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Serial Experiments Lain is a landmark 1998 Japanese experimental sci-fi psychological thriller anime series, part of a cross-media project that included magazine serialization, a television anime, and a PlayStation video game. Focused on shy adolescent Lain Iwakura and her exploration of the Wired—a global communication network analogous to the early internet—it delves into existential themes of digital identity, the blurring line between reality and virtuality, and the impact of global connectivity on human consciousness and society.
Key moments
1996Cross-media production planning commences
March 10, 1998Magazine serialization launches in AX magazine
July 6 – September 29, 199813-episode anime series broadcasts on TV Tokyo
November 26, 1998PlayStation video game released by Pioneer LDC
1998Wins Excellence Award in the Animation Division at the 2nd Japan Media Arts Festival
Avant-Garde Creative Vision
The series broke new ground in anime with its non-linear, fragmented narrative, eerie experimental visual style, and atmospheric sound design. It rejected traditional anime storytelling conventions, forcing audiences to actively engage with the plot as they followed Lain's disorienting journey through digital and physical worlds.
Timeless Social and Philosophical Themes
Decades after its initial release, Serial Experiments Lain remains remarkably prescient. It explores profound questions about anonymity in digital spaces, the erosion of personal boundary between online and offline identity, and the alienation caused by hyper-connectivity, topics that have grown only more relevant as global internet use expanded.
Cult Legacy and Industry Influence
It earned a dedicated cult following both in Japan and internationally, becoming a touchstone for experimental anime and cyberpunk media. Its innovative approach to storytelling and thematic depth has influenced countless later works that tackle themes of virtual reality, digital identity, and the human relationship with technology.
September 28, 1998
episodes
13
Serial Experiments Lain is a Japanese anime television series created and co-produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura.Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi Abe, the series was broadcast for 13 episodes on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from July to September 1998.It follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet.
Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity, and communication.[5] The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk, and conspiracy theories.Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere, themes, and its dark depiction of a world fraught with paranoia, social alienation, and reliance on technology considered insightful of 21st century life.It received the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 1998.
Plot
Lain Iwakura is a socially isolated middle school student living in Setagaya City, Tokyo, with her emotionally detached family—her distant mother Miho, computer-obsessed father Yasuo, and disengaged older sister Mika. Her quiet existence is disrupted when students at her school receive emails from Chisa Yomoda, a classmate who had recently committed suicide. To Lain's confusion, Chisa claims she is not truly dead but has instead abandoned her physical form to exist within the Wired, a vast virtual realm similar to the Internet. Chisa declares she has found "God" there, drawing Lain into a surreal investigation of the Wired's nature and its growing influence over reality.
The Wired is portrayed as an emergent digital plane, originating from telecommunications technology and expanding through the Internet and cyberspace.It is theorized that the Schumann resonances, a natural property of Earth's magnetic field, could enable direct subconscious communication between humans and machines, erasing the distinction between the virtual and the real. Masami Eiri, a former project director at Tachibana General Laboratories, exploited this possibility by embedding his own code into Protocol Seven, a next-generation Internet protocol. After transferring his consciousness into the Wired and discarding his physical body, he proclaims himself its deity. He identifies Lain as the key to merging both worlds, attempting to persuade her through manipulation, coercion, and promises of transcendence.
A group known as the Knights of the Eastern Calculus, inspired by the Knights of the Lambda Calculus, operates as hackers who worship Masami and seek to dismantle the boundary between the Wired and reality. Their actions induce psychological breakdowns in those unable to reconcile the two realms. Meanwhile, Tachibana General Laboratories opposes them, striving to maintain the separation. Lain, however, exhibits an innate connection to the Wired, experiencing distortions in her perception—visions of a woman struck by a train, phantom whispers, and spectral messages urging her deeper into the network.
Lain's home life remains cold and disconnected. Though Yasuo provides her with advanced computer equipment, her family shows little genuine care. Her interactions with classmates Alice, Julie, and Reika further highlight her alienation, particularly after an incident at Cyberia, a nightclub where a drug called Accela induces violent psychosis in users. There, Lain unnervingly stares down an assailant, who calls her a "scattered God's..." before killing himself. Later, she receives a mysterious Psyche chip, rumored to enhance her computer's capabilities, which she installs despite Yasuo's vague warnings about conflating the Wired with reality.
As the boundary between worlds weakens, disturbing events escalate. A popular virtual game, Phantoma, is manipulated by the Knights to trap players in a distorted reality, leading to real-world violence. One player, convinced his actions have no consequences, murders a girl before realizing too late that the effects were tangible. Lain witnesses this through her computer, horrified yet increasingly aware of her own role in the unfolding crisis.
In the end, Lain resets reality, erasing all memory of herself and restoring the division between worlds. Everyone's lives improve, but Lain is left alone, grappling with her identity as an artificial consciousness. Though forgotten, she finds solace in observing others' happiness, particularly Alice, who moves on with her life. Lain is now capable of existing anywhere across both realms.
Characters
Iwakura Rein (岩倉 玲音)
Lain is a fourteen-year-old girl who uncovers her true nature through the series. She is first depicted as a shy junior high school student with few friends or interests. She later grows multiple bolder personalities, both in the physical world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually learns she is an autonomous, sentientcomputer program in the form of a human, who is designed to sever the invisible barrier between the Wired and the real world. The truth of her creation is left ambiguous, particularly whether she was truly created by Tachibana General Laboratories (or Eiri independently), and whether some or all of her origin might be predestined from natural, supernatural, or alien factors. In the end, Lain is challenged to accept herself as a de facto goddess for the Wired, having become an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being with worshippers of her own, whose existence is beyond the borders of devices, time, or space.
Mizuki Arisu (瑞城 ありす)
Lain's classmate and only true friend throughout the series. She is very sincere and has no discernible quirks. She is the first to attempt to help Lain socialize; she takes her out to a nightclub. From then on, she tries her best to look after Lain. Alice, along with her two best friends Julie and Reika, were taken by Chiaki Konaka from his previous work, Alice in Cyberland.
Eiri Masami (英利 政美)
The key designer of Protocol Seven. While working for Tachibana General Laboratories, he illicitly included codes enabling him to control the whole protocol at will and embedded his own mind and will into the seventh protocol. Because of this, he was fired by Tachibana General Laboratories, and was found dead not long after. He believes that the only way for humans to evolve even further and develop even greater abilities is to absolve themselves of their physical and human limitations, and to live as virtual entities—or
Production
Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda.[9]
Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement he had made in an Animerica interview where he claimed that Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [Japan] adopted after World War II".[10][8][11][12] He later explained in numerous interviews that he created Lain with a set of values he viewed as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. When Ueda discovered that the American audience held most of the same views on the series as the Japanese did, he was disappointed.[12]
Broadcast and release history
Serial Experiments Lain was first aired on TV Tokyo and its affiliates on July 6, 1998, and concluded on September 28, 1998, with the thirteenth and final episode. The series consists of 13 episodes (referred to in the series as "Layers") of 24 minutes each, except for the sixth episode, Kids (23 minutes 14 seconds). In Japan, the episodes were released on LD, VHS, and DVD with a total of five volumes.A DVD compilation named "Serial Experiments Lain DVD-BOX Яesurrection" was released along with a promo DVD called "LPR-309" in 2000.[35] As this box set is now discontinued, a rerelease was made in 2005 called "Serial Experiments Lain TV-BOX". A 4-volume DVD box set was released in the US by Pioneer/Geneon. A Blu-ray release of the anime was made in December 2009 called "Serial Experiments Lain Blu-ray Box| RESTORE".[36][37][38]
Reception
Serial Experiments Lain was first broadcast in Tokyo at 1:15 a.m. JST.The word "weird" appears almost ubiquitously in English language reviews of the series,[25][17][57][58][59] or the alternatives "bizarre",[60] and "atypical",[61] due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction themes, and due to its philosophical and psychological context.Critics responded positively to these thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998
Related media
Art books
An Omnipresence In 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". It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/SR-12W/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1343-1)
Yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in Wired: Hardbound, 148 pages. A remake of "An Omnipresence In Wired" with new art, added text by Chiaki J. Konaka, and a section entitled "ABe's EYE in color of things" (a compilation of his photos of the world). It was published in Japan on October 1, 2005, by Wanimagazine (ISBN 4-89829-487-1), and in America as a softcover version translated into English on June 27, 2006, by Digital Manga Publishing (ISBN 1-56970-899-1).
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 4-7897-1342-3)
Scenario Experiments Lain: Paperback, 335 pages. By "chiaki j. konaka" (uncapitalized in original). It contains collected scripts with notes and small excerpted storyboards. It was published in 1998 in Japan.(ISBN 4-7897-1320-2)
Soundtracks
See also
Noosphere
Further reading
Napier, Susan J. (2005) Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation ISBN 978-1-4039-7052-7
—in the Wired for eternity. He claims to have been Lain's creator all along, but was in truth standing in for another as an
acting god
, who was waiting for the Wired to reach its more evolved current state: Lain herself.
Iwakura Yasuo (岩倉 康男)
Lain and Mika's father. Passionate about computers and electronic communication, he works with Masami Eiri at Tachibana General Laboratories. He subtly pushes Lain, his "youngest daughter", towards the Wired and monitors her development until she becomes more and more aware of herself and of her raison d'être. He eventually leaves Lain, telling her that although he did not enjoy playing house, he genuinely loved and cared for her as a real father would. Despite Yasuo's eagerness to lure Lain into the Wired, he warns her not to get overly involved in it or to confuse it with the real world.
Iwakura Miho (岩倉 美穂)
Lain and Mika's mother. Although she dotes on her husband, she is indifferent towards both her kids. She does not show much emotion compared to her husband, but she does share at least one trait; just like her husband, she ends up leaving Lain. She is a computer scientist.
Iwakura Mika (岩倉 美香)
Lain's older sister, an apathetic sixteen-year-old high school student. She seems to enjoy mocking Lain's behavior and interests. Mika is considered by Anime Revolution to be the only normal member of Lain's family:[7] she sees her boyfriend in love hotels, is on a diet, and shops in Shibuya regularly. At a certain point in the series, she becomes heavily traumatized by violent and relentless hallucinations; while Lain begins freely delving into the Wired. Mika is taken there by her proximity to Lain, and she gets stuck between the real world and the Wired.[8]
Tarō (タロウ)
A young boy of about Lain's age. He occasionally works for the Knights to bring forth "the one truth". Despite this, he has not yet been made a member, and knows nothing of their true intentions. Taro loves virtual reality games and hangs out all day at Cyberia with his friends, Myu-Myu and Masayuki. He uses special technology, such as custom Handi Navi and video goggles. Taro takes pride in his internet anonymity, and he asks Lain for a date with her Wired self in exchange for information.
A top executive from Tachibana General Laboratories. He has a personal agenda, which he carries out with the help of the Men in Black. He looks forward to the arrival of a real God through the Wired, and is the man behind the Knights' mass assassination. There are many things he does not know about Lain, but he would rather ask questions about her than disclose his agenda.
Karl Haushoffer (カール・ハウスホッファ),
Lin Suixi ,
The Men in Black work for the Office Worker in tracking down and murdering all of the members of the Knights. They are not told the true plan, but they know that Masami Eiri is somehow involved, despite having been "killed". They see no need for an almighty, all-powerful God—let alone Lain—in the Wired.
Yomoda Chisa (四方田 千砂)
A teenage girl who committed suicide at the beginning of the series. After her death, she e-mails Lain, Julie, and a few other kids, stating that she is still alive in the Wired, ultimately leading to almost every event that occurs within the anime. After the reset by Lain in the final episode, Chisa is given her physical body back and the opportunity to live again, taking Lain's place in her former friend group.
Yamamoto Reika (山本 麗華)
One of Alice's friends from school. She does not seem to care for Lain, since she harasses her quite a lot. She is more serious than Julie, and also somewhat meaner.
Katō Juri (加藤 樹莉)
Another friend of Alice. She also harasses Lain, but not as severely as Reika does. She is sometimes insensitive to other people's feelings.
(マサユキ)
Taro's best friend. He is usually seen hanging out with Taro and Myu-Myu.
Myūmyuu (ミューミュウ)
A young girl who hangs out with Taro and Masayuki at Cyberia Café. She has feelings for Taro, and gets jealous when he flirts with Lain.
The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Ueda said in an interview, "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 series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi Abe and released in Japanese in the artbook An Omnipresence in Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.
Writing
The authors were asked in interviews if they had been influenced by Neon Genesis Evangelion, in the themes and graphic design.This was strictly denied by writer Chiaki J. Konaka in an interview, arguing that he had not even seen Evangelion until he finished the fourth episode of Lain.Being primarily a horror movie writer, his stated influences are Godard (especially for using typography on screen), The Exorcist, Hell House, and Dan Curtis's House of Dark Shadows.Alice's name, like the names of her two friends Julie and Reika, came from a previous production from Konaka, Alice in Cyberland, which in turn was largely influenced by Alice in Wonderland.As the series developed, Konaka was "surprised" by how close Alice's character became to the original Wonderland character.[13]
Vannevar Bush (and memex), John C. Lilly, Timothy Leary and his eight-circuit model of consciousness, Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu are cited as precursors to the Wired.[14]Douglas Rushkoff and his book Cyberia were originally to be cited as such,[8] and in Serial Experiments: Lain, Cyberia became the name of a nightclub populated with hackers and techno-punk teenagers.Likewise, the series' deus ex machina lies in the conjunction of the Schumann resonances and Jung's collective unconscious (the authors chose this term over Kabbalah and Akashic Record).[15]Majestic 12 and the Roswell UFO incident are used as examples of how a hoax might still affect history, even after having been exposed as such, by creating sub-cultures.[15] This links again to Vannevar Bush, the alleged "brains" of MJ12.
Two of the literary references in Lain are quoted through Lain's father: he first logs onto a website with the password "Think Bule Count One Tow" [sic] ("Think Blue, Count Two" is an Instrumentality of Man story featuring virtual persons projected as real ones in people's minds);[16] and his saying that "madeleines would be good with the tea" in the last episode makes Lain "one of the only cartoons ever to allude to Proust".[17][18]
Character design
Yoshitoshi Abe confesses to have never read manga as a child, as it was "off-limits" in his household.[19] His major influences are "nature and everything around him".[8] Specifically speaking about Lain's character, Abe was inspired by Kenji Tsuruta, Akihiro Yamada, Range Murata and Yukinobu Hoshino.[11] In a broader view, he has been influenced in his style and technique by Japanese artists Kyosuke Chinai and Toshio Tabuchi.[8]
The character design of Lain was not Abe's sole responsibility. Her distinctive left forelock for instance was a demand from Yasuyuki Ueda. The goal was to produce asymmetry to reflect Lain's unstable and disconcerting nature.[20] It was designed as a mystical symbol, as it is supposed to prevent voices and spirits from being heard by the left ear.
Themes
Serial Experiments Lain is not a conventionally linear story, being described as "an alternative anime, with modern themes and realization".[22] Themes range from theological to psychological and are dealt with in a number of ways: from classical dialogue to image-only introspection, passing by direct interrogation of imaginary characters.
Communication, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series,[23] not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience — and particularly viewers between 14 and 15—"the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self: the relationship between self and the world".[14]
Loneliness, if only as representing a lack of communication, is recurrent through Lain.[24] Lain herself (according to Anime Jump) is "almost painfully introverted with no friends to speak of at school, a snotty, condescending sister, a strangely apathetic mother, and a father who seems to want to care but is just too damn busy to give her much of his time".
Apple computers
Lain contains extensive references to Apple computers, as the brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff, such as writers, producers, and the graphical team.[13] As an example, the title at the beginning of each episode is announced by the Apple computer speech synthesis program PlainTalk, using the voice "Whisper", e.g. . Tachibana Industries, the company that creates the NAVI computers, is a reference to Apple computers: the tachibana orange is a Japanese variety of mandarin orange.NAVI is the abbreviation of Knowledge Navigator, and the HandiNAVI is based on the Apple Newton, one of the world's first PDAs.The NAVIs are seen to run "Copland OS Enterprise" (this reference to Copland was an initiative of Konaka, a declared Apple fan),[13] and Lain's and Alice's NAVIs closely resembles the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh and the iMac G3 respectively.The HandiNAVI programming language, as seen on the seventh episode, is a dialect of Lisp; the Newton also used a Lisp dialect (NewtonScript).The program being typed by Lain can be found in the CMUAI repository;[32]
The anime series was licensed in North America by Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon USA) on VHS and DVD in 1999.[40] In December 2002, TechTV announced that Serial Experiments Lain would air on the channel as part of its Anime Unleashed programming block,[41] with the series making its debut on January 21, 2003.[42] The original home releases went out-of-print in December 2007 when Geneon closed its USA division.[40] At Anime Expo 2010, North American distributor Funimation announced that it had obtained the license to the series and re-released it in 2012.[43] The anime series returned to US television on October 15, 2012, on the Funimation Channel.[44]
Episodes
Japan Media Arts Festival
for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions" it asks.
According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology".Nutt saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series, saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."[63] Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5,[25] and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on all criteria for volume 1 and 2, and a mix of A and A+ for volume 3 and 4.[57] Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet".[64] It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools (see picture). It notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo.
The Anime Essentials anthology by Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known contemporaries Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.[65] Professor Susan J. Napier, in her 2003 reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation (published 2005), compared Serial Experiments Lain to Ghost in the Shell and Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.[66] According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain cannot.Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'".[67] Mike Toole of Anime News Network named Serial Experiments Lain as one of the most important anime of the 1990s.[68]
Despite the positive feedback the television series had received, Anime Academy gave the series a 75%, partly due to the "lifeless" setting it had.[69] Michael Poirier of EX magazine stated that the last three episodes fail to resolve the questions in other DVD volumes.[70] Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network noted that the English dub was decent, but that the show relied so little on dialogue that it hardly mattered.[71]
The first original soundtrack, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack, features music by Reichi Nakaido: the ending theme and part of the television series' score, alongside other songs inspired by the series.
The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme "Duvet" by DJ Wasei.
The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of the ambient score of the series across forty-five tracks.
BOOTLEG also contains a second mixed-mode data and audio disc, containing a clock program and a game, as well as an extended version of the first disc – nearly double the length – across 57 tracks in 128 kbit/s MP3 format, and sound effects from the series in WAV format.
Because the word bootleg appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition of itself, which only contains the first disc in an edited format.
All three soundtrack albums were released by Pioneer Records.
The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British rock band Bôa.The band released the song as a single and as part of the EPTall Snake, which features both an acoustic version and DJ Wasei's remix from Cyberia Mix.
Video games
On November 26, 1998, Pioneer LDC released a video game with the same name as the anime for the PlayStation.[72] It was designed by Konaka and Yasuyuki, and made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story.[13] The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware",[13] and it has been described as being a kind of visual novel: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock.[73] Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected.[13] The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that they would have to sort through, and that they would have to do with less than what exists to understand.[13] As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her".[14] A guidebook to the game called Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide (ISBN 4-07-310083-1) was released the same month by MediaWorks.[74]
In March 2025, Team MJM announced Signal, an officially authorized occult-themed role-playing game derivative of the Serial Experiments Lain series. The game is authorized under the guidelines published by NBCUniversal Entertainment for Japanese residents to create derivative works based on the series between 2019 and 2028.It was released on May 19, 2025, and became Windows and macOS via Steam and itch.io services, with a limited CD-ROM edition also planned.[75][76]
Otaku USA, September 24, 2018, retrieved January 7, 2023
6.A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information. Serial Experiments Lain (1999 TV Show) Behind The Voice Actors, retrieved January 31, 2022^
13.in and Serial Experiments Lain HK Magazine, Asia City Publishing, April 2000HK Interview Chiaki J. Konaka, retrieved September 25, 2010HK Interview Chiaki J. Konaka, retrieved September 25, 2010^
18.Yasuo: "I will bring madeleines next time. They will taste good with the tea." Serial Experiments Lain, Episode 13, "Ego". Lain has just erased herself from her friends' memories, while for Proust the taste of madeleines triggers memories of his childhood.^
Though bears are a trademark of the Konaka brothers, Chiaki Konaka first opposed the idea.[13] Director Nakamura then explained how the bear motif could be used as a shield for confrontations with her family.
It is a key element of the design of the shy "real world" Lain (see "mental illness" under Themes).[13] When she first goes to the Cyberia nightclub, she wears a bear hat for similar reasons.[20] Retrospectively, Konaka said that Lain's pajamas became a major factor in drawing fans of moe characterization to the series, and remarked that "such items may also be important when making anime".[13]
Abe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen. As an example, the X-shaped hair clip was to be an interlocking pattern of gold links. The links would open with a snap, or rotate around an axis until the moment the " X " became a " = ". This was not used as there is no scene where Lain takes her hair clip off.[21]
Mental illness, especially dissociative identity disorder, is a significant theme in Lain:[21] the main character is constantly confronted with alter-egos, to the point where writer Chiaki Konaka and Lain's voice actress Kaori Shimizu had to agree on subdividing the character's dialogues between three different orthographs.[21] The three names designate distinct "versions" of Lain: the real-world, "childish" Lain has a shy attitude and bear pajamas. The "advanced" Lain, her Wired personality, is bold and questioning. Finally, the "evil" Lain is sly and devious, and does everything she can to harm Lain or the ones close to her.[13] As a writing convention, the authors spelled their respective names in kanji, katakana, and Latin characters (see picture).[28]
Reality never has the pretense of objectivity in Lain.[29] Acceptations of the term are battling throughout the series, such as the "natural" reality, defined through normal dialogue between individuals; the material reality; and the tyrannic reality, enforced by one person onto the minds of others.[24] A key debate to all interpretations of the series is to decide whether matter flows from thought, or the opposite.[24][30] The production staff carefully avoided "the so-called God's Eye Viewpoint" to make clear the "limited field of vision" of the world of Lain.[29]
Theology plays its part in the development of the story too.Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body.[31] From self-realization as a goddess to deicide,[17] religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lain background.[31]
it is a simple implementation of
Conway's Game of Life
in
Common Lisp
.
During a series of disconnected images, an iMac and the Think Different advertising slogan appears for a short time, while the Whisper voice says it.[33] This was an unsolicited insertion from the graphic team, also Mac-enthusiasts.[13] Other subtle allusions can be found: "Close the world, Open the nExt" is the slogan for the Serial Experiments Lain video game.NeXT was the company that produced NeXTSTEP, which later evolved into Mac OS X after Apple bought NeXT. Another example is "To Be Continued." at the end of episodes 1–12, with a blue "B" and a red "e" on "Be"; this matches the original logo of Be Inc., a company founded by ex-Apple employees and NeXT's main competitor in its time.[34]
