Serial Experiments: Lain

Serial Experiments Lain is rather artistically ambitious, ruminating on the internet, Emergence, Japan's distrust of individualism and other fun stuff. Despite the praise for it (even a couple of academic papers written about it), I thought it was philosophically hit & miss - and the sci-fi medium for its philosophy was distinctly unscientific. The mood and art were quite striking; unsettling.

Certainly not as striking today as it was in its time, and the quality can be variable, but Lain is quite an eerie and uncanny exploration of the internet and its influence from a time when it was a fraction of what it is today. Absolutely bleeds atmosphere. One of the better philosophical anime to come out of the post-Evangelion boom.

This series is the perfect example of the obscure psycho-thriller genre of the animes. I loved it when I watched it at those years, but looking back maybe it was too ambigious and revealed too little in the end for my satisfactions. But as an attempt to build an atmosphere about the fuzzy boundaries between virtual/real, it is still top-notch.

Perhaps if I had watched this when it originally came out, I'd be a lot more impressed, but the animation is far too lackluster to give a high score to.

N4/G3.5/M5/C4.5/X4 RI -0.5

DENSE. still fucking rules.

Slow start but at the same time it escalated quickly. Way ahead of its time.

Watched 5 episodes - coudn't finish. Not enough connection between anything shown. Too much random abstract shit that doesn't seem to connect to anything. I liked the art and atmosphere though

cozy depression anime :)

errrm.. guys.. wth is happening... i watched this while high tbh so i probably understand it even less than normal... this is a famously incomprehensible show about.. the internet? god? growing up in the 90s? having autism? who knows man who knows... but anyway its pretty cool, i would say it's pretty compelling and its fun to try and figure out whats happening. just uhh.good luck. but also cool cause autism girl protagonist, love to see it