Hither do the clergymen, physicians, and noble blood amongst us convene, to discourse upon Otaku matters not pertaining to SciADV, such as other visual novels, anime and manga.
Arguably quite overdue but I recently finished this one up and had a great time with it. I reckon this show will probably be very popular among of the sort of people likely to use a website like this, so I thought I'd create a thread about it.
Truly wonderful visuals and direction that's unlike anything I've seen in the medium. At times the show could be fairly dry and the plot seems needlessly obtuse at points but between this and the Big O I think it's safe to say that Konaka is a phenomenal writer and I plan on checking out the other stuff in his catalog in the future.
It's quite impressive how forward-thinking this show was as well; the underlying message has not aged a day despite releasing in a time period where technology was much less omnipresent in the average person's life. Which tends to make it ripe for such a thing.
P.S. if you didn't watch it on a CRT you didn't experience the show. Okay okay I'm kidding... mostly.
Watched some anime Konaka was previously involved with writing—those being Texhnolyze, Shinreigari, Armitage III, Malice@Doll and GR: Giant Robo (2007)—and would admit myself that Lain is the most esoteric of them in terms of visual presentation of narrative developments and the contextual ambiguity of dialogue.
For example, I was quite confused when Lain's sister "suddenly" appeared in a dishevelled, insane state for example, because there wasn't any single, easily identifiable event catalyst for this character development beforehand. Presumably, she internalised some ontological truth about the setting and the ostensibly semi-deific nature of Lain that she wasn't able to cope with, but was it simply some ominous text on a handkerchief that caused it?
Still, I did find it enjoyable enough for its thoughtful musings and otherworldly imagery (e.g. the streets being smeared with blotchy, geometric shadows that may as well have been glitches or dead pixels). It was created in the late 90s, when the web still seemed chimerical, hence its depiction as a frontier that metaphorically conflated the "virtual world" with reality until they were inseparable, facilitating a sort of second life for the end-user. For that reason, maybe it was the more supernatural aspects of the story in the second half of the series that left people scratching their heads; it metamorphosed the aforementioned metaphorical melding of worlds into a very literal one, topped off with a reset button ending and all.
Watched some anime Konaka was previously involved with writing—those being Texhnolyze, Shinreigari, Armitage III, Malice@Doll and GR: Giant Robo (2007)—and would admit myself that Lain is the most esoteric of them in terms of visual presentation of narrative developments and the contextual ambiguity of dialogue.
For example, I was quite confused when Lain's sister "suddenly" appeared in a dishevelled, insane state for example, because there wasn't any single, easily identifiable event catalyst for this character development beforehand. Presumably, she internalised some ontological truth about the setting and the ostensibly semi-deific nature of Lain that she wasn't able to cope with, but was it simply some ominous text on a handkerchief that caused it?
Still, I did find it enjoyable enough for its thoughtful musings and otherworldly imagery (e.g. the streets being smeared with blotchy, geometric shadows that may as well have been glitches or dead pixels). It was created in the late 90s, when the web still seemed chimerical, hence its depiction as a frontier that metaphorically conflated the "virtual world" with reality until they were inseparable, facilitating a sort of second life for the end-user. For that reason, maybe it was the more supernatural aspects of the story in the second half of the series that left people scratching their heads; it metamorphosed the aforementioned metaphorical melding of worlds into a very literal one, topped off with a reset button ending and all.
Very much agree about Lain's sister, that bit threw me for a loop as well while I watched it. In general it sort of felt as though the series did not have the runtime to quite tie up some plot threads, although they are mostly minor ones that don't hurt the experience much. A recurrent topic that I've noticed in the two Konaka works that I've watched is a primary character suffering from some sort of grave identity crisis; he seems to have an affinity for writing this sort of narrative and to his credit he is quite good at it.
I think that it's "otherwordly" as you put it visuals helped to further emphasize the core theme of the work as well. The director utilised a lot of dream-like, almost surrealist shots and effects which made the wired feel that much more like a sort of alternative world bleeding into reality. Some critics may look at it's visual flare and accuse it of a prioritisation of style over substance, but in my eyes it helped to intensify the message all the more.
I've heard vaguely in passing that the Lain... VN? on the PSX adds a bit more to the story, so I will probably check that out in the future. Some dedicated fans have even made it possible to play it in your web browser.
