Serial Experiments Lain
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Serial Experiments Lain |
| Original title | Serial Experiments Lain |
 | |
| Country of production | Japan |
| original language | Japanese |
| year | 1998 |
| length | 24 minutes |
| Episodes | 13 |
| genre | Cyberpunk , science fiction , experimental film |
| idea | production 2nd. ( Yoshitoshi ABe , Chiaki J. Konaka ) |
| production | Yasuyuki Ueda, Shōjirō Abe |
| First broadcast | July 6, 1998 - September 28, 1998 on TV Tokyo |
Serial Experiments Lain is an anime - TV show by the Japanese director Ryutaro Nakamura , with character design by Yoshitoshi Abe , published in 1998. The series was from July to September 1998, TV Tokyo broadcast. On November 26, 1998, a PlayStation game based on the anime was also released .
The series is about a girl named Lain Iwakura who realizes more and more that she is part of the international computer and thought network "Wired".
action
The shy 13-year-old girl Lain Iwakura ( Japanese 岩 倉 玲 音 , Iwakura Rein ) lives in a suburb of Tokyo together with her tech- and computer-obsessed father ( 岩 倉 康 男 , Iwakura Yasuo ), her cool mother ( 岩 倉 ミ ホ , Iwakura Miho ) and her expressionless older sister Mika Iwakura ( 岩 倉 美 香 ).
After eighth grader Chisa Yomoda committed suicide , several of her class still receive emails from her. Most consider the mail a hoax , a joke over the Internet. Lain also receives an email like this, and Chisa reveals to her in real time via the "Wired" that she did not die, but only put her body down and found God in the Wired. The "Wired" is an international computer - network , which, like the Internet is built. Lain now wants to get to the bottom of these events. But she is also suspected of having written the emails. Only her friend Alice Mizuki ( 瑞 城 あ り す , Mizuki Arisu ) sticks to her.
During this time, Lain goes to the Cyberia club in Shibuya with Alice and other friends . Strange events occur there and Lain discovers that there is a very well-known Lain in the "Wired", with whom it is often confused. She also meets others her age who can often be found in the club, according to Taro ( タ ロ ウ , Tarō ). Since she doesn't know much about computers, he helps her and answers her questions, since he takes her for the Lain known in the Wired. Her father also helps her find out more about Wired.
During her research, she comes across Masami Eiri ( 英 利 政 美 ). He developed protocol 7 for the company Tachibana Labs. This should become the Wired's next protocol. But in order to control the Wired, he changed the protocol and integrated his consciousness into the code. Shortly afterwards his body died and he lived on in the Wired. Some groups consider him the "God of Wired". In his opinion, humans can only develop further if they take off their bodies. He also drove Chisa to commit suicide. Now he focuses on Lain, who he says that their family and existence are just an illusion. In truth, she is the Lain from the Wired, with whom she is really identical, and was created by him. He also manages to weigh heavily on her relationship with Alice.
But Lain also manages to deal with the Wired and can thus evade Eiri. She realizes that the real and the virtual world cannot be separated from one another. She develops different identities and goes through an evolution towards an omnipresent and omnipotent being of the virtual world, as which she z. B. can overwrite the thoughts and memories of other people via the "Wired" at will.
Concept and themes
Serial Experiments Lain uses an avant-garde narrative and drawing style that can be traced back to Yoshitoshi ABe . The plot is confusing, plot lines are deliberately interrupted or not completed. Much remains closed to the viewer and is not directly resolved. Rather, the viewer is required to solve for himself those mysteries that arise in the course of the action.
The individual sequences are called "layers". Text overlays on a light background are often used in the series.
The series refers to the story Alice in Wonderland and a game called Alice in Cyberland . The character Alice plays an important role in the course of the plot and her role is similar to that in Alice in Wonderland .
In contrast to the game, the series should no longer convey the impression of a virtual network, but rather the difference between existence inside and outside the network. Lain's doubts about her own existence should be portrayed in a science fiction storyline.
The living conditions of Japanese youth are also dealt with. Some children rarely go home, but rather play in clubs, like taro, or, like Lain's friends, are driven by fashions. Schoolchildren between the ages of 13 and 14 were chosen as the main characters because they “are the least complete with life”.
Furthermore, in the ninth episode, various theories about aliens and the development of the computer are discussed. For example, the Roswell UFO crash is mentioned with old pictures from that time . Also on Vannevar Bush and his projects majestic 12 and Memex is received. Mention can also find John Lilly , the Project Xanadu and the Schumann resonance .
production
The series was produced with 13 episodes by the Triangle Staff studio and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura .
A lot of computer animation was used in the production. A professional programmer was also on the team because of the topic. In addition, everyone involved worked with Macintosh computers and thus partly worked directly on the animations.
Writer Chiaki J. Konaka began writing the plot as a horror story, as this was his genre up until then. Therefore it also begins with the mail of a recently deceased. The main theme of the series at the beginning was "Maybe the sky is connected to the network".
The first episode was created by director Nakamura and graphic director Takahiro Kishida. In this episode there are pictures that Kishida personally drew for over a month. In addition, a ten-second scene depicts Lain's room with an extraordinary amount of detail.
The series has been compared to Neon Genesis Evangelion a number of times , particularly similarities have been suggested between Lain and Ayanami Rei, a character from Neon Genesis Evangelion. But the scene writer Konaka denied a connection between Lain and Evangelion. Konaka attributed the use of text in the picture, which also appears in both series, to the fact that he and Hideaki Anno , the director of Evangelion, were inspired by similar sources. He was mainly influenced by Jean-Luc Godard , who used this technique long before.
Publications
The Japanese first broadcast on TV Tokyo in 1998 , from July 6, 1998 to September 28. The series was later also broadcast on the Bandai Channel. The anime has been released in North America , Australia , Great Britain , France and Italy , among others , and has been translated into Spanish , Portuguese , Russian and Dutch .
In Germany, the television series was first released in July 1999 by Pioneer LDC on DVD and in English. From September to November 2004 SPV released a German dubbed version on four DVDs.
synchronization
| role | Japanese voice actor ( seiyū ) | German speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Lain Iwakura | Kaori Shimizu | Manja Doering |
| Alice Mizuki | Saeko Chiba | Sonja Scherff |
| Shizuki Minagami | Sho Hayami | Till Hagen |
| Yasuo Iwakura | Ryunosuke Ohbayashi | Detlef Bierstedt |
| Mika Iwakura | Ayako Kawasumi | Diana Borgwardt |
| Mihō Iwakura | Rei Igarashi | Sabine Arnhold |
| YY | Ari Morizumi | Tim Sander |
music
The opening credits of the series, Duvet , were produced by bôa . For the credits one used Tōi Sakebi by Reiichi Nakaido .
reception
According to Funime magazine , the content of Serial Experiments Lain is bizarre and "a mix of psycho and virtual reality with psychology and sociology studies." In the series there are many "interesting and unusual camera positions and extremely unusual scenes". The drawings are kept simple, the characters are simple and realistic and the animation is above average for a TV series. The special thing about the series is that, unlike other psychological animes such as Perfect Blue , Shōjo Kakumei Utena , Key - The Metal Idol or Neon Genesis Evangelion, it does without apocalypse or fantasy.
The series won an award in the category at the 2nd Annual Media Arts Festival Japan in 1998.
Video game
The video game for the series was released by Pioneer LDC on November 26, 1998 in Japan.
The game itself is dialog-heavy and cannot be classified into any classic genre. The player is immersed in an artificial virtual world in which he receives information about the girl Lain and has to solve puzzles. It doesn't tell the same story as in the anime.
Web links
- Official website at Geneon (Japanese)
- Serial Experiments Lain in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Entry at Anime News Network (English)
- cjas.org about the series with explanations of terms and interpretative approaches (English)