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Title: Serial Experiments Lain DVD Box Set
Distributor:
MVM
BBFC Certificate: 12
Suggested Retail Price (SRP): £39.99
Episodes: 1-13 (of 13)
Audio Options: English 2.0;
Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English
Reviewer: Manga Monkey
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Call me old-fashioned if you like, but watching a series,
any series, shouldn't leave you with an over-whelming sense of relief that it's
finally over, or a sense of triumph that you've managed to sit through it all
without deliberately choking to death on your own tongue just to end the
torture.
The very best I can say about Lain is that it deals with and asks some
interesting questions; about the transient, subjective nature of personal
identity, how this changes with the different contexts and environments that
people can interact in and the social, ethical and spiritual impact of high
technology's encroachment on civilisation. Where it goes wrong (and I'd be the
first to admit I'm not an authority on these subjects) is to confuse a
thought-provoking dissection of hypothetical ideas with characters asking
pseudo-metaphysical riddles which never get anywhere near being answered
because, after the riddle’s asked, the scene cuts to the main character hugging
her knees and stating vacantly at a wall or out the window.
After the fourth or fifth episode this "leave the viewer to make their own mind
up" cop-out stopped being irritating and merely became depressing, although by
then even depression was a welcome change of emotion from the mind-numbing
boredom that had set in. By then I wasn't expecting anything interesting, I
wasn't disappointed as the never ending stream of characters that you either
didn’t understand the motivations of or simply didn't care about paraded across
the screen.
The gist of the story (or rather, the story as far as I understood it) is this;
there’s this little girl called Lain, who at the beginning doesn’t really care
about computers – practically everybody else in the world does and they’re all
connected up to a version of the Internet with added bells and whistles called
the Wired. Once she starts seriously exploring the Wired a cocky, more
aggressive double of Lain starts turning up and pissing people off. While people
start dying in mysterious circumstances Lain grows even weirder and her computer
(thanks to Lain’s up-grades) just grows. Meanwhile some guys with suits and
laser pens strapped to their heads turn up and start hassling Lain, her parents
eventually admit that they’re not actually her parents and her sister is
replaced by a cabbage.
Just to add a bit of surrealism to the story, Lain meets (and has dire
philosophical conversations with) some old-git scientist who experimented with
condensing Psychic power, her own “I’m so nasty” alter-ego and some tit who
apparently not only created the Wired but also transferred his essence onto it
before killing himself and has now set himself up as the 'God of the Wired'.
Then just to wrap things up neatly, Lain not only appears as a giant projection
on the sky, realises that she doesn’t actually exist and re-orders reality to
suit herself, but she kills God, makes everyone forget about her then buggers
off - HOORAY it’s over!!
Perhaps I am missing something, the story might seem boring because major points
have gone right over my head – but I suspect not. In fact I’m pretty sure
the people making this didn’t know what it was about but, quite rightly, assumed
that the viewers who didn’t enjoy being bemused, left wondering and pondering
unanswerable questions would just keep their mouths shut and pretend they
understood it for fear of being thought of as stupid – WELL BALLS TO THAT!
When I watch a series, whether it be anime or anything else, I’m expecting to be
told a story and if that story happens to be long, involved and complex then
fair enough. But Lain couldn’t even bring enough engaging characters or
keep the plot moving along enough to make the phenomenal effort of working out
what the hell was going on worthwhile.
At best, Lain is a thought provoking story made inaccessible by an overly arty,
pretentious style, at worst, it’s the germ of a good idea spun out over too many
episodes by long, drawn-out still shots and with the gaping plot-holes papered
over by deliberately meaningless bollocks and about 400 forty-five second shots
of a telephone pole with an infuriating electronic hum.
Take my advice, instead of buying Lain invest in a new kettle – not only can you
get far more entertainment from watching it boil, but you can also make yourself
a cup of tea afterwards. And if you really need to satisfy your cravings for
incomprehensible gibberish then you can drink the tea while watching
Welsh-Language Television, go on – it can’t be worse than Lain.
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