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| The last time I've felt this confused after finishing watching an anime was with Sonny Boy. However, this time I'm not really sure how I feel about how it concluded. The soft reset feels like a cop out in some ways but in others it might just make sense in this context, probably. In any case, Lain herself summarized it best at the beginning "I... I am confused again". That's basically the show in a nutshell. Konaka certainly threw us for a wild ride with the way the script was written and the episodes have been directed. Each one of them being layers certainly adds to the many interpretations the elements presented have. Layers of confusion? Knowledge? Development? Who knows for sure. He isn’t shy to bring up an abundance of philosophical questions to the table, reaching the point where the existence of God is brought into consideration, both in implicit and explicit ways. From what I gathered Lain was never physically real to begin with but manifested as such and what we saw during the first 12 and a half episodes were either abstract or happened in a manifestation of whatever the Wired actually is. At first I thought it represented the internet as an entity of mass media communication more so considering the year this came out in and how it was being portrayed. Nonetheless, as the episodes progressed that theory diverged more into the fantastical approach, leaving even aliens as a possibility. By the end, what we carry are more questions than answers regarding the plot and its various disturbingly written characters. Finally, I can say for sure that this is a memorable series. Each episode made its mark its own way, be that the theme, or the atmosphere with its shots and tracks. In case I come across this in the future again, I'll be sure to give them a closer look to see just how much my perception changes. |
| ⠓⠥⠍⠁⠝⠊⠞⠽ ⠞⠓⠗⠕⠥⠛⠓ ⠎⠕⠍⠑ ⠎⠞⠥⠏⠊⠙⠊⠞⠽⠂ ⠎⠕⠍⠑ ⠺⠊⠇⠇ ⠎⠅⠊⠏ ⠺⠁⠎⠓⠊⠝⠛ ⠞⠓⠑⠊⠗ ⠓⠁⠝⠙⠎ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠑⠝⠙ ⠥⠏ ⠗⠥⠊⠝⠊⠝⠛ ⠊ ⠞ ⠋⠕⠗ ⠑⠧⠑⠗⠽⠕⠝⠑ ⠎⠓⠊⠊⠅⠕ ⠁⠕⠎⠕⠊⠂ ⠼⠃⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠓ |
| 2deep4me not even gonna pretend like i knew what was going on holy shit what a masterpiece its not trash you just didnt understand it!!!111!!!! nah but fr that was an interesting watch. the op is sick af gonna be listening to that on repeat. not much else to say tho it was pretty cool. |
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| Was half expecting to see Lain get jealous at everyone living perfect lives in which she fixed(?), and then let loose and kill everyone, ending all of humanity. But no, she remains one with the wired, silently watching everyone and taking care of everyone I guess from up on high. She essentially is alone forever I suppose, but I guess you could call this mostly a happy ending...? Not bad at all, but I can't lie and say everything was crystal clear to me. That's the beauty of these shows though, not everything is laid out plain and simple for the viewer, it's up to you to interpret things how you wish. Although unless I'm missing something crucial here, all things considered, it's not that complex of a story. You could probably go on and on about its psychological aspect and discuss the imagery and the symbolism and all that. But it just ends up with Lain becoming someone just forever surfing the web. I'm sure there's plenty of analysis videos out there delving deeper into the subject, but frankly while understanding this who a little better would be nice, really I just don't care that much. A re-watch would probably boost my opinion considerably, but again, I just don't care. Comparing it to Texhnolyze which I finished just before this, it doesn't bring much to the table for me personally. Texhnolyze made me FEEL things, but Serial Experiments Lain to me just comes off as your psychological thriller that people are trying to fully comprehend. Could be special for you, but isn't really much of anything to me. Doesn't fail in any aspects other than just giving me the feeling of "whatever". I'll give it a 5/10. MIGHT pick up Haibane Renmei one day, but probably not. I am gonna try Ergo Proxy right after this though. |
  NYANPASU  whiskey tango foxtrot |
| Its so sad but i love it sm |
| im a girl, but im also underage. please dont be creepy! |
| This confused the f out of me. Now Im questioning whether im dumb or it was poorly directed |
| Kind of underwhelming ending. The former god became a dude who wants to quit his job and that duo that spied on her became electricians. Is that a revenge on them? Only Arisu got reasonably happy ending. Is it because she was kind to Lain? And then we a back to enjoy simple things in life like porn and moe girls. On the bigger issue. Surely online, if you are mod/admin/hacker, you can alter messages content and twist things to suit your needs and vision, but what about IRL memories. You can't overwrite these easily. So how could she achieve that. Or people nowadays use MAL and similar as a replacement for memory and will not notice if admins alter anything on their list. Add shows they did not watch, change scores and so on. Knights is anon of course, surely you heard of their daring raids. By the way their logo is kind of an inversion of Freemason logo, but it uses similar elements (Unusual form of compass and a pyramid instead of square). I wonder if show meant to show them as opponents of masons or kind of supporters or alternative new masons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_(drawing_tool) |
EmperorThorDec 29, 2022 6:29 PM
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| "and you don't seem to understand~~" this was my 2nd watch and still didnt understand most things. i kinda want to watch an explanation video or something but i fear that it will ruin the "magic" of the show |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| Series Experiment Lain is an example of how a visual storytelling should look like! The less-dialogue is very apparent in this kind of series which is obviously interesting for me because the direction of the whole premise wants us to pay close attention to any details relevant to what's being presented by the characters, decently well written albeit I want more from Arisu, her characterization is very interesting in the first place, she isn't like those spoiled mfs out there but has a kind heart to Lain, I thought at first though this series going to involve some bullying scenes but no it was me going really over-bound with the idea as someone who is an introvert as well. I found interesting parts from each background composition that create a whole identity of Lain's society; it's very crowded and unsafe imo, like imagine seeing an 8th grader inside a club and got hit on by their seniors or something lmao. Writing wise gets picked up from the 3rd episode, albeit the narrative itself is incoherent at times to convey its very well strong message but at another time, it gets on the edge of my seat as I'm also asking myself what I would do if I were in Lain's position realistically. As from this episode, I was in shock the moment Lain erased everyones memory and the ending just got me speechless. |
| In general, I enjoyed this anime but it was really confusing and the pacing was very low sometimes. Loved the art and the creepy atmoshpere of this series; the opening is a 10/10. About the characters, Lain was completely perfect in my opinion but I couldn't feel anything for the others characters, I think they were pretty irrelevant. Despite I liked the ending of this anime, I felt so sad for Lain, it was so sad and depressing. I will give this anime a 8/10 ^^ . |
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| The underlining message is there. I'm happy that I chose to watch this. I think this show gives a different perspective on loneliness. There's like a thousand more things I could say about this anime, but i'll leave it there for now... |
| What made me enjoy the series the most were its visuals and quite unique atmosphere. Overall, I liked Serial Experiments Lain. Original take on storytelling and a visual manifest of possible threats coming from technology dominating over our everyday lives, from the perspective of a person living in 1990s. Too bad the grey dude didn't appear for one last time. Alien cameo was great. |
| okaayyyyy,,, that was definitely a show. one of the anime ever created. sucks that i didn't comprehend what was going on 90% of the time. i think i at least understand the ending, but i don't think i understand why things played out that way. she removed herself from everyone's memories and her body no longer exists in the real world (???) -- but how does deleting herself solve everything? god if i have to google every question i have about an anime just to understand even a small fraction of it, then that's just no fun. i think i'll just carry on with life knowing that i'll never fully comprehend this show |
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| The ending was bitter, sweet, and in the SEL fashion. Just what I expected, but at the same time it delivered a bit more. I do like Lain's resolve in the end and her break from the 'wired' chains. The relationship with her father and Arisu helped her in that, them being the only two people who still maintain an emotional attachment to her, and hence, make it possible for her to exist. At least that is my take on it. It is a difficult anime to recommend to everyone, but I think that it is an important piece of media history. The animation was beautiful and with a bold premise, it made to be something that we do not often see today anymore. The ideas behind the internet and technology that it tried to convey back in its infancy seem to be more or less manifested in a similar design that we also have in our present day and present time. :] Let's all love Lain~! |
| This was a really unique experience. |
| I loved (almost) every episode! The concept was interesting, I think this could be a rough imagination of how the experimentation "AI in a box" could be with a few fantasy tweaks. |
| yes. |
| 9 out of 10 no one but me can understand this anime except me. anyone giving it a 10 exposes themselves. rating it anywhere from 6-9 is fine. deviating from those numbers is an indicator. perhaps some day in the future i will enlighten you on the meanings behind this anime. it loses a point for being wrong on a few key concepts and borrowing the creation account from Genesis in the final ep... pretty lame insert the way it was done. |
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| It was kind of sad how everyone forgot Lain. I'm not someone who can read into the deeper meaning of things - I usually look only at the surface of the anime, so this anime flew past my head. The way I understood the last episode was that the world was just a simulation and without Lain, the "softwares" that were people were living alternate lives, and as a conscious software herself, Lain is able to travel into the future of the simulation and visit Alice? ... Yeah, I'm confused |
| -insert wise old moosy adage- |
| Well I watched this like 7-8 years ago and back then I couldnt even grasp half of it but now I rewatched it and I think I understood way more this time especially due to being older and relating to some stuff especially the whole internet taking over our lives stuff. (Although I still couldnt maybe grasp all of it still lol but I think its better this way, So that it can retain its mysterious vibe) Definitely one of the most unique anime to ever exist even in its genre. Also my initial rating all those years ago was 7/10 but I can proudly change my rating to 9/10 now :D |
BiisooJul 1, 2023 11:52 AM
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| Original Thoughts: Thoughts upon Rewatch: |
waalex11Jul 25, 2023 2:14 AM
| The weirdest anime I have ever seen. Almost no context and even googling it wont help you much, im not into that. Most of the time you feel like you're in an another realm watching this anime and looking up whats gonna happen but it looks a documentary of a schizo person 4/10 , been a while since I gave this. if this had more context and some coherence to im sure it can get a higher rating, they're not even explaining anything and I still wanna know how the sister was affected first and became braindead lol |
| "If no one knows, it can be the same as if it never happened at all." It was confusing, but the conclusion was decent when we reached a post-time skip...ALL RESET. Return. So Lain never existed...but she is everywhere. I'm not exactly sure, but now I know. |
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| So do people actually like this anime or is it some shitpost thing that I'm unaware of? |
| Ok so I was just going to give it a 7 and be done with this finally, but ofc I didn't feel right not liking an anime that apparently a lot love. So I saw one of the Not Recommended, reviews and ofc they said most of the stuff I thought. Now reading a few people people here and their mix thoughts, like the ones that didn't like it, the ones that loved it and dont get why some didn't like it; I'm just concluding this anime's themes are something that can either relate to people in a deep level or just miss the mark all together. It did have a few cool scenes and interesting topics but I don't think that would make the experience worth while. For example, I spined the wheel got a different anime, and watched that shit quickly, meanwhile I still didn't watch the 3 remaining Lain episodes. So something stupid like Super Crooks was easier for me to watch, does that make me dumb cause I like simple things? I think that it just means Lain isn't as digestible in terms of media. Like sure we can conclude that me and other people should just stick to shounen shit and not bother watching stuff that requires a few brain cells to enjoy, or we can actually admit that maybe the show isn't that friendly if you aren't prepared to just stare at random noises without dialogue for a while. Ofc this ain't endless 8, where you are just forced to lose your time, but if I'm fast-forwarding a lot, I want to believe it's on the anime not being interesting and not just cause I only want to see action and anything else I'd insta skip. I guess want I want to say is that, I don't think Lain is for everyone, it surely is something unique, but if you aren't willing to sit through a lot of the abstract stuff it can present, it might feel like a drag, and a total waste of your time. It can definitely be an 8, but maybe with people that can actually appreciate this stuff. So yeah, looking at the score distributions it makes me feel like an outcast, or that I have low attention span or something. I don't want to go to the other extreme and just say like the ones that hate it, that it's pretentious, but that it just didn't click for me, and that's ok, even if I didn't enjoy it, I'm glad I gave it a try, I was really curious about this anime for a while, and now I know what I think about it. |
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| L E T S A L L L O V E L A I N |
三 刀 流 炎 无 |
| Well I found that really satisfying, everything seemed to come together in a way that made sense and gave you a sense of finality to it all. |
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