Serial Experiments Lain, usually abbreviated to SEL, or Lain, is a 1998 cyberpunk anime produced by Ryutaro Nakamura (director), Chiaki Konaka (script), Yasuyuki Ueda (producer) and Yoshitoshi Abe (design).
The show focuses on Iwakura Lain, a shy, naive girl, with a total lack of interest in technological devices but who lives, like every work set in cyberpunk settings, in a society submerged in these technological advances. The story begins with the suicide of one of Lain's classmates and the emergence of supposedly mysterious emails sent by this girl, after her death, to several other students in her class.
Upon arriving home, and drunk with curiosity, after hearing the rumor of the alleged emails, Lain decides to find out on her previously ignored Navi (a state-of-the-art technological device) if she was also one of the recipients.
After reading the intriguing content of the email, Lain is even more confused. Chisa, the girl who committed suicide, said she didn't die. Before, he had abandoned his physical body and left for a strange place, called Wired, where he had found god.
From then on, a series of experiments follow, caused by strange events, which will make Lain question his true existence, what is real or not, as well as the concrete existence of the barrier that separates Wired and reality.
SEL is one of the typical animes that gained status due to the mental confusion caused by its plot, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mawaru Peguindrum, Paranoia Agent. However, SEL has a particularity in relation to the cited works.
Unlike most of these "mindfucks" works, which start relatively "normal" and progress towards the weird, Serial Experiments already starts by diving into the weirdness.
The first five episodes serve to build the anime's world, introducing the main characters, such as Lain, her family and close friends, as well as emblematic figures, such as the Knights group.
Without many spoilers, I aim to discuss the main symbols presented in this show.
The show has a reputation for being prophetic about the influence of technology and the internet on everyday life. Mixing some scientific hypotheses and philosophical theories, the plot raises the possible relationships that the internet would have with the future of humanity.
Approaches such as the well-known Millennium Bug are often inserted there.
Existentialism and Gnosticism are figures that are very present in the symbology of the show.
The fact that 3 Lains are presented throughout the show points to such questions. What is the real Lain? What's the first to come up? Which one overlaps? The Lain that exists in the real world, the Lain that exists in Wired but is capable of spreading rumors affecting people in the real world, the Evil Lain that is only seen by people under hallucinations in Cyberia?
According to Kierkegaard, the main exponent of existentialist theories, essence comes after existence. For him, the individual must refrain from abstractions and stick to the practicality of what is palpable. In addition to investigating human subjectivity from the anguish of the individual before life.
This subjectivity giving rise to different ideas culminates in different realities experienced by the individual. As is the case with the questioning about which Lain is the real one, since each one experiences their own reality, based on their own choices.
In the show, dissociation between the real and the virtual is provided by responses. However, this same dissociation takes shape when real and virtual coexist.
An example of this coexistence are the colored shadows presented throughout the episodes. They represent the existence of wired in the real world, being observed only by shadows.
Still on the experience observed in the anime, Yasuyuki Ueda commented, in an interview for Otakon, when asked about the smoke coming out of Lain's fingers:
"If you want to know about the meaning, the smoke coming out is a reality observed by her, but for everyone around her they cannot be seen, it is not part of their reality. So in that sense, everyone has their own reality that other people can't see it, it's kind of a play between realities for each individual".
At the same time, this dissociation between real and virtual, represented in the figure of Wired, brings up this Gnostic vision. Being this same Wired the representation of the Pleromal World of SEL.
The problem of dissociation from reality
Currently, there is a great confusion caused by the separation of the real and virtual worlds. Not being satisfied, technological advances intensified the escape from reality in search of emulated experiences in the virtual environment.
It is common to find people who live different lives, simulating different types of personalities to suit the communities they frequent.
In many cases, they are popular people for the achievements acquired as game players, digital media influencers, but who have never experienced the real world.
These are people who know the map of a level in a game like the back of their hand but don't know the city where they live. People known to many online, but who are unable to hold a conversation with someone over a meal.
For Aristotle, there is only one world: the real one. The world experienced by everyone. For the philosopher, the act of contemplating the foundations of the real world is what leads the individual to the practice of philosophizing. For this reason, only the experience lived by reality is capable of understanding the questions conditioned to human existence.
The experiences lived by individuals are not dissociated from reality, nor are they conditioned to experiences relativized by personal subjectivism. One cannot separate the real from the intelligible, nor ignore it, as in existentialist philosophy.
Every reader, when reading a book, is fully capable of understanding any event in history, as well as the motivations of each character, even without having experienced similar situations. These sensitive cognitive experiences arise from interaction with intelligible foundations present in the real world.
Therefore, Serial Experiments Lain emerges as an avant-garde classic, but it was only relevant because of the period in which it was created. The crisis generated by the great depression of millenniums, the uncertainties of the new century, the myth of new technology, were factors that helped to popularize Serial Experiments, long before classics like The Matrix. As a great zeitgeist, Lain tries to keep itself alive by the great efforts of its fans.
However, unlike works like Ghost In The Shell, SEL was not intended to be what it became. The script was not premeditated, existing flaws prove this. However, the show is not, and probably never was, intended to point to a big story. Serial Experiments actually was the real experiment. Abe and Ueda themselves have already said that they didn't have great intentions with the anime, rather they wanted to observe the reactions of each viewer.
Hated by some, loved by others. The fact is that Serial Experiments Lain is the true experiment in anime form, a figure of postmodern expressionism.
