SeattleOtaku

Created by celebrated manga-ka Yoshitoshi ABe, Serial Experiments Lain (or simply Lain) opens up a world of science-based philosophy and history of both the real and alternate sort.

Story Intro

The show follows a shy junior-high-school girl as her world is shocked after receiving an email from a recently-deceased friend. Intrigued by the timing, and part of the message itself, Lain gets a new “Navi” online computer and begins upgrading it for better access to the “Wired”, the world of the Internet. She then comes to be often confused with another Lain, an extroverted, take-no-pity girl who looks, but certainly doesn’t act, just like her.

It’s pretty normal these days to have a “Wired” personality that’s not exactly the same as the face-to-face one, but here the two seem complete opposites, until changes are seen in the “real” Lain as she gets more comfortable being online and upgrading her computer components. Soon she finds herself in a race against the other Lain as the confusion deepens about which is the “real” Lain.

Bring in some Men-in-Black observers, a mixed history/fantasy lesson about Roswell alien-ship technology and the invention (and future) of the Internet, freaky shadows, and the ever-present 60Hz hum of electrical wires. Mix well with spirits roaming bewteen the “real” and the “Wired”, and prepare to be glued to the screen.

US distributed by Pioneer Entertainment / Geneon:

Serial Experiments Lain (1998, 13-episode TV)