Title: Serial Experiements LainCategory: TV Total Episodes: 13 Genres: Action, Science Fiction Year Published: ** Studio: ** US Distribution: ** Animation: 7 Sound: 5 Story: 8 Character: 5 Value: 8 Enjoyment: 7 Average: 6.67 Description: Lain is an ordinary school girl. She doesn't question her surroundings, yet she picks up things others don't. She accepts them as they are. That is until her classmate throws herself off a building, and everybody around school starts receiving emails from her. Though never keen on technology, she becomes part of the Wired, or the net world. Unknown, she enters the Wired, and is surprised to find that everybody speaks of her. They look at her, and she hears words. Words like "Hacker", and "Power". It isn't long until she begins to question the world around her. The mysterious words of her friend haunt her; "I just left my body. I still live here...". Soon, the line between the real world and the electric world begins to fade, until it is revealed that Lain can only be one thing, one thing that defies everything that is known and not known about our world, that no mortal can possibly be.
God.
Animation: The animation in Serial Experiments Lain tears the viewer apart on terms of the quality of the presented animation. On the basis of animation itself, everything appears to be distorted, giving the viewer of the animation a sense that they setting is unreal (which may possilby be one of the main purposes and motifs of the series). With such a distorted view of things, the animation in Lain is certainly unsettling, if not completely freakish. The animation in Serial Experiments Lain is simplistic and detailed at the same time, giving a heavy sense of conflict, which ties into the plot and theme of the series.
Since one of the major ideas in Serial Experiments Lain is duality, this can be easily seen in the animation of the series. Aside from the "distortion" of the "real" world (Lain explores the idea just what is reality), the animation in Serial Experiments Lain is superb. The director certainly had a complex vision regarding this show, and fortunately, the animators came through and fulfilled the vision. The uniqueness of the animation in Serial Experiments Lain is not only is the animation computer generated and hand-drawn, but it incorportates from several other mediums to produce a surreal affect as the viewer himself finds himself caught between the reality and the imagination not ONLY in the show, but in real life as well. It is through the combination of the several medium that the viewer might get the idea that the crude drawings of the real world is done completely on purpose, to create the conflict that the producers were trying to convey.
Serial Experiments Lain is basically a view upon modern society. In such a technologically advanced era, Serial Experiments Lain depicts of a society torn between the "physical" earth (or, is it?) and the Wired, or the Internet. Though what one gets out of the series is completely dependant upon the individual, Serial Experiments Lain questions the fabric of reality from an unconventional point of view that most people themselves should understand (Greek and Asian philosophy is most definitely NOT for everybody). It is indeed an interesting approach and views philosophy from a different approach. Thus, the series is about its characters trying to discern the truth and reality in the world, if it even exits at all.
While this might sound similar to countless of other series, whereas other series have failed, Serial Experiments Lain prevailed because the animators kept the ball rolling - the plot continuously develops at the same pace. Thus, even though one might felt dejected from the mind warping, at the fundamental level the viewer remains on the series simply for the plot. However, the trick to the series is to realize that there is not just one plot in Lain; in doing so, one would be missing the point of Serial Experiments Lain entirely. There are several, if not a dozen plots that each play a part in the intricacy and complexity of the grand scheme of themes. Therefore, Serial Experiments Lain had a certain replay value, if the viewer approach the anime from a different perspective each time. |
