Reviews

This time Serial Experiments Lain is up to the plate. In short this is a very cerebral anime that will make you think and most of the time you will come to question reality itself. While it succeeds on the former account throughout the series this message is muddled by other elements from the series. It becomes apparent that budgetary concerns and animation problems plagued this series. Often you have scenes of silence which are poignant but they seem to extend too long, or scenes of just music set against near a static background, let alone the time when previous footage is just used outright. Regardless this show tackles in its own way the nature of the soul and AI along with a kind of transcendence of both of them. Unlike Ghost in the Shell which tackles similar questions i was less repulsed by Lain because it was just more human. Even a purist like myself would say that what emerges in Serial Experiments Lain is in fact alive as much as i would not like to say so. If Lain could be remade with proper backing i thinking it would be a vast improvement by allowing it to tell the story in its own time rather than feeling rushed. In a couple spots the story becomes unmanageable without immersion breaking exposition dumps. Anyway overall i give this a 6.5-7/10.