Serial Experiments Lain

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン
English: Serial Experiments Lain
More titles

Information

Type: TV
Episodes: 13
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jul 6, 1998 to Sep 28, 1998
Premiered: Summer 1998
Broadcast: Tuesdays at 01:15 (JST)
Producers: Genco, Pioneer LDC
Licensors: Funimation
Studios: Triangle Staff
Source: Original
Genres: Avant GardeAvant Garde, Award WinningAward Winning, DramaDrama, MysteryMystery, Sci-FiSci-Fi, SupernaturalSupernatural, SuspenseSuspense
Theme: PsychologicalPsychological
Duration: 23 min. per ep.
Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.091 (scored by 333474333,474 users)
1 indicates a weighted score.
Ranked: #5442
2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity: #241
Members: 847,076
Favorites: 30,977

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8.09
Ranked #544Popularity #241Members 847,076
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Episodes: /13

Synopsis

Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda—the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has neither the desire nor the experience to handle even basic technology; yet, when the technophobe opens the email, it leads her straight into the Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down as she begins to encounter cryptic mysteries one after another. Strange men called the Men in Black begin to appear wherever she goes, asking her questions and somehow knowing more about her than even she herself knows. With the boundaries between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events where identity, consciousness, and perception are concepts that take on new meanings.

Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Serial Experiments Lain is a psychological avant-garde mystery series that follows Lain as she makes crucial choices that will affect both the real world and the Wired. In closing one world and opening another, only Lain will realize the significance of their presence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Background

Serial Experiments Lain won the Excellence Prize in the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival. It has been subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds such as the Asian Horror Encyclopedia and The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation by the American Philosophical Society.

Characters & Voice Actors

Yomoda, Chisa

Supporting
Mutou, Sumi
Japanese

Haushofer, Karl

Supporting
Nakata, Jouji
Japanese

Taro

Supporting
Takimoto, Keito
Japanese

J.J

Supporting
Chikada, Wasei
Japanese

Sui-Xi, Lin

Supporting
Yamazaki, Takumi
Japanese

Staff

Cook, Justin
Producer
Ueda, Yasuyuki
Producer, Planning, Original Creator


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Opening Theme

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Spotify
Apple Music
Amazon Music
Youtube Music
"Duvet" by Bôa
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Ending Theme

"Tooi Sakebi (遠い叫び)" by Reichi Nakaido

Episode Videos




Reviews

Jun 3, 2025
TL;DR – The gifs and memes don’t do this artistic imagining of an interconnected world justice, it’s so much more than powerlines and edgy quotes. This is an old anime from 1998, an era shared with several classics such as Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Great Teacher Onizuka. It rightfully occupies a place alongside them as one of the first modern classics which trailblazed an anime fandom in the west. It explores the impacts of the internet on social relationships, mental health, and our perception of reality.

This is a thought-provoking classic, made in an age when the masses were just beginning to log ...
Mar 18, 2025
Mixed Feelings
I'm a fan of what thematic meaning I was able to extract from this, and I'm sure that on a rewatch things might click a little more into place. Unfortunately, everything is presented with such mundanity that I don't think I'll ever get around to that. It has everything you need to make a great, hard-hitting show about the oppressive always-on connectedness of the internet, but they forgot to make it an entertaining show. I can stomach something like this for about 120 minutes but this is 13 episodes of TV. I was never excited about tuning in next week to see more vibey shots ...
Jun 12, 2025
Serial Experiments Lain did not enchant me the way I hoped it would.

The first episode really got me hooked but all episodes after that felt like a pretentious and unenjoyable mess. The first half of the season honestly felt like a chore to watch. This show is also so insanely unstimulating, I kept on zoning out 24/7.

I really tried to get it. To see what the writers saw in this show. But maybe I'm just missing something. Something crucial that flew over my head that would've made me like this. However I can't imagine myself rewatching this, ever.

It's really such a shame because I ...

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