Serial Experiments Lain is the Most Accurate Cyberpunk Story I've Ever Come Across

Update - 6/7/2016

I have added links to Funimation's subtitled episodes on Youtube where appropriate.

End Update

Preface: It's been a very long time since I've written anything. I've deliberately avoided writing about politics because I didn't want to feed into the Trump Vacuum, and outside of that, there isn't too much that's going on that I really want to write about. So I decided that I would go in a completely different direction.


Not a lot of my readers are anime fans, but I felt like revisiting one of my first--and favorite--anime series and explaining what made this series so good. Serial Experiments Lain has been largely forgotten to anime history, and I felt it necessary to explore what it had to say about technology, and the ways it got the Internet right 17 years ago, at a time when so many cyberpunk/technologically-focused stories (like this, for example), got technology so wrong.

Serial Experiments Lain is a 13-episode series that centers around a young, socially isolated 14-year-old girl who receives an email from a classmate who committed suicide, urging her to follow in her footsteps and live in the "Wired" (the Internet). Intrigued by this email, Lain asks her father, who works at the Tachibana Labs computer company and is himself an early adopter/power user/tinkerer, who is excited to take her under his wing, to upgrade her computer. Lain uses a "NAVI", which is based on a variety of Apple products (the artists working on the series at the time loved Apple), but I find that the top-of-the-line model resembles more of a cyberdeck than a traditional desktop computer. It isn't long before we see Lain switching out parts, and her setup grows immensely throughout the series.

There are some important things to note in episode one: The shadows in the series are colored, and this is deliberate. The shadows represent the world of the Wired, underpinning Lain's "reality." The buzzing of the power lines in the beginning episodes eventually become distinct, though muffled speech, delineating Lain's ignorance of the Wired to her power over it. During her commute to school, we get a very eerie scene where the power lines start to bleed. Others have said that this represents Chisa's suicide, but I don't think that's accurate: It is foreshadowing the central theme of the series, that is the Wired and the "Real World" becoming one and the same, as we shall see.

One of the most interesting comparisons to make here is between Lain and The Matrix, specifically The Animatrix and the second film. In "Kid's Story," a teenager is contacted by Neo and commits suicide by jumping from his apartment building with the goal of reaching the Real World. A great deal of effort is made by Lain's classmates and another character to convince Lain to kill herself and enter the Wired. It's worth noting here that Lain came out in 1998, The Matrix came out in 1999, and The Animatrix after that. I have no doubt that the Wachowskis saw Serial Experiments Lain.

The Knights of the Eastern Calculus

In Layer 03, Lain receives a chip called a "Pachuke," and inquires at the rave about its function and manufacture. Taro, one of the kids who hangs out at the club, informs her that the chip was manufactured by the Knights and is extremely rare, bestowing powers and privileges to its user well beyond that of normal denizens of the Wired. The Knights are one of the most intriguing things about the series, as they are an anonymous group of hackers/renegades who seek to govern the Wired and are responsible for a deadly computer game. Few people know who the Knights are, and few people familiar with the series quite understand the brilliance of their existence in the series. Watching SEL in 2015, it is quite obvious that the Knights are analogous to another [A]nonymous hacker collective. SEL deserves some serious credit for its predictions, and its accuracy well beyond its time. In the series, the Knights have spliced a dungeoncrawling survival game not unlike many horror games seen today (think Slender: The Eight Pages) with a scientific experiment that sought to harness latent psychic energy from children called the Kensington Experiment, presided over by Professor Hodgson. The experiment was terminated because all of the children involved in the experiment died. Professor Hodgson explains to Lain that he sought to destroy all of the material involved in the experiment, but someone "dug it out of the trash" and incorporated it into the game (Episode 6)

This hybrid allowed other players to play as the monster, and any player who loses in the game dies in real life. The Knights are also able to use the technology in their game (called PHANTOMa) to kill other users. A housewife orders a Knights-manufactured PCI card and uses it to kill a person walking in the street wearing a headset and mobile wifi gear. Later, we find this same card, fried, in the garbage. In one scene, also in episode 6, after Lain discovers what the Knights did, she verbally abuses them by calling them trolls. They retaliate by--I think--uploading malware to her computer that causes her coolants to fail and her system to explode, which would have killed her had she not left her room. On top of all that, the Knights are also propping up a second suicide-turned-digital-consciousness named Masami Eiri.


Masami Eiri was an employee at Tachibana Labs, and he was tasked with creating IPv7 (Protocol 7; we are currently on IPv6). He included bizarre conspiracy theories involving psychic research and electromagnetic fields into his construction of the protocol, and aimed to insert himself into the Wired as its god. He wanted to move all of humanity from the Real World into the Wired, and allow people to communicate seamlessly, "without devices." The best comparison I can make for this is to the Human Instrumentality Project in Evangelion, which was also aimed at merging human consciousnesses beyond that of the flesh, albeit for religious reasons. When Eiri's managers discovered this, they fired him immediately, and he killed himself by running in front of a train. His consciousness lived on in the Wired, where he did become a god, thanks to his believers: The Knights. Eiri also claims responsibility for creating Lain. Eiri himself became god, basically, by using memes perpetuated by the Knights (think, for example, 4Chan or Reddit), and he lives on simply because people believe in him (similar to American Gods, where belief gives power). This is the same reason why aliens appear in the series: Because urban legends (Roswell, mentioned in episode 9, for example) become "fact" through collective belief in conspiracy theories (TVTropes.org notes that the alien who appears as Lain's avatar in Alice's room in Episode 11 is wearing a Freddy Krueger sweater). Episode 9 opens with the line, "For now, conjecture has become fact, and rumor has become history." While I am aware that The X-Files also heavily dealt with conspiracy theories around the same period, it did not address the way that these theories proliferated in real life through the Internet the way Lain did. In fact, I would argue that the very reason why they are discussed at all in SEL is because of how the Internet gave them a way to propagate freely in the underbelly of the Web, treating them as an artifact of belief, instead of addressing the possibility outright that aliens could be real. It's less "The truth is out there" and more "The expansion of the Internet has created a seedbed for all kind of crazy stuff!" Again, this series came out in 1998, and this is 2015, when conspiracy theories thrive on the Internet and have leaked into real political discourse.

Who are the Men in Black (not Will Smith and TLJ)?

The Men in Black are two mysterious figures who at first have an ominous presence as they stalk Lain from a black car, but they are not there to hurt her. At first, she suspects that they are working for the Knights, but the Men in Black are there simply to spy on her for an unnamed employer. They suspect that Lain is the Lain of the Wired (the "evil" one), and  later, when they take her in, they discover that she is, and reveal that they do not want the Wired and the Real World to merge. However, they are ordered to back off by their employer, and only resurface after Lain publishes the list of Knights members, whom they assassinate. In Layer 12, the Men in Black are betrayed by their employer and killed by an avatar of Lain (ostensibly with the same technology as the Knights with PHANTOMa). It turns out that their employer was in contact with Eiri, which may be why Lain killed them.

What happened to Alice, and why does Lain have three personalities? 

Alice is Lain's best friend, and her story arc is both depressing and slightly unclear. But first, we must explain Lain's three personalities. Lain in the real world is socially isolated, quiet, and generally passive. She discovers, as people recognize her in the club in episode 2, that there already exists a Lain in the Wired. This version of her is evil, and has spread embarrassing information about Alice, specifically, that she has been sleeping with one of her teachers. This is devastating to her (obviously), and is a major impetus for Lain's actions later in the series. It's worth noting that this is something SEL gets exactly right: That information on the Internet (The "Wired" in the show) can be found and used against people in the real world, with real consequences. On the Wired, Lain (the persona that the Real Lain has adopted for herself on the Wired) is assertive, belligerent, and quick to verbally attack other users, which reflects current reality: Many socially isolated people adopt a more forceful personality on the Internet.

It is also possible that Eiri had dummy copies of Lain on the Wired without her knowledge. "You wanted to pass off these dupes as me!?" (Episode 8)

In episode 12, when Lain is about to give in to Eiri and Chisa's demand that she forfeit her physical form and live in the Wired as a disembodied consciousness, Alice shows her the value of a physical body by letting Lain feel her heart beat. In fact, it is Alice who comes to her aid at the end of the series and saves her from making the same mistake Eiri and Chisa made. Here, Lain also discovers how much she had hurt Alice, and this is what causes her to hit RESET.

 So what does Lain do? How does she become a god?

In order to save Alice from the consequences of what the Evil Lain did, she erases everyone else's memory of Alice's sexual indiscretion, but does not erase Alice's own memory of her humiliation. Lain decides--after seeing the pain that her actions caused her only friend--to erase everyone's memories of herself, effectively erasing her own existence. The power she gained in the Wired and her need for a physical body (she did not kill herself) allows her to become what Eiri could not, and instead of fulfilling her stated purpose (according to Eiri), she reestablishes the barrier between the Wired and the Real World. Many of the people she knew and loved could almost remember her. Alice, seen with her fiancee, struggles and fails to remember that Lain was her best friend. 

Is Lain a computer program? What happened to Mika? And why is her family fake?

Eiri claims--late in the series--that he is responsible for creating Lain. She is, in his words, "an executable program with a body." Her entire life is a plant, and this knowledge is what pushes her over the edge. However, Eiri also says that all other people are "applications," so he is not exactly to be trusted. Considering Mika's fate, it may be more accurate to say that the Knights are responsible for Lain's existence, not Eiri.

Mika was a disaffected, "mature" teen who had very little interest in Lain. Because of her marked disinterest, the Knights manipulated her surroundings, telling her to "Fulfill the prophecy!!!" and drove her insane. There are theories on the Internet (on our Internet) that say that the Knights wiped her mind, but I think this goes a bit far. It is sufficient to say that she had a severe mental breakdown and was incapacitated for the rest of the series.

Her mother at one point--who expresses the same disinterest as Mika and yet suffers no consequences--remarks to her husband/Lain's father that "We don't have much time" (or something to that effect) as the two of them initiate intimacy. 

The bizarre thing about her family being faked is that when we see them again in episode 13, they are still together, only with Lain missing. This is bizarre because, after Lain hits the reset button, Masami Eiri is still employed, the Men in Black are construction workers, Chisa (the suicide from the beginning, and the one who originally sends Lain down the rabbit hole) is still alive. and other characters are similarly changed. The only explanation for this is that her parents would have fallen in love anyway, making at least some of the prophecy less impactful. 

Further Questions

I only have one major question: If Eiri is truly responsible for creating Lain, why does he not realize that Lain is supposed to overtake him as god? Or, as the title of episode 12 suggests, Eiri is so consumed by his own ego that he still thinks he can be god? Even in the denouement, Masami Eiri suffers delusions of grandeur...

Final Thoughts and Analysis

SEL  was released in 1998, and I find it amazing, watching it 17 years later, how prescient it was. A lot of what is happening now is seen in the series, from Anonymous, Reddit/4Chan, TOR/the "Dark Web," doxxing, conspiracy theories (though they've been around for a lot longer than the Internet, their swift proliferation is what makes SEL so relevant), and the consequences of the collapse of the barrier between the Real World and the Wired. Transhumanists are considering the implications of uploading human consciousness to a computer network, and we are on the verge of VR. We are working on accessing the Internet without any devices. These are topics that are explored on shows like Black Mirror today, but Serial Experiments Lain discussed them way back in 1998. I would also like to point out that the main character is a girl, whereas in 2015, most people who are computer experts (those who work in Silicon Valley) are men. At the time SEL was made, women were much more involved with computers. I love that Lain focuses primarily on tech-savvy girls.

SEL is a perfect expression of the anxieties felt at the dawn of the Internet age, during the dial-up era, and remains a landmark achievement in cyberpunk and science fiction generally.

Update 6/7/2016

"This afternoon, the firewall of the Information Bureau's Information Control Center was cracked by some unnamed renegade party. As a result, the Information Network System of the Wired is in total disarray. And furthermore, be advised that although it is actually a live broadcast and is being sent out at this very moment, it is quite possible that it may arrive tomorrow, right now, or perhaps yesterday."

As I talk to my friends about Lain, because they recently watched it for the first time, or haven't seen it in a long time, I keep thinking about how great it is. It eats at my brain the way that only Neon Genesis Evangelion could, and while Evangelion was excellent, very little of it had to do with the real world; all of the religious references kind of went nowhere, and somewhere along the way in my mind, SEL's unwavering allegiance to reality--to such a degree that few other science fiction stories ever match--causes me to fall in love with it over and over again. I keep thinking about that one character in episode 7, who was wandering the busy street with his backpack and VR gear. We can do that now. Yes, VR has been a thing for a long time (think Star Trek's Holodeck), but few have ever imagined how it might work in reality. I am stunned by the fact that SEL came out 17 years ago, and almost everything it ever said about technology and society is actually true.

I can hardly believe that the series ever got made in the first place. It had a shoestring budget, there is no official merchandise (except for a Japan-only one-shot manga and a Japan-only PSX adventure game), and the animation doesn't look too good (and that's putting it nicely). 

And yet it is the best anime I have ever seen. I first saw it when I was in high school, and it was, if I remember correctly, the first anime series I ever purchased (my first anime purchases were AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue, and Serial Experiments Lain). Lain is the only anime I own on Blu Ray, and I purchased it soon after I watched it again for this essay. My only complaint with the Blu Ray is that there aren't enough extras about Lain: No interviews, concept art, etc. I had to dig up an interview with the creator in a French magazine (that interview and others can be found here) to try to figure out where it came from, and I still don't know. 

The only thing I do know is that I want to watch it yet again.