coldspaghetti

Serial Experiments Lain. The surreal and hair raising enigma that never failed to keep me questioning each episode. This anime is an avant garde frankenstein mixing multilayered symbolism and psychological futuristic themes, harboring the uncanny and uncomfortable as it presents itself to the audience. Lain, our main character is an antisocial girl not bothering to really connect with people or have interest in technology until one day she receives an email on her Navi from a deceased classmate. That moment triggers essentially the downfall of Lain. Now craving more information about Navis, the Wired, and how to use them Lain falls down the spiral of technology slowly becoming consumed by it. My initial thoughts on watching this were what the hell is this and why am I intrigued by it. Episode after episode there is some type of bizarre visual or randomly freakish plot points filled with electrical wires, blank stares, computers, and tears. This all kept me drilled into what was happening as well as keeping my curiosity alive throughout the show. Serial Experiments Lain doesn’t have the best art style or animation, honestly it's terrible. Being slow, simplistic, and lacking you wouldn’t expect it to convey expressions well, which it does. I found the blank expressions of Lain to hold some type of depth, bringing a mood of unearthly-ness with it. This simplistic art style strangely compliments and heightens the omnipresent state of eeriness and surrealism found in this anime because of it. Managing to pull through I would even say that the art style as well as poor quality is what makes Lain eye catchingly offbeat. Watching this is like a nostalgic fever dream that I want to exeprience again. I couldn't stop finding myself in being immersed with what it was trying to say and what characters are gonna do this and what characters are gonna do that. My take on this anime is that it can serve as a poetic warning swimming in elements of horror, psychological themes, and dreamlike moments to show the philosophical aspect of assessing your own identity. (purely my opinion as well as conjecture)  It's also mindboggling how well it predicted the use and application of technology for it's time as well as the obessission society would have with it. Some things I enjoyed about this anime were the brillaint symbolism in it, such as the progression of Lain's set up. It seems each episode her monitor/set up becomes bigger and encases the room more to the point where it is her room. I feel like this could be a symbol for Lain being more engrossed within Navi and technology to the point it's taking over her life. Another example of clever symbolism would be her being portrayed as angel or god in the sky implying that she is a being of immense power and omnipresence which this later is talked about in the show. I also really enjoyed the trippy moments where her and her online persona fought, that was insanely interesting. Also the crazy colorful visuals that made me rub my eyes to see if I was seeing this right. One thing that made Serial Experiments Lain even better was the use of side characters. Arisu being the main one in question was Lain's "anchor" in my opinion. She was the nicest out of her group and cared for her a lot being the one to bring her out with their group, always reassuring her, or asking her if she's ok. For the few moments in the show I like the contrast of normalcy Arisu brought and the eerieness Lain gave out. It was a nice dynamic they had. Also I enojoyed the interactions between them too, like whenever there was a conflict or rumor to be tracked down it was interesting to see them talk about what online persona Lain did and what real Lain didn't do. I also saw how the wired affected others like Arisu and saw how powerful Lain truly was. Many moments in this anime had me at the edge of my seat because of the absurd events that I couldn't wrap my head around. Quite a few people will ultimately drop this anime because of bizarreness as well as rampant confusion that runs wild in it but ultimately you should stay. Watching this is super surreal and it stimulates you to think about what symbols and metaphors it is trying to portray. (whether or whether not that is accidental) And it may as well just be some crazy psychological futuristic avant garde anime but its so enjoyably captivating. I overrall extremely recommend if you're into mind boggling anime that leaves you with questions and a crazy plot.