Let’s all love lain!

it’s something that you’re actually supposed to think about while watching it

Says who? IMO the strongest aspect of Lain is the vibe (style, sound, art, the whole world). The overall narrative is jarringly structured, a bit chaotic, with sudden introductions and resolutions of subplots, and especially on the first watch it’s futile to try to treat it as some sort of a (solvable) puzzle, or, even worse, a philosophical tractate. Not that it might not be treated that way on a rewatch sometime down the line (though honestly I wouldn’t expect that to be possible even then), but the first time around it has to draw you into the world and into Lain’s mind. Just relax, make yourself comfortable, and let it be an irrational, intimate experience that it’s probably meant to be. (Or, well, don’t, if you’ve already given up.)

Serial Experiments lain is my favourite anime, so I’d definetly recommend watching more… but if it’s just not for you it’s not going to click. For me, I enjoyed the anime already from the first few minutes and watched the whole thing on the edge of my seat in a single night.

Even when I didn’t understand anything on my first watch, I still enjoyed the visuals, audio, unique direction and storytelling, and really liked trying to make sense of it all and thinking about everything I just saw between episodes. Plus I could relate a lot to lain. But it’s definetly not for everyone.

It is not that deep, really. It is almost impossible to understand on a first watchthrough because all context for what is happening is only given towards the very end, so it just looks like a mess. On second watch it should be more understandable, but if you did not enjoy it the first time you wouldn’t the second time either, and you don’t really lose much by not doing it. Just watch a video essay about dissociative disorder in media or something if you want to watch something with meaning.

But you don’t seem to understand

Both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments: Lain are created by pretentious at best mangakas. They wrote and draw somethings just because they taught it was cool. But the stupid dumb fucked fans made it look like as if both of these animes had some fucking deeper meaning to them and made them achieve cult statuses. When in reality, it is just relatable to you when you’re going through depression or other similar mental health issues. I don’t see NGE and Lain anything higher than “psychotic ramblings and drawings of a mad man”. That said, you’re not dumb for not being able to understand Lain. Not many can understand psychotic ramblings. Off topic- I love your monitor! Which year was it made? You should have got matching keyboard and speakers! The modern keyboard does not match with it.

@nebula42@lemmy.zip

I really enjoyed Lain as a work of speculative fiction, especially watching it in 2019 and being able to compare and contrast the portrayal of computer’s effects on society with what “actually” happened as we moved more and more of our lives onto the internet.

The “actual” story/plot (message?) only really came together after watching a long YouTube video (actually, I read the transcript / script as a blog post so it wasn’t as long for me to get through it). If I had had the patience I think I would have preferred rewatching until I “got” it, but there’s so much else out there to experience. Maybe some day I’ll sit down and do a “proper” rewatch.

A good part of the initial enjoyment for me was the vibes and letting the different scenes slowly add up onto each other in the back of my mind.

As others have said in this thread already, it’s not necessarily the most coherent nor meaningful story as it is conveyed. Being depressed can unironically help it make sense (though I would never ever recommend getting depressed just to better understand Lain or any story really, your mental wellbeing is more important!).

The shots of telephone lines with audio of power line hums and the weird purple/red splotches are probably some of my favorite bits, and they’re what I immediately think of whenever Lain gets brought up.

…have you watched any david lynch?..it’s non-linear and interpretive storytelling where the experience of its pieces-and-parts coming together for the viewer are as much what it’s about as any specific narrative; the halfway mark is way too soon for understanding the whole…

…not everyone appreciates that sort of ambiguous media, but some folks thrive on it and by the midway point you can probably tell whether its liminal-singularity thing is your jam…

…if you’re expecting a definitive narrative which makes everything click into place as you watch it, you’ve probably been misled regarding the series and will likely be frustrated by the experience: while a rewatch can open up re-interpretive appreciation, it’s not the sort of thing where a revelatory rewatch is essential to appreciating it…

Seeing that monitor threw me for a loop. I can feel the chunky press of that power button.

Very cool visuals, but I thought it was a good anime to watch stoned, and obviously for me it isn’t. I had absolutely no clue what was going on.

Need to sit down and give it another go.

Don’t feel dumb for not understanding something you’re not supposed to yet.

That’s the point of it being so deep, you can’t just explore the whole thing in one go and figure it out, so don’t worry about feeling a little disinterested, i assure you, you’ll either forget about it or it will come back to itch you in the head telling you to “please come back.”

I don’t know if this image is from you OP, but i love the set up, would be awesome with a matching keyboard! That keyboard is too small!!!

why do i have to pass a cloudflare challenge :s