Serial Experiments Lain- Don't Avoid!

Yesterday I covered a show I wasn't really fond of. Today I'm going to cover one that I really enjoyed! Serial Experiments Lain! Before you go to your favorite online store hoping to buy this, I should warn you you'll only be able to find a couple of new DVD's. Unfortunately it sold out a while ago. Thankfully Funimation rescued the title so we'll see it return to store shelves soon. I hope.

Serial Experiments Lain is about a girl named Lain who isn't very tech savvy. One day a fellow classmate commits suicide. The next day everyone starts getting email from her. Lain becomes curious about this so she connects to the wired (in this anime the wired is the internet). Before long she receives email from the dead classmate as well. After that Lain begins upgrading her computer. While doing all this a second version of Lain starts terrorizing other people. Spreading rumors about them. Before long a group of men garbed in black suits wearing strange devices on their faces appear and start monitoring Lain.

There's a lot more to the series then I just mentioned. This anime is considered a conspiracy theory type show and it's actually pretty good. The creators were hoping people would get into debates about what the show was actually about, what it represented, but unfortunately for him everyone pretty much agreed about the show.

Personally I enjoyed the two sides to the real Lain. At first she acts cute and shy, but before long she becomes more confident, but it's still the same Lain. For instance there's a scene where Lain is talking to a man inside the wired. She's told something horrible happened to a group of kids and she starts crying. When I saw that I knew it was the same Lain as before.

There were some other characters I enjoyed as well. Like Arisu Mizuki, Lain's only real friend. Arisu always stands up for Lain and even when she has her doubts about Lain's innocents she still refuses to believe it's true.

The animation isn't cutting edge, or anything like that, but the dark and moody atmosphere really sets the tone for the show, not to mention the strange shadows. For instance Lain's shadow has some weird stuff roaming around inside it. Also some shadows are represented as red hazes. It's really cool.

Oh and I have to mention the beginning theme. It really fits in with the show. Especially the part where the girl sings "And you don't seem the lying kind. A shame I came read your mind. And all the things that I read there. Candle lit smile we both share." Awesome lyrics!

Well I think I'm going to stop there for now. Funimation hasn't announced a release date just yet, but I'm hoping they'll make one soon. When you can I would defiantly check it out.