Compelling reasons to watch Lain

Hello, new user here. Just heard about this site by word of mouth and now that I'm here, I'll ask. Should I watch Serial experiment Lain or not? Is this difficult to understand? What themes are portrayed? Thanks for reading lainons

You could watch it, or don't. You can spoil yourself by googling SEL and looking at the themes section on wikipedia. Or, like, you could torrent the soykaf.

>>233 Yeah I think I'll watch it when I'll be able to torrent tomorrow. Stupid thread now that I realize it

>>232 yes you should watch it over and over until you begin to worship lain as your One True Godess, you begin to see aspects form the show in your day to day life, you realise the philosophy in the show is extremely relevant today and also you go completely insane fromwatching the same low budget anime over and over and over and over again in some missguided atempt to understand yourself. Hey it worked for me

i cant speak for your brain il tell you my experience; lain was one of the most impactful pieces of entertainment (outside of books) my sophmore year of HS. the only other thing I consider on the same level of impact is oyasumi pun pun. For better or for worse lain shaped how I see the world and pun pun shaped how I saw relationships. Its hard to say because they were things that shaped my growth, but I can kind of imagine watching them now (im 21) for the first time. Only listen to this if you arent in highschool, I dont want to influence what you get out of it by presenting some "older" perspective. If I watched lain now it would change how impactful I saw the internet as being on human development on an individual and societal level, versus when I watched it then where I strongly identified with the character lain. For comparison pun pun would be a good example now on what an unhealthy relationship looked like, versus then where I saw it as an ideal romanticized relationship. If you are a bit younger than me I imagine you still read, just know no matter what people told me and what I learned the hard way if I didnt view them in that initial light I never would have learned. And also growth isnt linear, some people would view these things and have the opposite "progression" that I had. That was just my experience and reflection. The main point was just that I definitely would reccomend it back in that time, but would only probably reccomend it looking back. Its hard to say, in some ways lain caused me some hardship funny enough, but I dont know id even recognize it like that if I never watched it. Its impossible to say. Theres just something funny about the fact though that an anime and a manga shaped my life for years after I witnessed them. That alone is something I might get a giggle out of when im dying and maybe makes it worth it no matter what.

Am I the only person who hasn't had an impactful experience watching SEL? I think it's because I tried to see plot in it while there wasn't much of one. Tried to make logical reasoning with nonsense. Even if there are good themes in it, a good chunk of the show is random stuff slapped together and has weird scenes that just exist to confuse you (the alien midget scene comes to mind). I love the shows aesthetic and the atmosphere, but other than that I don't really think it's as super life changing as people say it is here. Since another lainon brought up the series, Oyasumi Punpun is a lot better at showing the theme and having a consistent story. It's surreal, but not surreal to the point where you can't tell whats happening.

>>237 SEL is mostly aesthetic & atmosphere for me. Any meaning you attach to it is simply your own, which I suppose is attractive to some. I like the atmosphere of Texhnolyze a lot more though.

I just recently watched all of SEL off of YouTube, cuz Funimation has it up there for free in case you get sketched out with torrenting stuff. I'd wholly recommend it even though it wasn't the life changing anime for me that many people consider it to be on this site and others. It's a great anime though and I think if you are interested, you should give it a shot.

>>237 I think it's because I tried to see plot in it while there wasn't much of one. Tried to make logical reasoning with nonsense. Even if there are good themes in it, a good chunk of the show is random stuff slapped together and has weird scenes that just exist to confuse you (the alien midget scene comes to mind). There is a very deep and profound plot in SEL and nothing there is random or coincidental. It seems random at first glance and doesnt make sense if viewed with conventional knowledge but when looked at from a spiritual viewpoint it makes total sense. It simply requires much understanding and study before you can recognize it.

>>240 The entire point of art in general is to communicate some sort of idea to a viewer. If it can't communicate it's theme and ideas clearly, it's probably not very good. Even with studying and reading references, which I feel I shouldn't really have to do in the first place to get a bare understanding of the show, it really doesn't make much sense.

>>241 Ideas build up on other ideas, some forms of art are very obvious, others like SEL require a very different set of ideas to make sense. Nothing makes sense if you dont understand the basics, something like computers may be obvious to people in our century, but anything computer related 100 years ago might have been considered absured and incomprehendable garbage.

>>237 Lain's actually got a relatively traditional surface plot and nothing is randomly slapped together. That alien is referenced in explicit detail at least two times in the show before you even see it. You just have to pay attention to the details and piece them together.

>>235 This post seems to have been written by me, and yet I don't remember writing it. It seems that, like with Lain, there is another me out there on the Wired. More seriously, this post is true to my experience. I think a certain kind of person (my kind of person) has the potential to be drawn into the Serial Experiments Lain "mindset" and mythology, perhaps even to the point of delusion. I still find myself feeling sometimes that the answers to life's greatest questions are hidden in the show. "If I watch it one more time, maybe I can figure this (by which I mean everything) out..." Now, why it should have this effect on so many viewers is its own fascinating question that demands its own answer. Honestly, I'm beginning to become disturbed by the amount of memetic power (if you'll excuse the phrase) that Lain has gathered. What was a cult fandom is seemingly slowly becoming an actual cult in the religious sense. It's like Lain is a magnet for those who are going off the deep end, not preventing them from developing delusions, but shaping those that do develop. Even for those who reject the concept of Lain's literal divinity, as most do, this is more than a show now...it represents something bigger. Maybe I just need to get off of Lainchan and get some perspective, though. I'm sounding pretty paranoid myself.

>>247 Magnet is a good way to describe her. That's how it feels. Lain is a magnet because of what she represents, and what she represents is something real. At the end of the day, it's just far more simple than what most imagine when they try to pry her open to see what ticks. Why are so many people attracted to a fictional character like this? How is she so different from any other character? Lain is a magnet for human activity because she represents human activity. She's like the stuffs that make up the human condition packaged up into the body of a girl. An identity that's connected to the collective of mankind simultaneously; the pain and the love that comes with it all. Because she represents these core principles, you, as a reflection of her, are attracted to her, because of course, you have all this inside you as well. She is everyone, and she is you. Lain herself, as she exists inside her world, is a reflection of ourselves as we exist inside our own world. What she is and how she struggles is equivalent to us. Pain and joy at the need to connect with other people, having an identity but being connected to everybody else and bound by shared traits. Lain's universe is also a reflection of our own. What Lain's universe is and the struggles it demonstrates are equivalent to our own. It's actually quite surreal and somewhat scary when you sit down and think about it. The truth that's so sought after is actually that simple, because all you have to do is look at yourself. It, like Lain, was always there from the very beginning. So, there are unconscious supernatural reasons for people to be attracted to Lain outside of just cultural meme. Fiction representing reality manifesting in reality. It's not necessarily so much that she's attracting the unhinged, but rather that maybe she's just dangerous to contemplate. A representative of real world concepts being stitched so closely to reality itself. Thoughts related to Lain go beyond just imagination or even delusion. It isn't that it feels like interacting with or thinking about another being inside your head, but rather like interacting with a powerful concept. You're in awe and attracted to it as if by magnetism, but it also feels like you're teetering on the edge of sanity, that close to losing your grip on reality. And what happens to some characters in the series when they are exposed to Lain? At its best, a magnetic urge to love Lain that they have no way of explaining. At its worst, mental collapse. Lain is real.

>>235 Breaking: Is Lain Eris? She may or may not want you!

>>247 I kind feel the same, anon. This show has definitely become something more than a simple anime. After I've finished watching it, I've felt like that I could unlock some hidden knowledge unknown to mankind and that I could elevate as a human being and trascend this mortal form, as you said, sometimes reality doesn't seem true at all at times and you can certainly feel trapped into the show and can't distinguish the fine line between reality and fiction anymore, just like it happens with the wired in sel.

>>248 >It's not necessarily so much that she's attracting the unhinged, but rather that maybe she's just dangerous to contemplate. The idea of Lain as an SCP-style memetic hazard is intriguing. Of course, I think we have yet to see any widespread "problematic" behavior that is unambiguously associated with Lain. I suppose the whole business with Tsuki is the closest we've come. With suicide, though, the mechanism of the danger is somewhat unremarkable; it is known that portrayals of suicide lead to suicidal ideation, suicide legitimization, and copycat behavior, and SEL portrays at least three suicides in somewhat graphic detail. I wonder if there's a way to track Lain's influence without just looking for apparently disturbed thought patterns in image board posts. Apparently, Volkswagen discovered that owning a cat and having a preference for chunky peanut butter together was associated with a significantly higher probability of buying a Beetle. Who knows what a strong reaction to SEL might be associated with? >>405 Yeah, I think I've been slowly seeing through SEL's genjutsu over the ~year since I posted >>247. I realize now that it may well be good at pretending to possess absolute truth rather than actually possessing absolute truth. It still calls to me from time to time, tempting me to return to an atmosphere/mindset so thick that it almost feels like a location or a personality (with a convenient face to match). "In my restless dreams, I see that show..." I still can't quite shake the feeling that Lain is somehow a real entity, but I realize that it's easier for my intuitions to be tricked by superb artistry than it is for a real techno-spiritual being to exist. I suppose it's like those who take massive doses of salvia, hallucinate a millennium of a life that isn't real, and then find themselves back here. It trips you up for a while, but you usually get over it. Still, it's truly remarkable that a show can achieve this effect without touching your brain chemistry directly.

>>407 >I realize now that it may well be good at pretending to possess absolute truth rather than actually possessing absolute truth I agree, just thinking that you "might" have gained absolute truth is already some kind of an achievement, expecially since there is no actual conceivable absolute truth and absolute truth is kinda of a paradox by itself.

Lain is a show that makes you feel a type of way. It has you saying "wtf is going on" until the end. Why does lainchan keep saying my posts look automated?

One of my meatspace friends said it right: "everyone should watch SEL, not everyone will like it though" SEL only really touches a few people. There is a very specific type of person who feels how lain feels. And they should watch SEL. You won't really know until you watch it, so you should watch it.

>Yeah I think I'll watch it when I'll be able to torrent tomorrow. Stupid thread now that I realize it Not necessarily. I haven't found any good descriptions of SEL around. There is much about lain to be desired. It's a good story, with a good general aesthetic, but it's lacking in detail. Or, rather, there is much room to add more detail, which could make the whole thing even better. One might go so far as to suggest an major redesign.

Why would you bother coming around asking if it's worth watching? Watch it or don't man, it doesn't really matter. There's definitely something to be appreciated about the show, but the vast majority of the "fan base" you meet around places like this are insufferable glue sniffing mental midgets. I don't think it's really all that much of a thematic show. There's like one inter-character relationship that gets any sort of development, it lacks any worthwhile insight into history, religion, causality, what ever. In this way all it does is hearken to a bygone era. A common identity in cyberpunk is found in 60's drug culture. The pseudo-academic study, fraternal influences, and your basic street level drug use. What may be SEL's closest semblance of insight is that you have these different groups that are essentially puppets, that mimic in a small way the west coast drug scene. These forgotten zealots carry out what seems to be a somewhat guided plot by someone with influence and intentions we probably don't really understand. It does not present anything new in this regard, and it's really rather secondary in the show. It all seems to be more a consequence of the genre rather than actual thought put into it by its creators. All that aside, what is left is all good. A well crafted psychological drama, or horror. Unique style, cool music, etc... It's a seriously good show, but don't worry about it being too hard to understand, what it was trying to tell you, it's all bunk man. Enjoy the aesthetic, enjoy the abstract psychological thrill, just enjoy watching it, and know that was all there was too it. Don't listen to people who abuse cough syrup.

>>470 There is plenty of thematic meat and much of that also relates to philosophy & religion. It just needs appropriate scope to make things seem less convoluted. This is a reason it's misunderstood. It shouldn't have been marketed and finalized as an episodic animation. The format the game took might've been a better way to do it, and if they really lived up to making it multimedia.

>>232 I also just discovered this community and currently I'm a little overwhelmed by how much of a following this whole lain thing has. I have so many questions, but I don't know how to phrase them. Is SEL the only official lain content? What's the fan content like? I remember finding a cryptic website related to lain once ( I think it was the inspiration for Terminal 00 ) but didn't look into it much.

>>542 By SEL, do you mean just the anime? There's also a PS1 game.

>>543 Oh, I was only aware of the anime.

Will watching Lain make me feel better or drive me even deeper into despair?

>>622 No.