Reviews

Serial Experiments Lain was anime series that I had wanted to see for a long time. It was touted by many as one of the most intelligent and strange anime series ever created. While I will say that this show had a lot in the way of strangeness, it unfortunately had significantly less in the way of intelligent storytelling. Sure, it plays around with a few interesting ideas (e.g. identity, the collective unconscious, man's relationship to burgeoning information technology, God, ect...) but these ideas are never explored in any real depth and mostly relegated to the role of window dressing. This was the most disappointing part of the show for me because, when all was said and done, you could have a more trippy and thought-provoking experience by reading the introductory chapters in a book on metaphysics than through watching the entirety of Serial Experiments Lain.

As a lover of weird and abstract cinema, I really wanted to like this show. Unfortunately, this show mishandled almost everything it had going for it and spent way too much time on the relationship between the bland character of Lain and her equally bland friend Alice. In fact, every single character in Serial Experiments Lain was bland and wholly lacking in any depth or nuance. This show has nothing to offer aside from a few interesting ideas and visually engaging sequences. Your time would likely be better spent reading some of Carl Jung's work on archetypes and the collective unconscious or watching Terence McKenna's lectures on man in the age of intelligent machines than it would be watching this show. If anything, the experience would likely prove to be much more intellectually stimulating and engaging. When it comes to this show, I think it is safe to say that the universal praise lavished on Serial Experiments Lain is a case of the Emperor new clothes.