Serial experiments Lain

Synopsis

Lain Iwakura (, Kidney Iwakura ) is a young solitary teenager, badly in her skin. Following the death of one of her classmates, she is discovered a passion for the Informatique and the Wired (literally cable , latticed ), kind of evolution of Internet. Email, sent by the latter after its death, explains why only its body ceased living and that itself lives now in Wired. Lain will be immersed in this world of electronic interconnections, until there " perdre".

Characters

Since there are three Lain, the true Lain returns to that, which belongs to the real-world, the second is that of the Wired , the third is that which interacts on the two worlds.

; Lain Iwakura: The heroin of the series. This young girl is at the commencement of the series completely in her bubble, very introverted, only Alice Mizuki seems to be interested in it. Its life with his/her parents and with the college is platonic. Then, it receives an email of Chisa Yomoda, a girl of its college, which recently committed suicide. Consequently, it decides to have a new computer to better be able to use the Wired , as advises Chisa and Alice to him. The evening turns when insane badly armed keep silent a person, Lain nevertheless will push it to commit suicide, by pronouncing a strange sentence. After that, the behavior of Lain more and more will change, it will end up understanding that Lain of the Wired interacts with the true Lain, pushing it to make things which it does not wish. To the length of the series, both Lain will develop on their side but will let emerge third Lain, which will seek to destroy them, they and his/her friends, in particular Alice. Lain will end up including/understanding truths intentions of Eiri Masami, creator of the current Wired , and will include/understand which is its real interest in the Wired . During the series, Lain more or less will sink in the Schizophrénie and the Paranoïa, just like his/her sister and Alice.

original Design of Yoshitoshi Abe, it has an interrogative glance of headstock. Lain seems out of the events, spectator of its own existence. The Me-pachi (quasi absence of blinking of the eyes) still reinforces this feeling. This technique was in particular used in Ghost in the Shell.

the asymmetrical cut of Lain expresses its psychological instability. The anecdote wants that in the beginning, script detailed the fastener of its hair and its particular design made of metal bonds cross drawing - once detached - a sign of equality. finally, Lain will not detach its hair in the series.

; Yasuo Iwakura: The father of Lain and Mika. He works in data processing, in the same laboratory as Eiri Masami in fact. It is him which more or less will push Lain to use the Wired . It looks at his daughter with a mixture of fear and pride. Curiously, he will not even notice what arrives at his/her oldest daughter. ; Mika Iwakura: The older sister of Lain. She is, according to the author, the only person " normale" of the family. Old a few years more than her sister, it will be interested a little more in it when this one will be invested in Wired. Unfortunately, Mika will be seriously reached by the hallucinations projected involuntarily by Lain and Wired. Traumatisée by the visions of horrors which his/her sister sends to him, it will finish the series with the vegetable state. ; Alice Mizuki: Best (and only the) friendly one of Lain. Alice is in the same class that Lain and seems the only one to be interested in it. Alice will try to extirpate Lain of her bubble, but that only will not direct it towards the Wired . Other Lain then will torment Alice, by spreading rumors on her in the school, which will plunge it in a deep depression. True Lain it on its side will try to overcome its interior demons to protect his/her friend from her dangerous alter-egos.
Le scenario writer having collaborated in the creation of the plays Alice in Cyberland , the character of animates who was not to have that a secondary role will be packed during the writing of script. ; Eiri Masami: Researcher at the Tachibana institute, developed the idea of a network neural which would connect all humanity, without any technical intervention. In order to try out its theory, Eiri modified the seventh version of the protocol and made it able to exploit Shuman resonance. The scientist was laid off when the institute discovered its intrigues. One week later, its body was discovered without life at the edge of a railway. Eiri Masami is a kind of guru of the Wired , being one of its creators, that is especially had with the fact that it has " pouvoirs" , larger in the Wired , than the other people (except perhaps for Lain). It will reach a species of immortality, but its desincarnation made it a little insane. It will make very to dominate the Wired and to destroy the border between this world and the real-world. ; Taro: One of the henchmen of the Knights . He wants in makes become one of the Knights, but too young person (he has about the age of Lain), he is confined with the small works. He trails regularly with the Cybéria club with two of his friends, it is there that he will meet true Lain there, he indeed met the double of Lain in the Wired . He will try to help Lain to bore the mystery of the Chevaliers and Eiri Masami. Actually, it is completely handled by those. ; Men in Black: Men opposed to the Knights . They are data processing specialists, who were given for mission of getting rid of the Chevaliers and of removing Eiri Masami definitively, that he suspect to want to become omnipotent in the Wired . It first of all will attack Lain, then more or less will be combined with it to finish some with the God of Wired which became Masami. They are, it goes without saying, extremely mysterious and it is difficult to include/understand what it really want. ; The Knights ( Knights ): The faithful ones of Eiri Masami. It is by their intermediary which Eiri became so powerful in the Wired . They all are of the very powerful hackers in Wired which live everywhere in the world. Between them and the Men in Black, reign a constant war. Just like their enemies, their goals are very nébuleux.
Inspiré of the Templiers, they also refer to the , hackers operative under UNIX.

Topics

Data-processing, Internet and the Wired : All the series turns almost around this parallel world created by the human ones. Although it has great similarities with Internet, it is alambiqué much more. It is possible to live in Wired one second completely different life, the perhaps different personality, the relations too. Lain it thus will develop several personalities: his, that of Wired, that which interacts between the two, nevertheless up to a certain point, none of these three Lains realize of the existence of the others.

Phenomenon Otaku: the fact that Lain is locked up in its room with length of time to explore Wired is of course reference to this phenomenon. One will notice a certain deformation worthy of Akira of the aforesaid the room and Lain (omnipresent cables, and towards the end, fusion mechanics-organics). Insulation and the fact that Lain ends up finding the Wired more real than the true reality are one of the other bases of the series.

Existence and nature of God: Via Eiri Masami which autoproclame God of Wired . During the series, Lain, Eiri and the Men in Black (standards with the glasses laser if one prefers) will bring several assumptions as for the existence or even the utility of God.

Paranoia and Schizophrenia: Lain will be discovered three personalities different (although the third is definitely less present). Moreover, the characters of Arisu and Mika will sink in the Paranoïa and the Folie.

Lexicon

Accela : Drugs form integral part of the glaucous background of the series and laccela shows us the technological change of the narcotics. It is here about an intelligent additive containing nano-machines modifying the production of certain hormones, increasing the quantity of information treated by the cerveau.
Ce kind of perception recall the Matrix effect: Bullet time or the " Red Eye" in Cowboy Bebop.

Misadventure: Derived from the Sanskrit " avatâra" - descent - for the incarnation on ground of a divinity in the brahmanic tradition or hindoue.
Ce term is included in the computerese to define the appearance of which obtains the users virtual worlds.

Bit: It is the base of the data transmission data processing - 1 or 0.

Boot: Starting/launching of a computing system.

Bug : Programming error. The expression must with the first insect being shorted-circuit in a computer and provocant a breakdown.

Copland : Name of the Operating system (or OS) of the NAVI. Also code name of a OS developed by Apple, it was replaced by that developed by NeXT.

Cyberia : Name of a club of Shibuya, it is also a reference to the book éponyme of Douglas Rushkoff treating emergence of new counter-cultures techno Rave and first data-processing networks where Hacker rhyme with Cyber…

Device: Mean " équipement" or " dispositif". Name the advertisement of the episodes to be followed.

KIDS: At the time of its peregrinations in the Wired , Lain meets the professor Hodgson former head of project KIDS having for goal to develop the psychic capacities young children… This name come from the contraction of Dogson, author of Alice to the country of the wonders, and of Hodges, English neurologist.

Madeleine: In the thirteenth episode, wink with Proust in this variation on the memory.

MJ-12: In 1984, the producer of television James Chandler accepted an anonymous sending containing a film not developed. This one revealed a secret agreement between a presidential committee and an extraterrestrial form of life. Named MJ-12 (for Majestic 12), this group would have been chaired by Roscoe Hillenkoetter, chief of the CIA, and would have been composed of twelve members. Some of them brought, by their work, of decisive technological advances in the communication networks.

NAVI

KM NO: Abbreviation of Player Killer in the video games and more particularly in the roleplays on line. Say yourself of a player who during an amount of time starts to kill the other players in the play. This type of behavior can have several cause directly in relation to the rules of the game. Player Killer can draw advantage from its superiority to gain points of experiment, to become stronger, to drive out the intruders of its territory of hunting, etc Parfois, this behavior is purely childish and Player Killer acts thus to spend time, to have fun or spread out its superiority. That can be encouraged by the objectives of the play although that is very seldom the case. In general, this type of repetitive and abusive behavior is very little appreciated players who suffer from it (waste of time, loss of experiment, losses of objects…) and strictly sanctioned by the administrators.

Electric poles: In the universe of Lain, Wired interferes perpetually with reality. In addition to the many irruptions paranormales (phantom in the corridor of the school, blood which escapes from the electric wires…), transport in commun runs, sways in the crowd or TV screens announce the presence of the network in the physical world. The care taken to the electric poles is related to the fact that the Ueda producer is itself a large amateur of these urban constructions (!).

Proxy

Resonance Shuman

Roswell

Rushkoff

Teddy Bear: Before connecting itself to Wired, Lain threads a behavior of bear cub. Imagined by the character designer Takahiro Kishida, this disguise means the will of Lain to be isolated from the outside world and of its family, with whom it ties a strange relation. The reason for the bear cub (which one also sees in the credits of opening) east récurrrent in the catalog of films of Kazuya Konaka, brother of the scenario writer Chiaki J. Konaka.

The Places: The scene of presentation of the accela watch all the care taken by staff to Serial Experiment Lain: in the content of the screen, one locates a whole of handwritten notes and typed. This chaotic text is drawn from The Place , an art gallery on the Web.

Think Blue Count One Tow : The password used by the father of Lain is a deformation of Think Blue, Count Two , a news written by Cordwainer Smith.

To B' E contined
Wired: It is the name of the virtual space created by the data-processing network. Anagram of weird (strange), Wired is also the name of a famous American magazine, bible of the cyber-culture on the other side of the Atlantic

List episodes

The episodes are officially numbered as a to bush-hammer (layer, level or copy in English - according to the cases), reference to the sentences of certain characters who estimate that Wired is a dimension parallel with the real-world, that these worlds are sections of worlds.

Le beginning is invariably the same one:

a mechanical voice pronounces: " Day, Present Time" Present; , puit laughs.

  follows the credits, which finish on a sight of the bust of Lain, enlightened in green 
  Apparaissent sights of the city, enlightened in the night, of the congestions, crowd, of the headlights of car, of fires, etc… These urban sights are rocked by sentences pronounced by various characters (Lain, Mika, Arisu, etc…) 
  Enfin the title of the episode is posted, susurré by a mechanical deaf person voice. 
  These stages are separated by grésillements similar to those from a badly regulated television.

 
     Weird  
  Girls  
  Psyche  
  Religion  
  Distorsion  
  Kids  
  Society  
  Rumors  
  Protocol  
  Coils  
  Infornography  
  Landscape  
  Ego   
  
 
Card-index
 
   Drawings of the characters - original:  Yoshitoshi Abe 
  Drawings of the characters - animated:  Takahiro Kishida 
  Author:  Chiaki J. Konaka 
  Decorations:  Masaru Satô 
  Music:  Reiichi CHABO Nakaido  
   
  
 
Staff
 
   Concept/Production:  Production 2nd 
  Realization:  Ryutaro Nakamura 
  Animation:  Triangle Producing Staff 
  Executives:  Taro Maki, Akihiro Kawamura 
  Scenario:  Chiaki J. Konaka 
  Producing:  Yasuyuki Ueda, Shojiro Abe 
  
  
 
Staff DVD
 
   Edition: Dybex S.A. 
  Executive producer: Carlo Levy 
  Assistant of production: Manu Roy 
  Coordination: Bruno Parent 
 Small  DVD Design: Governed Michaux 
  Authoring: Alain Fustin & Fred Appert 
  DVD Packaging: Michael Ronsyn 
  Relations Presses: Cedric Vantroyen 
   
  
 
Doubling
  
  

 
 
 
Musics
 
  
Sleeping bag (Opening)
  
Song of opening of the series, by Boa English group with tendency funk founded in 1993. Ueda, the producer, was allured by the words and the music in adequacy with animates. The success of the series during its launching in the USA saved the group.   Sung and composed by:  Boa 
  Words of:  Jasmine Rodgers  
   
  
 
Tooi Sakebi (Ending)
  
Sung by:  Nakaido Rei'ichi 
  
 
Quotations
  
  
Make me sad, make me mad, make me feel alright|
  
  
It sounds very Weird, goal it' S fact. Email comes from has girl who has never been young stag. She speaks to you that "Why don' T you like over young stag soon? |Alice (speaking about Chisa)
  
  
If nobody remembers it, it is that existed forever|Alice
  
  
Closed the World, Open the nExt|Subtitle series|It is a wink with NeXT, company created by Steve Jobs at the end of the Eighties.
   
  
It does not matter where you go… everyone is connected! |Second Lain
  
  
We need God, neither in the  Wired , nor in the real world|Men in Black
  
  
I… isn't this is me? |Lain
  
  
 
See too
 
  
Internal bonds
 
   Lain - the video game 
 
  
External bonds
 
      
   
  
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