Serial Experiments Lain
Encyclopedia
Serial Experiments Lain is an anime
series directed by Ryutaro Nakamura
, original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe
, screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka
, and produced by Yasuyuki Ueda
(credited as production 2nd) for Triangle Staff
. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo
from July to September 1998. A PlayStation game with the same title was released in November 1998 by Pioneer LDC
.
Lain is an avant-garde
anime influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality
, identity
, and communication
. The series focuses on Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired, a global communications network
similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her cold mother, and her computer-obsessed father. The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda, a schoolmate who committed suicide. When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just "abandoned the flesh", and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a path which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.
The anime series was licensed in North America by Geneon
(formerly Pioneer Entertainment) on DVD
, VHS
and LaserDisc
. However, Geneon closed its USA division in December 2007 and the series went out-of-print as a result. However, at Anime Expo
2010, North American distributor Funimation Entertainment
announced that it has licensed the series and will be re-released in 2011. It was also released in Singapore
by Odex
. The video game, which shares only the themes and protagonist with the series, was never released outside Japan.
The series demonstrates influences embracing philosophy
, computer history, cyberpunk
literature and conspiracy theory
, and it was made the subject of several academic articles. English language anime reviewers found it to be "weird" and unusual, with generally positive reviews. Producer Ueda said he intended Japanese and American audiences to form conflicting views on the series, but was disappointed in this regard, as the impressions turned out to be similar.
, created with the telegraph and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet and subsequent networks. The anime assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann resonance
, a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long distance communications. If such a link was created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus
of all perceptions and knowledge. The thin line between what is real and what is possible would then begin to blur.
Eiri Masami is introduced as the project director on Protocol 7 (the next generation internet protocol in the series' timeframe) for major computer company Tachibana Labs. He has secretly included code
of his own creation to give himself control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded" his consciousness
into the Wired and died in real life a few days after. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story of Serial Experiments Lain begins. Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to get to the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love
, charm, fate, and, when all else fails, threats and force.
In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the "Knights of the Eastern Calculus", hackers who Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a God in the Wired", and Tachibana Labs, who try to regain control of Protocol 7. In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection
, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone's memories. She is last seen unchanged – re-encountering her old friend Alice, who is now married. Lain promises herself that she will look after Alice.
The "Office Worker"
The Men in Black
Producer Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement made in an Animerica
interview. The controversial statement said Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we[Japan] adopted after World War II
".
He later explained in numerous interviews that he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. When he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.
The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda
said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products." The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A doujinshi named "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook Omnipresence in The Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.
in an interview, arguing that he had not seen Evangelion until he finished the fourth episode of Lain. Being primarily a horror movies writer, his stated influences are Godard
(especially for using typography on screen), The Exorcist
, Hell House, and Dan Curtis
's House of Dark Shadows
. Alice's name, like the names of her two friends Julie and Reika, came from a previous production from Konaka, Alice in Cyberland, which in turn was largely influenced by Alice in Wonderland. As the series developed, Konaka was "surprised" by how close Alice's character became to the original Wonderland character.
Vannevar Bush
(and Memex
), John C. Lilly
, Timothy Leary
and his 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness
, Ted Nelson
and Project Xanadu
are cited as precursors to the Wired. Douglas Rushkoff
and his book Cyberia
were originally to be cited as such, and in Lain Cyberia became the name of a nightclub populated with hackers and techno-punk teenagers. Likewise, the series' Deus ex machina
lies in the conjunction of the Schumann resonance
and Jung's
collective unconscious
(the authors chose this term over Kabbalah
and Akashic Record). Majestic 12
and the Roswell UFO incident
are used as examples of how a hoax might still have an impact on history, even after having been exposed as such, by creating sub-cultures. This links again to Vannevar Bush, the alleged "brains" of MJ12. Two of the literary references in Lain are quoted through Lain's father: he first logs onto a website with the password "Think Bule Count One Tow" ("Think Blue, Count Two
" is an Instrumentality of Man
story featuring virtual persons projected as real ones in people's minds); and his saying that "madeleines would be good with the tea" in the last episode makes Lain "one of the only cartoons ever to allude to Proust
".
Yoshitoshi ABe
confesses to have never read manga as a child, as it was "off-limits" in his household. His major influences are "nature and everything around him". Specifically speaking about Lains character, ABe was inspired by Kenji Tsuruta
, Akihiro Yamada
, Range Murata
, and Yukinobu Hoshino
. In a broader view, he has been influenced in his style and technique by Japanese artists Chinai-san and Tabuchi-san.
The character design of Lain was not ABe's sole responsibility. Her distinctive left forelock for instance was a demand from Yasuyuki Ueda. The goal was to produce asymmetry to reflect Lain's unstable and disconcerting nature. It was designed as a mystical symbol, as it is supposed to prevent voices and spirits from being heard by the left ear. The bear pajamas she wears were a demand from character animation
director Takahiro Kishida. Though bears are a trademark of the Konaka brothers, Chiaki Konaka first opposed the idea. Director Nakamura then explained how the bear motif could be used as a shield for confrontations with her family. It is a key element of the design of the shy "real world" Lain (see "mental illness" under themes). When she first goes to the Cyberia night club
, she wears a bear hat for similar reasons. The pajamas were finally considered as possible fan-service
by Konaka, in the way they enhance Lain's nymph
aspect.
ABe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen. As an example, the X-shaped hairclip was to be an interlocking pattern of gold links. The links would open with a snap, or rotate around an axis until the moment the " X " became a " = ". This was not used as there is no scene where Lain takes her hairclip off.
Communication
, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series, not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience — and particularly viewers between 14 and 15 — "the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self
: the relationship between self and the world".
Loneliness
, if only as representing a lack of communication, is recurrent through Lain. Lain herself (according to Anime Jump) is "almost painfully introverted with no friends to speak of at school, a snotty, condescending sister, a strangely-apathetic mother, and a father who seems to want to care but is just too damn busy to give her much of his time". Friendships turn on the first rumor; and the only insert song of the series is named Kodoku no shigunaru, literally "signal of loneliness".
Mental illness
, especially dissociative identity disorder
, is a significant theme in Lain: the main character is constantly confronted with alter-egos, to the point where writer Chiaki Konaka and Lain's voice actress Kaori Shimizu had to agree on subdividing the character's dialogues between three different orthographs
. The three names designate distinct "versions" of Lain: the real-world, "childish" Lain has a shy attitude and bear pajamas. The "advanced" Lain, her Wired personality, is bold and questioning. Finally, the "evil" Lain is sly and devious, and does everything she can to harm Lain or the ones close to her. As a writing convention, the authors spelled their respective names in kanji
, katakana
, and roman
characters (see picture).
Reality
never has the pretense of objectivity in Lain. Acceptations of the term are battling throughout the series, such as the "natural" reality, defined through normal dialogue between individuals; the material reality; and the tyrannic reality, enforced by one person onto the minds of others. A key debate to all interpretations of the series is to decide whether matter flows from thought, or the opposite. The production staff carefully avoided "the so-called God's Eye Viewpoint" to make clear the "limited field of vision" of the world of Lain.
Theology
plays its part in the development of the story too. Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body. From self-realization as a goddess to deicide
, religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lains background.
, as the brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff, such as writers, producers, and the graphical team. As an example, the title at the beginning of each episode is announced by the Apple Computer Speech synthesis
program PlainTalk
, using the voice "Whisper". Tachibana Industries, the company that creates the NAVI computers, is a reference to Apple computers: "tachibana" means "Mandarin orange" in Japanese. NAVI is the abbreviation of Knowledge Navigator
, and the HandiNAVI is based on the Apple Newton
, one of the world's first PDA
s. The NAVIs are seen to run "Copland OS Enterprise" (this reference to Copland
was an initiative of Konaka
, a declared Apple fan), and Lain's and Alice's NAVIs closely resembles the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
and the iMac
respectively. The HandiNAVI programming language, as seen on the sixth episode, is a dialect of Lisp. Notice that the Newton also used a Lisp dialect (NewtonScript). The program being typed by Lain can be found in the CMU
AI
repository, it is a simple implementation of Conway's Game of Life
in Common Lisp
.
During a series of disconnected images, an iMac and the Think Different
advertising slogan appears for a short time, while the Whisper voice says it. This was an unsolicited insertion from the graphic team, also Mac-enthusiasts. Other subtle allusions can be found: "Close the world, Open the nExt" is the slogan for the Serial Experiments Lain video game. NeXT
was the company that produced NeXTSTEP
, which later evolved into Mac OS X
after Apple bought NeXT. Another example is "To Be Continued." at the end of episodes 1–12, with a blue "B" and a red "e" on "Be": this "Be" is the original logo of Be Inc.
, NeXT's main competitor in its time.
on 6 July 1998 and concluded on 28 September 1998 with the thirteenth and final episode. The series consists of 13 episodes (referred to in the series as "Layers") of 24 minutes each, except for the sixth episode, Kids (23 minutes 14 seconds). In Japan, the episodes were released in LD
, VHS
, and DVD
with a total of five volumes. A DVD compilation named "Serial Experiments Lain DVD-BOX Яesurrection" was released along with a promo DVD called "LPR-309" in 2000. As this box set is now discontinued, a rerelease was made in 2005 called "Serial Experiments Lain TV-BOX". A 4-volume DVD box set was released in the US by Pioneer/Geneon. A Blu-ray release of the anime was made on December 2009 called "Serial Experiments Lain Blu-ray Box | RESTORE".
The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British band Bôa
. The ending theme, "Tooi Sakebi" (Distant Scream), was written and composed by Reichi Nakaido
.
: the ending theme and part of the television series' score. The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British rock band Bôa
. The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica
songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme 'Duvet'. The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of two CDs with more than forty-five tracks, containing ambient music from the series. One of the CDs is a mixed-mode data and audio disk, containing a clock program and a game. It was released by Pioneer Records. Because the word bootleg
appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition
of itself, which contains one CD of forty-five tracks, some of which are shorter than on the original.
. It was designed by Konaka and Yasuyuki, and made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story. The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware", and it has been described as being a kind of graphic novel
: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock. Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected. The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that he would have to sort through, and that he would have to do with less than what exists to understand. As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her". A guidebook to the game called Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide (ISBN 4-07-310083-1) was released the same month by MediaWorks
.
_screenshot_01.jpg)
Lain was first broadcast in Tokyo
at 1:15 a.m. JST
. The word "weird" appears almost systematically in English language reviews of the series, or the alternatives "bizarre", and "atypical", due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction themes, and due to its philosophical and psychological context. Critics responded positively to these thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival
for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions" it asks. According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA
, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". Nutt saluted ABe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series, saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime." Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5, and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on all criteria for volume 1 and 2, and a mix of A and A+ for volume 3 and 4.
Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet". It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools (see picture). It notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo. The Anime Essentials anthology by Gilles Poitras
describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop
. Professor Susan J. Napier
, in her 2003 reading to the American Philosophical Society
called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation (published 2005), compared Serial Experiments Lain to Ghost in the Shell
and Hayao Miyazaki
's Spirited Away
. According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain cannot. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'".
Unlike the anime, the video game drew little attention from the public. Criticized for its (lack of) gameplay, as well as for its "clunky interface", interminable dialogues, absence of music and very long loading times, it was nonetheless remarked for its (at the time) remarkable CG graphics, and its beautiful backgrounds.
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series directed by Ryutaro Nakamura
Ryutaro Nakamura
' is a Japanese Director and Animator, best known for directing the landmark anime series Serial Experiments Lain, and for his collaboration with Masamune Shirow and Chiaki J. Konaka on Ghost Hound...
, original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe
Yoshitoshi ABe
is a Japanese graphic artist who works predominantly in anime and manga. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. His works have an edgy style due to, among other things, his not using a ruler while drawing as is usual for most anime-style art....
, screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka
Chiaki J. Konaka
, born April 4, 1961) is a Japanese writer and scenarist best known for Serial Experiments Lain, and later for the Digimon season, Digimon Tamers....
, and produced by Yasuyuki Ueda
Yasuyuki Ueda
Yasuyuki Ueda is a Japanese producer, who has worked on such projects as Serial Experiments Lain . He was a director for the Noel video game, worked on the Lain video game, and also on WachenRoder for the Sega Saturn...
(credited as production 2nd) for Triangle Staff
Triangle Staff
Triangle Staff is a Japanese animation studio, contributing to such productions as Serial Experiments Lain, Slayers, and NieA under 7.-Works:*Boogiepop Phantom : Animation*Catnapped! The Movie : Animation Production, Planning...
. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo
TV Tokyo
is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...
from July to September 1998. A PlayStation game with the same title was released in November 1998 by Pioneer LDC
Geneon
is a Japanese music, anime and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Geneon has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime in Japan...
.
Lain is an avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
anime influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
, identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
, and communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
. The series focuses on Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired, a global communications network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her cold mother, and her computer-obsessed father. The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda, a schoolmate who committed suicide. When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just "abandoned the flesh", and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a path which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.
The anime series was licensed in North America by Geneon
Geneon
is a Japanese music, anime and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Geneon has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime in Japan...
(formerly Pioneer Entertainment) on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and LaserDisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
. However, Geneon closed its USA division in December 2007 and the series went out-of-print as a result. However, at Anime Expo
Anime Expo
Anime Expo, abbreviated AX, is an American anime convention held in Los Angeles, California and organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation . With rare exceptions, the convention is traditionally held on the July 4th weekend and lasts for four days...
2010, North American distributor Funimation Entertainment
Funimation Entertainment
Funimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...
announced that it has licensed the series and will be re-released in 2011. It was also released in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
by Odex
Odex
Odex Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-based company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional Southeast Asian consumption. It was registered in 1998 to license, import and release overseas drama and animation into Singapore. It began distribution in 2000...
. The video game, which shares only the themes and protagonist with the series, was never released outside Japan.
The series demonstrates influences embracing philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, computer history, cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
literature and conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
, and it was made the subject of several academic articles. English language anime reviewers found it to be "weird" and unusual, with generally positive reviews. Producer Ueda said he intended Japanese and American audiences to form conflicting views on the series, but was disappointed in this regard, as the impressions turned out to be similar.
Plot
Serial Experiments Lain describes "the Wired" as the sum of human communication networksTelecommunications network
A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect together to enable telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections...
, created with the telegraph and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet and subsequent networks. The anime assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann resonance
Schumann resonance
The Schumann resonances are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum...
, a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long distance communications. If such a link was created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus
Consensus reality
Consensus reality is an approach to answering the philosophical question "What is real?" It gives a practical answer: reality is either what exists, or what we can agree seems to exist....
of all perceptions and knowledge. The thin line between what is real and what is possible would then begin to blur.
Eiri Masami is introduced as the project director on Protocol 7 (the next generation internet protocol in the series' timeframe) for major computer company Tachibana Labs. He has secretly included code
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
of his own creation to give himself control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded" his consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
into the Wired and died in real life a few days after. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story of Serial Experiments Lain begins. Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to get to the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love
Unconditional love
Unconditional love is a term that means to love someone regardless of one's actions or beliefs. It is a concept comparable to true love, a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers. By contrast, unconditional love is frequently used to describe love between family members,...
, charm, fate, and, when all else fails, threats and force.
In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the "Knights of the Eastern Calculus", hackers who Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a God in the Wired", and Tachibana Labs, who try to regain control of Protocol 7. In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection
Introspection
Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone's memories. She is last seen unchanged – re-encountering her old friend Alice, who is now married. Lain promises herself that she will look after Alice.
Characters
- Lain, the main character, is a 14 year old girl who uncovers her true nature through the series. She is first depicted as a shy junior high school student with few friends or interests. She later grows multiple, bolder personalities, both in the physical and Wired worlds.
- The key designer of Protocol 7. While working for Tachibana Labs, he illicitly included code enabling him to control the whole protocol at will and "embedded" his own consciousness in the protocol. Consequently, he was fired by Tachibana Labs and was soon found dead on a railway. He believes the only way for humans to evolve further is to absolve themselves from their physical limitations and live as digital entities.
- Passionate about computers and electronic communication, he is shown as working with Eiri Masami at Tachibana Labs. He subtly pushes Lain, his daughter, towards the Wired and monitors her development until she becomes aware of her condition. He leaves her telling her that he did not enjoy playing a family, but did love her. He seems eager to lure her into the Wired, but warns her not to get overly involved in it.
- Lain's mother, a caring housewife and mother. She always dotes on Mika, but treats Lain indifferently. Like her husband, she also leaves Lain and wasn't really a part of the familiy.
- Lain's classmate and her only true friend throughout the series, Alice is a devoted confidante and has a simple, sincere personality. She is the first to attempt to help Lain socialise by taking her to a nightclub, and from this point always tries to protect and take care of her. Alice is introduced as the shyest part of a junior high school trio, but her character development shows a fearless dedication to her friends. Alice, along with her friends Juri and Reika, were taken by Chiaki Konaka from his previous work, "Alice in Cyberland".
- Lain's older sister, an apathetic 16 year old student who casually picks on her little sister's habits and behavior. Mika is considered by Anime Revolution to be the only normal member of Lain's family: She sees her boyfriend in love hotelLove hotelA love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy for sexual activities...
s, is on a diet, and shops in ShibuyaShibuya, Tokyois one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km²....
. At a certain point in the series, her consciousness is seriously damaged by violent hallucinations: While Lain begins freely delving into the Wired, Mika is taken there by her proximity to Lain and gets stuck between the physical world and the Wired.
- A young boy of about Lain's age, who occasionally works for the Knights to bring forth "the one truth". He has not yet been made a member, and is unaware of their full intentions. Taro loves virtual reality video games and hangs out all day at the Cyberia night-club with his friends, Myu-Myu and Masayuki. He uses special technology, such as custom HandiNavis and video goggles. Taro takes pride in his internet anonymity, and asks Lain for a date with her Wired self in exchange for information.
The "Office Worker"
- A top executive from Tachibana Labs who has his own agenda, which he carries out through the use of the Men in Black. He looks forward to the arrival of a real God through the Wired, and is the man behind the Knights' mass assassination. He is aware of many hidden facts about Lain, but is more inclined to ask questions than to reveal anything.
The Men in Black
Men in Black
Men in Black , in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen. It is sometimes implied that they may be aliens themselves...
- ,
- Sui-Xi Lin ,
- Both men work for the above "Office Worker" in tracking down and murdering all of the Knights. They are not told the true plan, but they know that Eiri Masami is involved. They say that they "don't need a Wired God".
Production
Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda.Producer Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement made in an Animerica
Animerica
Animerica is a quarterly digest published by Viz Media. It initially started as a monthly magazine featuring reviews of anime and manga titles, as well as related works. After a preview issue was released in November 1992, the magazine's first issue was released in February 1993 with a March 1993...
interview. The controversial statement said Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
".
He later explained in numerous interviews that he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. When he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.
The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda
Yasuyuki Ueda
Yasuyuki Ueda is a Japanese producer, who has worked on such projects as Serial Experiments Lain . He was a director for the Noel video game, worked on the Lain video game, and also on WachenRoder for the Sega Saturn...
said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products." The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A doujinshi named "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook Omnipresence in The Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.
Writing
The authors have been asked in interviews if they had been influenced by Neon Genesis Evangelion, in the themes and graphic design. This was strictly denied by writer Chiaki J. KonakaChiaki J. Konaka
, born April 4, 1961) is a Japanese writer and scenarist best known for Serial Experiments Lain, and later for the Digimon season, Digimon Tamers....
in an interview, arguing that he had not seen Evangelion until he finished the fourth episode of Lain. Being primarily a horror movies writer, his stated influences are Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
(especially for using typography on screen), The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
, Hell House, and Dan Curtis
Dan Curtis
Dan Curtis was an American director and producer of television and film, probably best known for his miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, his afternoon TV series Dark Shadows, and the made for TV movie, . Dark Shadows originally aired from 1966 to 1971 and has aired in syndication...
's House of Dark Shadows
House of Dark Shadows
House of Dark Shadows is a 1970 feature-length horror film directed by Dan Curtis based on his Dark Shadows television series. Filming took place at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, New York with additional footage at nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery: parts of the locals appeared on the Dark Shadows series as...
. Alice's name, like the names of her two friends Julie and Reika, came from a previous production from Konaka, Alice in Cyberland, which in turn was largely influenced by Alice in Wonderland. As the series developed, Konaka was "surprised" by how close Alice's character became to the original Wonderland character.
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
(and Memex
Memex
The memex is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think...
), John C. Lilly
John C. Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
, Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
and his 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness
8-Circuit Model of Consciousness
The eight-circuit model of consciousness is a theory in psychology, first proposed by Timothy Leary. It consists of several quantum psychological systems that unify the various interpretations of the main altered states of consciousness into one coherent meta-theory...
, Ted Nelson
Ted Nelson
Theodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published it in 1965...
and Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it an improvement over the World Wide Web, with mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper...
are cited as precursors to the Wired. Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
and his book Cyberia
Cyberia (book)
Cyberia is a book by Douglas Rushkoff, published in 1994. The book discusses many different ideas revolving around technology, drugs and subcultures. Rushkoff takes a Tom Wolfe Electric Kool Aid Acid Test style , as he actively becomes a part of the people and culture that he is writing about...
were originally to be cited as such, and in Lain Cyberia became the name of a nightclub populated with hackers and techno-punk teenagers. Likewise, the series' Deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
lies in the conjunction of the Schumann resonance
Schumann resonance
The Schumann resonances are a set of spectrum peaks in the extremely low frequency portion of the Earth's electromagnetic field spectrum...
and Jung's
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
collective unconscious
Collective unconscious
Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience...
(the authors chose this term over Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
and Akashic Record). Majestic 12
Majestic 12
Majestic 12 is the alleged code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman...
and the Roswell UFO incident
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
are used as examples of how a hoax might still have an impact on history, even after having been exposed as such, by creating sub-cultures. This links again to Vannevar Bush, the alleged "brains" of MJ12. Two of the literary references in Lain are quoted through Lain's father: he first logs onto a website with the password "Think Bule Count One Tow" ("Think Blue, Count Two
The Rediscovery of Man
The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith is a 1993 book containing the complete collected short fiction of science fiction author Cordwainer Smith. It was edited by James A...
" is an Instrumentality of Man
Instrumentality of Mankind
In the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith, the Instrumentality of Mankind refers both to Smith's personal future history and universe and to the central government of humanity...
story featuring virtual persons projected as real ones in people's minds); and his saying that "madeleines would be good with the tea" in the last episode makes Lain "one of the only cartoons ever to allude to Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
".
Character design
Yoshitoshi ABe
is a Japanese graphic artist who works predominantly in anime and manga. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. His works have an edgy style due to, among other things, his not using a ruler while drawing as is usual for most anime-style art....
confesses to have never read manga as a child, as it was "off-limits" in his household. His major influences are "nature and everything around him". Specifically speaking about Lains character, ABe was inspired by Kenji Tsuruta
Kenji Tsuruta
is a Japanese manga artist. Among his most famous works is the science fiction series Spirit of Wonder, which has been adapted into an anime series and brought him much acclaim.-Profile:...
, Akihiro Yamada
Akihiro Yamada
is a Japanese illustrator and manga artist. He was born in Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan, and now resides in Kyoto. Yamada is known for delicate images reminiscent of suiboku and depiction of fantasy subjects...
, Range Murata
Range Murata
is a Japanese artist and designer, known for his unique style combining Art Deco and Japanese anime elements. He is best known for his conceptual design work on anime series Last Exile and Blue Submarine No. 6....
, and Yukinobu Hoshino
Yukinobu Hoshino
is a Japanese manga artist. He was born in Kushiro, Hokkaidō and dropped out of Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music mid-semester from the fine arts department. He made his debut in 1975 with Kotetsu no Queen and with Harukanaru Asa won the Tezuka prize for an outstanding manga. On...
. In a broader view, he has been influenced in his style and technique by Japanese artists Chinai-san and Tabuchi-san.
The character design of Lain was not ABe's sole responsibility. Her distinctive left forelock for instance was a demand from Yasuyuki Ueda. The goal was to produce asymmetry to reflect Lain's unstable and disconcerting nature. It was designed as a mystical symbol, as it is supposed to prevent voices and spirits from being heard by the left ear. The bear pajamas she wears were a demand from character animation
Character animation
Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process concerning the animation of one or more characters featured in an animated work. It is usually as one aspect of a larger production and often made to enhance voice acting. The primary role of a Character Animator is to be the...
director Takahiro Kishida. Though bears are a trademark of the Konaka brothers, Chiaki Konaka first opposed the idea. Director Nakamura then explained how the bear motif could be used as a shield for confrontations with her family. It is a key element of the design of the shy "real world" Lain (see "mental illness" under themes). When she first goes to the Cyberia night club
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
, she wears a bear hat for similar reasons. The pajamas were finally considered as possible fan-service
Fan service
, fanservice, or , is a term originating from anime and manga fandom for material in a series which is intentionally added to please the audience. It is about "servicing" the fan - giving the fans "exactly what they want"...
by Konaka, in the way they enhance Lain's nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
aspect.
ABe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen. As an example, the X-shaped hairclip was to be an interlocking pattern of gold links. The links would open with a snap, or rotate around an axis until the moment the " X " became a " = ". This was not used as there is no scene where Lain takes her hairclip off.
Themes
Serial Experiments Lain is not a conventionally linear story, but "an alternative anime, with modern themes and realization". Themes range from theological to psychological and are dealt with in a number of ways: from classical dialogue to image-only introspection, passing by direct interrogation of imaginary characters.Communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series, not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience — and particularly viewers between 14 and 15 — "the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
: the relationship between self and the world".
Loneliness
Loneliness
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience...
, if only as representing a lack of communication, is recurrent through Lain. Lain herself (according to Anime Jump) is "almost painfully introverted with no friends to speak of at school, a snotty, condescending sister, a strangely-apathetic mother, and a father who seems to want to care but is just too damn busy to give her much of his time". Friendships turn on the first rumor; and the only insert song of the series is named Kodoku no shigunaru, literally "signal of loneliness".
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, especially dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
, is a significant theme in Lain: the main character is constantly confronted with alter-egos, to the point where writer Chiaki Konaka and Lain's voice actress Kaori Shimizu had to agree on subdividing the character's dialogues between three different orthographs
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. The three names designate distinct "versions" of Lain: the real-world, "childish" Lain has a shy attitude and bear pajamas. The "advanced" Lain, her Wired personality, is bold and questioning. Finally, the "evil" Lain is sly and devious, and does everything she can to harm Lain or the ones close to her. As a writing convention, the authors spelled their respective names in kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
, katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
, and roman
Romanization of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...
characters (see picture).
Reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
never has the pretense of objectivity in Lain. Acceptations of the term are battling throughout the series, such as the "natural" reality, defined through normal dialogue between individuals; the material reality; and the tyrannic reality, enforced by one person onto the minds of others. A key debate to all interpretations of the series is to decide whether matter flows from thought, or the opposite. The production staff carefully avoided "the so-called God's Eye Viewpoint" to make clear the "limited field of vision" of the world of Lain.
Theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
plays its part in the development of the story too. Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body. From self-realization as a goddess to deicide
Deicide
Deicide is the killing of a god. The term deicide was coined in the 17th century from medieval Latin *deicidium, from de-us "god" and -cidium "cutting, killing")...
, religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lains background.
Apple computers
Lain contains extensive references to Apple computersApple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, as the brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff, such as writers, producers, and the graphical team. As an example, the title at the beginning of each episode is announced by the Apple Computer Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
program PlainTalk
PlainTalk
PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc.In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many respected researchers in the field. The result was "PlainTalk", released with the...
, using the voice "Whisper". Tachibana Industries, the company that creates the NAVI computers, is a reference to Apple computers: "tachibana" means "Mandarin orange" in Japanese. NAVI is the abbreviation of Knowledge Navigator
Knowledge Navigator
The Knowledge Navigator is a concept described by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley in his 1987 book, Odyssey. It describes a device that can access a large networked database of hypertext information, and use software agents to assist searching for information.Apple produced several concept...
, and the HandiNAVI is based on the Apple Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
, one of the world's first PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
s. The NAVIs are seen to run "Copland OS Enterprise" (this reference to Copland
Copland (operating system)
Copland was a project at Apple Computer to create an updated version of the Macintosh operating system. It was to have introduced protected memory, preemptive multitasking and a number of new underlying operating system features, yet still be compatible with existing Mac software...
was an initiative of Konaka
Chiaki J. Konaka
, born April 4, 1961) is a Japanese writer and scenarist best known for Serial Experiments Lain, and later for the Digimon season, Digimon Tamers....
, a declared Apple fan), and Lain's and Alice's NAVIs closely resembles the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
Apple's Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh is a limited-edition personal computer that was released in 1997 in celebration of the company's 20th birthday....
and the iMac
IMac
The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....
respectively. The HandiNAVI programming language, as seen on the sixth episode, is a dialect of Lisp. Notice that the Newton also used a Lisp dialect (NewtonScript). The program being typed by Lain can be found in the CMU
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
repository, it is a simple implementation of Conway's Game of Life
Conway's Game of Life
The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970....
in Common Lisp
Common Lisp
Common Lisp, commonly abbreviated CL, is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 , . From the ANSI Common Lisp standard the Common Lisp HyperSpec has been derived for use with web browsers...
.
During a series of disconnected images, an iMac and the Think Different
Think Different
"Think Different" is an advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 by the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day.It was used in a television commercial, several print advertisements and a number of TV promos for Apple products. Apple's use of the slogan was discontinued...
advertising slogan appears for a short time, while the Whisper voice says it. This was an unsolicited insertion from the graphic team, also Mac-enthusiasts. Other subtle allusions can be found: "Close the world, Open the nExt" is the slogan for the Serial Experiments Lain video game. NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
was the company that produced NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
, which later evolved into Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
after Apple bought NeXT. Another example is "To Be Continued." at the end of episodes 1–12, with a blue "B" and a red "e" on "Be": this "Be" is the original logo of Be Inc.
Be Inc.
Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the Be Operating System and BeBox personal computer. Be was founded by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée with capital from Seymour Cray....
, NeXT's main competitor in its time.
Anime
Serial Experiments Lain was first aired on TV TokyoTV Tokyo
is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...
on 6 July 1998 and concluded on 28 September 1998 with the thirteenth and final episode. The series consists of 13 episodes (referred to in the series as "Layers") of 24 minutes each, except for the sixth episode, Kids (23 minutes 14 seconds). In Japan, the episodes were released in LD
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
, VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
, and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
with a total of five volumes. A DVD compilation named "Serial Experiments Lain DVD-BOX Яesurrection" was released along with a promo DVD called "LPR-309" in 2000. As this box set is now discontinued, a rerelease was made in 2005 called "Serial Experiments Lain TV-BOX". A 4-volume DVD box set was released in the US by Pioneer/Geneon. A Blu-ray release of the anime was made on December 2009 called "Serial Experiments Lain Blu-ray Box | RESTORE".
The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British band Bôa
Bôa
Bôa are a British alternative/indie band formed in London in 1993 by drummer Ed Herten.Their latest album, Get There, was released on February 1, 2005. It took Bôa in a new direction, with more structure in lyrics and melody, as well as a more mellow, yet more harder-edged/indie-rock format...
. The ending theme, "Tooi Sakebi" (Distant Scream), was written and composed by Reichi Nakaido
Reichi Nakaido
, born , is a Japanese guitarist and singer best known for his association with influential rock band RC Succession.- Biography :Nakaido was born in Shinjuku, Tokyo in 1950....
.
Artbooks
- Omnipresence In The Wired: Hardbound, 128 pages in 96 colors with Japanese text. It features a chapter for each layer (episode) and concept sketches. It also features a short color mangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication". It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/SR-12W/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1343-1) - Yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in the Wired: Hardbound, 148 pages. A remake of "Omnipresence In The Wired" with new art, added text by Chiaki J. Konaka, and a section entitled "ABe's EYE in color of things" (a compilation of his photos of the world). It was published in Japan on 1/10/2005 by WANIMAGAZINE Co.,Ltd (ISBN 4-89829-487-1), and in America as a softcover version translated into English in July 2006 by Digital Manga Publishing (ISBN 1-56970-899-1).
- Visual Experiments Lain: Paperback, 80 full-color pages with Japanese text. It has details on the creation, design, and storyline of the series. It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1342-3)
- Scenario Experiments Lain: Paperback, 335 pages. By "chiaki j. konaka" (uncapitalized in original). It contains collected scripts with notes and small excerpted storyboards. (ISBN 4-7897-1320-2)
Soundtracks
The first original soundtrack, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack, features music by Reichi NakaidoReichi Nakaido
, born , is a Japanese guitarist and singer best known for his association with influential rock band RC Succession.- Biography :Nakaido was born in Shinjuku, Tokyo in 1950....
: the ending theme and part of the television series' score. The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British rock band Bôa
Bôa
Bôa are a British alternative/indie band formed in London in 1993 by drummer Ed Herten.Their latest album, Get There, was released on February 1, 2005. It took Bôa in a new direction, with more structure in lyrics and melody, as well as a more mellow, yet more harder-edged/indie-rock format...
. The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme 'Duvet'. The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of two CDs with more than forty-five tracks, containing ambient music from the series. One of the CDs is a mixed-mode data and audio disk, containing a clock program and a game. It was released by Pioneer Records. Because the word bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
of itself, which contains one CD of forty-five tracks, some of which are shorter than on the original.
Video game
On November 26, 1998, Pioneer LDC released a video game titled Serial Experiments Lain for the PlayStationPlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. It was designed by Konaka and Yasuyuki, and made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story. The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware", and it has been described as being a kind of graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock. Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected. The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that he would have to sort through, and that he would have to do with less than what exists to understand. As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her". A guidebook to the game called Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide (ISBN 4-07-310083-1) was released the same month by MediaWorks
MediaWorks (publisher)
was a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group known for their brand magazines and book labels. These included such well-known magazines as Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, along with MediaWorks' main light novel publishing imprint Dengeki Bunko. The company was merged with ASCII...
.
Reception
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
at 1:15 a.m. JST
Japan Standard Time
Japan Standard Time or JST is the standard timezone of Japan, and is 9 hours ahead of UTC. For example, when it is midnight in UTC, it is 09:00 in Japan Standard Time. There is no daylight saving time, though its introduction has been debated several times. Japan Standard Time is the same as...
. The word "weird" appears almost systematically in English language reviews of the series, or the alternatives "bizarre", and "atypical", due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction themes, and due to its philosophical and psychological context. Critics responded positively to these thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival
Japan Media Arts Festival
The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997. The festival for a nominal year was usually held during February or March next year, rather than at the end of the nominal year. For instance, the 2010 Japan Media Arts Festival, where...
for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions" it asks. According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA
Newtype (magazine)
is a monthly magazine publication originating from Japan, covering anime and manga . It was launched by publishing company Kadokawa Shoten on March 8, 1985 with its April issue, and has since seen regular release on the 10th of every month in its home country...
, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". Nutt saluted ABe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series, saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime." Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5, and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on all criteria for volume 1 and 2, and a mix of A and A+ for volume 3 and 4.
Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet". It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools (see picture). It notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo. The Anime Essentials anthology by Gilles Poitras
Gilles Poitras
Gilles Poitras is an author of books relating to anime and manga. He is a librarian at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California...
describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop
is a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...
. Professor Susan J. Napier
Susan J. Napier
Dr. Susan Jolliffe Napier is Professor of the Japanese Program at Tufts University. She was formerly Professor of the Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin, and a visiting professor at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University...
, in her 2003 reading to the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation (published 2005), compared Serial Experiments Lain to Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell
is a Japanese multimedia franchise composed of manga, animated films, anime series, video games and novels. It focuses on the activities of the counter-terrorist organization Public Security Section 9 in a futuristic, cyberpunk Japan ....
and Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
's Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
. According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain cannot. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'".
Unlike the anime, the video game drew little attention from the public. Criticized for its (lack of) gameplay, as well as for its "clunky interface", interminable dialogues, absence of music and very long loading times, it was nonetheless remarked for its (at the time) remarkable CG graphics, and its beautiful backgrounds.
Further reading
- Napier, Susan J. (2005) Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation ISBN 978-1-4039-7052-7
- Prévost, Adèle-Elise; Musebasement (2008) "Manga: The Signal of Noise" MechademiaMechademia-Reception:Steve Raiteri from Library Journal commends Mechademia as a "great first effort [...] bridg[ing] the gap between academics and fans." Christophe Thouny, writing for Animation also thought the writing and tone was accessible by both academics and fans...
3 pp. 173–188 ISSN 1934-2489