Title: Serial Experiments Lain
Total Episodes: 13 episode
Genres: Drama, Science-Fiction
Year Published: 1998
User Rating: 8.5/10.0
Plot:The series begins with the suicide of
Chisa Yomoda, and with
Lain being told by her classmates of a posthumous e-mail from
Chisa that they believe is either a hoax or a prank
Chisa set up. However,
Lain Iwakura (
Iwakura Rein) is unconvinced and decides to check it out. She logs on to her personal computer (
or "NAVI", named after Knowledge Navigator concept) and discovers an e-mail from
Chisa explaining that she has abandoned her flesh and is still alive in the Wired (
a large computer network with striking similarities to the Internet).
Lain begins to tentatively explore the Wired. She believes that the Psyche chip will allow her to enter the Wired and the series follows her gradual evolution into, or realization as, an omnipresent and omnipotent being who has grown independent of the Wired. Throughout her exploration she is tracked by the Men in Black (
MiB), who are also after a hacker group called "
The Knights of the Eastern Calculus" (
Knights).
>>
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow<<
Lain Iwakura's neighborhood.In her quest for answers,
Lain becomes famous throughout the Wired, and she gradually loses interest in things of the "
real" world, becoming ever more concerned with the "
Wired" world. She discovers powers and unimaginable abilities within the Wired, even able to walk through it, and finally comes across the nagging question: "
Who is Lain?" While trying to understand herself and the world, the Real world and the Wired world begin merging. Throughout this merging there is also the theme of the boundary between the world of the living and world of the dead being broken, "
The other side is overcrowded, the dead will have nowhere to go."
>>
Spoiler warning<<
Slowly,
Lain uncovers the truth. The merge began when a
Tachibana Industries CEO,
Masami Eiri, developed "
Protocol 7" (
based upon Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, in which, the seventh circuit is the neuro-genetic circuit), which allowed the "collective unconscious" (
concept developed by Carl Jung) to rise to a conscious level by using the Schumann resonance (
the electromagnetic waves at 7.83 HZ that travel through the Schumann Cavity; the air between surface and ionosphere), he found the means to become "
a God" as he tells Lain.
>>
Spoiler warning<<
By transferring his consciousness to the Wired and destroying his corporeal body (
as indicated in Chisa Yomoda's e-mail) he managed to pass to the Eighth Circuit (
neuro-atomic circuit, within which the helix of DNA allows the consciousness to transcend to the future version of oneself) and achieve immortality, or rather, a continuous existence. By means to achieving his status as a God, Eiri created Lain as a part of Protocol 7 and/or stumbled upon Lain as a result of Protocol 7 (
which is never made certain); and he has his worshippers, the Knights.
>>
Spoiler warning<<
By giving Lain a new identity as a teenage girl, and thus, a new awareness, Eiri launched the "serial experiments" conducted by Tachibana labs. The constant (
supposed) hallucinations Lain suffers from throughout the series is the old awareness she had inherited resurfacing, or perhaps really her own vision of the Eight Circuit. As stated appropriately in the series, by this argument, "
Lain is God"; collectively aware, able to do anything. However, Lain's encounter with Eiri went off as a bitter one - as Lain had sought out all the Knights members, which allowed the MiB to slaughter them. And thus, Eiri's worshippers were destroyed, undermining his position as God. But Eiri points out that he hadn't lost all his worshippers: Lain was now his only worshipper, and ergo, the guarantee of his status.
>>
Spoiler warning<<
By the end of the series, in her encounter with Alice, when Eiri interrupts, Lain states that the idea of using Schumann Resonance as a means to initiate Protocol 7 could not have been Eiri's idea alone, and that Eiri was simply an "
acting" God; therefore, not truly a God, just a being that proclaimed itself to be one. This revelation drives Eiri to the brink of insanity - Eiri's final act of madness overloads his presence and makes it collapse upon itself (
during which he manages to gain an inconsistent corporeal shape, perhaps as a last ditch effort to reassert his existence with a physical shell). This causes Alice to slip into traumatic shock; after this trauma, Lain decides to erase the memories of all that has happened, every time Lain interacted with someone, from everyone's minds to heal Arisu, restoring everything. She explains, "If it isn't remembered, it never happened." A curious point occurs afterwards; Eiri is shown to be alive. While that is in accordance with the overall plot, it is an occurrence that hasn't been explained properly. However, a theory in the series' own script shows that the Roswell Aliens were a result of the collective unconscious generating the image of the future (the course of future human evolution), which is also in accordance with Eiri's appearance; the generation of collective unconscious as a vision of the "past", which is triggered by Lain.
>>
Spoiler warning<<
After all is said and done, the origin and influence of the Knights is never fully explained. The MiB also remain mostly a mystery, though it suspected that they were perhaps hired and organized ultimately in an attempt to keep the Knights in check. Though exactly who was ultimately behind them and what their motivations originally were is still unclear, Lain's (
likely adoptive) father, and probable Tachibana employee (
and maybe even part-time/former Knight), is the figure that gives the MiB their final payment before those they've killed came to exact their revenge.
>>
Spoiler warning<<
Another aspect of the series is the constant identity crisis Lain enters upon encountering her "Wired" self; every so often asking the questions "
Who am I?", "
Who are you?", "
Why are these happening?" and stating "
I am me!", "
There is only one me!", "
You are not me", she inquires to whether her being is what she thought it was, a normal girl, or something else. In the end, she accepts her position. The very final scene involves Lain shedding her metaphorical protective "shell", speaking with a father figure/god who mentions madeleines (
a classic metaphorical device for memory) after his attempts at comforting her with regards to the transformative and dramatic events that have unfolded.
