Serial Experiments Lain - Reviews

Should you watch this show? Are you in the mood for a quasi-hyperexistentialism show which may of may not leave you terribly confused? (p.s. if you don't know what existentialism is, then you won't get this show, as such, don't watch it) Yeah, why not?

Serial Experiments Lain is a 1998 anime written by somebody who finished their first semester of their philosophy degree and seriously wanted to show off what they knew. It's a slow-paced show, with information coming in little bits at a time. The characters develop slowly, but the transformation within the main character is extremely impressive and also believable, something to be admired. There are several subplots in the show which get resolved through various means and help drive the main plot, the way they should be. It is truly a well thought-out show, if a little on the philosophical side. The main character, Lain, is brought into the world of the "Wired" (the internet) after her friends all get an e-mail from a classmate who committed suicide, so she joins to see if she got it as well. This leads to her become engrossed in it, and becoming a sort of urban legend for how effectively she comes to manipulate it.

The animation is rather good, for 1998. It's not as smooth as Cowboy Bebop, but it does well for itself. The artstyle took some getting used to, but it was definitely a nice change of pace, with rounder character faces and minimal emphasis on the skin, with much more focus on the eyes. There were never any moments where the animation felt cheap or rushed, with a minimilistic approach to help support the emphasis on "what is real?'

Silence is powerful. Even more silence is even more powerful, and when you have a whole lot of silence, it helps the loud moments feel more powerful. This show has a lot of no sounds at all, but it's important that it does so, because it often goes back to listening to power lines, an emphasis on how connected we are to the "Wired." As I said before, the general quietness of the show helps emphasize the very important parts, where there is shouting and often loud music. The music was nothing special, simple, yet effective. That's all you need in a story, honestly.

Overall this show is an experiment in existentialism in the anime world. It executed itself well, with a believable story, for the most part, and a believable world with very real characters. Clearly it was trying to jump onto the early-internet bandwagon, similar to the much more famous "The Matrix" and tries to ask the question of "what if the internet is something more than we think it is?" It answers the question in glorious fashion, in its own world, though hardly realistic in ours. But hey, that's what's beautiful about anime, it's not bound by the rules of our world. All-in-all, it was an enjoyable show which had me guessing what was going to happen right up until the end, which is about all that I ask in a psychological thriller.

Serial Experiments Lain can be very mentally stimulating at times, but gets so lost in its own imagery and philosophy that the story and the viewer both suffer.  SEL can be very hard to follow, and at times will throw things at you so weird you'll question your ability to continue on through the series.  If you stick with it, and really dig deeply, this series has some great ideas and concepts.  It's just too damned hard to get to them sometimes.  I'd only recommend this anime if you aren't put off by abstract imagery and concepts, and only if you want part of the experience of an anime to involve philsophizing between episodes.

This gave me chills

An old fashioned anime, it feels like you're underwater, it IS so good.

The buzzing noise of the telephone wires was quality, and lain slowly walking near these things really GAVE me chills...

I didn't understand so many things, makes me dizzy and feels like you're on top tier drugs

I saw Neon Genesis Evangelion and was quite displeased with it. The characters weren't sympathetic enough and almost none of them were interesting except for Asuka, who is still exasperating. So, I checked out Lain, which was very similar to Evangelion but also couldn't get into it.

The show is about a little unemotional 14-year-old girl named Lain. I was pleased with the autism of the character since I haven't seen any anime with autistic characters and I am also autistic. And the show begins well, but began to stumble during episode 3 and picked back up at 5, but then gone downhill towards the end at episode 8 and I decided to stop watching it at nine. It was very confusing and random.

Lain's character change from a shy girl to an obsessive secretive girl was annoying. I also didn't care much for her love interest, Arisu.

Some of the dialogue can be talky and the characters may seem interesting as well as the story at the start but none of them were very appealing as the show went on, which is hard to do once a show approaches its end.

I liked the English dub better, the voice actors for Japanese were okay, the girl who voiced Lain was around 14 or 15 at the time. While the intro and the music is nice, the music for the ending theme didn't seem very fitting.

The art had some problems here and there.

I first heard of Lain at 15 and I was a little bit skeptical about it but decided to try it anyway since Evangelion had an interesting story and premise but didn't quite reach its potential. I was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as Evangelion but it is anyway, just like Evangelion, it stumbled during the last 6 episodes.

Una Serie de Culto

Serial Experiments Lain me resultó un gran anime, con una historia muy detallada y convincente de inicio a fin. He notado que hay personas que la llegan a odiar, o que llegan a decir que es una serie para personas que se creen inteléctuales, lo cual para nada es así; en general la historia tal cual la entendí y hasta pueda que esté equivocado, pero la gracia de los animes de éste tipo (así como Neon Genesis Evangelion) es que tu mismo le des un sentido y lo compartas con los demás, es que trata como su nombre lo dice un experimento con una chica y su vinculación con una red de internet conocida como Wired a la cual se puede entrar o bien por medio una droga sintética electrónica, que ronda por el submundo, o por medio del vínculo que tengan con la personaje principal Lain; ésta red en experimentación lo que busca es unir a todas las personas en un mundo que sería como el más allá, es decir la idea de como la existencia del alma después de la muerte, la existencia de un mundo suprasensible o la muerte como liberación del alma a partir de la unión por medio de éste Wired, así como la interacción extraterrestre y vijes en el tiempo; todo ésto manejado por un Dios del cual aún no se sabe quién es aunque ya existe uno, pero que resulta ser un intruso para darle luego paso al verdadero que es Lain, pero que este Dios está en un proceso de crecimiento que tiene en su trayecto de evolución un trastorno de múltiple personalidad ya que es una siendo humana, otra estando en la red y otra siendo Dios. y así concluyendo la historia. Es un anime que recomiendo ver si te gusta desenvolver las historias complicadas, ojalá si puedes verlo como hice yo, en compañía, para debatir luego lo que entendiste al pasar de los capítulos; es corto pero hay que prestarle atención para entenderlo y no dejarlo.