Serial Experiments Lain is definitely a classic cyberpunk anime. But it's also incredibly slow. This isn't an action anime, it's a psychological anime. And I wonder just how dated it feels. Aside from the CRT monitors everywhere, are the themes still applicable today? I think the anime was enamored with the idea of what The Internet could become. But now, in 2023, does that message still hold up?
What do you think? For those who have already watched Lain, would you recommend it today to someone who has never heard of it?
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5y4nQ5Y1V8
It's streaming on Funimation. For some reason it isn't on Crunchyroll yet, even though Crunchyroll and Funimation were supposed to merge libraries over a year ago.
I don’t think that Lain actually had an overarching theme. This is only my personal opinion but to me it was like a series of loosely connected musings on how the Internet might transform individuals and society.
There’s a lot of stuff there about the nature of hypertext (the references to Memex and Vanevar Bush) and the concepts of addressability and indexicality — this is the theme of connection and identification. But these also intimations of how the Internet could be used for control and surveillance…
If there’s one place where it all intersects I’d say it’s in the concept of technique as explained by Jacques Elul. Essentially, technology is not a neutral thing. It reshapes the world and society and makes us adapt to it.
I feel that’s a prescient warning about what smartphones and social media ended up doing both to individuals and society.
Just to be clear I am not saying this is **the interpretation ** of Serial Experiments Lain, just mine.
In the end people should watch it precisely because it’s so provocative and can be read in many ways.
Ha, thanks! You definitely remember more of Lain than I do. 😁
I loved watching it back in high school and I saw it a couple of times after. It’s one of those pieces of art that really stays with you like Ghost in the Shell, Twin Peaks, Silent Hill 2, or The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
I find myself just randomly thinking about something from these things often. There’s a real value to that kind of challenging and weird stuff and I think people should expose themselves to it more often.
I’d encourage people in the case of Lain to look past the slow pace and late 90s aesthetics and just let the experience wash over you. You’ll come out a bit richer.