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| Wow what an absolutely ethereal experience for a first episodes and first impressions. I really have no words for what i just watched, like it felt like a crazy fever dream and i already feel like there were lots of meanings and imagery that i missed already, the premise of the show i can only describe as unique and nothing i've ever seen before. I'm genuinely curious what this show has to offer and fully prepared for a scenario where this show makes me rethink my entire life for how insane it was. |
 "yabe." |
| It's eerie, but it's crazy at the same time, I can't explain it. I'm instantly hooked, just wow. |
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| Damm, her dad has a serious addiction lol |
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| i really liked the op and the song and the vibe of this anime :) nice first episode i love the 90s vibes |
| my reply got deleted AGAIN.. Doesn't matter, so our journey starts here, it's not that any anime would look like, anime it's like cute faces, vivid-saturated colors, fan-service, cool characters and nothing about life or something like that. But here, THE FACES of people around, the sullen, tired faces, they may look down on you. In intro like a young couple sucking on lips, drinking, or other people doing the devil knows what, there's no music in the background, the shot goes on for a long time, it seems like there's going to be a screamer now, the whole atmosphere is oppressive, somewhat reminiscent of the movie Requiem for a Dream. Let's see how it goes, but after that I want to watch some casual game with girls or a cool detective or fighting game (JJK, Code Geass, S;G👋). No wonder I didn't start watching it with the light on and not being alone in the room It is confusing and it does make you feel a bit uncomfortable, i hope it will get better, have bets on this particular series/eps. |
| I'll just say this: started watching this first episode in bed, at 4 in the morning, my eyes closing, ready to fall asleep. I said to myself "ok, I'll watch a bit, ten minutes max, and then I'll fall asleep". Twenty minutes later I was completely hooked and my sleepiness was gone. The atmosphere captivated me, the art direction and the camera angles were masterfully done and I especially liked its slow pace and minimal dialogues - it all added to the sense of immersion. It almost felt as a dream, or a weird but captivating alternative to the actual dreaming I may have had, if I had fallen asleep earlier! By the way, back in 1998 exchanging messages via emails, computers and phones was definitely not a common practice (especially among students) where I live, in Europe - Japan, as usual, was ahead in technology matters. But that's also an underyling common theme in cyberpunk stories since the days of Neuromancer: the worldwide web (the cyberspace) and its connections. |
Lethal_RabbitJan 21, 7:34 AM
Reply to Lethal_Rabbit
I'll just say this: started watching this first episode in bed, at 4 in the morning, my eyes closing, ready to fall asleep. I said to myself "ok, I'll watch a bit, ten minutes max, and then I'll fall asleep".
Twenty minutes later I was completely hooked and my sleepiness was gone. The atmosphere captivated me, the art direction and the camera angles were masterfully done and I especially liked its slow pace and minimal dialogues - it all added to the sense of immersion. It almost felt as a dream, or a weird but captivating alternative to the actual dreaming I may have had, if I had fallen asleep earlier!
By the way, back in 1998 exchanging messages via emails, computers and phones was definitely not a common practice (especially among students) where I live, in Europe - Japan, as usual, was ahead in technology matters. But that's also an underyling common theme in cyberpunk stories since the days of Neuromancer: the worldwide web (the cyberspace) and its connections.
Twenty minutes later I was completely hooked and my sleepiness was gone. The atmosphere captivated me, the art direction and the camera angles were masterfully done and I especially liked its slow pace and minimal dialogues - it all added to the sense of immersion. It almost felt as a dream, or a weird but captivating alternative to the actual dreaming I may have had, if I had fallen asleep earlier!
By the way, back in 1998 exchanging messages via emails, computers and phones was definitely not a common practice (especially among students) where I live, in Europe - Japan, as usual, was ahead in technology matters. But that's also an underyling common theme in cyberpunk stories since the days of Neuromancer: the worldwide web (the cyberspace) and its connections.
| @Lethal_Rabbit Welcome to the world of the Wired, stay connected and doN't forget to love LAIN. |
Reply to JoeChip
| @JoeChip Thanks! I'm five episodes in now and I have to confirm what others say: this series is captivating. It absorbs you, almost in a hypnotic way. I guess that's the power of the Wired. :) |
| Loved the opening, this first episodes reminds me a lot of boogiepop phantom. I like how the direction is not all random and the events tie together. Hopefully this continues along the series. |
 |
| Ahmm, watching this anime is like we're having a fever dream, because what was happening really xD? The anime is for sure dark, suspenseful and psychological, and it's going for a deep narrative, but at this point it's still really hard to make anything out of this anime. I remember watching a clip from this anime on YouTube, and found it quite remarkable, because it was about something that was happening now, even though the anime is from 1998. I decided to start watching because it was the recommendation of my Secret Santa! I will for sure give it more time, because I'm curious to see where the anime is going. Having a ghost girl, that commited suicide while she was alive, and now wants to communicate with Lain over the computer seems that is going to have a powerful message. From this episode, I must say it's quite weird her father has 4 computers, like, what's the need for that? It seems they're hinting at the fact her father has some addiction to the computers what he is able to do in them. Probably something that is a problem now too. He didn't even hear some of the words Lain said. Talking about words not being listened, I kinda hated how that happened so many times this episode. Are we going to go back to these scenes in the future? Because I certainly can't read what the characters were trying to say. Also, it's really weird how her mother didn't even react when she said she received an e-mail from her dead friend. Her mother was like "well, just another day I guess". This certainly has to do with the overall plot. Since we see some scenes where Lain seems to be hallucinating, I wonder if Lain has some psychiatric problem, and that's why her mother didn't really react to what she said, and why her father said "Even a girl like you can make friends with the help of the computer". The opening being all in english was unexpected, but it's kinda good. The ending though... It's kinda disturbing the scene they decided to use... I don't like it at all, the song isn't good either. Guess I'll have to watch more episodes of Lain to see what comes from here I guess. |
| This episode is not very intriguing. There are a lot of empty spaces going on where I guess I'm supposed to be thinking, but it's the first episode and there isn't a whole lot to think about. All the blank space made me feel like they were trying to buy time to fit the 20 minutes they needed. I don't know why it has to be so dark and mysterious at the start, and the only mystery is that some bitch killed herself and she did it at the start of the episode. The only interesting thing is that Lain is delirious throughout the whole episode and it has something to do with this dead chick, but I don't care about it for 20 minutes. Too much whitespace, which makes it do a bad job of establishing atmosphere and engaging the viewer (me) in the mystery. Also, the animation is shit, worse than evangelion (if you can believe it). The animation is so simplistic, characters barely move, and it's mostly still frames. This wouldn't be an issue if it had a good story and was interesting, but like I said there's a lot of pauses going on and there's no good animation to appreciate during them. Looking at the promotional banner for the show I get the feeling they were not saving their animation budget on the first episode, and the whole show is going to look like this. It kind of reminds me of persona 3, but in a worse way. (I've never played/seen persona). On a positive note, the intro is a banger, and I really liked how they were learning C in class. The computer theme could be good, but for me it feels overdone (Paprika, Akria, Ghost in the Shell) so it doesn't feel very original. Maybe at its release this wasn't as overdone. Also, I felt the computer consciousness part was the weaker aspect of all those movies I listed, because it's really confusing and doesn't make a lot of sense and it didn't make for a good mystery. I actually think the 1st ghost in shell movie did it good, but I don't know how it held up in the sequels because I did not watch them. I don't know why this is so highly rated, but I hope the narrative develops more. Or maybe they will add any interesting characters, because barely anybody speaks throughout this entire episode it's so boring. So far there are no good characters, the animation is shit, and the mystery is boring. But I did like the opening so I'm gonna keep watching it. PS: I just watched the second episode and I gotta say it was a lot more interesting. It might be too early to say this, but I'm really glad I gave this anime a second chance. I still think the first episode was a bad introduction, but I wouldn't reccommend skipping it. Also, I changed my mind about the animation, I like it now. |
TheDeep007May 8, 6:40 PM
| This is Deepy, Signing off! |
Reply to TheDeep007
This episode is not very intriguing. There are a lot of empty spaces going on where I guess I'm supposed to be thinking, but it's the first episode and there isn't a whole lot to think about. All the blank space made me feel like they were trying to buy time to fit the 20 minutes they needed.
I don't know why it has to be so dark and mysterious at the start, and the only mystery is that some bitch killed herself and she did it at the start of the episode. The only interesting thing is that Lain is delirious throughout the whole episode and it has something to do with this dead chick, but I don't care about it for 20 minutes. Too much whitespace, which makes it do a bad job of establishing atmosphere and engaging the viewer (me) in the mystery.
Also, the animation is shit, worse than evangelion (if you can believe it). The animation is so simplistic, characters barely move, and it's mostly still frames. This wouldn't be an issue if it had a good story and was interesting, but like I said there's a lot of pauses going on and there's no good animation to appreciate during them. Looking at the promotional banner for the show I get the feeling they were not saving their animation budget on the first episode, and the whole show is going to look like this. It kind of reminds me of persona 3, but in a worse way. (I've never played/seen persona).
On a positive note, the intro is a banger, and I really liked how they were learning C in class. The computer theme could be good, but for me it feels overdone (Paprika, Akria, Ghost in the Shell) so it doesn't feel very original. Maybe at its release this wasn't as overdone. Also, I felt the computer consciousness part was the weaker aspect of all those movies I listed, because it's really confusing and doesn't make a lot of sense and it didn't make for a good mystery. I actually think the 1st ghost in shell movie did it good, but I don't know how it held up in the sequels because I did not watch them.
I don't know why this is so highly rated, but I hope the narrative develops more. Or maybe they will add any interesting characters, because barely anybody speaks throughout this entire episode it's so boring. So far there are no good characters, the animation is shit, and the mystery is boring. But I did like the opening so I'm gonna keep watching it.
PS: I just watched the second episode and I gotta say it was a lot more interesting. It might be too early to say this, but I'm really glad I gave this anime a second chance. I still think the first episode was a bad introduction, but I wouldn't reccommend skipping it. Also, I changed my mind about the animation, I like it now.
I don't know why it has to be so dark and mysterious at the start, and the only mystery is that some bitch killed herself and she did it at the start of the episode. The only interesting thing is that Lain is delirious throughout the whole episode and it has something to do with this dead chick, but I don't care about it for 20 minutes. Too much whitespace, which makes it do a bad job of establishing atmosphere and engaging the viewer (me) in the mystery.
Also, the animation is shit, worse than evangelion (if you can believe it). The animation is so simplistic, characters barely move, and it's mostly still frames. This wouldn't be an issue if it had a good story and was interesting, but like I said there's a lot of pauses going on and there's no good animation to appreciate during them. Looking at the promotional banner for the show I get the feeling they were not saving their animation budget on the first episode, and the whole show is going to look like this. It kind of reminds me of persona 3, but in a worse way. (I've never played/seen persona).
On a positive note, the intro is a banger, and I really liked how they were learning C in class. The computer theme could be good, but for me it feels overdone (Paprika, Akria, Ghost in the Shell) so it doesn't feel very original. Maybe at its release this wasn't as overdone. Also, I felt the computer consciousness part was the weaker aspect of all those movies I listed, because it's really confusing and doesn't make a lot of sense and it didn't make for a good mystery. I actually think the 1st ghost in shell movie did it good, but I don't know how it held up in the sequels because I did not watch them.
I don't know why this is so highly rated, but I hope the narrative develops more. Or maybe they will add any interesting characters, because barely anybody speaks throughout this entire episode it's so boring. So far there are no good characters, the animation is shit, and the mystery is boring. But I did like the opening so I'm gonna keep watching it.
PS: I just watched the second episode and I gotta say it was a lot more interesting. It might be too early to say this, but I'm really glad I gave this anime a second chance. I still think the first episode was a bad introduction, but I wouldn't reccommend skipping it. Also, I changed my mind about the animation, I like it now.
| @TheDeep007 Wow, congrats for completely missing the point of Lain and believing it has to be a mystery anime like Death Note or Monster, the mystery is not about solving a crime or some murder here but it's about the mystery of identiity and about the world where the story takes place. Then again, judging by your favorites you are exact opposite of your name, here is a hint for you, look up the meaning of avant-garde on Google. And don't ever bother watching Texhnolyze or Boogiepop Phamtom if this is you how feel about Lain. |
JoeChipMay 7, 10:58 AM
Reply to JoeChip
@TheDeep007
Wow, congrats for completely missing the point of Lain and believing it has to be a mystery anime like Death Note or Monster, the mystery is not about solving a crime or some murder here but it's about the mystery of identiity and about the world where the story takes place.
Then again, judging by your favorites you are exact opposite of your name, here is a hint for you, look up the meaning of avant-garde on Google.
And don't ever bother watching Texhnolyze or Boogiepop Phamtom if this is you how feel about Lain.
Wow, congrats for completely missing the point of Lain and believing it has to be a mystery anime like Death Note or Monster, the mystery is not about solving a crime or some murder here but it's about the mystery of identiity and about the world where the story takes place.
Then again, judging by your favorites you are exact opposite of your name, here is a hint for you, look up the meaning of avant-garde on Google.
And don't ever bother watching Texhnolyze or Boogiepop Phamtom if this is you how feel about Lain.
| @JoeChip All I said was I didn't like the introduction I got from the 1st episode, how am I supposed to get the point of it when I haven't seen all of it yet. No, I did not know it was about the mystery of identity, and the 1st episode did a good job of getting the viewer to think about that mystery. Maybe it's better on rewatch, but it was not good watching for the very first time. I would've dropped if this anime didn't have such good reviews. I just finished watching the second episode and it was a lot better. Don't worry my review for that episode is pending. My favorites are amazing. |
| This is Deepy, Signing off! |
Reply to Azusutan
@JoeChip Attacking people's interests over a review is kinda weirdo behavior, you shouldn't get so personally offended by the review of the first time watcher whose only context is one episode. And from watching the first episode, I've gotta agree with his stance on not really drawing the viewer in. It's not a great pilot episode but does improve later in the series. Try to keep a level head next time champ, you've got this. :)
| @Azusutan I am simply glad my comment made you post for the first time since you registered in 2020. |
JoeChipMay 13, 11:52 AM
Reply to Azusutan
@JoeChip I did as my idol Aizen would. It’s almost like that time he once said “The opinion is the beauty of the mind, do not tarnish it with attacks and malpractice”. And thank you for further proving my point of having no valid arguments other than stalking people’s profiles. One day you’ll mature and I hope we can have a more intellectual conversation when that day comes. You’ll get there one of these days ❤️
| @Azusutan I don't need to stalk any profiles since the date you registered is written right under your nickname, you should use your brain more often, assuming you have one. And I have no idea who Aizen is. Nice double posting btw. |
| Weak urban-legendish hook. Inappropriately giddy dad. Cute bear pajama. Much avant-garde. Episode's a 3/5 and probably going up from here onward. |
ErquintJun 4, 12:51 PM
| Lain's basically dissociated herself from the world around her already, it seems. Constant daydreaming and zoning out. Maybe that could be the catalyst for a growing intrigue in a virtual world? "Grass is greener on the other side" and all that. Wonder if Chisa used a script or program to automate the post-mortem emails. Only other explanation would be an associate having access to her account. |
  ｲ乇刀乇乃尺ﾑ乇 ╔⏤═⏤╝   ╚⏤═⏤╗☽ Shaded Horizon ☾ |
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