1998 ‘シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン’ Directed by Ryutaro Nakamura
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.
NOTE: This is a review that I wrote back in 2016 which has since been deleted when Letterboxd removed this from the database.
Words to begin talking about the experience that I have had with Serial Experiments Lain, the brilliant miniseries from Ryutaro Nakamura are so difficult to come up with on the spot, other than simply stating the obvious, it was a beautiful experience that I surely am never to forget in a long while. Anime is a medium that I have only recently started to explore more, but not since Neon Genesis Evangelion have I ever experienced something that ever felt like Serial Experiments Lain – avant-garde expressionism at some of the most beautiful that any screen would…
A masterwork of existential post-humanism, gnosticism, and the genuine avant garde. A long strange trip through the bardo of technology. The Kid A of anime. Inception for adults.
While narratively and philosophically dense there is a clear narrative not to mention extreme emotional depth, but it all unfolds with the logic of a dream. First few episodes, expect to be a bit perplexed.
It's incredible how human you can make such an abstract, surreal, and large-scale story. This gets into deep philosophical waters, but at its core it is a very human story about isolation and the need to connect with others.
"Who is Lain?" Lain is the socially awkward, wired voice of a generation who find themselves in a sea of data and disembodied voices, who wonder who and where and what and why and how they are in the Information Age. Every emotional core at this series may not have been evident in 1998, but they are evident two decades later, when quite a few very important things have gone south but technology has continued moving north.
It's incredible how human you can make such an abstract, surreal, and large-scale story. This gets into deep philosophical waters, but at its core it is a very human story about isolation and the need to connect with others.
"Who is Lain?" Lain is the socially awkward, wired voice of a generation who find themselves in a sea of data and disembodied voices, who wonder who and where and what and why and how they are in the Information Age. Every emotional core at this series may not have been evident in 1998, but they are evident two decades later, when quite a few very important things have gone south but technology has continued moving north.
“Present day. Present time.”
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!”
90s technophobia mixed together with surrealism. Some great moments throughout the series.
Buying this on Blu Ray was supremely worth it.
Serial Experiments Lain stands up with Satoshi Kon’s ‘Paranoia Agent’ and Hiroshi Hamazaki’s ‘Texhnolyze’ as being monolithically influential pieces of neo-futurist cyberpunk and science fiction series that still manage to stand the test of time. Of those 3 (all of which I highly, HIGHLY recommend) I think Lain is my favorite because it’s eclectic atmosphere and hazy art style so effectively visually communicates what this series is about in a way that has yet to be replicated. If Kon’s work in Paranoia Agent is most comparable to Kubrick, and Texhnolyze is more up the alley of Tarkovsky, Lain here is a bit more of Lynch than anything else. The music composed…
Allora, io sono tutt'altro che avezzo al topos anime (ma facciamo ai prodotti seriali in genere), ma poi vedo Serial Experiments Lain. Vedo il primo, il secondo, il terzo episodio, e mi ritrovo immerso in una realtà che pare disegnata (e designata) precisamente per calamitare un argomento nel cinema nipponico recente di caratteristico interesse: il processo o percorso di alienazione sociale - personale, ma anche di metamorfosi umano - software del (e nel) postmodernismo. Tematica - l'alienamento sociale e lo smarrimento della personalità - abusata nel cinema di due dei miei autori giappo contemporanei preferiti - Shin'ya Tsukamoto e Sion Sono -, marcatamente prona a restituire la drammaticità del travaglio ontologico tramite l'interazione con la dimensione virtuale. Il postmodernismo è…
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