Serial Experiments Lain

Look At Me

Kouhai
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Look At Me
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So pretty much a few hours ago today, I watched the first episode of Lain. Here are my thoughts on it. **SPOILERS AHEAD!**


To start, I have to say that the way episode 1 starts is great. Like, really, really great. Like, fish going for bait on a hook great. It instantly starts with a female character jumping to her death, which is already morbid and sets one of the most important themes that Lain might have to offer; that being death, life, and afterlife.

It then follows through with having this almost paranormal thing with this dead girl sending people at her school emails. Of course, Lain herself ends up getting an email, but despite telling her parents, they don't care so much.

But then where it gets interesting is when Lain's walking and sees the same girl show up and disappear and they have a brief exchange. It shows that there is some sort of connection with technology, death, all of it.

In my opinion, going to these dark and edgy themes and blending them with sci fi really does hit well for me. I know people tend to throw the word around interesting, but this show really is interesting. It interests.

The first episode for me is a solid 8/10. For what I didn't like about this.. I just felt like some of the interactions,
especially with Lain and her father
were quite.. lacking. I don't know, I just feel like they didn't have much weight to them.

But that's my thoughts for now. If any of you have watched Lain, what did you think of the first episode? What are your thoughts in general?
 
If it's horror, I'm not gonna watch it lol :'>
 
Alright, since you are kind enough to share the anime here, I will make time for it :>
 
I don't believe that Serial Experiments Lain was a horror. Which reminds me, I need to continue watching it. I stopped a few months ago because of life. However, I do remember it does deal with the paranormal and death themes I believe, and Lain trying to wrap her head around it all.
 
Senkusha said:
I don't believe that Serial Experiments Lain was a horror. Which reminds me, I need to continue watching it. I stopped a few months ago because of life. However, I do remember it does deal with the paranormal and death themes I believe, and Lain trying to wrap her head around it all.
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It wasnt my intention to label it as horror because I didn't read the spoiler, and so to avoid any preemptive review to clarify beforehand, before watching, before reading the spoiler, that in case it is a horror anime, I would not be watching it :>
TLDR: I haven't watched it, so I was just asking whether it's a horror or not
 
I would like to announce that I finished the 2nd episode a while ago.

IThis episode was a bit more comprehensible than the first and it shows us the first of what would be Lain basically becoming a feared God among mankind. To be fair nothing extremely notable happens asides Lain getting invited to go to a club with her classmates, the audience learning about a spiky pill which seems to "accelerate" people and a mass shooting happening at the club that Lain is at; two people die and the perpetrator eventually kills himself after Lain freaks him out.

Quite an interesting episode and the morbid ending did have me hooked. Can't wait to start the 3rd episode either tomorrow or now.

So far, I'm giving Lain a solid 8/10. It's great, yet slightly rough around its edges, but it's easy to look past anyway.
 
So it involves Gods? Man been awhile since I watched something similiar. And to think that even Dragon Ball Super that has similiar themes i haven't watched,...

Sorry for mentioning other anime (an anime that I havent even watched, lol), didnt mean to hijack the threads direction
 
Zack said:
So it involves Gods? Man been awhile since I watched something similiar. And to think that even Dragon Ball Super that has similiar themes i haven't watched,...

Sorry for mentioning other anime (an anime that I havent even watched, lol), didnt mean to hijack the threads direction
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Well from what I've heard and watched so far, it appears it does!

Also, don't worry about talking about other animes in this thread. Comparing them and having a discussion is fine in my eyes!
 
Okay, I agree :> Contrasting the awe between fictions yea ^^
 
So I've watched up to episode 5 now and I'm just about to start episode 6.

This anime is really really confusing. A lot of people say that it is supposed to be confusing, but I don't see how that makes it any better.

It is ridiculously hard to describe what happens or what the plot even is. I'm starting to not really enjoy this anime as much as I did at the start. I mean, at the start it had a lot of potential, but it really ended selling itself after it went too overboard with the whole "show, don't tell", if that's an appropriate explanation for what the show does.
 
"Goddammit Leeroy..!!" :'>
 
Sometimes, as much as I dislike the narrative "telling" descriptions that characters sometimes fall into (recently witnessed this in Slayers and Lina talking about Magic), I found that it helped to explain the world better than just "showing" it.
 
"Show, don’t tell" is usually, could usually be, the rule, but sometimes a bit of exposition helps the audience understand the world faster. Especially in fantasy like Slayers where the magic system and lore can get complicated. If it’s done naturally through dialogue, it could actually make the worldbuilding clearer instead of confusing
 
Sorry about my earlier crash-out, I was feeling a little bit frustrated for some reason.

So, I think I'm starting to sort of understand what's happening in this anime.

So, obviously there's both the real world and the "wired", the Lain universe's advanced version of the internet. The Wired sort of seems to intertwine with the real world, causing people to do erratic things. For some reason, there are multiple versions of Lain in the wired and I believe that these versions of Lain could potentially be gods in the wired. Because of Lain seeming to be a god in the wired, a hacker group called The Knights have seemed to be investigating her, going as far as to plant a bomb in Lain's computer room, unabomber style. Thankfully, Lain was not effected by the bomb has she had actually left the room prior to this.

You wanna know the best part of this all? Lain is completely clueless as to all of this. Yes, she knows quite a bit about computers, but she hasn't even realised that she's a god or anything like that. What a fitting touch for a 14 year old girl like Lain.

I'm going to watch episode 7 now and I hope I can do a binge watch session.
 
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Lain is not the anime you will just watch casually. That show will mess with your head. The first episode alone can confuse you. But if you stay patient, it's so deep. The problem is that so many people do not have that kind of patience again, especially with the stress that we go through everyday.
 
I ocassionaly like anime that mindfu*ks you. But then again, specially not when I am having a stressful week or month. Probably add this to my list when I feel like watching something that plays with my mind.
 
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