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Lain Iwakura appears to be an ordinary girl, with almost no experience with computers. Yet the sudden suicide of a schoolmate, and a number of strange occurrences, conspire to pull Lain into the world of the Wired, where she gradually learns that nothing is what it seems to be... not even Lain herself. Review: An Eerily Prescient Vision of the Present - It seems with every passing day, we inch a bit closer to the Internet of Things, in which everything from small appliances to large factories will be connected to--and controllable over--the Internet. Consider for a moment that ten years ago Facebook was just getting going and the smartphone was limited, outside of Japan, to the BlackBerry and a handful of Windows Mobile devices that no one particularly liked. Six years earlier, the Internet was a rough, largely uncharted territory only recently gone mainstream. Sure, it was exciting to be able to access porn whenever we wanted, and playing chess via email with people in South Africa was kinda neat, but no one outside of a very specialized group could foresee how ubiquitous the Internet would one day become. In 1998, to most of the world, the Internet was just a big computer network. Enter Serial Experiments Lain. First broadcast in Japan over the summer of 1998 and premiering nine months before The Matrix hit American theaters, Lain tells the story of Lain Iwakura, a painfully introverted adolescent girl living in Japan. At the start of the series, Chisa, a girl from Lain's school, commits suicide by jumping from the top of a building. Shortly thereafter, Lain and her schoolmates begin receiving emails from Chisa stating that everyone needs to come to the Wired as soon as possible because there is a god in the Wired. The Wired is a global information network analogous to the Internet but connected to virtually everything in the world. In order to continue communicating with her dead friend, Lain asks her father to buy her a new computer, called a Navi in the show, presumably a shortening of Navigator, and from there, any summary of the show's plot is going to fail. There is simply too much going on, too many characters with too many motivations, too many red herrings, and too many tonal shifts to keep track of. Several years ago, I taught Lain as a literature unit in one of my classes. We viewed each episode, discussed the characters and the themes, the complexity of the narrative, in short we READ the series instead of simply viewing it, which I maintain is the best way of approaching Lain. It may not have been my most successful teaching moment, but I still have students now who come to me and talk about it. This is the kind of series that really does stay with its audience, and repeat viewings yield fresh revelations. That is, once the audience gets past one small but significant fact: Lain. Is. Weird. We can start with the odd time setting of the series, which is announced at the beginning of most episodes as "Present day, present time," followed by a maniacal laugh and bursts of static. It's an unsettling announcement because, as we move through narrative, we're confronted with a world that resembles our own in many ways but not technologically, though it can be argued that Lain more closely resembles the technological world of 2014 than it did the technological world of 1998. In that sense, though, the opening only becomes unsettling in how prescient the series would turn to be. Regardless, the opening remains unsettling because of a basic perceptual conflict: the "Present day, present time" setting is not the "now" of the audience, but rather the "now" of the series. In essence, the show announces that it is set when it is set. Adding to the weirdness is the fact that episodes are not called episodes or chapters. They are called Layers, as in a layer that must be peeled away in order to get to the heart of the matter, to make sense of the series as a whole. And then there are the characters themselves. Lain is an adolescent girl who can barely speak to her own family, let alone her friends. Lain's mother could not be more disengaged from her two daughters. Lain's sister literally disappears before Lain's eyes at the end of the fifth layer only to be replaced by what might charitably be considered a shell of a human being. And Lain's father, who shows the most emotion of anyone in her immediate family, appears to genuinely love his daughter even as he is cut off, sometimes quite literally, from her. One of my favorite shots of the first episode involves Lain asking her father for a new Navi. She walks into his study and is almost completely blocked from him by a kind of wall of computers and monitors. Her father talks to her but never really holds a dialogue with her, instead becoming excited over something he finds on the Wired while Lain is talking. And that is one of the major themes of the series: people being disconnected from one another. The Wired as a result becomes an intricate metaphor for human interaction: people log on and "connect" with other people, but those connections are fleeting and not real in any substantive sense. Think of it as Facebook. You have 5000 friends on Facebook, but how many of those friendship are really real? How many of them are tangibly real? This brings up another one of the major concerns of Lain: the question of reality. What is reality? What does it mean to be real? Where is the line drawn between the real and the unreal? And by extension, is it possible for the unreal to become real? Going back to our Facebook example, many friendships may not be real in literal, tangible sense, but they are real insofar as they are an exchange of interests and communication and intimacies. They may not be as substantive as a flesh-and-blood friendship, but they are still real in some sense. Likewise, the Wired of the series is several times dismissed by characters as nothing more than a fancy way of transporting information, that it cannot be confused with the real world. However, to an introvert like Lain, the Wired represents a means of overcoming her shyness and allowing her truer, fuller self to emerge and interact freely with other people. In essence, Lain chooses a reality in which she have more control. Is it an illusion? Possibly, but it is still her reality. Of course, we still have yet to discuss how the alien fits into all of this. I don't really have any answer to that. And how the series ultimately plays out, how it evolves from a scared little girl playing on the Internet to its endgame, is all the more interesting for the way it effectively reframes the narrative. The final four layers can be thought of the story of a god who comes to Earth, forgets it is a god, experiences profound and disturbing loneliness, and inadvertently begins to destroy one reality by grafting a second reality on top of it. It that seems a bit heady to you, you're not alone. I've seen the complete series a dozen times and when I get to those last episodes, I still struggle with making them work. And that might be the series' greatest failing. It is almost too complex for its own good. Too many questions are left not only unanswered but unanswerable. What exactly happens to Mika when she sees herself at the end of Layer 5? Who are the Men in Black and why are they looking to stop the Knights of the Eastern Calculus? What power does Masami Eri actually wield in the Wired? And in the end, who is the final, top-of-the-heap God? Lain is a series that comes dangerously close to falling apart repeatedly throughout its run and yet manages to pull it all together into a more or less tight narrative by the end. What's more, while computers have been used a number of times as a metaphor for isolation and distance between human beings, I'm not sure it has ever been as effective as it is here, and the effectiveness has only grown in the intervening years due to our growing technological dependence. The ending of the series deserves special note for how downbeat it is. Lain does find purpose and peace at the end of the series, but she is arguably even more isolated than she is at the beginning. Conventional interpretation seems to agree that the ending is as upbeat as is possible given the rest of the story, but I still find it very downbeat, very sad. I highly recommend Serial Experiments Lain. I do advise you to watch it straight through, if possible, and be prepared to do a bit of research on the various names mentioned throughout the series, as that will help to explain some of the gaps. Review: Close the world,. txEn eht nepO - If u've ever been on the quest for searching for the best anime of all time, well in my opinion, its Serial Experiments Lain. This anime is so dark and so perfect , my mind and every fiber of my being gives it 100% of attention while watching the series. Just yesterday i found myself rewatching a few episodes of Lain, and i was suprised when i noticed that all of a sudden i had a smile on my face with all my teeth showing, because i couldnt beleive that a human being could write such a twisted, perverted masterpiece. With every second of Lain that passes by, my body feels like im with a woman, on narcotics or REALLY strong pain killers, because those are the only times ive smiled so big in the past. Its rare when u find an anime so well proportioned, and addicting. Alot of Animes start of really well, but then turn into a snooze fest. For example, i tried my very best 2 like Darling in the Franxx anime, it started out FANTASTIC, but then the show just dragged on and on and eventially i felt like i was being punished just by watching the show. Got 22 episodes deep in to Darling in the Franxx but for the life of me, could not watch the last 2 episodes. Anyways back to Lain, if you are looking in to buying the Japanese limited edition Serial Experiments Lain Restore blu-ray, and you have never seen the show before, i suggest putting a hold on that idea for now because it is extremely expensive, even if its used. I suggest buying a standard dvd or blu ray edition 1st, then after you see what all the hype is about, you can decide for yourself if you want to invest a small fortune in this cult classic anime boxset. I started off with the bluray/dvd combo, but when i was done with the 13 episode paragon, 1 copy of Lain was not enough for me. I had to purchase the most expensive Lain box set which is the Japanase Restore edition, followed by the 2nd most expensive Lain boxset etc. Long story short, i ended up with 7 differenent Serial Experiments Lain Boxsets because i felt i needed to own every different version ever released. Ive seen alot of animes and trust me, its RARE to see an anime so well designed. If u enjoy shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Phantom Requiem for the Phantom, Darker than Black, Re:Zero, Tokyo Ghoul, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Claymore, RIN, Black Lagoon, Vision Of Escaflowne, Fate Stay Night, Sword Art Online, Berserk, Birdy the mighty, Death Note, then you will absolutely love Serial Experiments Lain, no doubt.
| Contributor | Celeste Burche, Emily Brown, Lia Sargent, Ruby Marlowe |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 657 Reviews |
| Format | Animated, Blu-ray, Color, Multiple Formats, NTSC, Widescreen |
| Language | Japanese |
| Number Of Discs | 4 |
| Runtime | 5 hours and 25 minutes |
J**N
An Eerily Prescient Vision of the Present
It seems with every passing day, we inch a bit closer to the Internet of Things, in which everything from small appliances to large factories will be connected to--and controllable over--the Internet. Consider for a moment that ten years ago Facebook was just getting going and the smartphone was limited, outside of Japan, to the BlackBerry and a handful of Windows Mobile devices that no one particularly liked. Six years earlier, the Internet was a rough, largely uncharted territory only recently gone mainstream. Sure, it was exciting to be able to access porn whenever we wanted, and playing chess via email with people in South Africa was kinda neat, but no one outside of a very specialized group could foresee how ubiquitous the Internet would one day become. In 1998, to most of the world, the Internet was just a big computer network. Enter Serial Experiments Lain. First broadcast in Japan over the summer of 1998 and premiering nine months before The Matrix hit American theaters, Lain tells the story of Lain Iwakura, a painfully introverted adolescent girl living in Japan. At the start of the series, Chisa, a girl from Lain's school, commits suicide by jumping from the top of a building. Shortly thereafter, Lain and her schoolmates begin receiving emails from Chisa stating that everyone needs to come to the Wired as soon as possible because there is a god in the Wired. The Wired is a global information network analogous to the Internet but connected to virtually everything in the world. In order to continue communicating with her dead friend, Lain asks her father to buy her a new computer, called a Navi in the show, presumably a shortening of Navigator, and from there, any summary of the show's plot is going to fail. There is simply too much going on, too many characters with too many motivations, too many red herrings, and too many tonal shifts to keep track of. Several years ago, I taught Lain as a literature unit in one of my classes. We viewed each episode, discussed the characters and the themes, the complexity of the narrative, in short we READ the series instead of simply viewing it, which I maintain is the best way of approaching Lain. It may not have been my most successful teaching moment, but I still have students now who come to me and talk about it. This is the kind of series that really does stay with its audience, and repeat viewings yield fresh revelations. That is, once the audience gets past one small but significant fact: Lain. Is. Weird. We can start with the odd time setting of the series, which is announced at the beginning of most episodes as "Present day, present time," followed by a maniacal laugh and bursts of static. It's an unsettling announcement because, as we move through narrative, we're confronted with a world that resembles our own in many ways but not technologically, though it can be argued that Lain more closely resembles the technological world of 2014 than it did the technological world of 1998. In that sense, though, the opening only becomes unsettling in how prescient the series would turn to be. Regardless, the opening remains unsettling because of a basic perceptual conflict: the "Present day, present time" setting is not the "now" of the audience, but rather the "now" of the series. In essence, the show announces that it is set when it is set. Adding to the weirdness is the fact that episodes are not called episodes or chapters. They are called Layers, as in a layer that must be peeled away in order to get to the heart of the matter, to make sense of the series as a whole. And then there are the characters themselves. Lain is an adolescent girl who can barely speak to her own family, let alone her friends. Lain's mother could not be more disengaged from her two daughters. Lain's sister literally disappears before Lain's eyes at the end of the fifth layer only to be replaced by what might charitably be considered a shell of a human being. And Lain's father, who shows the most emotion of anyone in her immediate family, appears to genuinely love his daughter even as he is cut off, sometimes quite literally, from her. One of my favorite shots of the first episode involves Lain asking her father for a new Navi. She walks into his study and is almost completely blocked from him by a kind of wall of computers and monitors. Her father talks to her but never really holds a dialogue with her, instead becoming excited over something he finds on the Wired while Lain is talking. And that is one of the major themes of the series: people being disconnected from one another. The Wired as a result becomes an intricate metaphor for human interaction: people log on and "connect" with other people, but those connections are fleeting and not real in any substantive sense. Think of it as Facebook. You have 5000 friends on Facebook, but how many of those friendship are really real? How many of them are tangibly real? This brings up another one of the major concerns of Lain: the question of reality. What is reality? What does it mean to be real? Where is the line drawn between the real and the unreal? And by extension, is it possible for the unreal to become real? Going back to our Facebook example, many friendships may not be real in literal, tangible sense, but they are real insofar as they are an exchange of interests and communication and intimacies. They may not be as substantive as a flesh-and-blood friendship, but they are still real in some sense. Likewise, the Wired of the series is several times dismissed by characters as nothing more than a fancy way of transporting information, that it cannot be confused with the real world. However, to an introvert like Lain, the Wired represents a means of overcoming her shyness and allowing her truer, fuller self to emerge and interact freely with other people. In essence, Lain chooses a reality in which she have more control. Is it an illusion? Possibly, but it is still her reality. Of course, we still have yet to discuss how the alien fits into all of this. I don't really have any answer to that. And how the series ultimately plays out, how it evolves from a scared little girl playing on the Internet to its endgame, is all the more interesting for the way it effectively reframes the narrative. The final four layers can be thought of the story of a god who comes to Earth, forgets it is a god, experiences profound and disturbing loneliness, and inadvertently begins to destroy one reality by grafting a second reality on top of it. It that seems a bit heady to you, you're not alone. I've seen the complete series a dozen times and when I get to those last episodes, I still struggle with making them work. And that might be the series' greatest failing. It is almost too complex for its own good. Too many questions are left not only unanswered but unanswerable. What exactly happens to Mika when she sees herself at the end of Layer 5? Who are the Men in Black and why are they looking to stop the Knights of the Eastern Calculus? What power does Masami Eri actually wield in the Wired? And in the end, who is the final, top-of-the-heap God? Lain is a series that comes dangerously close to falling apart repeatedly throughout its run and yet manages to pull it all together into a more or less tight narrative by the end. What's more, while computers have been used a number of times as a metaphor for isolation and distance between human beings, I'm not sure it has ever been as effective as it is here, and the effectiveness has only grown in the intervening years due to our growing technological dependence. The ending of the series deserves special note for how downbeat it is. Lain does find purpose and peace at the end of the series, but she is arguably even more isolated than she is at the beginning. Conventional interpretation seems to agree that the ending is as upbeat as is possible given the rest of the story, but I still find it very downbeat, very sad. I highly recommend Serial Experiments Lain. I do advise you to watch it straight through, if possible, and be prepared to do a bit of research on the various names mentioned throughout the series, as that will help to explain some of the gaps.
P**L
Close the world,. txEn eht nepO
If u've ever been on the quest for searching for the best anime of all time, well in my opinion, its Serial Experiments Lain. This anime is so dark and so perfect , my mind and every fiber of my being gives it 100% of attention while watching the series. Just yesterday i found myself rewatching a few episodes of Lain, and i was suprised when i noticed that all of a sudden i had a smile on my face with all my teeth showing, because i couldnt beleive that a human being could write such a twisted, perverted masterpiece. With every second of Lain that passes by, my body feels like im with a woman, on narcotics or REALLY strong pain killers, because those are the only times ive smiled so big in the past. Its rare when u find an anime so well proportioned, and addicting. Alot of Animes start of really well, but then turn into a snooze fest. For example, i tried my very best 2 like Darling in the Franxx anime, it started out FANTASTIC, but then the show just dragged on and on and eventially i felt like i was being punished just by watching the show. Got 22 episodes deep in to Darling in the Franxx but for the life of me, could not watch the last 2 episodes. Anyways back to Lain, if you are looking in to buying the Japanese limited edition Serial Experiments Lain Restore blu-ray, and you have never seen the show before, i suggest putting a hold on that idea for now because it is extremely expensive, even if its used. I suggest buying a standard dvd or blu ray edition 1st, then after you see what all the hype is about, you can decide for yourself if you want to invest a small fortune in this cult classic anime boxset. I started off with the bluray/dvd combo, but when i was done with the 13 episode paragon, 1 copy of Lain was not enough for me. I had to purchase the most expensive Lain box set which is the Japanase Restore edition, followed by the 2nd most expensive Lain boxset etc. Long story short, i ended up with 7 differenent Serial Experiments Lain Boxsets because i felt i needed to own every different version ever released. Ive seen alot of animes and trust me, its RARE to see an anime so well designed. If u enjoy shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Phantom Requiem for the Phantom, Darker than Black, Re:Zero, Tokyo Ghoul, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Claymore, RIN, Black Lagoon, Vision Of Escaflowne, Fate Stay Night, Sword Art Online, Berserk, Birdy the mighty, Death Note, then you will absolutely love Serial Experiments Lain, no doubt.
R**N
Umazing anime
I wouldn’t recommend to people i know since not many people enjoy it so unless you really like cyber related things i would not recommend Its actually peak very much umazing
M**A
Un producto de altisima calidad para los amantes de anime.
Mil gracias a mt fuji japan por este producto. -producto de altisima calidad. -me llego en excelente condicion. -21 dias tarde en recibir el producto desde japon hasta estados unidos. -contiene 3 discos blu ray y un librito. -el lenguaje es en ingles y en japones y subtitulos solo en japones.
A**N
The world you once knew, will change.
This series not only opened my eyes...it literally changed my life. I've experienced the whole series many times, always letting it probe my mind to provoke thoughts I didn't know existed. This isn't a review, if you want to know what the series is like, watch it, or rather let it watch you. After studying the series for a while I became deeply interested in computers, computer science, philosophy, mind-expansion, and theory. I related to Lain on such a personal level that the show almost seemed to transcend the subtext of it just being a work of fiction. But then again Serial Experiments Lain blurs the thin boundary that is reality and the virtual. The concepts and information shown at parts is very much worth looking into as well (E.I. Shuman resonance (commonly)7.83Hz). The integration into the story seems entirely possible in the future. The concept of the wired is in itself one of the most intriguing and glorious things i've ever heard of. Cyberpunk nirvana I suppose would be a way of looking at it. I could write for days on this work of art, but i'll limit myself here. If you do decide to watch it, you must commit to the whole series, or you'll probably be confused or misled. The series comes full circle like i've rarely seen any other do before. On a side note, the series is also an incredible psychonaut tool :D - Don't pass this one up.
V**9
A great anime for the actual times
When I saw Lain first in the Video Rental Store...I thought that it will be a waste of time and money. But you know what...I was Wrong!!! From the beggining with the opening song, i got hooked. Lain is a series that the best thing it has is the fact that you can see it a 1000 times and always ends with another conclusion. Some many people maybe hate this, but is the same feeling that I got when I saw for the first time Evangelion, most people have too many conclusions. The best of all it doesn't have cliche's (well I didn't see any)and I loved it. Recently i got the box set and used it for a report...got the best grade of my class. The next day...half of the class asked for a "Lain Movie Marathon". And I mean a High School. But if you still donut about this...rent it first...once that you finish the fisrt DVD, you'll crave for more.
A**Y
Case broken NEED MULTI REGION PLAYER
I was really excited to get this dvd as it was one of the cheapest options I could find, as soon as it came into the mail my smile faded. The case was completely smashed with the discs hanging out thankfully none of them had any intense scratches, it couldn't have been a random occurence as I gotten another movie that was perfectly fine in the package. Another problem is soon as I loaded it into my PS5 it told me the disc couldn't be played because of the region despite me having another anime that worked perfectly fine with the same issue. Terrible packaging and make sure you have a multi region blu ray player to watch this
B**N
Thank you.
I'm really happy for you to suggest this to me amazon. I had no idea what Lain was, but since it looked good from the suggestion I picked it up. I love animations like these, i'v not found many animations that gets you thinking as much as Lain did. In an era where anime series are tilting towards brain-dead cliché concepts, Lain saves me out of the blue. It is such a typical Japanese styled animation and i do have problems with some bits here and there, but I actually prefer it that way since the re-watch value is so great. Lain provokes me to question our living ideals and it constantly plays with different existential questions. I don't usually get that emotionally involved in movies, but Lain really got me at times. To some people this might even be a depressing and frustrating series to watch, there is no mercy when it comes to tragedy in Lain, not in quantity but in effect and in a harshness that immediately throws you out of your comfort zone. I love it.
Trustpilot
2 weeks ago
2 months ago