Serial Experiments Lain
Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda-the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has neither the desire nor the experience to handle even basic technology; yet, when the technophobe opens the email, it leads her straight into the Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down as she begins to encounter cryptic mysteries one after another. Strange men called the Men in Black begin to appear wherever she goes, asking her questions and somehow knowing more about her than even she herself knows. With the boundaries between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events where identity, consciousness, and perception are concepts that take on new meanings.
- 1998-1998
- 1 season
- FUNimation Entertainment
- Animation, Drama, Horror, Suspense, Science Fiction
- TV-14
Lain Iwakura, an awkward and introverted fourteen-year-old, is one of the many girls from her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda-the very same Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has neither the desire nor the experience to handle even basic technology; yet, when the technophobe opens the email, it leads her straight into the Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down as she begins to encounter cryptic mysteries one after another. Strange men called the Men in Black begin to appear wherever she goes, asking her questions and somehow knowing more about her than even she herself knows. With the boundaries between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events where identity, consciousness, and perception are concepts that take on new meanings.
Season 1 Episode Guide
13 Episodes 1998
Episode 1
Weird
Tue, Jul 13, 1999 25 mins
People are getting emails from a girl that killed herself last week (Chisa Yomoda), which claim that she only gave up her body, but is actually still alive inside the Wired, and that God is also there. After getting one of these emails, the introverted Lain becomes interested in computers and she ask her father for a new NAVI.
Episode 2
Girls
25 mins
Accela - a designer drug born of nanotechnology - is a big hit with the club kids, but what's that got to do with Lain? Only a madman who painted the dance floor with blood can answer that question - and he's dead.
Episode 3
Psyche
25 mins
Lain has questions about a computer chip someone left in her locker, and her Dad's not talking. Some kids at the club say they know all about it - but they want a piece of Lain's wired wild side.
Episode 4
Religion
25 mins
The more involved with computers she becomes, the more Lain begins to transform. In the cybernetic cocoon that was once her room, she's hard at work blurring the lines between reality and the wired.
Episode 5
Distortion
25 mins
Lain's friends suspect her involvement in a series of computer errors that caused a lethal traffic accident. Meanwhile, her sister is haunted by mysterious messages demanding that she "fulfill the prophecy".
Episode 6
Kids
25 mins
When an image of herself appears in the clouds, the real Lain enters the wired on a search for answers. Her quest leads to a "child-killer" scientist whose devious work is being exploited by the Knights.
Episode 7
Society
25 mins
Covert agents in black suits take Lain in for questioning. When the interrogation hits too close to home, Lain flips from real to wired in the blink of an eye.
Episode 8
Rumors
25 mins
Lain's unsavory behavior within the wired turns her into an outcast at school. Confused and alone, Lain investigates her own cyber-lifestyle only to be shocked by a voyeuristic incarnation of herself.
Episode 9
Protocol
25 mins
A DJ at the club passes Lain a plain brown envelope containing a computer chip of unknown origins. Hoping to learn more about the clandestine technology, Lain abducts a young boy for a "date."
Episode 10
Love
25 mins
Lain encounters a man who call himself the ''god of the wired'', and members of the Knights all across the world log on to participate in a cryptic mass suicide.
Episode 11
Infornography
25 mins
Lain risks a meltdown by uploading a Navi clone into her own brain. Later, the border between reality and the wired is threatened when Lain forces the world forget a secret that never should have been revealed.
Episode 12
Landscape
25 mins
"God" preaches that our bodies are simply an obstacle preventing the evolution of mankind. An exhausted Lain appears willing to sacrifice her own flesh and blood until Alice convinces her to take a stand against the digitalized deity.
Episode 13
Ego
24 mins
Lain's guilt over the havoc caused by her interaction within the wired provokes her to take drastic - and irreversible - action.