I give up on this anime, 6 episodes in. I totally get why someone might like it but it just isn't all that good for me.
I get what they are going for, there's a twist where Lain is god is coming I'm sure, or like she's wired herself or something. I get it alright.
It feels like they made the anime in reverse, you're supposed to be on the edge of your seat thinking and theorizing about the mystery but it doesn't work when the execution is bad, the treat is glossed over like it's nothing. Girl kills herself, they talk about it for a scene and it's done. Lain is a boring character, the animation is non existent, other characters are even worse.
It's like they spent 90% of their time making up a story for the sole purpose of it not making any sense.
I give up on this anime, 6 episodes in. I totally get why someone might like it but it just isn't all that good for me
I like a good "confusing" anime with twists and what not but this one just doesn't work. It's uneventful and stuff is just thrown at you out of nowhere. Now she's home, now she's being watched, now she's in the sky, now she's in the game, now there's an old man and it's all an experiment!
It's like they wrote 20 plot points and drew them out of the hat making the episodes as they drew them.
It's good for pseudo intellectuals living in America who failed in other aspects of their life that made them feel incompetent therefore they seek intellectual validation in understanding an anime meant for 17 year olds that only 15 year old arthoes talk about in real life.
When someone says Lain is deep it just proves they've never bothered reading anything that tackles existentialism in the age of modern technology since it's been covered to a point where it gets annoying before Lain even came out. It's nothing innovative. I guess some just watch it because there's a loli on screen.
The thing is that you can't have "mind fuck" as your main genre, it just ends up being a mess. I haven't seen the end but I'm guessing it ends openly with a lot of questions still unanswered.
I don't know maybe I'm too dumb or something but it all just feels like a kid on America's got talent that has top grades, good manners and a sad life story that just goes on stage, trips and falls
I'm 18 so I guess I'd fall under the category of people who'd like it by you.
And my favorite anime is The Tatami Galaxy, which also many say tries to be intellectual but ends up being pretentious but at least it has a clear message and theme throughout.
>an anime meant for 17 year olds
Nakamura said the target audience of the show is 14-15 year olds
that makes it even better
Why do good Lain threads only happen on Yea Forums? This thread will die after 5 stupid replies all of which will be
>this is pretentious shit
>Why do good Lain threads only happen on Yea Forums?
Refer to
based
>Waah spoonfeed me
Fuck off dimwit
I literally wrote all the reasons why I dislike it and didn't just go "me no likey" like people here do. Is that just the template answer you give when you don't like what is being said?
Is it really so hard to finish a 13 episode show, faggot? Dropping 11-13 episode anime is one of the most retarded things a human can do
I finished the 6th episode today which means 7 more which is ~150 minutes, 2.5 hours I could spend watching something else.
Why don't you go and watch every 12 episode anime there is then?
>I could spend watching something else
Since you're posting on Yea Forums I assume you spend at least 2 hours a day shitposting. So instead of shitposting go watch Lain, maybe you'll like it when you finish it
>14-15 year olds
>Americans can't understand Lain
He literally says that he's not trying to tell anything, that there's no message
OP again, do they pull alien stuff at the end?
I remember reading this for the first time and thinking 'wow is this Fumito Ueda?'
Nah. This anime is just about computer addiction and W I R E D merging with real world because of that
So is the story basically told in these first 6 episodes? Spoil me, what other twists are there? I already kinda figured out Lain is god or the wired itself and she's a link between 2 worlds or some shit like that. Also the other Lain people see is maybe the Lain when she' son wired or something?
Just read the wikipedia summaries doofus
Lain gets french kissed
Just watch the damn show, you'll understand everything by yourself. Guaranteed you'll think about it from time to time after finishing it. Lain is not an anime that you just sit and enjoy with your brain off
Jesus it's worse than I thought
I read the summary and no thanks. It is exactly the kind of anime you watch with your brain off, not because it's stupid but because you really need to not think about all the plot and what's happening so you don't get confused much.
Go watch Haibane Renmei then you tremendous faggot
>not because it's stupid but because you really need to not think about all the plot and what's happening so you don't get confused much
the entire fucking point of the show is to try connecting the dots and making sense of what is happening and who/what lain is you buffoon
Have you tried being a 14-15 year old Japanese child?
That's fine. I'd say it is worth gettin to the end but if it's not doing anything for you why bother.
Personally even though I'd say I like the show overall, I cordially do not care about its narrative and themes.
I enjoyed the exploration of existentialism only so far as it related to the struggle of the main character, who I found quite likeable and somewhat relatable, which was exacerbated and made more compelling by the great atmosphere the show achieves, both oppressive and weirdly comfy at the same time.
I agree this is best enjoyed with your brain shut off instead of approching it as a puzzle to solve. There is definitely some value in it.
You don't need to think hard about it at all the claims I made earlier are partly true and I watched the show mostly at night at like 4AM dead tired. It's really not that deep dude. The op is pretty revealing as well.
No, you're telling me these people defending it are?
Don't blame the show for you being a basic brainlet. The surface plot isn't hard to get at all.
I just think there's much better psychological stuff out there but with actually something happening.
I don't blame it, I said that I see why people may like it. But it really isn't as deep and intellectual as people make it out to be
>it really isn't as deep and intellectual as people make it out to be
And yet you don't seem to understand :^)
Enlighten me, oh the grand Yea Forums wise wizard
Finish Lain, watch NieA_7, Haibane Renmei and Texnolyze and then come back to me. We'll have a serious talk.
Nah
Play the PS1 Lain game then
Why would you lie about watching the first 6 episodes? Or are you just that dumb?
You're right, why would I lie about that, maybe because I did watch them all. Finished the 6th one a couple of hours ago. Last one ends with Lain's Navi blowing up
>Finished the 6th one a couple of hours ago
You could've finished the show by now
Don't take this guy's advice. They're all overrated, except NieA_7, which is properly rated because nobody saw it.
I felt like watching something else which I did.
Do people just seriously stop watching stuff halfway through and immediately start watching something else? This is so stupid, finish the show
The story makes perfect sense if you actually know what they're talking about. You need some prerequisite knowledge about certain subjects to get a full understanding of Lain, and I think the show's main flaw is that all of the information to understand it isn't presented in the show. They make references and point the viewer in the direction of the resources needed to understand it, but they never directly give you any of that information. It requires a degree of activity from the viewer that I wouldn't expect from most anime watchers and the creators of the show shouldn't expect. If you're really interested in figuring it out, you should play close attention and do some reading on the references the show makes to outside sources. Once you have a foundation in the topics the shows is grounded in, you'll realize that there is meaning in the surreal and nonsensical parts of the show.
I started watching 2 shows at the same time, Lain and Kaiji. I didn't like Lain so I dropped it 6 episodes in. Is that concept really that hard for you to understand? How can someone so so smart who watches Lain not understand that simple process of not watching something you don't like?
Not him but do people really watch shit they don't enjoy watching?
>Is that concept really that hard for you to understand?
Yes. And I don't seem to understand
Shame you seemed an honest man
I've seen the rest but I've never seen NieA-7, what's it about?
Think of it as having a meal where what you're having looks outstanding in it's appearance but once you get to having the first bite it tastes like liquid dog shit that burns the fuck out of your throat, in that case you would stop eating as it is genuinely horrible to you and would be an unpleasant experience which is the same mentality in stopping watching a show midway if you think it's not good
>dropped Lain to watch more Kaiji
Based and Teiapilled
At least it's not as bad as Texhnolyze. Go watch Haibane Renmei though. It's a million times better than Lain.
>Not him but do people really watch shit they don't enjoy watching?
Not usually, but I finished Texhnolyze for the sole purpose of shitting on it because I hated it.
Finally someone went ahead and said it
Lain is overrated trash that people only pretend to like to appear "smart"
Nice blog
Get
I like it and don't pretend to understand it 100%. I don't know why people make sweeping generalizations like this for people liking things they don't like. I don't think it's a masterpiece though. But I mostly enjoyed watching it. I think it introduces too many fractured plot points and never bothers addressing most of them again. Maybe I'm just too stupid to see that they did.
to be fair, high iq, etc
Are you me user?
We have this thread every week at least
After a long and, much to my chagrin, fruitless search to find a show that has even the slightest modicum of thought put into it, I've just watched this show, Serial Experiments Lain, for the first time. Where it stands the question becomes one to definitely coalesce, but the words aren't so simple to be spoken as such, simply expressed in a form to be delivered in the inquiry that is the core curiosity behind this show which lies in the details of the intricacies of the writing direction as seen in the narrative direction of the story and is encapsulated in its main character, the focus of the story around whom all events and occurrences in the story revolve as well as a figurehead for the central themes of the work and a way for the authors to develop the plot and flesh out the world, Serial Experiment Lain's esteemed protagonist Lain Iwakura, whose mind quite like the work as a whole tends to be an enigma at times though clearly very intelligent, further serving as a microcosm of everything in the show as shown by the parallel obsession of the character with technology, computers, and the internet to an ultimate point of having one's entire being become inseparable from these things much like the show itself is defined by its almost prescient look at technology and its intricate interweaving of electronics with society, which brings itself back down to the protagonist's struggle once more as she experiences difficulties navigating through the tangled web of social interactions at school but seems to have no hardships interacting through the world wide web, hinting at the main character's extremely anischerality which makes sense in the context of many of her reactions to the events that unfold in this story, making Serial Experiments Lain not just a Nostradamic look into the new role that technology has on society but also a pressing social commentary, and I tip my hat to the creators for getting such a powerfully clear message across so succinctly and concisely.
Nice pasta
It is alright not to like Lain
Do you understand what op wrote? He never said it was trash.
So what you're saying is:
You don't seem to understand
Le ebin reference my friend
Foi /iw jwmnn nt tjbhhjb jhtjjjjjjjjjhjhttttttttttttt
user is psychotic
How could you have possibly gotten that from my post? I even criticized the show for being too obtuse. I'm only saying that it isn't about intelligence at all, rather it's about how much effort you're willing to put into understanding the show. Most anime viewers aren't willing to put any effort into it and that's fine.
Texhnolyze is the best out of the three though. And if you're implying it's hard to get somehow; I don't understand how a narrative portrayed so conventionally could be hard to follow.
OP, your criticisms are kind of bad. SEL is an experiment in the medium of televised anime as well as a presentation of some trans-humanist and Buddhist ideas. Mostly it's about human connection and perception. You don't watch it just for the symbolism (which you aren't giving enough credit) but also the amazing atmosphere and music. If you don't like it fine but it isn't bad whatsoever.
The plot about god of the wired and trans-humanism stuff is just surface level window dressing while the episodes are mostly about the consequences of the information age socially and psychologically.
I think you're approaching it the wrong way.. I do think it's obtuse too, but I did enjoy it. I don't think that it's a crucial thing for any kind of art really, as long as it makes you feel something it still went somewhere. Most directors do things because they sound cool, or just take references they like and mix them together, thinking they were trying to be intellectuals and DEEP is a bit unfair in my opinion, kind of projecting. It's okay if you don't like it, I just always thought the "it's pretentious/trying to be DEEP argument weird.
Honestly, I liked Lain mostly for the aesthetic. The plot is interesting but there's too much mumbo jumbo to make it relevant. I honestly this kind of chopped up narrative to make it look more complex than it is.
because its an entry level show and people who have seen like 10 anime have usually seen it and since they dont have much anime to talk about and theyve probably just watched it for the 1st time in the last year so of course they enjoy their lain threads. They dont have much else to talk about
lol