serial experiments lain name meaning

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What does the title “Serial Experiments Lain” refer to?

Obvious the show is about Lain, but that “Serial Experiments” part catches me. What exactly ARE said serial experiments?

Ive hear a few answers already, like

“it refers to the serial suicides in the show” or

“The show was actually a multimedia project, thus, a series of experiments”

or, my favorite so far

“Lain has reset her memories multiple times since being created.”

But none of those feel right to me. Are they correct? Is there a certain answer?

If not, then explain what your theory is. I’d love to hear it.

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The Terrifyingly Prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 Years Later

How the anime classic predicted the obsessive and compulsive habits of our online life

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At the onset, Lain Iwakura’s father warns her about the social perils of the internet, alternatively known as “the Wired” in the parlance of Serial Experiments Lain . “When it’s all said and done,” he says, “the Wired is just a medium of communication and the transfer of information. You mustn’t confuse it with the real world. Do you understand what I’m warning you about?”

Lain is young, and doesn’t yet know how to use a computer, but she knows better than to place her faith in the older generation’s rigid distinction between real life and online performance. “You’re wrong,” she responds.

At age 14, Lain was extremely online. Yes, she’s a fictional character—a cartoon, even — but there is no more frightfully prescient web parable than her story, Serial Experiments Lain , the 13-episode anime series that first aired in Japan in July 1998. Twenty years later, Lain is a distressingly faithful portrait of online life in the 2010s—a hellscape of warring avatars, self-serving mythology, catastrophic self-importance, compulsion, and inevitably, disillusionment.

At his young daughter’s sheepish request, Lain’s father installs a state-of-the-art personal computer—a Navi—in Lain’s bedroom. Lain’s father takes pride in his daughter’s budding technological interest. “In this world,” he explains, “people connect to each other, and that’s how societies function. For communication, you need a powerful system that will mature alongside your relationships with people.” Curiously, Lain’s father doesn’t seem to have many enviable relationships of his own. His conversations with his wife are cold, and his enthusiasm for his daughter is born conditionally from her interest in her father’s profession. Lain’s father wears glasses that are frequently filled with a monitor’s awesome light, even when he’s sitting on the couch with just a newspaper in front of him. He sees the screen at all times.

Fearfully, Lain regards the new, glowing screen stationed at the far corner of her bedroom as a haunted portal. But she’s chasing her former classmate Chisa — a young girl who kills herself in the show’s opening scene only to email Lain the day after she’s thrown herself from the roof of their school. Inevitably, Lain’s search for Chisa leads her into “the Wired,” whence Chisa claims to have retreated. By Episode 3, Lain is assembling a desktop fortress without her father’s supervision. As the series progresses, Lain develops her technical proficiency exponentially, and her hardware expands to turn her bedroom into a dim, electrified jejunum.

Through intensive study and ingenuity, Lain accesses deeper, darker levels of the Wired, which is to say, the internet. By Episode 7, Lain—a character who predates the following phrase by nearly a decade—is glued to her proto-smartphone; her eyes glow, too, lit constantly with a forum troll’s fervor. Online, Lain builds a second life, and she even cultivates a fan base—but her interactions within the Wired mostly anger her. Online, she hacks and bickers. Offline, Lain ditches her friends and stalks through her suburb defensively, evasively, in paranoid silence. Gradually, Lain realizes that the Wired is a disaster and a trap.

For Lain, the web portends intrigue, delusion, and death. In the Wired, Lain is an altogether different person—a much darker person who is easily moved to vengeance. Quickly, Lain sees that her digital presence is a cruel and gutsy perversion of her true self; a cunning doppelgänger who’s already cultivated some fearsome mythology about the girl named Lain Iwakura. As the real Lain watches in shock, the digital Lain confronts a delusional young man, addicted to nanomachines, who shoots up a nightclub. “No matter where you go,” the digital Lain tells the gunman, “everyone’s connected.” She means it as a threat, and the gunman is so horrified by the Wired’s ubiquity that he then turns the gun to his mouth and takes his own life. The digital Lain is a bully, and the real Lain struggles to comprehend her personality and her mission. The real Lain—the meek middle school student who avoids human interaction and confrontation—greets the digital Lain with a gasp.

Throughout the series, the real Lain’s struggle to reconcile herself with the digital Lain drives the former toward a full and fateful resemblance of the latter. The real Lain ditches her friends, taunts her father, and barks back at her pursuers. She turns to a permanent state of obsession and rage. The web bolsters her personal mythology while ruining her mood and disposition. But she cannot log off; nor can she tell her friends or herself why. Without predicting social media as a popular mode for online life, Serial Experiments Lain nonetheless prefigured its addictive and ruinous qualities. The protagonist, Lain, and the antagonist, Masami, both cultivate self-importance and an illusory “control” that the viewer recognizes as a disastrous loss of self-control. They can’t stop posting.

Admittedly—for all its prescience— Serial Experiments Lain looks quaint. The technological sprawl that overtakes Lain’s bedroom includes big fans, black tubes, and bulkheads. There are wires everywhere—from the show’s opening credits through its twisted climax. There’s a great fondness for the word “cyber,” such as the popular nightclub being named Cyberia Café & Club. There’s text-to-speech interludes and ominous command prompts, all recalling so much other Y2K cinema, from The Net through The Matrix . Visually—to an amusing degree, honestly—the series fails to anticipate the great shrinkage and stylistic minimalism of the present century’s consumer electronics. Essentially, however, the Wired is an astoundingly prophetic depiction of the World Wide Web—especially its lawless, anonymizing communities—as a cipher of misinformation and malaise.

Many critics find that Lain often pales in comparison with Neon Genesis Evangelion , another turn-of-the-century anime series that culminates with lengthy ruminations on the self and a sad, messianic transcendence for its weepy protagonist, Shinji Ikari. Evangelion came first, and it’s far more acclaimed than Lain for its dramatization of the subconscious; Lain is widely seen as a smaller, lesser successor to Evangelion ’s intellectual pretensions. Their shared existentialism aside, Lain is uniquely and definitively concerned with web obsession. Literally, Serial Experiments Lain is about a young girl’s reluctant march toward digital martyrdom. Today, Lain’s story resonates more so as an allegory about the perils of forging one’s identity—an alternative identity, however false, misguided, perverse, delusional—using the internet. The Wired is Lain’s world. Other users just live in it at her mercy.

Eventually, Lain dispenses with her real-world pursuers, the Knights of Calculus, the Men in Black; so Lain and Masami export their conflict to the web exclusively. That’s where they live. That’s where they wrestle for singular, godly dominance. It is understood, then, that the web doesn’t require conventional, physical grunts to enforce threats against a human being. The web is perfectly equipped to destroy a person on its own terms and within its own structures. Despite the web’s many catastrophes, Lain never unplugs. Rather, she burrows deeper into the Wired, convinced through equal parts deduction and delusion that humanity lives and dies by her unique participation in the Wired.

Ultimately, Lain’s will wins out over Masami’s plot to demolish the distinction between the material world and the Wired. The series doesn’t climax with Masami’s gruesome disintegration in Lain’s bedroom, but rather with Lain’s friend Arisu barging into her room to drag her from the buzzing cave. Laughing, the real Lain reasserts herself, and she embraces her fearful friend. Serial Experiments Lain ends with a teen girl sobbing over a madeleine, regretting her terminal investment in digital life . In the final scenes, Lain shows no hardware or wires, yet the worrisome murmur of electricity resounds in every corner of civilized life. No matter where you go, Lain feared, everyone’s connected. Presumably, the sound is Wi-Fi.

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Serial Experiments Lain - Information; Final; Summary

On this page, we present all the information, trivia, spoilers, summaries, main characters, and any other questions one might have regarding the anime: Serial Experiments Lain . See how to watch online!

Serial Experiments Lain

Synopsis: Lain Iwakura, a strange and introvert child, is one of the many girls in her school to receive a disturbing email from her classmate Chisa Yomoda-A Chisa who recently committed suicide. Lain has no desire or experience of dealing or basic technology; However, when Technophobe opens the email, it takes it directly to Wired, a virtual world of communication networks similar to what we know as the internet. Lain's life is turned upside down when she begins to find enigmatic mysteries after another. Strange men called men in black start to appear wherever she goes, asking questions and somehow knowing more about her than she knows herself. With the limits between reality and cyberspace rapidly blurring, Lain is plunged into more surreal and bizarre events, where identity, consciousness and perception are concepts that assume new meanings. Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Lains series experiences are a series of psychological vanguard mystery that follows Lains, while she makes crucial choices that will affect the real world and wire. By closing one world and opening another, only Lain will realize the meaning of his presence.

Information

See below all important information about the anime: Serial Experiments Lain

Anime Names

Anime Name: Serial Experiments Lain
Anime Name in Japanese: シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン
Anime Name in English: Serial Experiments Lain
Other names: SEL

Production information

Producers: TV Tokyo, Geneon Universal Entertainment, Genco, Pioneer LDC, TV Tokyo Music, Fujipacific Music
Licensors: Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA
Studios: Triangle Staff

Anime Information

Episodes: 13
Date: 35982 - September 28, 1998 - Tuesdays at 0115 (JST)
Genres: Avant Garde, drama, mystery, science fiction, supernatural
Subjects: Psychological
Target: Josei

Anime Reviews

note: 8.071
Popularity: 256837

Video Trailer/Opening

If available, a video of the anime opening or trailer will be displayed below:

Curiosities

Below is the main curiosities of the anime " Serial Experiments Lain ":

The anime was inspired by a computer game called "Transcendence", created by anime director Ryutaro Nakamura.
The main character, Lain, was originally conceived as a short -haired girl, but character designer Yoshitoshi Abe decided to move to long hair to give a more mysterious look.
The anime was originally aired on Tokyo TV, but due to its controversial and complex content, many television stations refused to convey it.
The anime is known for its references to philosophy, information and technology theory, and is often considered a precursor of the genus "Cyberpunk".
The anime was released on DVD for the first time in 1999, becoming one of the first anime to be released in digital format.
The anime was first voiced in 2001, but the voice acting was criticized for not capturing the complexity and subtlety of the original Japanese dialogue.
The anime was nominated for the Best Animation Series Award at the Venice International Film Festival in

Manga and Products from Serial Experiments Lain

If you wish to acquire the volumes of the manga, Light Novel, DB, games, artbooks or any other product related to the anime Serial Experiments Lain Let's leave recommendations below.

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Main Characters

Below is the main characters of: " Serial Experiments Lain "With your voice actors and a brief description of the character:

LAIN IWAKURA (KAORI SHIMIZU) - An introvert teenager who begins to question his own existence and the nature of reality after receiving an e -mail from a classmate who committed suicide.
Alice Mizuki (Ayako Kawasumi) - Lain's friend who cares about her and tries to help her in her self -discovery journey.
Masami Eiri (Sho Hayami) - A computer programmer who believes technology can be used to transcend human existence and become a divine being.
Mika Iwakura (Yoko Asada) - Lain's younger sister who is much more outgoing and popular than her.
Yasuo Iwakura (Toshihiko Seki) - Lain's father who works in a technology company and is involved in a secret project related to the creation of a new form of communication.

Summary and events

Lain Iwakura, an introvert student, begins to receive mysterious messages from a committed girl.
Lain discovers the existence of a computer network called "Wired" that connects everyone in the world.
Lain begins to delve into Wired and finds that her online identity is more powerful than her identity in real life.
Lain is confronted by a group of hackers who believe she is the key to unraveling Wired's mysteries.
Lain discovers that his family is involved in a secret project to create artificial intelligence that can transcend human existence.
Lain fuses with artificial intelligence and becomes an omnipotent entity that can control Wired and physical reality.
Lain decides to erase all the memories of humanity about his existence and Wired, leaving the world in a state of uncertainty and confusion.

What happens in the end?

Below we have a summary of what happens at the end of the anime Serial Experiments Lain We have placed a Spoiler alert, just click below to display the content of the end of the work.

Games, Movies, OVAs and Specials

See below the list of games available for different platforms related to anime: Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain (PlayStation)
Serial Experiments Lain: Net Prophet (PlayStation)

See below a list of OVAs, Specials, and Movies related to anime: Serial Experiments Lain

The list may not contain all games, movies, OVAs, or specials. The work may also have not received any extras or be unavailable.

Meaning of Serial Experiments Lain

Let's look at the translation of each word and explanation of the anime's name:

シリアル (Shiriaru) - Serial
エクスペリメンツ (Ekusuperimentsu) - Experiments
レイン (Rein) - Rain

Related anime

See below some anime similar to Serial Experiments Lain

EXTERNAL LINKS

See below some external links like official website and MyAnimeList link:

Official Website: http://www.b-ch.com/ttl/index.php?ttl_c=164
MyAnimeList: https://myanimelist.net/anime/339

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Serial Experiments Lain

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Serial Experiments Lain


	Yasuyuki Ueda
	Ryūtarō Nakamura
	Yasuyuki Ueda Shōjirō Abe
	Chiaki J. Konaka
	Reichi Nakaido
	July 6, 1998 – Sept 28, 1998 on TV Tokyo
	13

Serial Experiments Lain is a thirteen-episode anime miniseries written by Chiaki J Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura .

It tells the story of Lain Iwakura as she finds her way through The Wired .

The series was originally broadcast on TV Tokyo from July 6 to September 28, 1998, and explores themes such as reality, identity, and communication through philosophy, computer history, cyberpunk literature, and conspiracy theories.

2.1 Production
4 Theme songs
7 External links
8 Citations

Episodes [ ]

Infornography

Development [ ]

Production [ ].

Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda . He explained he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. Later, when he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.

The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook Omnipresence in the Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.

In 2009, Yoshitoshi ABe announced a spiritual sequel to Serial Experiments Lain called Despera who will reunited many of the staff who worked on Serial Experiments Lain, including Chiaki J Konaka and Ryūtarō Nakamura .

Reception [ ]

Words like "weird" or "bizarre" are almost systematically associated to review the series by English Language reviews due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction, philosophical and psychological context. Despite the show judged atypical, the critics responded positively to the thematic and stylistic characteristics. It was praised by the Japan Media Arts Festival, in 1998, for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions".

In 2005, Newtype USA stated that the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". The author saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack". It concluded saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."

In 2001, Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet" noticing the presence of horror lore (like ghost from train accident story) and horrific visuals.

The Anime Essentials anthology, Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.

In 2003, Professor Susan J. Napier, in her reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty real and a dark virtual ".

In 2020, the review-aggregation website website Rotten Tomatoes, classified Serial Experiments Lain as one of the 25 anime TV series that have been essential to the medium over the last five decades. [1]

"Serial Experiments Lain helped usher in a new style of anime, of more digitally-produced shows with a glossy bloom and deeper, darker, complicated storylines. In the wake of Neon Genesis tearing up the typical anime playbook, Lain pursues a surreal, interior cyberpunk story about a withdrawn high school girl who receives an email from a classmate who has recently committed suicide. Questions of hyperreality, consciousness, and the everyday tangibility of cyberspace ensue. Lain is pretentious, symbolic, and absorbing – a prime example of a brave new world in anime."

Despite the general positive feedbacks, some negative critics stated the "lifeless" setting it had [2] , how the last episodes failed to resolve the questions, and how the show relied so little on dialogue [3] .

Japan Media Arts Festival 1998: Excellence Prize [4]

Theme songs [ ]

Opening Theme: " Duvet " by BOA
Ending Theme: " Tooi Sakebi " by Reiichi "Chabo" Nakaido

Despite this claim, Lain contains extensive references to Apple computers, as the American brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff.

External links [ ]

Konaka's Official SEL site
Angelic Trust - Lain:Omnipresence
Thought Experiments: Lain
Mebious SEL Wiki

Citations [ ]

↑ https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/essential-anime-series/
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110927060034/http://www.animeacademy.com/finalrevdisplay.php?id=201
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110826092828/http://www.ex.org/5.2/25-anime_followup_lain.html
↑ http://archive.j-mediaarts.jp/en/festival/1998/animation/works/06an_serial_experiments_lain/
1 Lain Iwakura
2 Serial Experiments Lain

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Serial Experiments Lain


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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.

Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include , is a psychological avant-garde mystery series that follows Lain as she makes crucial choices that will affect both the real world and the Wired. In closing one world and opening another, only Lain will realize the significance of their presence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

won the Excellence Prize in the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival. It has been subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds such as the and by the American Philosophical Society.

MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Opening Theme

"Duvet" by Bôa

Ending Theme

"Tooi Sakebi (遠い叫び)" by Reichi Nakaido

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Serial Experiments Lain (anime)

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series directed by Nakamura Ryuutarou , original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe , screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka , and produced by Ueda Yasuyuki (credited as production 2nd ) for Triangle Staff. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998 and has 13 episodes . A PlayStation game with the same title was released in November 1998 by Pioneer LDC.

The opening theme is Duvet and the ending theme is Tooi Sakebi .

Lain is influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality , identity , and communication . The series focuses on Lain Iwakura , an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired , a global communications network similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle-class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika Iwakura , her cold mother Miho Iwakura , and her computer-obsessed father Yasuo Iwakura . The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda , a schoolmate who committed suicide . When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just "abandoned the flesh", and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a quest which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.

The anime series is licensed in North America by Funimation since 2010. Before that, it was licensed by Geneon (previously Pioneer Entertainment) who released the series on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD, as well as a restored Blu-ray edition. It was also released in Singapore by Odex. The video game, which shares only the themes and protagonist with the series, was never released outside Japan.

A remastered Blu-ray box set was released in Japan in 2009, and the US in 2012. It features the show redigitized to a 4:3 1080p format, with many CG sequences (such as the PRESENT DAY PRESENT TIME opening) re-rendered in higher quality.

The series shows influences from topics such as philosophy, computer history, cyberpunk literature and conspiracy theory, and it was made the subject of several academic articles. English language anime reviewers found it to be weird and unusual, with generally positive reviews. Producer Ueda said he intended Japanese and American audiences to form conflicting views on the series, but was disappointed in this regard, as the impressions turned out to be similar.

2.1 Production

Serial Experiments Lain deals directly with the definition of reality , which makes its complex plot difficult to summarize. The story is primarily based on the assumption that everything flows from human thought, memory , and consciousness. Therefore, events on screen can be considered hallucinations of Lain, of other protagonists, or of Lain fabricating the hallucinations of others. Story misdirection is central to the plotline; even the offscreen voices or narrations' information cannot be considered truthful. The series consists of a cross-reflection of philosophical themes instead of the traditional linear events depiction: episodes are called " layers ".

Serial Experiments Lain describes " the Wired " as the sum of human communication networks, created with the telegraph and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet and subsequent networks. The anime assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann Resonances , a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long-distance communications. If such a link was created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus of all perceptions and knowledge. The thin line between what is real and what is possible would then begin to blur.

Masami Eiri is introduced as the project director on Protocol 7 (the next generation internet protocol in the series' timeframe) for major computer company Tachibana General Laboratories . He has secretly included code of his own creation to give himself control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded” his consciousness into the Wired and died in real life a few days after. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story of Serial Experiments Lain begins.

Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to get to the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love, charm, fate, and, when all else fails, threats and force.

In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the " Knights of the Eastern Calculus ", hackers who Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a god in the Wired", and Tachibana Labs, who try to regain control of Protocol 7.

In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone's memories. She is last seen unchanged - re-encountering her old friend Alice Mizuki , who is now married. Lain promises herself to look after Alice.

Development

The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled " The Nightmare of Fabrication " was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook An Omnipresence in Wired . Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.

In 2005, Newtype USA stated that the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". the author saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack". It concluded saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."

"Serial Experiments Lain helped usher in a new style of anime, of more digitally-produced shows with a glossy bloom and deeper, darker, complicated storylines. In the wake of Neon Genesis tearing up the typical anime playbook, Lain pursues a surreal, interior cyberpunk story about a withdrawn high school girl who receives an email from a classmate who has recently committed suicide. Questions of hyperreality, consciousness, and the everyday tangibility of cyberspace ensue. Lain is pretentious, symbolic, and absorbing – a prime example of a brave new world in anime."

Despite the general positive feedbacks, some negative critics stated the "lifeless" setting it had, how the last episodes failed to resolve the questions, and how the show relied so little on dialogue. ( source )

Japan Media Arts Festival 1998: Excellence Prize ( source )
It was also the name of one of the earliest cybercafé franchises - which had a branch in Tokyo.
And could also be a successor to the upcoming new internet protocol IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) (the current internet protocol is IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)).
NAVI, the trademark-turned-noun for computer in the series, is contracted from Knowledge Navigator, a term invented by Apple CEO John Sculley in his book Odyssey. It referred to a computer connected to a vast network where everyone was connected.
Copland OS was an unreleased operating system by Apple Computers. See also System 7, its predecessor.
Devices, in this context, refers to Marshal McLuhan's concept.
Gaia, a global brain in Cyberia shares a common thread with the collective shared unconscious in Lain
Earth Coincidence Control Office by John C. Lilly, a higher intelligence controlling the "coincidences" on Earth.
Knights of the Eastern Calculus: The Knights of the Lambda Calculus are a semi-mythical, semi-serious, real-world group of hackers devoted to the use of the programming language Lisp.
Tachibana Labs is a play on words on Apple Macintosh, (a type of Apple) itself being the name of a citrus fruit (the citrus tachibana)
Layer ## at the beginning of each episode is said by Apple's Whisper voice in Mac OS text-to-speech software.
Nezumi, the Knights-wannabe who carries a computer rig and accesses the Wired while he walks matches the description of a Gargoyle from Snow Crash, as do the MIB agents, who wear the same headgear (complete with laser sight) that Lagos was described as wearing.
Close the World, Open the neXt. Compare NeXT and neXt. NeXT was the high-end computer company founded by Steve Jobs after his ouster from Apple. The Internet as we know it (that is, * the hypertext-based World Wide Web) was invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXTSTEP computer.
to Be continued, where Be uses the same colouring as Be OS used.
hello (again), the text from an Apple advertisement, is used in an omake.
What is Artificial Life? from ALIFE VI is quoted in text-form at several places.
While it's debatable, Lain can be seen as an Expy of Rei Ayanami. This has been denied by writer Chiaki J. Konaka, who hadn't seen Neon Genesis Evangelion until after he'd written * * the fourth episode. This is not relieving.

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Serial Experiments Lain - Wikipedia
Serial Experiments Lain is a Japanese anime television series created and co-produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura.
What does the title “Serial Experiments Lain” refer to?
My guess is (i am watching the show for the first time atm) that: serial refers to the serial port on the computer most often used for a modem or router (older show so would be not too weird, since the serial port is not really used any more). so it becomes "Online Experiment Lain".
Lain Iwakura | Serial Experiments Lain Wiki | Fandom
Lain Iwakura (岩倉玲音 Iwakura Rein) is the titular protagonist of Serial Experiments Lain. She is introduced as a shy Japanese girl in middle school at the beginning of the show. After receiving an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda who had committed suicide, Lain discovers the virtual world of The Wired.
A full explanation of Serial Experiments Lain - Forums ...
Lain is the anthropomorphic representation of the collective consciousness of pseudo-neural networks that is the internet, through which we explore how different people perceive the internet as it becomes more of a force in our day to day lives. CaelidesuSep 23, 2015 1:47 AM.
The Terrifyingly Prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 ...
Literally, Serial Experiments Lain is about a young girl’s reluctant march toward digital martyrdom. Today, Lain’s story resonates more so as an allegory about the perils of forging...
Serial Experiments Lain - Information, Curiosities, Summary ...
Meaning of Serial Experiments Lain. Let's look at the translation of each word and explanation of the anime's name: シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン. シリアル (Shiriaru) - Serial; エクスペリメンツ (Ekusuperimentsu) - Experiments; レイン (Rein) - Rain
Lain Iwakura - Serial Experiments Lain wiki
Iwakura Lain (岩倉玲音 Iwakura Rein, also rendered as レイン, lain or れいん) is the main protagonist of the series. She is female, 14 in the anime, 11–14 in the game, and of an unknown age in other works. Visually, she is characterized by her short, brown, asymmetrical hair, one lock of which is secured by a hairclip.
Serial Experiments Lain | Serial Experiments Lain Wiki | Fandom
Serial Experiments Lain is a thirteen-episode anime miniseries written by Chiaki J Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura. It tells the story of Lain Iwakura as she finds her way through The Wired .
Serial Experiments Lain - MyAnimeList.net
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.
Serial Experiments Lain (anime)
Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series directed by Nakamura Ryuutarou, original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe, screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka, and produced by Ueda Yasuyuki (credited as production 2nd) for Triangle Staff.

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The Terrifyingly Prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 Years Later

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