Serial Experiments Lain

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{{Infobox animanga/Header | title_name =Serial Experiments: Lain | image = Sel 0000.gif | size =178px | caption = Logo | ja_name = | ja_name_trans = | genre= }} {{Infobox animanga/Anime | title =

| director = Ryutaro Nakamura <tr><td style="background: #e6e9ff;">Created by<td>Chiaki J. Konaka | studio = | network = TV Tokyo
TechTV (USA) | first_aired = July 6, 1998 | last_aired = September 28, 1998 | num_episodes= 13 }} Template:Infobox animanga/Footer Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series about an adolescent girl in suburban Japan named Lain Iwakura, and her introduction to the Wired, an international computer network. The original idea of the series was produced by production 2nd, the story was written by Chiaki J. Konaka, the original character design was done by Yoshitoshi ABe and it was directed by Ryutaro Nakamura. Lain is produced in English in North America by Geneon and in Singapore by Odex. Serial Experiments Lain raises questions about God, the collective unconscious, the Internet, conspiracy theories and many other themes common in cyberpunk literature. Fans of the series generally cite it as a good example of anime as literature which invites and rewards close critical analysis. Serial Experiments Lain was also a PSX game in Japan. The story for the game came first and then they started work on the anime using some of the plot and the main character Lain. Even though they were produced at the same time the anime was shown first in Japan in 1998. The storylines were different and did not have the same characters. Info came from [1]

1 Plot
2 Publications and other media
3 Allusions
4 See also
5 External links

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The series begins with the suicide of Chisa Yomoda, and with Lain being told by her classmates of an posthumous e-mail from Chisa that they believe is either a hoax or a prank Chisa set up. However, Lain Iwakura (岩倉玲音 Iwakura Rein) is unconvinced and decides to check it out. She logs on to her personal computer (or "NAVI", named after Knowledge Navigator concept) and discovers an e-mail from Chisa explaining that she has abandoned her flesh and is still alive in the Wired (a large computer network with striking similarities to the Internet). Lain begins to tentatively explore the Wired. She believes that the Psyche chip will allow her to enter the Wired and the series follows her gradual evolution into, or realization as, an omnipresent and omnipotent being who has grown independent of the Wired.

During in her quest for answers, Lain becomes famous throughout the Wired, and she gradually loses interest in things of the "real" world, becoming ever more concerned with the "Wired" world. She discovers powers and unimaginable abilities within the Wired, even able to walk through it, and finally comes across the nagging question: "Who is Lain?" While trying to understand herself and the world, the Real world and the Wired world begin merging

Slowly, Lain uncovers the truth. The merge began when a Tachibana Industries CEO, Masami Eiri, developed "Protocol 7" (based upon Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, in which, the seventh circuit is the neuro-genetic circuit), which allowed the "collective consciousness" (concept developed by Carl Jung) to rise to a conscious level by using the Schumann resonance (the electromagnetic waves at 7.83 HZ that travel through the Schumann Cavity; the air between surface and ionosphere), he found the means to become "a God" as he tells Lain.

By transferring his consciousness to the Wired and destroying his corporeal body (as indicated in Chisa Yomoda's e-mail) he managed to pass to the Eighth Circuit (neuro-atomic circuit, within which the helix of DNA allows the consciousness to transcend to the future version of oneself) and achieve immortality, or rather, a continuous existence. By means to achieving his status as a God, Eiri created Lain as a part of Protocol 7 and/or stumbled upon Lain as a result of Protocol 7 (which is never made certain); and he has his worshippers, "The Knights of the Lambda Calculus" .

By giving Lain a new identity as a teenage girl, and thus, a new awareness, Eiri launched the "serial experiments" conducted by Tachibana labs. The constant (supposed) hallucinations Lain suffers from throughout the series is the old awareness she had inherited resurfacing, or perhaps really her own vision of the Eight Circuit. As stated appropriately in the series, by this argument, "Lain is God"; collectively aware, able to do anything. However, Lain's encounter with Eiri went off as a bitter one - as Lain had slaughtered all the Knights members, and thus, destroyed Eiri's worshippers, undermining his position as God. Eiri counters Lain's stroke by pointing out that he hadn't lost all his worshippers: Lain was now his only worshipper, and ergo, the guarantee of his status.

By the end of the series, in her encounter with Alice ("Arisu" in the Japanese version), when Eiri interrupts, Lain states that the idea of using Schumann Resonance as a means to initiate Protocol 7 could not have been Eiri's idea alone, and that Eiri was simply an "acting" God; therefore, not truly a God, just a being that proclaimed itself to be one. This revelation drives Eiri to the brink of insanity - Eiri's final act of madness overloads his presence and makes it collapse upon itself (during which he manages to gain an inconsistent corporeal shape, perhaps by the means of regulating the electrons to draw protons and neutrons to form flesh). This causes Alice to slip into traumatic shock; after this trauma, Lain decides to erase the memories of all that has happened, everytime Lain interacted with someone, from everyone's minds to heal Alice, restoring everything. She explains, "If it isn't remembered, it never happened.". A curious point occurs afterwards; Eiri is shown to be alive. While that is in accordance with the overall plot, it is an occurrence that hasn't been explained properly. However, a theory in the series' own script shows that the Roswell Aliens were a result of the collective unconscious generating the image of the future (the course of future human evolution), which is also in accordance with Eiri's appearance; the generation of collective unconscious as a vision of the "past", which is triggered by Lain.

Another aspect of the series is the constant identity crisis Lain enters upon encountering her "Wired" self; every so often asking the questions "Who am I?", "Who are you?", "Why are these happening?" and stating "I am me!", "There is only one me!", "You are not me", she inquires to whether her being is what she thought it was, a normal girl, or something else. In the end, she accepts her position as the closest thing to God that has ever come into existence.

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Publications and other media

Image:Lain hacker small.jpg The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across several forms of media (anime, video game, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview in Animerica (Vol. 7 No. 9), "The approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products." The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime, though the anime was released first.

The series ran for 13 episodes of one half hour each, between July 6 and September 28, 1998, on TV Tokyo. A PlayStation game of the same name was released on November 26, 1998.

There are several artbooks available:

Omnipresence In The Wired - Hardbound, 128 pages in 96 colors with Japanese text. It features a chapter for each layer (episode) and concept sketches. It also features a short color manga titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication". [2] It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/SR-12W/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-789713431)
Visual Experiments Lain - Paperback, 80 full-color pages with Japanese text. It has details on the creation, design, and storyline of the series. It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-789713423)
Scenario Experiments Lain - Paperback, 335 pages. By "chiaki j. konaka" (uncapitalised in original). It contains collected scripts with notes and small excerpted storyboards. (ISBN 4-7897-1320-2)
Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide - Paperback. A guide to the PlayStation game.

Several soundtracks were released:

"Duvet" opening song - Written by the band bôa as their first single. Somewhat unusual for anime, the opening song is performed by an English band, in English, rather than Japanese with sub-titles.
Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack - The first OST featuring music by Nakaido "Chabo" Reichi. It features the opening and closing theme songs and a number of tracks inspired by the television series.
Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix - A second OST featuring a number of electronica songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme song.
lain BOOTLEG - 2 CD, Soundtrack, 45+ tracks, limited edition. Contains ambient music from the series and a mixed-mode data and audio CD with a clock program and a game. Released by Pioneer Records. It is ironically often confused with the Sonmay bootleg of itself, which is 1 CD, 45 tracks, some with shorter lengths than the original.

Serial Experiments Lain was released for PlayStation on November 26, 1998 by Pioneer LDC. The game has no classification and some argue that it isn't a game at all. Throughout the game, with the assistance of Lain, you unlock pieces of Lain's therapy sessions and journals to discover what happened to her. The gameplay consists of travelling through layers of an operating system collecting audio, video and text files along with pieces of a teddy bear and other objects to assist in your search. The game follows a different series of events than the animated series. It is multimedia intensive, entirely in Japanese and very difficult to understand without knowledge of the language.

LainOS, an open source operating system project, was created as an homage to the operating system of Lain's Navi in the series.

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