Layer 01/02 + OP

Before I even get into episode one, I'm gonna focus on the opening, and it's power. It's disconcerting, intentionally doing everything possible to force you out of whatever mood you were in before. It demands attention, and declares a lot, in even the first few seconds. No anime actually does it like this, and I don't think anime was ever like this before.

The opening interrupts as though your signal has been taken over. You are now receiving a message, and it will own you. And you are introduced to Lain, in a music video that suggests omnipresence, that suggests devotion, that suggests worship. Your first image of her is through the last gasp of television static before the signal truly gains control. And Lain consumes the digital viewframe in front of you, her name endlessly scrolling and consuming. She is there on every screen in the OP, and screens are important in the OP. Connection through computer and television, connection through lines of information. Truly, this is a story that takes place in the present day, as much now as it was when it was born.

It's unnerving to see her vision there on every screen. Speaking. Singing. Ordering. But... she was on your screen just a bit ago, wasn't she? The same way she was on every other screen. You are as much a part of this as anyone in the story, you are pulled into this one-way parasocial relationship, like she's a youtube sensation on every screen.

In the OP her outfit and style changes drastically. The one on the screen has a dominant, controlling sense. The her that's shown in the "real world", with her normal, non-party clothes, has a much more flat affect. She looks younger and less in control, more shy and quiet. But what is the difference? We all know what the internet is like. A person walking down the street isn't any different than the person online.

I could go into a shot-for-shot, frame by frame analysis of the OP, but I've done that already and I don't need to do it twice in my life. My words and effort are there if you wish to read them. I'll talk a little bit about anime and the utilization of english language songs. The OP song, Duvet, is from the band boa. Not the Korean BoA, but an English band led by a Japanese-british lady. This alternative/indie band only really made two albums, of which I own the first, Twilight. Which includes two version of Duvet! They were licensed with Pioneer, the parent company in Japan of Geneon and currently called NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan, and before that, Polystar. Duvet is one of their first singles, and was super popular in Japan, thus it's inculsion as the OP of Lain.

Really, that sort of pop-culture reality isn't related to the story itself, of course. This sort of thing is common. There's lots of other anime that use English-language bands, because as always, English is popular in music over there! A better band, frankly, did the OP to Gunslinger Girls' first season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTxoH_5CnhM

(I also have the album this song is on, of course.)

It's really interesting, how visuals looked at the time. The omnipresence of visual static and screens having CRT scanlines. It's not what the modern day is like, but even so, even with that small thing, you create a more... analogue feel, which is a fun difference. This OP is so very much about the grimy analogue world juxtaposed to the digital connection between people, and that shows in almost every shot. Also the bridge at the end is hilariously low-rez cgi, and I don't think that was meant to be a hint at anything, they just needed to do a complex shot pulling away from Lain as she walked up the stairs, and it was hard to do that without cgi even at the time!

Weird. Layer 01: By now you know that the first scene of the episode is always this thing about the city, with someone talking over it. A city of night and lights, with power cords and neon colors everywhere. The chaos of the world of human connection, and the hum of electricity. This first episode, Chisa speaks first. And she is asking a question. A question she will ask throughout the episode.

Chisa is our first real introduction into this story, and it's important we start with her. Her plainness, the way she's laughed at, her disconnection to the world. Her despair, and her fear. But she is being called herself here. And commits suicide entirely on screen. Something pretty rare for an anime, frankly, to actually depict it so completely. She looks as though she feels freed, she looks overjoyed, unlike her look before. She doesn't need to stay here, she says before she falls, the power lines ripping into her even before she crashes into the ground. Her act is a harsh way to open, grim and blood-soaked and hopeless. She's a kid! She's a middle schooler for God's sake! But whatever happened, whyever she felt this way, she's gone now.

Next we get our introduction to Lain. The colors, the stark white that obfuscates so much of the hazy, hot environment. The strangeness of the shadows which hide something red and disturbing. Lain's lack of affect, and the omnipresent hum of the power lines. Get used to those, by the way.

Lain's first actual words are strange. Extremely strange. She's hearing something, voices, along with the hum. And she speaks out with an assertiveness that belies her unassuming looks, and confuses her fellow train-goers. At school, she sees things. Strange things. The world seems fuzzy to her, difficult to understand. Something is calling to her too.

School itself is grim as fuck. We enter into someone weeping. Something horrible happened. The girl, Chisa... sent an email to everyone in school. After her suicide.

AntipodeToday at 8:19 PM
Notice how Lain stares at the girl, as we ll as Alice. Alice is so forward in a polite and socially appropriate way, she's so friendly to Lain. Lain doesn't know what's going on. She doesn't even know who Chisa was, even though she was in the same school. She doesn't pay attention. It's a pretty strange event all things considered. Lain's reaction is muted. She seems to have bigger problems.

All this visual difficulty, all these hallucinations that haunt her even from the beginning, they are a strange way to start a show. We don't have much established about this girl, but this first episode... hmm. It's just weird. (ha)

Also, the messages we get throughout the episode. They are the email from Chisa. The message she gave, about dying. About how it hurts. (smiley face). About why you too should come join her in the internet. Join her. Because, as Lain learns when she gets home and interacts with her barely used children's computer... in the Wired, there is a God. That is what the dead girl tells us. That here, God exists, and so come here with her. Come join her with God.

God and suicide. God and death. God and dying to enter the afterlife. A fake letter? But the message is... direct. Specific to Lain, things Lain would remember. It's almost active, as though it's being sent by a real person. Lain asks why she died, and it's almost as if the next part of the email answers her. But she asks again, and this time, it may well be a real live response. Of course Lain wants to know why her classmate committed suicide. She's quiet, but she isn't... emotionless. In fact, I think she's deeply affected by this death of a classmate. Moreso than she lets on. Because she's clearly not okay.

Speaking of not okay, her family life is so tense and disturbing that you could cut the tension with a knife. Her mother ignores her completely. Lain actively tells her she got an email from a dead person and mommy dearest ignores her completely.
[8:25 PM]
Daddy isn't actually any better. But we'll get to that. Lain is portrayed as so very childish in her home environment. Moreso than her actual, middle-school age. While having the stuffed animals all along her window is normal, she's s till shown to be unusually arrested in her development. She wears an adorable, if super-childish, set of bear pajamas. Complete with hood. Her computer is a kid's toy, her desk is that way, she shows no interest in much of anything, she's just... deeply unexpressive, which is something as much her parents' fault as anything.

Her father isn't listening to her, or paying her attention. He speaks, but he speaks in inanities and focuses all his actual attention on his tons of computer screens. He's as distant, in his own way, as her mother is. And has no way to realize how terrifying what Lain says actually is. She wants a real computer, because... there's a friend she wants to see. Chilling.

The next day re-emphasizes the darkness of this story, the oppressive nature of this place. Because the train hits a human being who committed suicide. And Lain sees it. Sees the blood leaking off the power line. The next scene, I think, is Lain disassociating, and disassociating badly from seeing the horror of the dead body. Where she is doesn't matter. Where she is slips past her mind as she thinks of something else. But all these horrors surrounding her, along with her own mental unwellness, creates a scene where she imagines the suicide from the outside. She can't think of anything but the suicide she witnessed, and thinks and dwells on it. She only snaps out of it in class when a teacher chides her. And of course the teacher had to notice she was literally weeping from what she saw that morning.

But she's still receiving messages. Even in the real world. Come to the Wired as soon as you can...

AntipodeToday at 8:33 PM
This first episode is difficult. It may take multiple viewings to understand what's going on, because it's hard to follow a character whose reactions are as muted as Lain's can be. And understand exactly what the imagery is trying to tell us. Because the imagery is so very indirect at times, so very unusual, one can get lost and focus only on mood. But that's not really true. Everything so far has been laser-focused on Lain and how she actually feels. Much of it is a representation of her emotional state. And when you understand that, a lot opens up. There's so little dialogue, so little character building, but the little that is there is entirely essential. We don't need more than a moment with her parents to understand how deeply fucked Lain's home life actually is. We don't need to focus on the other people in class because Lain  doesn't focus on them, or pay attention to them. Whatever is going on with her means that she's not able to. She's clearly unwell, extremely unwell. And nobody, from her parents to her teachers to her classmates, pays that any damn attention at all.

On her way home from the train station this second day of our story, she sees Chisa. And Lain asks something strange. "Where are you?" But then Lain has been taking Chisa's words, and the messages she receives, to heart. Come here. Come to the Wired. But none of that really makes sense to her. The wraith of Chisa only smiles, and then disapparates. And we are left with Lain begging her to stay, and the hum of the power lines...

Lain does have the beginnings of a standard narrative in this episode, frankly. Every normal thing you need for a story is here, actually. It's just historically been considered super unclear. But Lain has all the normal character beats: Learns her dead classmate has sent people emails, finds in the email that the friend has found God in the internet. And tries to take steps to connect to the internet to find out what they're talking about. She seeks.

Layer 02: Girls

Time for some girl-talk! Time to make friends! Time to... go to the club as middle schoolers?! Uh.

Our opening, with the city lights that remind me of a quote by Rei Ayanami, includes a girl asking why you're afraid. Try it a little. Giggle. Try the drug, try the internet, try dying? It's ominous, isn't it?

This episode is a lot better than episode one. Of course it is. Now that we've established things, we can get into some of the real weirdness! Some of the real cyberpunk things that exist outside of Lain's suburban rich person's home. Incidentally, think about how big her house is, and how Japan is. Think about how fucking loaded her parents are. But I digress. We begin at the club Cyberia. And the drug Accela. A microchip drug combo that slows down the sensation of time by hyper-speeding bodily metabolism. I suppose. The future is here, and designer drugs are machines now. Incidentally, Cyberia itself is a total banger of a club, and I love the place.

The drfug high is crazy as fuck. But some things we see are important. Our little trio of middle schoolers. And... Lain. Acting extremely different. Acting like she belongs there. And telling whomever is with her to get the fuck off. Who would believe Lain is such a bar scene gal? I mean... nobody, actually, which is why the trio of girls are so shocked they ask her later in the episode.

We get our first real intro  to Lain's sister. Talking about Lain's imaginary friend. Which is... creepy when you remember the person Lain seems to be talking to is her dead classmate Chisa, isn't it? God, this house continues to be tense no matter what happens in it. So, has Lain been up all night? Maybe. None of this, amusingly enough, actually discounts her having gone to the bar that night. But something creepier is right around the corner, something super disturbing, even moreso than the shadows hiding another dimension. (That isn't a spoiler, that's just what it looks like, you know?!)
[8:54 PM]
Lain sees a creepy dude just staring at her... an American, by the way he's drawn! He's so fucking creepy. The way he stares at her is unnerving. And the way Lain reacts. There's genuine fear there. Lain is one whose emotions may be close to her chest, but when we have her alone we feel her emotions almost as if they are our own. Or is that only me? Am I the only one who feels her isolation, her near somnambulist inner-world focus, her tenseness with family, her inability to connect with other people, her seeming fear of her classmates? Am I the only one who feels so deeply disconnected from the world? Those who've seen me in real life may not even notice this. But that's because I had to learn to fake it, I think. So many times I have to rehearse what I'll say to someone new or in a tense situation before I say it, so that I don't break down. And sometimes I still short-circuit, still fail. Or maybe this is nothing like the girl you see here in this show. Maybe I just read things into her. But I don't think I read that much.

Anyway, Alice always seems to stick up for Lain, at least al ittle bit. And want to include her, just a little bit. The girls ask Lain outright if she was at the club last night. Lain asks what, but never actually, you know, denies it. Of course, she could be playing dumb, but she also seems completely oblivious to what they're talking about. That said, watching again, the way she says "last night, I..." was a very Japanese way of implying no without saying it. I'm just kidding about suggesting she was there. Or am I?

Still, these girls are asking Lain to go to an adult club. Remember, it's called Cyberia. You know what I think? This club is much like the internet itself, at least the one I grew up with. Technically there were many adult-only places, but... like. Anyone of any age could get in. Pretend they were older. Pretend they belonged as adults in adult places. And kids did that all the damn time. I did. Other kids did.

AntipodeToday at 9:06 PM
Lain gets a text from Alice, continuing to bug her to go to the club with them. And we get to the weakest scene in the episode, another weird ghostly thing. But one that never really worked for me, frankly. We've had so many in the space of the first episode, that another with an unknown person coming out of a closet to scare Lain, and then more ghostly figures surrounding her, just feels like a little too much. Lain's reaction is great of course and she cowers and such in a very lovingly detailed way, but there's just SO MUCH of this. It's fine of course. But it's my least favorite part of the episode.

Then we get her interaction with the delivery guy. Just look at the way her eyes look. Look at how she's guarded and tired of all this, and just... remains her reserved self. She never says a word. But when the guy expresses interest in all her new computer parts, she finally pays attention and is interested. A brand new top of the line computer! Obviously her dad ordered it for her. Delivery dude is probably thinking "these rich people..." but honestly, he's quite nice. And so Lain has a real computer finally. So the first thing she does is... get in her bear pajamas and waits on her bed until dad comes home. She sees her parents kissing, and dad says he'll set it up later.

...but she demands (comparatively demands, you know how she is) that he set it up now. Anyway, fun fact: Copland OS Enterprise is an Apple reference. Copland OS was an unreleased operating system by Apple. Fun stuff! Her computer is interesting to me. It has Alexa style voice interfaces, along with keyboards and the like. And yet, even though she has a better computer, Lain still has no new mail. (Of course she wouldn't.) But hey, she's got a cellphone call! Because her cell is the real connection in this episode. Alice's gambit to get her to go is shown as opposed to the computer and Chisa asking her to come... but she does go. To Cyberia, the club I so want to go to.
[9:12 PM]
At the club, Lain encounters kids who are significantly younger, elementary school kids! They're at the club too and are much more familiar with it than her. There's something to be said about the internet's ability to erode the boundaries we put between adults and children... and there are positive elements of that. But also, there's an erosion inherent where adult matters that maybe are too mature for kids still fall upon them. I don't mean in the sense that life always happens, but children in adult-only spaces can lead to kids in problematic situations, and easily preyed upon, or emulating things they simply aren't mature enough yet to deal with. Much like... allowing children into a club.

Lain's first experience of a club is sensory overload. She's not wearing something appropriate to the place, but Alice deals with it in a socially acceptable way. "We'll get you something more appropriate and adult next time!" Alice is a Good Girl. Lain is very curious though. Does this girl really look like her? Otherwise she seems so disconnected, almost disassociating in the sheer sensory overload. I get it. I really do.

This is all interrupted, of course, by the guy from the start of the episode. Who is fucking shooting up the club, and murdering people. So that's two episodes in a row where Lain sees at least one dead body. Two this time. Wait, three, because of the suicide, ha ha ha. Lain is so terrified, so frozen in place. But the guy recognizes her, fears her... and in the end, does something extremely strange. She changes, shifts her personality almost, and says, "no matter where you go, everyone's connected." He doesn't want to be, and in his horror, kills himself. But what was this? Why did Lain say it, why the change? Isn't it strange? Isn't this all very strange? The poor girl is going through a lot, and is absolutely traumatized, though maybe a little less than her FIRST time seeing a dead body, lol.