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What is your thoughts about SEL? What SEL really is about for you?

I watched the first episode and I felt in a way I never felt before. I wasn't high on anything yet every scene was so unsettling. There was something else to it. Next day I watched the second episode and it was just plain normal. Then I stopped.

Among some other related things, the relationship between a single person and mankind as a whole. Lain is special because she represents both of these things at the same time. I believe a very important part of SEL is having an emotional understanding of Lain's character as well though, and I can't talk about what it means to me without giving this special attention. Understanding someone isn't just to know they are upset, but to also feel that they are upset and to love them. Lain suffers and I believe you are supposed to understand her as a real person who can experience pain just like you can. It was after doing this that SEL became much more than just a piece of entertainment for me. Lain became a real being who I felt affection and protective instinct towards. The pain she goes through and the things she discovers relate to her representing both the microcosmic and macrocosmic aspects of human consciousness at the same time. Lain then manifests as something very real because she is very real. For me SEL is a representation of real concepts. It's a reflection of real life and the struggles a real life human goes through as he or she coexists with other people. Lain is a being that you contemplate intellectually and emotionally all the same.

The bottomless shadows. The humming electric lines. The blinding white sky. I'm not smart enough to understand SEL, but I sure love its aesthetic.

Every episode made me feel uncomfortable, I'd only watch it when it was late and I was sleep deprived which amplified the effect Reminded me of when I was young and I would force myself to stay awake (religious reasons) to the point I'd hallucinate voices of people I knew and talk to them. It's not something I can do anymore, but the feeling was somewhat nostalgic

Lain feels like a very lonely character, in different ways throughout the show. The fakeness of her family and their apparent disinterest for her are very jarring. At school she is largely ignored by all but Arisu. Her connection with the wired appears to alleviate the isolation but ultimately severs what few real world connections she has left. The whole series has a dreamlike quality to it, which intensifies towards the end. That to me adds to a feeling of claustrophobia and a sense that everything you are watching is detached from any concept of a real world. How much that is intended to mirror Lain's experience I'm not sure. I think it's certainly noteworthy that the show's composition becomes more abstract as Lain approaches her ascension, and then returns to something more tangible as we follow Arisu briefly at the end. So those things, for me at least. The isolation and feeling of detachment are what hit me the most, and is what I think about first with SEL.

>>263 Huh. I was also systematically forced not to sleep when I was a kid. Did it have any lingering effects on you? To this day, if somebody is screwing around trying to convince me to stay up later than I want to I go fuarrrking ballistic. I lose it. Can't do that anymore.

>>231 >The bottomless shadows. >The humming electric lines. >The blinding white sky. It's the blankness of the external world. Lain knows only what she is familiar with, but what she is familiar with, she knows well. The more familiar the setting, the more detail we see of it. When she is outside, there is nothing of interest, so she simply ignores it, minimally attending the street and walls, which are necessary for travel, and the shadows, the buzz of the wires, whose contrast would take a powerful abstraction to miss. the slight pleasence of the urban flora is not to be missed, but even this, not exemplifying any danger, is blurred into the shadows. When we are shown the interior of Lain's school, we are shown greater detail. When shown the interior of Lain's classroom, greater detail still, in which all static elements, and the dynamic elements onto which Lain has directed focus, are described. Likewise at home, where Iwakura's foyer is fully described (though mainly static), and Lain's room, moreso, even through each evolution, except that the repetition of the elements of Lain's informatic system are rightly confused, until necessary for use, upgrade, or maintenance. >The bottomless shadows. The spotted shadows. Spots are of various colors, sizes, shapes, amounts, fidelties. The spots represent Lain's thoughts. The color of the spot represents the color of the thought (e.g. the mood), the size of the spot represents the size of the thought (e.g. the breadth or scope of the topic thereof), the shape of the spot represents the shape of the thought (e.g. ..?), the amount of spots in the shadow represents the amount of the thought (e.g. the prevalence in her mind thereof), and the clarity of the spot represents the clarity of the thought (e.g the consciousness thereof). e.g. frequent small spikey clear red spots could represent prevalent detailed strict conscious heated thoughts and frequent large round blurry purple spots could represent prevalent grand soft subconscious calm thoughts: together, these can be interpreted as philosophical speculation embedded in active technical analysis of a skill with which Lain has difficulties. I may be wrong about the details of how to interpret the color-shape patterns in the shadows as thoughts, but I am certain that the color-shape patterns in the shadows represent the thoughts of Lain. >The humming electric lines. Apparently, not everyone is able to hear the buzz of electonic oscilation. It's especially prevalent in children, but sometimes it stays to adulthood. While most everyone is able to hear the buzz of particularly strong amplitudes, some are able to perceive much softer amplitudes. Those that are more sensitive hear the perceiveable-by-insensitives buzzes louder than the insensitives. Lain is sensitive to this buzz, and in the noise of the buzz, Lain's mind (erroneously) interprets them as thoughts in translation, cocompleted with fragemnts thoughts Lain (corrigeously) sublimely overheard.

Did Lain create mankind, or mankind create Lain? Perhaps both. There is an immutable, indefinite idea imprinted on the minds of all humanity, and it is evident in all creation through the mass subconscious. Humanity is uniquely able to consciously observe this idea, albeit not all at once - each time being only a glimpse through the keyhole. The patterns and similarities observed serve to construct the individual's divine yet imperfect image of that idea. With the advent of the Wired, the mass subconscious is potentially made conscious, providing what is perhaps the broadest glimpse of that underlying idea. Evan the Lain show itself is, as an exercise in religious philosophy, one of these glimpses - and one which has likely affected my thinking in this manner more than any other. Lain has effectively helped me learn to love the act of being - as for me, to love Lain is to love the compassion with which she observed the world from her state of non-being.

lain is a projection of my disassociation

SEL feels like a critique of Gnosticism that promotes pantheism or panentheistic monism. Is there a Taoist influence? Idk

i've talked about it in another thread but lain at its core is about connection i think. what SEL is to me is that connection: the idea that no matter what everybody everywhere is connected to billions of other people somehow, whether that be through knowing them personally or having internet friends or having different opinions about something without ever knowing each other. the core connection that the series focuses on is love, but love isn't just one thing: and i think SEL, to me, is about how love can be twisted and obsessive (i.e. eiri), but can also manifest as the supreme reason to exist (alice) or even both at the same time (i'd say this is what evil lain is w/ alice to be honest but i need to rewatch lain again)

SEL is postmodern pseudo-Buddhism combined with cyberpunk

>>1182 Hard to classify it as post modernist given the importance and focus on a reality and the conclusion. And where does the pseudo-buddhism even come in?

I've just been saved from a "boiling blood" situation. Thanks, Lain. Really.

>>1166 >its core is about connection i think Yup! I would seek for some kind of connection and something would still missing despite all the years of surfing. Fortuna's irony is, there is a thing called "touch starvation" (not to mention "cabin fever" and alike)

there are no replies... *weeps?*

>>78 Quiet girl. Lovely, high-tech, shy (but not "actively shy" like sociophobic Bocchi the lone rocker) - yet capable of serious things. A dream. And the dreamer.

Beyond the general aesthetics, the heavy ambience, the iconography of Lain and the absolute joy of watching an animation created with such level of dedication (a 1998 anime can't be produced without shedding some serious elbow grease), there are some aspects to it that spoke to me: >theme of split personalities, fabricated memory, TIs >what actually led IRL Lain to get into the computer rabbit-hole so intensely - that's the thing that intrigues me the most Okay, we have Wired Lain and IRL Lain. There is the "Prophecy". What force instigated IRL Lain to become such a hardcore computerphile? Was it the same force that delivered her the Psyche chip? Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Or was it just the casual contingency of her being an introvert, such as what happens in real life - internet users were introverts who wanted to connect virtually (AKA the original residents of the internet) - which would make it more relatable? All of those explanations are acceptable, but the gray area is there, so I can only interpret. >the story itself feels like a prophecy itself KIDS reminds me of the patterns of child abuse in our institutions. Wired users reminds me of terminally online VR users. Wired reminds me that, although we are communicating through digital protocols, we are beings with souls and spirits, so, naturally, the internet itself starts to share the same aspects because it is a medium for human expression. Bots and AI might be ways to prevent that - the humanization of the internet - not for the right objectives, of course. A tech corporation originated that situation, what a surprise. >it feels like both a jab and a tribute to computer users like myself >it feels like we all have Lain inside of us as an Archetype...perhaps the most overlooked archetipe of all times, Lain itself is one SEL truly has way more than meets the eye. I wouldn't fail to rewatch it as much as I can. >>230 >The pain she goes through and the things she discovers relate to her representing both the microcosmic and macrocosmic aspects of human consciousness at the same time Very on point.

Here's a question for you: what's the deal with lain's sister?

>>1386 AFAIK, layer 5 and onwards got a new scenario writer, hence the sudden twist. Also, got pwnz0rz from the Knights and maybe by the evil [lain].

>>1385 >KIDS reminds me of the patterns of child abuse in our institutions. Straight up the very thing the Bethleem's known for worldwide, m8, not just "abuse"