"Before watching Serial Experiments Lain I did not think it would be possible to sum up 11 episodes full of questions that went unanswered in a mere 2."
Serial Experiments Lain is... Uh.... Ahnn.... Hm.....
Serial Experiments Lain is a thought provoking story about a cute girl... No, that's not a good summary...
Serial Experiments Lain is a story about an evil corporation and the internet... Hm, That doesn't seem to do it justice either...
Serial Experiments Lain is a Psychedelic cyberpunk drugtrip involving violence, mildly disturbing imagery, political and technological issues during the 1990's, and a cute girl in the middle of it all with a family that can be called dysfunctional at best.
Ah. There we go.
But in all honesty, I've gone through and tried typing a starting paragraph for this review about 6 times now, and hopefully this is the last one. Serial Experiments Lain is an anime that cannot be described in mere words- and as much as I absolutely hate the "you just have to go see it" approach because I feel it tends to linger around lazy writing or explanation, I honestly cannot find a way to tackle what Lain is about without spoiling the entire anime to you.
Let me get some facts out of the way for new viewers: This show is very abstract, and this show tends to not tell you anything that is happening at all for probably 9/10ths of it's running time. If you are not interested in that, I still recommend it- just for the sheer strangeness of it all. But those are two things that could easily turn somebody away.
Let me approach it to how I first saw Lain.
I was bedridden sick, and got it recommended to me by a man I follow named Rocco Botte in one of his videos. I decided to check it out after snooping around if it was good or not, thinking that if I'm zoned out on tylenol and half asleep, what's the worst that could happen if I just nodded off to some anime?
Boy, was I wrong. I bingeviewed the whole thing while half asleep in one day and to be honest, I feel like when you're in that dreamlike state while watching this show you tend to question what's real and what's not. But the simple fact that all of these interesting things were happening- the insanely creepy family of Lain, the Wired being a super dated 90's cyberpunk where the dead can talk through email, and people randomly committing suicide in clubs and off of buildings- with NONE of these being given answers until the last few episodes, made me want to keep watching more and more.
I'm going to get to actually reviewing it now, and boy let me tell you that doing this without spoilers is going to be hard...
STORY: 9
Lain seems to have a strange pattern going on with it: I can't seem to tack down what makes it good, it's just good. The execution of the story is really, really strange and abstract, yet in the end it all flows together and makes an interesting watch straight up to the end, even if the conclusion is a bit predictable by today's standards. It's not anything in particular that makes it good, it's just the delivery of the whole package that makes it sweet.
ART: 7
Not much to say here. The art is obviously dated and not aged too well, but the 3d cyberpunk scenes as cheesy as they are still look cool and unique to me even now. The overall design of the art style is pretty great, with red blots filling in any dark area and messiness and confusion being a general theme.
SOUND: 9
The sound category for Lain is going to be dependent on one thing for you: Do you like noise? White noise, guitar noise, static, low frequencies, minimal soundtrack. If not, I don't think you'll appreciate the sound design as much as I did. But regardless of personal taste, the mostly noise-comprised soundtrack fits the dreamlike and slow mood of Lain so well, that I'd have to say it's one of the high points of the series...
CHARACTER: 10
...That is, until you bring up the characters of Lain. I don't know what makes them so engrossing, but every character even down to the more generic ones just make you question "why?" and wonder about their personal agenda and what they are up to. I knew I was going to watch the whole anime as soon as I saw Lain's family- Her mother being very quiet and methodical to the point of creepiness, and her father being extremely obsessed with computers, almost to the point of "Junji Ito character development" levels. And the craziness doesn't stop there...! Lain herself is one of the most interesting characters, mostly because she doesn't seem to do anything for the first few episodes- she just sits back and watches the world explode into madness around her.
ENJOYMENT: 8
Lain is a crazy, crazy anime. Sit back and watch the soft visuals, and question what's going on while aliens pop up out of nowhere and are never explained again. Wonder why the OS involves a giant spinning eye and question how Lain gets the money to buy all those server computers. Why does a 10 year old boy know about super conductive water heating (or whatever they call it in the show at that point)? It's fun to just sit back and watch all of this happening, although a bit confusing and frustrating at times.
Overall: 8
Lain is a weird anime, and I can't think of any specific reason why. The reasons above all are good in their respective categories, but as a whole I cannot really put together why Lain is such a memorable experience. As soon as I walked away from Lain I knew that I could not put my finger on why I enjoyed it, simply that it was just "good".
Lain is not a masterpiece by any means. But it's certainly something. I'd recommend it to anyone who has an open mind and wants to try something extremely strange.
I'm sorry for this extremely unsorted review. I cannot do better with Lain. I'm still confused at how to word it.
