Released on November 26, 1998 for the PlayStation, the Serial Experiments Lain game consists mostly of pieces of information collected in a random order that allow the player to piece together Lain's story.

1. Serial Experiments Lain Tv Tropes
2. Serial Experiments Lain Episodes
3. Serial Experiments Lain
4. Serial Experiments Lain Ed

There is guidebook for this game titled Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide.

• Serial Experiments Lain is a unique series in that it demands that the viewer comes to their conclusions about its event. RELATED: Serial Experiments Lain: 10 Things That Make It A Must-Watch Horror-Anime. One way to help a viewer understand this complex series is by understanding the series' references and influences.
• Jul 06, 1998 Written by Chiaki J. Konaka, whose other works include Texhnolyze, Serial Experiments Lain 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.

Serial Experiments Lain: With Kaori Shimizu, Bridget Hoffman, Dan Lorge, Randy McPherson. Strange events begin to occur as a withdrawn girl named Lain becomes obsessed with interconnected virtual realm of 'The Wired'. 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.

Summary

The player controls a Lain avatar and navigates a hierarchical system of computer files. The events of the game follow Iwakura Lain and her psychiatrist Yonera Touko. The following is a rough summary of the game's events as related by Keisuke Shindo. [1]

• Lain (11) begins to visit Touko (27) because of hallucinations.
• Touko teaches Lain about psychopathology.
• Lain enters junior high, gaining a friend named Misato and an interest in computers and networks.
• Lain's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, and she programs an AI into a robotic replacement of him.
• After 3 years of counseling, Touko thinks Lain has no more problems.
• Touko begins to diagnose Lain again after finding out that Misato does not actually exist.
• Lain programs her father into the Wired and destroys its robotic body, subsequently beginning to program her own personality into the Wired.
• Touko experiences frustration over her lack of mobility at work. Her boss kills himself.
• Touko experiences relationship difficulties, getting dumped by two men in succession.
• Touko becomes emotionally unstable and Lain begins to diagnose her.
• Lain meets her Wired entity and kills her physical self.
• Lain appears before Touko and kills her, absorbing her personality into the wired.

Characters

Serial Experiments Lain (game) Released on November 26, 1998 for the PlayStation, the Serial Experiments Lain game consists mostly of pieces of information collected in a random order that allow the player to piece together Lain 's story. There is guidebook for this game titled Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide.

Iwakura LainAn apparently ordinary girl with a highly introverted nature and low self-esteem. At age 11, she begins to see and hear hallucinations, most prominently a double of herself. As a result, she sees a therapist at Tachibana General Laboratories. Lain also proves to be adept at psychology and computer science. Most of all, she is unbearably lonely.

Yonera ToukoRecently graduated from an American university, Touko serves as Lain's counselor. She is a new employee, and Lain is her very first client, establishing quite a good relationship with her.

Makino Shin'ichirouAn ordinary office worker who encounters Lain online. Impressed with her abilities, he provides news, data and computer parts for her.

TomoA boy in Lain's elementary school class that Lain has a crush on.

KyokoA girl in Lain's elementary school class that Lain is somewhat friendly with, who treats Lain like a younger sister.

MayuA friend of Kyoko's.

KaoriA girl in Lain's elementary school class that tries to be friendly with everyone.

FatherLain's father. He and Lain are very close and he treats Lain very kindly, often buying her presents. He is a businessman that occasionally needs to travel.

MotherLain's mother. She and Lain are on slightly less good terms, and she is a bit harder on Lain than her father. She still treats Lain very well and looks after her when she needs help. She is a housewife.

MisatoLain's (imaginary) friend in her middle school class. Getting along extremely well, Lain and her do all sorts of things together, at least in Lain's memory. Misato is an ideal girl, able to play the violin beautifully, paint exquisitely, and is also very beautiful and elegant.

HarumiTouko's longtime friend. She rather abruptly gets married.

KanakoTouko's longtime friend. She's a hardworking woman trying to become a publisher.

TakeshiTouko's boyfriend, met while studying abroad. He works at Tachibana General Laboratories alongside Touko. Their relationship is very platonic.

YoshidaTouko's other lover. He works at an exercise equipment manufacturing company that visits Tachibana General Laboratories from time to time. He is popular with women.

Professor TakashimaTouko's boss. A well-meaning man that often dumps chores on Touko, impeding her research. Touko hates him.

Mr. RabbitA friend that Lain made online. He teaches her how to hack.

Shock SpammerA malevolent user online that sends encrypted shock images to Lain's inbox.

ProgenetisLain's father. After the disappearance of Father, Lain begins to make artificial replacements of her friends and family, starting with Father.

Bike-chanA stuffed toy that allegedly has been Lain since her birth. Lain seems to view it as a friend.

The Other SelfA hallucination of another Lain that appears nude. She is the reason that Lain starts seeing Touko.

CLN-1An unnamed woman that shoots her boyfriend in public.

File System

The game's interface is designed to be somewhat similar to a database, apparently called the 'life instinct function' or 'lif', which appears to be located on a server at Tachibana General Laboratories. The name of the database could hint that it is serving the purpose of keeping lain alive somehow. The database is divided into two Sites: Site A and Site B. Site B is locked when the player begins the game, and can only be unlocked by finding updates hidden in the files. Each file in the site contains an invisible version number. The version of the player's in-game media player must be greater than or equal to that number in order to play the file. The media player can be updated by finding various upgrades hidden in the files.

Located within the database are several different filetypes:

• Lda, standing for lain's_DIARY in game, is a collection of 237 diary entries written by Lain over the course of roughly three years. The diary was given to Lain by Touko early into the counseling sessions as a place to confide her often negative and personal feelings. Interestingly, there is an image included in the game of Touko giving Lain a physical book, but the diaries themselves have evidence to show that the diaries are electronic. It is possible that Lain writes the diaries and then records herself reading them.

• Tda, or TOUKO'S_DIARY, is a collection of 92 diary entries written by Yonera Touko over the course of roughly two years.

• Cou, or COUNSELING_REC. is a collection of 53 recordings of counseling sessions between Lain and Touko. While the earlier sessions had Touko acting as a counselor to Lain, in the final recordings the roles are reversed after Touko becomes unstable. Lain acts as a counselor using her wide knowledge of psychology from independent study.

• Dia, or DIAGNOSIS_CLN## is a collection of 48 diagnoses by either Touko or Lain regarding their patient's behavior and actions to be taken as a result. Touko's recordings bear the designation CLN_01 (referring to Lain) and Lain's bear the designation CLN_00 (referring to Touko). The final recording is done by both.

• TaK is a series of 181 recordings of a single sentence each by either Lain or Touko, seemingly addressing the player. These sentences are often random questions. Unlike other filetypes, which are mostly presented in chronological order by level number, these files are presented in two apparently parallel chronologies, one consisting of the recordings by Lain (TaK001-TaK121) and the other by Touko (TaK122-181). There is no label for this filetype, but the Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide calls them 'Talk' files.

• Ekm is a series of 6 recordings of conversations between Lain and Kyoko. The label for this filetype is 'DATA of CLN01', but the Serial Experiments Lain Offical Guide calls these files 'Extra Kyoko's Memory'. These files only exist on Site A.

• Ere, or RESEARCH_'Ky' and RESEARCH_'Ka' is a series of 10 interviews between Touko and some of Lain's classmates regarding Lain. The Serial Experiments Official Guide calls these files 'Extra Research'. These files only exist on Site B.

• Eda or RESEARCH_'Ma' is a series of 4 counseling sessions between Makino and possibly Professor Takashima, and 1 news report. The fifth file has the designation NEWS_SHOW. The Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide calls these files 'Extra Data'. These files only exist on Site B.

• Sskn or SaiSei-kun is a collection of freeware upgrade apps for the game's movie playing tool. Each successive update unlocks more content. There are seven upgrades available. The designation for these files is 'mT up-date App.'

• P2- or POLY-TAN PARTS are pieces of a virtual bear model named Poly-tan. Collecting all parts unlocks some files, according to the Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide. There are 6 in all, all of which are located on Site A.

• GaTE is a series of network applications that are needed to proceed from Site A to Site B. There are 4 in all.

• Dc1, or DATA of CLN## is a series of 57 animated video files, mostly of Lain. While the numbers do go up to 058, Dc1029 is missing. Unlike the other filetypes, these files are presented in mostly random order, Site A containing the first 28 and Site B containing the latter 29. Each video file has its own name. Interestingly, the name 'drive' is used twice. It is unknown who filmed these files or for what purpose, or whether there was even a cameraman at all. While some files have a distinctly handheld look to them or are clearly for the purpose of filming a counseling session, others are far more unusual; some appear to be hidden cameras, others appear to be professionally edited to show a series of events from a certain angle, and still others appear to be impossible or difficult shots, like aerial shots or shots of Lain in a bathroom mirror with no visible camera behind her. The CLN number, or client number, varies occasionally, but for most of the files is CLN01, or Lain. A few files in Site B use the designations CLN00 (Touko) or CLN-1 (a seemingly unnamed woman). The missing file, Dc1029, appears to be located between Site A and B, and its contents are located in the short manga 'The Nightmare of Fabrication'. The Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide calls these files 'Dcl'.

• Env or network voices? is a series of 12 files that contain nothing but static and assorted voices. The server data for all these files are corrupted. These files are extra content and are not part of the regular game. All of these files are located on Site A's Level 0.

• Xv0 is a collection of unused video clips. These files are extra content and are not part of the regular game.

• Xa is a collection of miscellaneous audio. Most of these files contain Touko in an apparent state of distress, though the first and last files contain Lain's voice. These files are extra content and are not part of the regular game.

Connections between the game and the anime

This game explains many elements in the anime that are taken for granted or left unexplained. It can be considered an alternate timeline to the anime, perhaps one where Lain is incarnated into a different environment.

• Lain's haircut

In the game, it is revealed that Lain cut her own hair. The longer lock of hair where she clips her hairclip is meant to prevent something that 'enters from the right' from 'going out through the left'. Not much is known about the context of this statement (at least to the English-speaking fandom), but it has been theorised that Lain's hairstyle wards off demons or prevents her memories from disappearing.

According to the guide, Lain's mysterious statement is referring to her auditory hallucinations. See Q&A for more information.

Serial Experiments Lain Tv Tropes

• The chip from Layer 09

This may be the same in nature as the machine that Touko received from Tachibana Labs.

• Shared themes

As part of the same franchise, both the game and the anime cover topics such as the reliability of memory and the nature of existence and reality.

Translation

Both an English fan recreation of the game and a more modernized version can be found at [2]

It’s sometimes interesting to note how time can often change our understanding of certain cultural touchstones. For Serial Experiments Lain, time has lifted the anime to cult classic status within the medium that’s still remembered through pop-up shops, online Club Cyberia music broadcasts and more. Yet the other elements of what was once a Serial Experiments Lain multimedia project featuring a one-shot manga, a PS1 game, and music have been forgotten to the sands of time.

Meanwhile, the content of the show, which at the time could be interpreted as a warning against the growing digital intrusion in our lives, feels more like a prophecy and a way to re-examine our fraught relationship with the internet and the way it influences our lives today.

The fact that these broader aspects of the multimedia project have been overlooked is unsurprising, considering the manga was short and Japan-only and the Serial Experiments Lain PS1 game sold low numbers upon its release, making it a rare commodity today.

And yet this is somewhat of a disappointing outcome, since this game does a great job in expanding upon Lain as a character and the ideas of the show, as it tackles mental health, our reliance on external coping mechanisms, and where we root our sense of self in the age of computers.

It’s an interesting play, even if the game has more than its fair share of problems.

Entering the Wired, and Lain’s Past

For those who have seen the anime, the core component of the series is the intersections between the real world and the online world, and how our personalities are split between the internal and external self, personified through these two versions of Lain that exist in these realities. Further tossed into the mix is how technology intersects with our lives and how the influence of technology can change our relationship with the world around us.

The show depicts the battle between the internal and external through the lens of technology by showing Lain slowly disregard the real world for greater immersion into Wired (a sort of immersive internet), where she is heralded as a myth and a god. The show is weaponizing techno-futurism and philosophical discussions to explore the essence of how humans connect with one another and how technology plays a rapidly changing role in this fundamental aspect of humanity.

In essence, the Lain anime is a series about understanding human connection, which can only come by understanding the self.

The Serial Experiments Lain game for the PS1, released a few months after the anime finished on Japanese TV on 26 November 1998, acts as somewhat of a prequel to the events of the anime by exploring a younger Lain. While the anime is about exploring how humans connect and interact with one another, and what role the internet and technology has to play in that discussion, the game takes the opposite approach: it gives further backstory on who Lain was when she was younger.

To call Serial Experiments Lain on PS1 a game is perhaps overselling the experience somewhat, since the reality of this ‘network simulator’ is that of a non-linear visual novel and interactive file manager. The player is placed in control of Lain’s PC as we explore the files she has saved on her computer, from recordings of meetings with her therapist and diary entries to clips from Lain’s life. We see how her social isolation both at home and at school sends her into a depressive spiral and how technology is for her a means of escape. Rather than simply following these clips in order, however, we view these diary entries and audio and video clips in fragments. We browse and slowly piece together who Lain is supposed to be.

Serial Experiments Lain Episodes

We aren’t meant to view these clips and diary entries as part of a linear story in the same way the anime uses non-linearity to further push the core themes of the series: as described in an interview with series creator Chiaki J Konaka in Animerica in 1999, by interacting with these fragments ‘users can actually feel the Lain who exists inside the web’. While making for a difficult-to-follow story in the traditional sense, each of these comments can be replayed and are attached with tags that, when viewed together, form a cohesive idea on the topic in question, whether that be individuality, study, or something more.

This approach to storytelling is what helps the Serial Experiments Lain PS1 game act as a perfect compliment to the story of the anime. Not only does it expand on how Lain became invested in the Wired, as her suspicions on the people around her lead her to dissociate and seek a place to root herself in, but this story is being told entirely from her perspective. Each file on this computer forms a piece of Lain’s gradual journey of self-reckoning, while also acting as a way for her to seal away these negative childhood memories. She seeks to deconstruct the self in order to create a new Lain she can rely and coexist with.

This is where the game’s portrayal of self-harm and the traumatic events witnessed by this young Lain come into play. Her inability to understand and find acceptance in her world sends her into a destructive spiral that ties to the origins of her Wired persona. In that sense, it’s a shield.

In this interpretation, Lain is an unreliable narrator, driven by her scared and confused emotions that come from growing up in a household and world she is unable to understand and interact with. This is only further supported by how we interact with the computer, with the support and reactions of the Wired Lain to go alongside it.

All that being said, no matter how interesting an experiment the Serial Experiments Lain PS1 game is, the experience of interacting with this story is what lets it down. Scrolling through menus on a Playstation controller is slow and clunky, adding undue delay and tedium that pulls you out of the story being told. Especially when you start flicking through multiple layers to view story elements in cluster later on, the lack of mouse controls due to the console’s limitations make the smooth operation of the Wired OS an impossibility. It is detrimental to the experience to the point that it’s difficult to recommend it, even before we discuss the difficulty in sourcing a copy of the game because of its scarcity.

Serial Experiments Lain

There is a fanmade webgl ‘remake’ that recreates the interface through a web browser, complete with an English translation, but without the nuances for many of the entries, some translation issues, and without the virtual Lain, it, too, is far from an ideal experience (EDIT (29 March 2021): since this article was published, a full fan recreation of the game for web browsers has been released, and while it retains the clunkiness of the original PS1 release, this is also the easiest way of playing the game in English as originally intended. You can read our article on this effort here).

Serial Experiments Lain Ed

Time has a way of changing our view on things, and in the case of Serial Experiments Lain, it has erased the PS1 title from the memory of all but the series’ most dedicated fans. Which is a shame as, despite its flaws, what it brings to the franchise is undeniable: Even with a clunky interface, it may be worth working through an aging interface to experience this very modern 1998 story. Just like the anime, it remains as relevant as it did 23 years ago.