 

[Two Hands]

Yeah late night alone on a laptop is a very dank way to roll for Lain

Agreed. I binged SEL abroad in the middle of no where all the way through the ass crack of dawn.

The obvious problem with SEL is the dogshit pacing, lack of action, and esoteric messages that will turn off regular anime-goers. It does not hold your hand, either you patiently watch and think critically, or drop it.

 

[Terriermon]

The obvious problem with SEL is the dogshit pacing, lack of action, and esoteric messages that will turn off regular anime-goers. It does not hold your hand, either you patiently watch and think critically, or drop it.

A lot of weebs really hate this type of storytelling, which is why almost every anime now is the same repetitive soulless slop. Lain was a breath of fresh air even for its time and I don’t think we will ever see the same kind of weirdness in an anime for a while, the only works I can think of that resemble that kind of weirdness and were made recently are from Masaaki Yuasa.

 

[Maniacal Foreigner]

 

[Dysnomia]

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.

Collective consciousness. It's also how some people have described "the light" you may see when you die. We're all one and stuff like that. It's been 15-20 years since I'm seen Lain. But I recall some explanation about how early man could naturally tap into collective consciousness but we lost it over time.

Anyway, I enjoyed the series and it's a shame that trannies have latched onto it like they do everything else.

 

[biggacracka]

Collective consciousness

THE UNENLIGHTENED MASSES

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

Agreed. I binged SEL abroad in the middle of no where all the way through the ass crack of dawn.

The obvious problem with SEL is the dogshit pacing, lack of action, and esoteric messages that will turn off regular anime-goers. It does not hold your hand, either you patiently watch and think critically, or drop it.

yeah it's more Coast To Coast AM The Animated Series than Another Anime About A Schoolgirl

Collective consciousness.

Spoiler: big spoilers probably

iirc it was something like, the new IPv6 protocol was made using Roswell tech directed towards the total Earth resonance, something something duct tape god guy, then Lain was created to implement it and her family was fake and in on it the whole time, and she is, in-fact the ayy-driven IPv6 incarnated and becomes sorta the new god probably replacing duct tape guy?

 

[BrunoMattei]

>Be me
>Working a shitty customer service job
>Introduced to chick at work
>Very cute bisexual chick who talks about hentai and declares Lain as her favorite show
>Suicide baits in work chat
>Makes out with another chick at work
>Watches Lain and gives her my bootleg DVD's of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
>Good show
>She's still not interested in a date
>Get fired shortly thereafter and never hear from her again
>Finds out later the show is a meme and watched almost entirely by gays and depressed people

That was a learning experience, boys. Something we've all gone through.

 

[LifeAlert]

it's terminally online fujoshis/trannies' favorite anime, if you see a lain avatar run away like the plague. no exceptions. the show itself is fine, I view the message as the real world and society are just as fake as the online world and that if the real world is so shitty that people are choosing to live online instead, something is clearly very wrong imo texhnolyze is inferior and falls apart the longer it goes on and haibane renmei looks like shit

 

[Caligura]

That's hypothesize what would a modern-day Lain reboot be like if it was made by Netflix and directed by that 'jeet who did the new DMC "anime".