I was talking about anime in a chatroom a while ago, and saw some recommandations as to what I should watch. This one came up. So, I did go out, and I checked this show out. I'll tell you, it is probably the most weird show I've seen, pretty much ever.

Story begins with some girl, looking very happy, commiting suicide by jumping off a building. A week after, her classmates are discussing odd emails they recieved from her telling them that she isn't dead, but simply lost her body and now lives on in "The Wired", which is a virtual reality internet sort of thing that's reminiscent of the Matrix (although both of them came out in the same year, interestingly). Lain notices this email, and for some reason decides to learn more about the Wired, asking her dad for more up to date computer, as hers is really old. It turns out Lain has also been seen around the Wired, though she wasn't aware of being there, as well as several other places. The show seems to depict Lain having hallucinations of rather creepy nature, such as a girl resambling Lain's mother, but wth like four eyes, standing on train tracks and being run over by a train. Lain learns more about the Wired, and learns that while God exists only as a concept in the "real world", in The Wired he is possible. She has conversations with a being that calls itself God in the Wired, and it implies several times that God is Lain.

It's a very confusing, but very interesting show about the flow of information in society, the internet, human psychology, and things like that. Lain seems to be kind of insane, as does her sister in Episode 5, and suffers from multiple personalities. Everyone around her except her classmates acts suspicious in someway, and this show seems to be a real mind #####.

I recommend it, though I'm not done watching it. I'm on Episode 8 of 13 or so.

Denim, enjoy the last few episodes

One of my favorite anime's of all time. I need to watch it again, should go get it back from the friend I lent it to. Lain goes through a constant identity crisis. It gets kinda complicated with all the collective unconsciousness and special frequencies of electomagnetic waves and blah. The show really tosses around the idea of what a god is. Definatly haven't seen anything weirder. You can really interpret it in alot of different ways, which is why it confuses most people I think. The art is also a nice touch.

Watch it people.

I watched the first 3 DVD's back when I used to work at Hollywood Video and couldn't make much sense of the show. Either it all went over my head, or I just got bored enough from all the weird japanese-ness that I just gave up on the series.

I heard things are explained a bit better throughout the later part of the series and makes sense of just about everything, but I really didn't understand what was happening most of the time.

As for your comment about the art Hwoar, I gotta disagree... I thought it was all fairly cheap. =x You know, the kind of anime where characters just stand around and don't make any movements, or when they do there's like missing frames of animation.

I dunno though, I didn't watch the whole thing so I can't totally knock it.

I'll need to rent the last DVD, because I got up to Episode 11, and there were no more. And everything was getting pretty interesting too.

But...

SPOILERS highlight.


What's with Karl, or what's his name, one of those men in black who wears those weird lazer pointing glasses things, professing love for Lain? They've not really met for long, unless before the story started they spent time together? Although the episode was called Love, and it did discuss God, like episode ten, and several others. Referring to the love of God, as Lain had become the same as that ducttape man who calls himself God on the Wired? Pretty wierd.

I just finished this series a little while ago. Its a bit hard to swallow, really. I'll probably have better impressions on the series sometime tommorow, but bleh. The ending was a bit anti-climatic, but it was allowed to be. Texhnolyze was much better, much more "accomplished" than this series I guess. (But you can probably blame that on the storytelling, and this anime is a lot more abstract than Texhnolyze.)

I'm rating the two simply because the same people made it, however, they are two different things. I had extremely low expectations of the anime when I started, and came out with a positive impression. If anyone wants to talk about spoilers or anything, I'll see who finished the series first.

I watched it back when it was on Tech TV. I didn't really understand it then, but it was still just waaaay cool. I think it was my first anime. I bought the dvd's last year and watched them, and still don't fully understand the show, but it's the greatest.
Response to Denim's spoilers:
I think that the guy in black doesn't love her like you would love a woman, but more like, loves her as you might love Allah. Personal opinion, that's all.