Anime Review: Serial Experiments Lain
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Serial Experiments Lain
Publisher: Pioneer Animation
Type of Anime: TV
Genre: Drama, SciFi
Watched Subbed/Dubbed: Dubbed
Overall Rating: 
Story:
My Rating:
Lain is one of the weirder anime, mixing a lot of stuff from cyberspace and virtual reality to drugs that are far more effective than speed to philosophies of existence between the physical and the spiritual/cyber planes. The story is about a girl, Lain, who starts as what appears to be a quiet and possibly shy school girl, and follows her as she delves deeper into the world of the "Wired" (think virtual reality internet) and comes to terms with herself and her existence. As she learns more about the Wired, she becomes more open and confident, and more distracted. People come up to her claiming they saw someone who looked just like her, only with a totally opposite personality, the "wild" Lain. Her online and offline personalities start to blur so that her friends in the real world think she's changed as she tries to figure out what is real.
Imagine a place where the 60s psychedelic drug culture meets techno rave and you've discovered Cyberia. Cyberia is the place where people go to escape their real world lives, to gain incredible amounts of data, to "hack the planet" (so to speak), and to gain a better understanding of themselves. Cyberia is interconnected to everything, almost like Atlantis reconstructed in modern times, where people communicate seamlessly through the Wired without the need for bodies or adapters or anything in the physical realm. It's the next step in human evolution. To tap into the frequency of the Earth, connect thoughts of all human beings, and evolve to the level of the consciousness of Earth. Everything is data - patterns, subatomic particles, photons, DNA - and those patterns of data hold information that has been passed on from generation to generation since the beginning of time. Imagine if there was an entire silo that could store everything that was ever known, information that anyone could access at any time. Data that anyone could query and interpret and learn from. Human existence would learn from its mistakes and evolve.
On a more personal level, how do you know that the person you think you are is the real you? What if there was someone who existed that was the exact opposite of you and yet everyone mistook that person for you? How could you prove that you are you and that person is an imposter? Maybe that person is the real you, and you are the imposter. I don't mean mistaken/stolen identity, but different aspects of your own consciousness. Each person is a mix of thoughts and emotions, but what if those thoughts and emotions split into categories - the 'good' you and the 'bad' you, or your 'online' personality and your 'offline' personality? Are they both you?
No, Lain won't be nominated for the feel-good anime series of the 90s, but it does introduce some pretty heavy concepts. It's also a series where one episode builds from the next, so you'll probably want to watch the entire 13 episodes in order in a short period of time or you're definitely going to miss something. It definitely has that "the truth is out there" feeling to it, or maybe I should rephrase that to say "the truth is inside you. Can you handle it?" I have to say that Lain definitely ranks in my anime top 5.
Animation:
My Rating: 
The animation is interesting, very cutting edge for when it came out in 1998. Most of it is simplely drawn with occasionally detailed scenes, but, at least in my opinion, a more washed out look to add to the suspense of the series. It does well to create its own style for the series, mixing 2D with 3D to create a feeling of reality mixing with the Wired.
Music:
My Rating:
I like the music to this, though it's more background than anything. The opening theme is more melancholic to set the tone for the rest of the episode, while the background music ranges from techno club to mellow eerie-ness.
I haven't had the opportunity to check out the import soundtrack, Cyberia, but you can buy it through Amazon.com.
Character Design:
My Rating:
The entire series is focused on Lain, so there's a lot of character development with her as her online and offline personalities merge. It's interesting to watch other characters react to her changes, and go through their own self discoveries in the process (at least in the beginning...)
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