Serial Experiments Lain - Complex Story line with open interpretations

Serial Experiments Lain is an old anime that was broadcasted 20 years ago. The series influenced by themes such as reality, identity and communication, and it demonstrates them by using philosophy, computer history, cyberpunk literature and conspiracy theory. Lain Iwakura is your typical Introverted teens that one day got an email from her frequently dead friend. When she opened that email, it introduced her to the Wired, opening a new world of mystery and danger to her existence. Blurring the line and blending both world of the Wired and Reality, Lain would soon realize she had important role in both worlds.

Log

It should've been a kind of log where I wrote down what I feel, what I've learned and what question that comes up to my mind while at the same time of watching the show, but while writing on busy(dot)org the draft became stupid and deleted all of my writings. So this is an attempt at writing it back from the beginning while briefly explaining what happened in the show.

Starting Off

The story starts off with a scene of a high school girl, named Chisa, jumped off from the ledge of a high building, which not surprisingly, killed her. Well the story didn't really start as I would expect, this anime is darker than i had imagine, but oh well... let's continue watching. So, the protagonist named Lain, a high schooler, goes to the school like usual, when she arrived in the class, she saw a girl crying and a bunch of her friends tried to calm her down. One of Lain's friend then asked if she got a message from the dead girl, Chisa. Apparently her classmate is crying because she got a message from this girl that was supposed to be already dead. Weird by it, after Lain got home, she turned on her old NAVI (what a computer is called in this show) and realized she too, got a message from the dead girl. The message was directed to Lain is that, in a voice mail, she told lain that she might be dead in real life,

but she is still alive in the computer.

Intrigued by the message, Lain asked her father if she can have a new and improved NAVI to get better experience of The Wired (or the internet). A few moments in the show later, a shipping truck delivered the new Navi to her home. After her father, Yasuo piece the NAVI's part together for Lain, she straight away register an account for her new NAVI, and thus begins her journey through the land of The Wired.

The timeline of this show seems linear at times but somehow is blurry at the same time. An accident happened in a club (I can’t remember the name) which is full of kids (yes a club for kids) where Lain’s friend hang out, where they said they saw Lain at the club but that Lain seems different from the normal Lain. When asked, Lain said she never go out of her house that night and spend all the time with her NAVI..

Keywords

“The Wired”- A virtual world where people would connect, play games and do social interactions, only different from our normal “internet” is that the Wired has more immersion for the users, much like Virtual Reality in our world. One day, Lain finds out a certain processor called Psyche in her school locker which would take the journey to the Wired to another level. This Psyche was thought to be given by “The Knights” for reason I am not sure. Next thing we know, Lain has already gathered more NAVI equipments, upgrading and modify her NAVI, to the extend where her room is full of electronics. When her father tried to come into her room, he was greeted by a flood of water up to his ankle, yeah... Lain fucking flooded her room just to act as a coolant for her NAVI.

A completed NAVI gear after she is done modifying it

“Real World”- A real world which Lain and others in this show is actually alive. Although it might sounds like a word made just to distinguish from the Wired, this anime somehow blurred those lines making me confused each time the story progresses. From the beginning, Real World is where people would talk about what had happened in The Wired from the night before, as the events that happened in the Wired never showed on the first 4-5 episodes of the anime. People would say things like Lain in the Wired and Lain in the Real World are two different person, but the Real World Lain would often seem confused and act like she doesn’t know anything about what are they talking about. As the story progresses, it seems like entities from the Wired have their own consciousness, especially Lain of the Wired. This Lain was shown in an episode where she showed up in the sky and some random kids on the streets was praising her like she is a god. This shows that this lain possess a power to emerge from the Wired to the Real World at will. So an entity from a virtual world can appeared into the real world? Is this Lain is actually a different person from the real world Lain?

At the same time this happens, Lain’s older sister, Mika was actually witnessing it, and was immediately hit by some kind of hallucinations, or just phasing in and out of the Wired and Real World. Either way, it was very confusing. These hallucinations might be happening while Lain was freely delving into the Wired, and Mika was caught by her proximity to Lain, she then was traumatized by these hallucinations. To keep matters worse, she was trapped between the Wired and Real World, unable to get out.

“The Knights”- When lain was wandering inside the Wired, she somehow made friends with these Knights. The Knights supposedly are a group of super hackers that have a majority controls over the Wired. As to my understanding, they are being hunted down by Tachibana Laboratories, which previously employed Masami Eiri as project director of Protocol Seven.

“Men in Black”- Two guys in a black suit that is always outside of Lain’s house and are always watching her every moves. Their actual purpose is to track down and kill all the members of the Knights. They work for the office worker of Tachibana Laboratories and have been told that Masami Eiri is somehow involved with the Knights.

The Men in Black keep their watch outside of Lain's room

“Office Worker”- A top executive from Tachibana Laboratories. He is also the boss of the Men in Black. His personal agenda is to looks forward to the arrival of a real God through the Wired. He’s also the man behind the knights’ mass assassination towards the end of the story.

“Protocol Seven”- An Internet Protocol designed by Masami Eiri. It has been modified to allow people to use the Schumann resonances to connect to the Wired directly without a NAVI by using the Psyche chip.

“Masami Eiri”- The key designer of Protocol Seven. While he still works for Tachibana General Laboratories, he secretly included codes that enable him to control the whole protocol at will and embedded his own mind and will into the 7th Protocol. He was fired from Tachibana General Laboratories and was found dead not long after. He wishes for all humans to leave their bodies, evolve even beyond further, develop even greater abilities and live as virtual entities in the Wired for eternity. He claims to have been the creator of Lain, but the truth is still debatable and up to viewers’ point of view.

Masami Eiri as shown in the Wired

Complexity

The rest of the story actually confuses me, it goes in and out between real world and the Wired constantly and I don’t have a clue of what is happening. At one point, Lain was brought by the Men in Black to their boss, although he looked friendly at first, he is really not. The boss than proceed to asks questions that confuses Lain. He asked Lain questions like “when or where did you born?” or “where did your parents come from”, and Lain couldn’t answer these questions. Having put under extreme pressure, Lain’s personality suddenly switched into a more bossy and sassy character to immediately protect her. She then proceeds to walk out from that place. This switch on character shows that either she suffers from a Multiple Personality Disorder or the Wired world is breaking into the layers of reality and Lain of the Wired can freely appeared onto the Real World through Lain herself.

Seriously what the hell is going on here

Towards the ending of the anime, Lain’s parents were shown as very cold and non-responsive towards Lain. I mean, Lain’s mother probably has like 5 lines throughout the show, and the scene with her mother seems like hallucination or a dream. Lain’s father only talks to her on the beginning of the show, until Lain has completely absorbed in to building a super computer for her NAVI. He also says one last thing at the end of the anime, things like he’s not actually Lain’s father, but he still loves her. The only character that actually gives attention and cared for Lain is her friend Alice (Arisu). She is the first to approach Lain and help her socialize and she does that by taking Lain to a nightclub along with two of her best friends. Also at this point of the show, the Lain of the Real World seems to have switched place from Lain of the Wired, and she watched that Lain become close to Alice and the gang and can’t do anything about it. As weird as it is, she later found out that she is not even exist in the Real World. At this point I don’t even know what to think about the plot, it all does not makes sense. It seems like the show has no real plot and only wants to confuse the viewers, and I am very confused.

The God(s)

At one point near the end of the show (episode 10), Lain met Masami Eiri. Either they met in a real world or the Wired I am not sure. Probably in the Wired. Their conversations are confusing from the start so I am not going to go further on it. With no message at the start of the episode, their dialogue is what we have to use as a basis for interpreting this events, But during the middle of their conversations, it is as if their role is switched.

Lain: There is only one truth. God.

Eiri: Yes. Me. Isn’t that right, Lain?

Lain: You’re God?

Eiri: Yes. I am God.

Lain: I realized that i had no need for a body. To die is merely to abandon the flesh.

Eiri: That’s... That’s just what Chisa said.

Lain: I caused the protocol that governs the Wired to evolve

Eiri: Yeah. That’s what you did. But a protocol is just an agreement.

Lain: Yes, but I incorporated code that operates on a higher phase.

Eiri: So?

Lain: There is compressed information mixed into the protocol.

Eiri: what kind of information?

Lain: Human memories. Mine. The thoughts, history, memories, and emotions of the man named Masami Eiri.

Eiri: What does that mean?

Lain: I can live forever as an anonymous entity in the Wired, and will be able to rule it with information.

Eiri: What do you think a being like that should be called?

Lain: A god.

Their "meet up"

What does this mean? That Eiri as a god, he is omnipresence and can exist to whoever he wants (aka Lain)? Or Lain is actually a god herself? The two messages are indistinguishable from each other at this point. To many people, the messages of many religions seem indistinguishable from each other. So this anime is just like any old school anime that references religion as its core? Are they both Gods fighting to be the only God in the world? Are any of them even real?

The Last Episode

Because it’s been two weeks since I watched this anime, I can’t remember the exact things that happened. But in this episode, Lain can be seen to be connected with wires and clamps in her lips and her head in her room. She is watching everything that is happening within the wired while lying down in her own room. Beside her is Masami Eiri, controlling her and telling her what to do. Eiri can only be seen by Lain as he is an entity of the wired. By this time, Alice comes to visit Lain for whatever reason I can’t remember only to see Lain laying down with all the wires across her face. In the middle of a conversation with Lain, Lain turns around and start to speak with someone that is invisible to Alice. Not creepy enough, Alice then saw an almost invisible hand waving around in the air and thus making her further uncomfortable.

Being scared by this entity, and for whatever other reasons, Lain starts to doubt Eiri as a god, denying his order and making him mad. Eiri starts to materialize himself from the Wired into the real world, but this does not turns out great as he does not has a human form as I can see. Using a psycho kinesis, Lain quickly smashed materialized Eiri using her pc equipments, destroying both her NAVI gears and Eiri. Eiri is gone, in this room left only Lain and her best friend, Alice, hugging.

Masami Eiri's form after he materialized himself from the Wired into the Real World. Doesn't look good huh

The show ended showing us that Alice has grown up and has her own life. She met Lain while walking outside; Lain is shown as still a kid and has not grown. Their last word is something that I can’t remember without looking it up, and I’m not going to look it up. Their last conversation is as if that is their first meeting and whatever happened before the last episode seems like it never happened. Did Lain delete the memories of Alice? Or did she reset the world and let it begins anew? Not only the plot is confusing but the ending too left the viewers with thousands of questions.

The Wrap Up

The show is confusing, but I’ll try to give a conclusion base on research that I’d made. For all I know, no single essay or explanation can hope to encompass all that is Serial Explanation Lain, as it will always be open to interpretation and to viewers own research and experiments. First of all, who is Lain? Masami Eiri calls her a “human of artificial ribosomes”. She is nothing more than a homunculus that he created for whatever reason. By the end of the show, it is pretty clear that she is a God in some way. But I don’t think she has that kind of power from the very beginning. But we can still see her power growing slowly during early episodes (where she breaks the Men in Black’s scanners by shouting at them).

Up until episode 10, we have witnessed a duality of Lains; Lain of real world and Lain of the Wired. In episode 9, it is made clear that Lain’s memories could all in fact be false, and that Lain could instead be nothing more that the consciousness of the Wired. After episode 10, these two different interpretations of the show collide, as Lain becomes both simultaneously.

I’d like to see Lain as a girl who has a Dissociative Identity Disorder who slowly learns to connect with other people and at the same time developing a new personality through online interactions, and this personality has grown powerful enough to bring forth herself into the Real World. This powerful being that is created within the Wired slowly taking over the Real World Lain and completely reconstructs Lain, leaving only one Lain in the end. Which is why the show is confusing. Right after the grand reveal, it becomes insignificant to future episodes.

Reviews

Art: 8/10
Just like any old anime, they have more simplistic art and the colors aren't too vibrant, perfect for a mysterious anime.

Music: 4/10
I barely realized any music on the background, loved the opening though.

Plot: 6/10
The story is very, very slow. It kinda hard to watch it all at once because of how slow and boring it is. Not to mention the complexity of the plot and how much it confuses me. I watched it with wrinkled eyebrows all over my face. However the story about how a girl explores her identity and existentialism is somewhat entertaining. Just the pacing and writing of the story spoiled the quality of the plot for me.

Overall: 6/10