what anime is lain from

by Dr. Jana Jenkins 6 min read
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Serial Experiments Lain

What is Serial Experiments Lain anime?

Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a 1998 Japanese experimental anime television series produced by Yasuyuki Ueda and animated by Triangle Staff. It was directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura and written by Chiaki J. Konaka , with original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe .

Who is lain in Serial Experiments?

Lain Iwakura ( 岩倉 玲音) is the titular character of Serial Experiments Lain . She is a sentient computer program designed to sever the barrier between the material world and the wired, introduced as a shy Japanese girl in middle school at the beginning of the series.

How old is lain in the anime?

The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-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.

What kind of character is lain?

The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-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 world and the Wired, and starts making more friends.

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Is Lain a good anime?

Lain is by far one of my favorite animes of all time. The story is deep, well thought out, and very entertaining throughout. The characters develop perfectly, the atmosphere is incredible, and the story is flawless. Some of the story is left slightly open ended, leaving the viewer to fill in his or her own conclusions.

What is Serial Experiments Lain based on?

Serial Experiments Lain deals directly with the definition of reality, which makes its complex plot difficult to summarize. The story is primarily based on the assumption that everything flows from human thought, memory, and consciousness.

Where did Lain come from?

At age 14, Lain was extremely online. Yes, she's a fictional character—a cartoon, even — but there is no more frightfully prescient web parable than her story, Serial Experiments Lain, the 13-episode anime series that first aired in Japan in July 1998.

What mental illness does Lain have?

Lain is, purely and simply, developing increasingly severe symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia throughout the series, and spends much of it confined for her own sake. Everyone's reactions to her are just as normal as real life, but are all filtered through Lain's hallucinations and delusions.

Is Serial Experiments Lain like Evangelion?

Serial Experiments Lain is often mistaken to have been made to chase the coat tails of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but the show's writer didn't even see Evangelion until the fourth episode of Lain. However, you can feel the essence later in the series, especially from Eva's last two episodes.

What is Monster anime?

An adaptation of a 1994 manga by Naoki Urasawa, Monster is a horror and psychological thriller anime that toys with the difficult themes of what it means to be human, if good and evil are within people from birth or if they are fostered over time, and how every action has a consequence that must be faced.

Is Lain a male or female name?

Lain Boy's name meaning, origin, and popularity.

How did Lain get a body?

During that time Masami somehow created artificial life, called Lain. She is actually the god of the Wired. What Eiri then tried was to manipulate her and get her under his control, so he can be the god. Lain gave herself a physical body and a fake family.

How many episodes of Lain are there?

13Serial Experiments Lain / Number of episodes

Why does Lain hallucinate?

Throughout the series, Lain is subjected to hallucinations by the Knights in order to make her lose her sense of self and attempt to find solace in the Wired, in order to fulfill the Knights' prophecy of the arrival of the goddess of the Wired.

Who are Lain's parents?

TIFFANY Coburn and Kenny Lain are the parents of Mercedes Lain, their child who was reported missing. On August 18, 2021, it was reported that Mercedes' body had been found.

Is the wired real?

The Wired is a world similar to the real world internet. It can be accessed through a Navi. The Wired is an interconnected network, similar to Internet. It is an advanced form of communication at the center of the story of Serial Experiments Lain.

Synopsis

Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda—the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide.

Background

Serial Experiments Lain won the Excellence Prize in the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival. It has been subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds such as the Asian Horror Encyclopedia and The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation by the American Philosophical Society.

What is the soundtrack for Serial Experiments Lain?

The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme "Duvet" by DJ Wasei. The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of the ambient score of the series across forty-five tracks. BOOTLEG also contains a second mixed-mode data and audio disc, containing a clock program and a game, as well as an extended version of the first disc – nearly double the length – across 57 tracks in 128 kbit/s MP3 format, and sound effects from the series in WAV format. Because the word bootleg appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition of itself, which only contains the first disc in an edited format. All three soundtrack albums were released by Pioneer Records .

What is the Lain franchise?

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".

How did ABe come up with Lain's hair?

ABe came up with Lain's hair by imagining Lain cutting it herself and making a ponytail of what was left. This was later included in his Omnipresence in the Wired artbook.

How old is Lain from Wired?

The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-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 world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually comes to discover that she is, in reality, merely an autonomous, sentient computer program in the physical and corporeal form of a human being, designed to sever the invisible barrier between the Wired and the real world. In the end, Lain is challenged to accept herself as a de facto goddess for the Wired, having become an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being with worshippers of her own, as well as an ability to exist beyond the borders of devices, time, or space.

What did Konaka say about Lain's pajamas?

Retrospectively, Konaka said that Lain's pajamas became a major factor in drawing fans of moe characterization to the series, and re marked that "such items may also be important when making anime". ABe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen.

Where does Lain Iwakura live?

Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father; Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from a dead student, Chisa Yomoda, and she pulls out her old computer in order to check for the same message. Lain finds Chisa telling her via email that she is not dead but has merely " abandoned her physical self " and is alive deep within the virtual realm of the Wired itself, where she claims she has found " God " there. From this point, Lain is caught up in a series of cryptic and surreal events that see her delving deeper into the mystery of the network in a narrative that explores themes of consciousness, perception, and the nature of reality.

What was the most important anime of the 1990s?

Mike Toole of Anime News Network named Serial Experiments Lain as one of the most important anime of the 1990s. Despite the positive feedback the television series had received, Anime Academy gave the series a 75%, partly due to the "lifeless" setting it had.

What is the Wild Lain?

Lain of the Wired. One time called the "Wild Lain" by Taro. She's a different persona of Lain that appears most of the time when Lain is investigating the Wired. She's no longer the introverted person that she usually is. She has an offensive attitude, an erect posture, and she's all wide-eyed and alert.

What episode is Bridget Hoffman in?

Bridget Hoffman (English) Debut. Episode 01. Lain Iwakura ( 岩倉 玲音) is the titular character of Serial Experiments Lain . She is a sentient computer program designed to sever the barrier between the material world and the wired, who is introduced as a shy Japanese girl in middle school at the beginning of the series.

What is Wild Lain called?

One time called the "Wild Lain" by Taro. She's a different persona of Lain that appears most of the time when Lain is investigating the Wired. She's no longer the introverted person that she usually is. She has an offensive attitude, an erect posture, and she's all wide-eyed and alert. She exudes self-confidence and thrives on facts over emotion.

Why does Lain have hallucinations?

Throughout the series, Lain is subjected to hallucinations by the Knights in order to make her lose her sense of self and attempt to find solace in the Wired, in order to fulfill the Knights' prophecy of the arrival of the goddess of the Wired.

Who did Lain chat with?

Lain responded to the mail and started to chat with Chisa about the Wired. This chat sparked Lain's interest of the Wired. After the chat, Chisa appeared before Lain two times but disappeared each time before having a conversation with her.

What is the purpose of serial experiments lain?

StoryIf the purpose of Serial Experiments Lain is to get your mind whirling, it succeeds. If its purpose is to get you thinking, not so much. This anime is a hit-or-miss philosophical cesspool that could either captivate or disgust. It’s like swallowing a series of shots that burn your throat and make you either drunkenly euphoric or nauseous.

What are some examples of Lain's family?

For example, Lain's family is very distant, but beyond a trait like "loves the Navi system", they don't have much going for them. Lain's friends are a bit like stock characters, except Arisu, who actually has a personality and flaws.

Is Lain a mindf*ck?

And while other anime slowly build to this point, like Evangelion or Paranoia Agent, Lain goes straight into the realm of mindf*ck in early episodes. However, as an older anime, it does suffer a bit from limited tools, but I would say it holds up to its more contemporary counterparts.

Is Lain an anime?

Once the truth is revealed, layer by layer, the plot begins to make sense. It isn't necessarily an anime that will make you question existance, in a way The Matrix might. Lain is more of a story about the potential of computers, in much the same wavelength as Ghost in the Shell.

Is Lain a reliable source of information?

The Knights are shown, living their daily lives, but are not given much exposition beyond their role in the Wired as a group. And the main character, Lain, isn't a reliable source of information. She's very difficult to relate to because of who/what she is. Still, I liked Lain, for all of her weirdness and flaws.

Is Lain's animation bad?

Animation: Here's the main part that Lain falls short. It's not that the animation is bad, it's just that the tools for the time period mean a lot of the animation is saturated.

Is the animation fluid?

Many scenes are too dark to make out detail, while others are light-bleached. The animation itself is rather fluid, though there are jerky movements from time to time (a lot of it intentional). There isn't a lot of detail to the faces, especially Lain's, and much of the scenery can be fairly bland.

What is serial experiment lain?

The 1998 anime series, Serial Experiments Lain has a strong cult following thanks to its unique blend of Cyberpunk and esoteric philosophy. What started as the story of a teenage girl becoming enthralled by a strange alternative version of the Internet called the Wired becomes a metaphorical story that examines our relations with technology.

What is protocol 7?

Protocol 7, Masami Eiri's masterplan to merge mankind's collective unconscious with the Wired, is a shout out that references the series' dual interest in Internet culture and esoteric philosophy. On the Internet side of things, Protocol 7 is a reference to the real word Internet Protocol version 6, the framework on which devices on ...

What is the Knights of Eastern Calculus?

The Knights Of The Eastern Calculus are a mysterious organization of hackers that seek to manipulate Lain into aiding the implementation of Protocol 7. The organization is also presented as the creators behind many of the advanced computer-related devices seen in the series.

What is the weird company name?

There are some more plot-relevant shout outs with Tachibana Lab, the company that invented the Weird. The company's name is a play on words with the Apple Macintosh. That play on words being that Tachibana is named after a type of orange native to Japan.

What is the book Cyberia about?

The book primarily deals with the growing subculture of internet users and how the Internet could lead to a new counterculture. The book also examined how the Internet could create something close to the esoteric concept of a global brain.

What OS does Lain use?

For example, Lain's first computer is based on the 20th Anniversary Macintosh. Also, all computer in the show uses an Operating System called Copland OS which is the same name as an unreleased OS created by Apple. There are some more plot-relevant shout outs with Tachibana Lab, the company that invented the Weird.

Why do the men in black look cyberpunk?

The reason why the Men in Black look very Cyberpunkish is due to their appearances being based on the character of Lagos from the Cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Most noticeably Lagos' headgear is described in the novel of being a pair of spec with one lense looking more complex than the other, nearly the same as the Men in Black.

How old is Lain Iwakura?

Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda—the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide.

Who wrote the serial experiments Lain?

Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Serial Experiments Lain is a psychological avant-garde mystery series that follows Lain as she makes crucial choices that will affect both the real world and the Wired.

Storyline

Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda-the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide.

Did you know

There are numerous references to Macintosh and Apple Computers: The phrase "To Be Continued", with a colored "Be" is shown at the end of most of the episodes. This is a reference to BeOS, whose logo has similar coloring. The Be company was founded by Jean-Louis Guasse, a former Apple executive.

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By what name was Serial Experiments Lain (1998) officially released in Canada in English?

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Overview

Plot

  • 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. He explained he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the seri…
See more on lain.wiki

Characters

Production

Broadcast and release history

Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a Japanese anime television series directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura, written by Chiaki J. Konaka, and produced by Yasuyuki Ueda. Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe, the series was broadcast for thirteen episodes on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998. The series follows Lain Iw…

Reception

Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father; Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-m…

Related media

Lain Iwakura (岩倉 玲音, Iwakura Rein) Voiced by: Kaori Shimizu (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman (English) The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-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 world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually comes to disco…

See also

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 interview. The controversial statement said Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [J…