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siroofington · 3 months

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Ryoko Kui Feb 2024 Famitsu interview on video games that inspired Dungeon Meshi

I saw this interview and thought people on here might be interested! Please note that this was translated by reddit user turin-dono, NOT ME, and they made some disclaimers about any errors there may be. Click here if you want to read the interview/their post on Reddit.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW

The original author of Dungeon Meshi is quite a game lover! A special interview is provided to commemorate the special feature!

We had a talk with author of Dungeon Meshi, Kui Ryōko-sensei just about the games

The manga Dungeon Meshi has reached its conclusion in its 14 volumes. Its author, Kui Ryōko, turns out to be quite a game fan! We asked her to be interviewed for this special feature, to which she kindly agreed to. The extent of her gamer spirit is beyond imagination… We are pleased to present this valuable interview with a number of compelling titles.

(full text under the cut)

PROFILE

Kui Ryōko has been active as a dōjinshi artist on pixiv and Comitia, and made her debut in March 2011 with Ryū no Gakkō wa Yama no Ue Kui Ryōko Sakuhinshū “The School of Dragons is on the Mountain – Kui Ryōko’s Anthology”. In 2012 she published Kui Ryōko Sakuhinshū Ryū no Kawaii Nanatsu no Ko “Kui Ryōko’s Anthology: Seven Sweet Kids of the Dragon” and in 2013 won the 17th Japan Media Arts Festival Manga Division Excellence Award with Hikidashi ni Terrarium “Terrarium in Drawer”. In 2014 Dungeon Meshi started its serialisation in Harta (Kadokawa) magazine, with serialisation ending in September 2023. A total of 14 volumes of the manga are currently on sale.

Playing "Wizardry 6", I thought to myself, "I want to draw stories and drawings like this"

My formative experience with games was with “Wizardry” my father used to play

- This time, rather than talking about Dungeon Meshi, I would rather like to talk with you about video games, as I heard that you are quite fond of them.

Kui-sensei: I may be biased [about games she likes, I guess], but I’m looking forward to this interview.

- When I first read Dungeon Meshi, I felt that its setting where a party consisting of characters like a human, an elf, a dwarf and a so-called hobbit venture deep into the dungeon was reminiscent of a classic fantasy RPG.

Kui: That's right. My father played various games on the NES console, starting with "Wizardry", and that was great entertainment for us, so it might have been something like a formative experience [in gaming, I guess] for me. When I was a child, these games were too difficult for me to play by myself. However, as I was growing up I started thinking, "I liked the atmosphere of that game" and "I want to draw something with that kind of atmosphere” and that was probably what inspired me.

- Did you watch your father play games?

Kui: A lot. Among the various games, “Wizardry" was a bit different from the fun-to-watch games like "Dragon Quest", "Ultima" and "Fire Emblem”. Its first-person perspective with the continuously identical scenery made it seem like a rather plain game to my childish mind. However, I also remember finding great enjoyment in the monster illustrations found in its strategy guides and stared at them for hours on end.

- Yes, the strategy guides had illustrations that you couldn't see in the game itself.

Kui: Growing up, I started playing RPGs and other games by myself, but because of times like taking entrance exams and when I started living on my own, I distanced myself from games for a while.

- Yes, that's right. Many people have experiences like that, don't they?

Kui: I started playing games again when the serialization of Dungeon Meshi was decided. Learning that "Wizardry" itself has various influences from other works, I felt I should depict [my work] with a good understanding of those currents. So, while checking out computer games and TRPGs, I ended up exploring various works.

- So. you started studying games because of Dungeon Meshi.

Kui: I also liked novels like "The Neverending Story" and "The Lord of the Rings", so I was already familiar with fantasy. However, I hadn't really thought about why similar terms appear in games here and there, so I thought to myself, "Come to think of it, why is it like that?"

- So, from there, the world expanded. Regarding the title Dungeon Meshi, and there is also the English title which is “Delicious in Dungeon”, I assumed it was a nod to "Dungeons & Dragons".

Kui: The English title was actually chosen by my editor, and indeed, as far as I heard, it was consciously referencing "D&D." In fact, I only became aware of tabletop RPGs as an adult. When researching the history of games, you inevitably come across the name "Dungeons & Dragons". So, I read rulebooks and replay novels, and even played some computer RPGs based on "D&D". Since I didn't have anyone to play it with at the time, I feel like I haven't fully experienced it compared to people who have played it extensively.

- Earlier you mentioned that you had dabbled a bit with PlayStation and such. Are there any games that left a lasting impression on you?

Kui: That would probably be "Final Fantasy VII." The "Final Fantasy" series had amazing graphics, and I remember being amazed each time a new game came out, thinking, "Is this the limit of graphical evolution?"

In games, even seemingly unnecessary things can bring joy just by being there

- You mentioned that since the serialization of Dungeon Meshi started around 2014 you began playing various games. For this interview, your editor provided us a list of games you enjoy in advance. Looking at that list, it seems quite diverse. You mentioned you started playing games for manga research purposes, but do you remember the first game you played specifically for research?

Kui: I bought it more for study and learning, but the first one was "Legend of Grimrock." "Dungeon Master" was famous as an RPG where you eat meals, so I wanted to play it, but the hassle of playing it on an actual machine was too much [for me]. That's why I played "Legend of Grimrock," which is heavily influenced by "Dungeon Master." Without the serialisation [of Dungeon Meshi], it was probably the type of game I wouldn't have played. But the volume [of content] and difficulty were just right, so that I had that satisfying feeling of completing the game, becoming a good memory for me. Being able to play with modern graphics in first-person dungeon ambience also served as a good reference. I feel this prompted me to start playing various games.

- "Legend of Grimrock" was quite a challenging title, especially for those who hadn't played games in a while…

Kui: The basic rules weren't overly complicated. However, at first, I didn't realize it was an action game, so I would just stand still and get beaten up. Once I understood to use good timing to dodge enemy attacks and strike during openings, it became enjoyable. It hasn't been translated into Japanese, but since there isn't much text, I played the English version.

- And from there, you started playing various games.

Kui: I used to feel a bit apprehensive about games than were not turn-based RPGs, but I decided to stop being prejudiced and try out any games that looked interesting. As I played games like "Red Dead Redemption 2" and "God of War," I found their stories intriguing and gradually became more and more hooked.

- While continuing the serialisation, you even played games...

Kui: "Red Dead Redemption 2" was an incredibly well-crafted game. I wanted to talk about it with someone, so I convinced my editor and other mangaka to buy it too. [I liked it] so much. I'm grateful that such a game exists.

- It was right up your alley in terms of preferences.

Kui: To be honest, at first, it felt a bit "meh." Not being able to run in the camp, the animations for picking things up or skinning animals, all these little things annoyed me a bit. I wondered if sacrificing playability for realism was just the creators imposing their preferences. However, as I played more and more, I noticed the NPCs changing their actions according to their schedule, finishing their meals properly and the protagonist getting progressively dirtier... All these accumulated details led to an extraordinary sense of immersion. Besides that, the story was good, and the music was wonderful too. It was clear that a huge budget and a large team were involved, and ultimately, I played the game in awe of the high level of its ambition. While there are differences in the creation process between games and manga, and therefore making it hard to imitate, it made me reflect on my own approach to creativity.

- Have you played any other big, content-rich games?

Kui: Talking about a recent game, "Starfield" was interesting. Since I played it without any prior information, I didn't understand the controls at first. But as I continued playing, I became engrossed in the very familiar Bethesda-Softworks-feel. Bethesda games are always open-handed and have a [certain] charm.

- You don’t play many so-called games for all ages, that is games one can enjoy with their family?

Kui: I do play the ones that catch my interest. I played "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom" as well. When "Breath of the Wild" was released, it was quite difficult to buy a Nintendo Switch, so my editor for Dungeon Meshi said I should play it and lent me his console and the game.

- Speaking of big titles, "Cyberpunk 2077" is also listed as one of your favourite games.

Kui: I had been interested in it since the teaser trailer was released in 2013. Later, in 2015, "The Witcher 3" was released and it was really great. I thought, "CD PROJEKT RED is amazing, if they're making [“Cyberpunk 2077”], it can't go wrong." The [Japanese] localisation of "The Witcher 3" was truly meticulous and wonderful. I was impressed, thinking that this localisation wasn’t something than can just be done with translators’ skills, but needs the active cooperation of the development company. "Cyberpunk 2077" was also really amazing. The DLC was interesting too, and it became one of my favourite works.

Top-down perspective games make it easier to immerse oneself in their world

- It seems "Disco Elysium" was so fun for you that it got a 超 *chō* remark [in the list sent by your editor (*chō* meaning ultra, hyper etc; that is, she likes it very much].

Kui: I like top-down, text-based games the most. I'm not very interested in combat [-focused games] though. "Disco Elysium" doesn't have any combat to begin with, and its story is intriguing, with charming character interactions. It was a type of game I had never played before, and adding to that it is a top-down, text-based [game]... Everything matching my preferences, [made] it a very enjoyable game for me.

I like games that don’t just include character dialogues but descriptions of sceneries and monologues too

Kui: It had been a hot topic overseas for a long time, but because of the large amount of text and me thinking it was unlikely to ever be translated into Japanese, I gave the oversea’s [English, I assume] version a go. However, I found it quite difficult. Then, Spike Chunsoft localised it [into Japanese]. I was so happy.

- Speaking of top-down fantasy RPGs, there's also the "Baldur's Gate" series. The latest installment, "Baldur's Gate 3," was also localised and released by Spike Chunsoft.

Kui: "Baldur's Gate’s” first two installments were one of the games I played for the [research for my] serialisation [of Dungeon Meshi]. I was surprised to hear that Larian Studios, from which I also played the "Divinity" series [of course, for research purposes], acquired the license [of BG] and were making the latest installment. When the early access version for PC was released with the first chapter, I played it right away, but as expected, I found it difficult to concentrate on the story in English. However, when I heard a Japanese version was coming out, I was like: "Thank you as always, Spachun-san [cute nickname for Spike Chunsoft]!" If games like these sell well, it makes me happy because it could lead to the localisation of other titles, like "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous"...

- What is the reason you like top-down perspective [games] in the first place?

Kui: I like them because they often include descriptive text. It's not just about character dialogue; I enjoy the inclusion of description of sceneries and monologues too. When there's descriptive text, even when the graphics are slightly rough, it allows me to feel things like the wind or smell and supplements the subtle behaviours of other characters. It makes it easier to immerse myself in the world when there is a description like, that cave is dark and damp, or a description of the nuanced behaviour or state of mind of the characters.

- The broader the perspective, the greater the imagination, probably.

Kui: Games like that also offer many choices. Seeing the consequences of your own choices makes you feel more involved in that world. For instance, being disliked by your companions and them leaving you (laughs). I think this interaction is the wonderful aspect of games that manga and movies cannot replicate.

- You seem to enjoy a wide range of genres. Where do you get your information about them?

Kui: I check game media and official websites. I look into games that people say are interesting or those that are localised in Japanese. When I want to know the release date of a specific game, I also check social media.

- It seems you also enjoyed "Unpacking" and "House Flipper." Do you like games that involve neatly arranging items and tidying up?

Kui: I do enjoy cleaning games. Recently, "Unpacking" was great because just neatly arranging items sparked my imagination. As you sort [the items], you start to be able to guess the personality of the room's owner. It’s meticulously crafted with attention to detail. Before its release, I was intrigued when I heard that it is a game about organizing items, and when I tried it out, I really liked the sound effects, and it was much more fun than I expected it to be. As long as you don't put items in the wrong rooms, there aren’t really many correct or wrong places to put them, so you can create your ideal layout. After you finish arranging everything, you can watch an animation of your playthrough. I’d sip tea watching [the replay] and think, "This room really is wonderful" (laughs). There are no plans for a sequel, but I would love to play one.

- Do you also sip tea while admiring the rooms you create in "House Flipper"?

Kui: In "House Flipper," the cleaning part is particularly enjoyable for me, so I often just place the required furniture half-mindedly. Cleaning up all the dirt brings me a sense of calm. I'm also playing "House Flipper 2," and it's just as fun.

Depiction in "Wizardry 6" enabled me to enjoy the feeling of exploration

- The genre changes a bit; "Return of the Obra Dinn" is also listed as a favourite game.

Kui: The game "Papers, Please" created by the developer Lucas Pope was the first title I played and recognized as an indie game. It is profoundly memorable for me and I was really looking forward to the new work. And as I thought, "Obra Dinn" was also fun. The music is good, its got an atmosphere and the puzzles were just right.

- I certainly was surprised by the animation that flowed smoothly with sketching-like graphics.

Kui: In 2014, when the demo version was released, I was wondering what kind of game it would turn out to be. The final product was really interesting.

- Picking up the heavily interactive adventure game "Immortality" appears to be for the same reasons, correct? It seems you also enjoyed "Her Story," another creation by the same developer, Sam Barlow, where the story unfolds through video and changes based on player choices.

Kui: Both games were quite interesting. I was taken on unexpected journeys, with a mysterious touch. Their structure of interacting with live-action videos blurred the line between reality and the game, creating a strange sensation. It was chilling to be stared at by characters within the video. It was a powerful experience.

- You seem to enjoy works where the story changes based on player intervention.

Kui: It simply makes me happy when I see the consequences of my own choices.

- Since the serialization of Dungeon Meshi began and you started doing research on games, what game would you say has influenced your own story?

Kui: About that, although it's not a recent game, it is probably "Wizardry 6". In it, there's a pen named Cosmic Forge that turns whatever is written with it into reality. Long ago, this pen was contended over by a king and an evil sorcerer, leading to the destruction of an ancient castle. Now, new adventurers have infiltrated this castle... And that’s how the story goes. I got excited just by these few sentences. As NES became Super NES, graphics evolved too; the details like dust accumulating, broken furniture etc. were so well depicted. You could really enjoy the feeling of exploration. That is when I thought, "If I could draw stories and drawings like this…"

Dungeon Meshi started with the desire to depict the parts that are omitted in games

I felt embarrassed when the lines I wrote got performed by the voice actors (laughs)

- Dungeon Meshi is being adapted into an anime and is currently airing to great acclaim. The anime is handled by TRIGGER, the same studio that created "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners," which is based on the "Cyberpunk 2077" a game that you also love.

Kui: Regarding "Edgerunners," when I heard that this game I like is getting an anime adaptation, I was worried about watching it, thinking, "What if it's not the Night City I love?". However, when I mustered up the courage to watch it, I found that it [meshed] both the essence of "Cyberpunk 2077" and the unique style of TRIGGER very well.

- Have you seen the completed version of the Dungeon Meshi anime?

Kui: I haven't properly watched it yet (the interview was conducted in December 2023), but I had the opportunity to observe the voice recording sessions. It was really amazing, but I felt embarrassed hearing the voice actors bring so much emotion to the lines I wrote… Senbongi Ayaka’s [should be Sayaka, probably a spelling mistake] screams as Marcille were fantastic, but somehow it made me want to run away out of embarrassment. If it weren't my own work, I would have been able to enjoy it wholeheartedly. As for the production, I made a few requests on how I wanted certain things done, but for the most part, I've left it to TRIGGER-san.

- As a game fan, it's also fascinating that the music for the anime is being handled by Mitsuda Yasunori, who has composed music for many games.

Kui: I played "Chrono Cross" after I got my parents to buy the game for me. The opening song and graphics were so amazing that I watched them on repeat. Knowing that Mitsuda-san is in charge of the music for the anime is deeply moving for me.

- The original series concluded with the 14th volume, and the sketchbook "Daydream Hour" was also published. Once things settle down, you'll probably have some time to thoroughly enjoy playing games. Are there any titles you're particularly looking forward to in 2024?

Kui: I enjoyed "Cloudpunk," so I'm looking forward to "Nivalis" in 2024, although I'm not sure if it's coming out then [both games have the same German developer Ion Land, still not published as of 1. July 2024]. I'm also excited about "Avowed" [also not released].

- As a gamer, I can't help but fantasise about a Dungeon Meshi game being made.

Kui: In games, eating is often reduced to a task for buffs or debuffs, which tends to make it feel tedious. If it were made into a game, it would need to make this aspect interesting. However, I started Dungeon Meshi wanting to depict the parts that games typically omit, so developing a game based on it would indeed be quite challenging.

- If it were a hardcore "Wizardry"-style game, what would you do?

Kui: Play from Laios's point of view. Not eating means death. It sounds like it would be fun to play (laughs).

Other recommended games:

Some of them were also in the interview, but the list of games that Kui-sensei enjoys that we got beforehand [from her editor] is quite vast. Excluding titles illustrated on page 23 like "The Elder Scrolls" [Skyrim, because Ancano, that Thalmor bastard in the College of Winterhold’s questline, was depicted on the page 23] "Dragon Age," "Pillars of Eternity," and the "Pathfinder" series, here are just a few selected titles we didn't have time to delve into during the interview! If any of these catch your interest, feel free to investigate them further.

2064: Read Only Memories

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm

Mice and Sand Revised

Kingdom Come：Deliverance

Gorogoa

Detroit: Become Human

Crossing Souls

My Time at Portia

Tyranny

Sorcery! Parts 1 and 2

Marvel's Spider-Man

Vampyr

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Another World

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit

Space Haven

Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition

Songs of Syx

Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

Inscryption

Triangle Strategy

Two-Point Campus

Superliminal

Expeditions: Rome

Stacklands

PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

Scene Investigators

Chicken Police

#ryoko kui #kui ryoko #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi

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fantastic0fairy · 3 months

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From Cherry Blossoms to Giant Robots: How Anime and Japanese Culture Captivate the World

Imagine a world where cherry blossoms float through the air, where samurai honor codes meet futuristic technology, and where everyone, from a teenager in New York to a retiree in Paris, can find joy in animated tales of adventure, romance, and heroism. Welcome to the realm of anime and Japanese culture, a vibrant, dynamic force that has crossed borders and generations, leaving an indelible mark on global society.

The importance and growth of anime.

Anime, Japan's unique style of animation, isn't just cartoons it's a cultural phenomenon. From classics like "Astro Boy" and "Dragon Ball" to modern hits like "Attack on Titan" and "My Hero Academia," anime has a diverse range of genres that appeal to all ages. What makes anime so special? It's the blend of intricate storytelling, complex characters, and stunning visuals. These aren't just shows; they're experiences that pull you into their world.

Anime is a gateway to Japanese culture. Through anime, viewers learn about traditional customs, festivals, and even cuisine. Think of "Spirited Away," where the protagonist, Chihiro, navigates a magical bathhouse filled with spirits a nod to Japan's rich folklore and Shinto beliefs. Or "Your Name," which beautifully portrays the rural-urban divide and the traditional practice of "musubi" (tying threads as a symbol of connection).

Global influence by connecting generations

Anime's influence stretches far beyond entertainment. It's a style, a vibe, a community. Fashion brands like Uniqlo and Gucci have launched anime-themed collections, while sports stars like Naomi Osaka openly express their love for anime characters. Moreover, the principles and aesthetics of anime have seeped into global pop culture, inspiring everything from Hollywood films to video games.

One of the most magical aspects of anime is its ability to bridge generational gaps. Parents and children can bond over shared favorites like "Pokémon" or "Studio Ghibli" films. For the older generation, anime offers a nostalgic trip back to their childhood while providing fresh stories that resonate with today's themes and issues.

Anime has created a global community of fans who gather at conventions, participate in cosplay, and engage in online discussions. Events like Anime Expo in Los Angeles or Comiket in Tokyo draw fans from all over the world, celebrating their love for this unique art form.

Fun Fact: The Origins of Cosplay

Did you know that cosplay (dressing up as characters from anime, manga, and video games) originated in Japan? The term "cosplay" comes from "costume play," and it has become a worldwide phenomenon. From local conventions to international events, cosplay is a testament to the creativity and dedication of anime fans.

Anime and Japanese culture are more than just entertainment they are a window into a different way of life, filled with beauty, tradition, and endless creativity. They remind us that, no matter where we are in the world, we can find common ground in the stories we love and the values they teach us. So, whether you're a seasoned otaku or a curious newcomer, dive into the world of anime. You might just find a new favorite story or even a new perspective on life.

Ready to start your anime journey? Check out classics like "Naruto" or "Sailor Moon," or dive into newer hits like "Demon Slayer" or "Jujutsu Kaisen." And if you're already a fan, share your favorite anime moments with someone new you never know whose life you might brighten with a little bit of anime magic.

Happy watching, and may your adventures be as epic as your favorite anime!

References.

Cavallaro, D. (2010). Anime and the visual novel: Narrative structure, design and play at the crossroads of animation and computer games. McFarland.

Condry, I. (2013). The soul of anime: Collaborative creativity and Japan's media success story. Duke University Press.

Napier, S. J. (2005). Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing contemporary Japanese animation. Palgrave Macmillan.

Noppe, N. (2013). Fanning the flames of fandom: The commercialization and transformation of fan activities in the age of media mix. In M. Ito, D. Okabe, & I. Tsuji (Eds.), Fandom unbound: Otaku culture in a connected world (pp. 104-127). Yale University Press.

Steinberg, M. (2012). Anime's media mix: Franchising toys and characters in Japan. University of Minnesota Press.

#anime art #anime aesthetic #anime #japan #japanese #culture

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dayinanimanga · 1 year

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Today in Manga History

September 18th, 1990

Slam Dunk begins serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump. Slam Dunk was awarded the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for best shounen manga in 1994. In a 2006 poll for the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival, the series was voted by Japanese fans as the #1 manga series of all time. With over 120 million copies sold as of 2012, it is one of the most successful manga series to date.

Written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue

#september 18 #1990 #slam dunk #Weekly Shonen Jump #Takehiko Inoue

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nohrianseneschal · 10 months

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Paradise Kiss: A Lesson on Dreams and Being Happy (heavy spoilers) Part 1

Thanks to this totally random tweet about anime endings, I'm reminded of an old shoujo manga flame of mine from the early 2000s: Paradise Kiss, nicknamed ParaKiss by its mangaka and fans. In stereotypical Ai Yazawa fashion (baddum tss), this manga revolves around a hopelessly flawed yet peak relatable girl undergoing the trials and tribulations of self-discovery. It just so happens that the setting takes place in a generic, average-sized town in Japan, and it just so happens that this town is home to an eclectic ensemble cast of aspiring fashionistas and designers. And it also just so happens that this cast is at a crossroads: their 3rd year in high school. Yukari was initially on the conventional path of graduating with top marks and entering into a prestigious university. By the time we get to the 2nd chapter of the manga, we see Yukari cast all her mother's dreams aside to become a model in the cutthroat fashion industry.

We begin with our protagonist Yukari, who is enrolled in an elite private high school. She spends her days studying for college entrance exams, but early on, we discover that her hard work is very extrinsically motivated. Specifically, her mother has had an iron-clad grip on her life, and if not for a chance encounter on the street, Yukari would've continued on in this way. Living without living. Doing things that don't make her happy or give her any meaning -- a shell for others' aspirations and desires.

As I said, a chance encounter brings her to the hole-in-the-wall atelier, which was an antique bar rennovated into an... well, atelier for fashionistas attending the local art school. Yukari has been scouted by one of the students to model for their upcoming fashion show in the school's Culture Festival. Although she vehemently opposes the idea at first, Yukari decides to model for them, after witnessing firsthand the extent of their conviction and earnestness of their efforts.

I am deliberately downplaying George's role in here, because I do think future readers should get to know George (the manga's romantic lead and 90s toxic boy) at their own pace and through Yukari's perspective. Describing him would remove some of the magic that is necessary to experience through Yukari's besotted eyes, and Yazawa does a great job staging the cognitive dissonance Yukari herself feels when she's around George. What you should know right away is that George is the de facto leader of the Atelier group and designer behind the label Paradise Kiss. It is his word that becomes the final voice in asking Yukari to model, and it is his intoxicating presence that drives her to join them.

All this to say, that there's a reason -- I think -- that ParaKiss, out of many other Shoujo or even Shounen romances of the 2000s, is still the only one being reprinted. Its 20th-anniversary edition was reprinted back in 2019. In the wake of Nana's permanent hiatus (Yazawa's more popular manga), ParaKiss's fandom is alive and well. More and more people are discovering it, thanks to the reductively short anime adaptation making its way to streaming services. The promise of a (very satisfying) conclusion provides a healing balm of sorts for deluded Nana fans, and the story in its entirety holds its own as a romance masterpiece. The art style, the fashion, the romance, and the writing are all top scorers, but something about ParaKiss remains startlingly unique despite more than 20 years passing us by. Very few shoujo manga dare to try what Yazawa has done with this story, and very few shoujo manga do it so seamlessly -- devoid of the mandatory witticisms and marvelizations so common in today's media. ParaKiss is honest. Brutally honest. Yukari's inner monologues and expressions anticipate what the audience is thinking, not because she's so clever but because we can all relate to her. We've all made that mistake we can't help making. We've all watched ourselves undergo the consequences of our stupid actions, with nothing but self-pity to help us weather the storm. And all of us have known the beauty of believing the world is full of limitless possibilities, and we've tasted the bittersweet revelation that limitations do exist, and that's okay.

In other words, you don't have to be an intellect to enjoy and feel the takeaways of ParaKiss. The mangaka isn't trying to wink and nudge you into believing you're a smart consumer, because Yukari's story (or perhaps, Yukari herself) speaks of a hurt deeper than narrative conflict. Her hurt comes from one's first love, whatever or whoever it may be. First love isn't always romance (although it's a huge part of Yukari's story in ParaKiss). First love is the feeling that everything is new and ripe for discovery. First love is the disappointment that this period of discovery is finite, but you're so much stronger and better for having gone through it, brief as it may be. That is Paradise for Yukari: first love as the Edenic coming-of-age journey she needed to become who she is meant to be.

Many fans and critics agree that Paradise Kiss is a story about one's first love, and how you can have an impactful romance without it ending into a happily ever after. Of course I agree with this take. George is the 2nd protagonist, no question. His presence, actions, and personality catalyze the journey of self-discovery that Yukari finds in her last year of high school.

That said, I don't think enough attention has been paid to the other first love Yukari goes through: the world of fashion. Indeed, the story begins and ends with Yukari's time in the fashion world - her first thrills of modeling and her final, bittersweet acceptance of its inevitable end. This part of the story is so underhanded yet profoundly philosophical, I'm surprised discussions of fashion have become afterthoughts in any serious commentary of ParaKiss.

It's worth noting that Yukari doesn't exactly have insecurities directly related to her physical appearance. It's probably the most unrelatable part of her. When people comment on her beauty, she doesn't deny it, but she doesn't affirm it. We're meant to see and understand Yukari's natural beauty as a fact of her life, like the color of her hair or her height. She even brags about being able to stay skinny no matter how much she eats, which is the closest I came to hating a shoujo protagonist to be honest. Rather, her feelings of self-inadequacy stem from her immaturity, lack of style, and overall lack of self-confidence. In other words, when she starts the story believing her crush on classmate Tokumori is hopeless, she reasons, "Tokumori won't go for girls like me." Yukari doesn't mean she's too ugly for him. She means she's too inferior; too stupid; too 'uncool' for someone she perceives as the ideal. Even when she swiftly moves on to George and sets her sights on him, Yukari's feelings of worthlessness influence her behavior and decisions in the relationship, ultimately affecting how George himself treats her.

If Yukari's psyche sounds incoherent, it is and it isn't. It's realistically incoherent. Women are socially conditioned to find themselves inadequate in some way, and that self-perception is ultimately dictated by how men receive and project it back. This is the genius of ParaKiss. Whether or not you relate, this facet of Yukari's personality is an apt observation on what it means to be a woman as a high schooler, and I don't think it's an accident that prior to meeting the ParaKiss fashion team, Yukari's self-worth came entirely from her mother. For Yukari, growing up and leaving the nest means learning your place in the world in relation to men, and perhaps that's why Yukari's first love is riddled with so much pain, beauty, and joy.

In this cut-out of a panel, Yukari finally asks herself the question that must be in the fore of everyone's minds: 'What am I to George?' What is she to the man she considers the most important to her? What are we in relation to men? It takes Yukari 6 months to figure out that she doesn't need George to answer the first part of that question. By the time the series ends, Yukari is able to ask the same question without George.

These romantic pitfalls and triumphs become more meaningful when you realize this occurs in the context of breaking out into the fashion industry. Similar to Eve in Milton's Paradise Lost, Yukari looks at a mirror and discovers herself. She falls in love with that image. She falls in love with what fashion (not George!) reflects back at her -- a confident, cool woman who can don all sorts of masks and clothes.

When she asks a veteran model for advice on how to walk the runway, the model cryptically replies, "Just tell yourself you're the most beautiful woman in the world." This is a hurdle for the likes of Yukari, whose low self-esteem has prevented her from truly being alive prior to the events of the story. When she does walk down that runway, fully confident and basking in the crowd's reaction to her beauty, Yukari finally understands what it means. Telling yourself you're the most beautiful woman in the world is akin to believing yourself a woman; akin to believing yourself a woman worth existing and hogging the spotlight, without a man to justify it. Yukari might have been wearing clothes that George designed, but one can argue that the dress would not exist without Yukari. Indeed, he designed it with her face and body in mind. Yukari herself inspires the art George believes he's creating, and Yukari herself embodies and imparts the meaning of that art for the audience when she walks down the runway.

Thanks to the fashion show and Yukari's success, George himself realizes he cannot design for ready-to-wear clothing lines. Yukari too discovers that modeling isn't something she can just do. It's something she can work hard at, succeed, fail, and still enjoy. Unlike the grind of studying endlessly for exams she'll never pass, Yukari finds fulfillment in trying and failing in the fashion industry, and this self-realization lets her redefine what it means to succeed and fail, as we all come to understand by the end of the manga.

Given that Ai Yazawa studied fashion, it's no surprise that clothing, design, and the industry's connections are all important for Yukari's coming-of-age. Modeling and wearing George's clothes aren't all butterflies and roses. As we later see by the end of the manga, fashion leaves Yukari feeling dehumanized at times, which Yukari outright states in an inner monologue by calling herself a 'doll.' The liberating potential of modeling becomes a prison, in the right context. When another woman -- particularly one who rejects modeling or being a man's muse and instead aims to be a designer herself -- enters George's life, Yukari feels helpless. The autonomy she gained by modeling bites back in a mocking display of her own shallow disregard for other women's agency. Indeed, she acts vile toward Kaori (the aspiring designer in question), solely because she's threatened by how George sees her as an equal. The potential of self-fulfillment comes crashing down when the implication here is that, as his muse and model, Yukari will never be his equal.

I'm going to take a second and point out how brilliant this brief love triangle is on the part of Ai Yazawa. We are so used to shoujo protagonists who are sweet, understanding, and unfailingly good. Yukari is a surprise, to say the least. She's not afraid to be mean and flaunt her beauty to intimidate her competition, and at the same time, she's not afraid to own up to her faults and wallow in self-pity when humbled. Although George is the intermediary in the love triangle, you can also see how the fashion industry itself pits women against each other. Yukari can't measure up to Kaori, the talented and mature designer with true compassion for her peers and classmates. The culture festival led Yukari to believe that she, as their model, takes center stage, but with the show over, her status as model reduces to her one of the many cogs that prop up designers' creativity and will. If God is the designer in this paradise, then Eve is just a shell of and for his designs, just as Yukari recedes to a doll when George no longer respects her. Life, it seems, is difficult for a fashion model who seeks to affirm her existence and purpose in a world that devalues such traits in the first place.

Spoilers: George and Yukari's relationship lasts only 6 months, but Yukari's relationship with fashion lasts much longer: 10 years. In the manga's epilogue, Yukari is nearing retirement, and she mentions 'plateauing' in her career as a model. Although as a teenager she aspired to be a world class super model, her work only takes her to other cities in Japan, and she is content to end less with a bang and more like a firm sense of dignity and pride at her work.

It's also no shocker that, rather than confirm her retirement, the manga ends with an announcement of her engagement and imminent marriage to her Tokumori, her high school crush and classmate. The last panels mock the sense that first loves are more powerful than the present love they experience (which is so amazing and Part 2 will be about that), and while these lighthearted panels tell us it's a joke, you can easily see how those words apply to Yukari's love affair with fashion.

Her crush and first love spur her to 10 years of a successful career. Perhaps she never realized her ambitions of modeling in the West, but she nevertheless finds and declares herself successful. This is what first love is. You might start out believing it needs to be 'happily ever after,' but you can end it and grow and realize that 'remembered ever after' is just as good, for the role it had in your life and your growth.

Yukari isn't just telling us the story of her first love with George. She's also telling us the story of how she fell in love with herself through fashion, and how her job as a model helped her live the many lives she otherwise would've never experienced if she had stayed on her mother's preplanned course.

Fashion isn't just about the clothes, the romance, or the glamorous lifestyles. Fashion is looking back and basking in being looked at. Fashion is making meaning out of how others perceive you, and fashion can be a cruel reminder that those meanings are already preordained and predetermined. Yukari doesn't necessarily fight against that. She embraces it all and learns from it.

I'm going to stop here, because I don't think an essay about ParaKiss and first love is complete without talking about George's own implied ending and Tokumori's constant presence in the beginning, middle, and end of Yukari's story. There's still so much to say, so I'll save it for Part 2. For now, let me conclude with the argument that Paradise Kiss is so unique in so many ways. It takes on the typical rhythms and beats of a shoujo manga, but it also embraces the flaws, ugliness, and messiness of love as it manifests in romance and fashion. You can't appreciate and love ParaKiss without understanding how Yazawa carefully crafts and packages a coming-of-age story into a seemingly typical love story. To use the jargon of the trade, we come into ParaKiss believing the firm and distinct boundary separating haute couture from ready-to-wear. Fashion is both, and to fall in love with it is beautiful.

#paradise kiss #Ai Yazawa #lia rambles #meta #ParaKiss

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kastelpls · 1 year

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steam visual novel fest sale recs

i like visual novels and there's a vn fest going on, so here's a thread on titles i like:

ELIZA

https://store.steampowered.com/app/716500/Eliza

i recently finished this title and while the topic is certainly relevant, what drew me more was how it depicted the traumas of tech startup culture. whether intentional or not, the dreams and aspirations of tech workers to solve problems become tainted by capital and hubris.

the protagonist is jaded as fuck because she's seen her creation take over the world. but she's not as melodramatic as dr frankenstein; she is still gauging how things are going. her alienated view on the world around is intoxicating and i really found the pov very charming.

the experience of playing this game made me feel like i've returned to my unpaid internship days for better or for worse. it's a story that will forever remain relevant until silicon valley and the tech industry as we know it are over. wonderful title.

SeaBed

https://store.steampowered.com/app/583090/SeaBed/

i have personal stakes in seabed since i'm one of the two non-translators credited to bringing this yuri vn overseas. my bias aside, i think this is one of the most unique video games of all time.

you follow a bunch of adults aimlessly wandering around as the world around them reflects their mental states. things just happen, but everyone takes it in the most matter-of-fact fashion. the writing is intentionally tedious at times because it is in love with the mundane. it's a story all about grief, but it is also about how to approach the ebb and flow of life.

as a friend once said, "it's a mystery where the characters don't realize they're in one." or as i like to put it, "a mystery in search of a mystery".

Christmas Tina

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049100/_/

set in the notorious bubble era of japan, this may look like a romantic encounter between a chinese dude and a japanese girl at first glance. however, it drops that premise by having them squabble forever and not learn each other's languages.

the game is instead about minorities struggling to survive. the chinese guy left china for various reasons and wanted to make a name for himself while the japanese girl got into a car accident with a person engaged in the sex trade because she was looking for money to pay for her sister's surgery. later on, you'll read about different chinese members, a woman raised by a chinese-japanese couple, and other interesting people that make up japan today.

if there is a game i like to credit for inspiring my interest into connecting with my traumatic chinese history again in my own writing, it's this title. there's a section that surprised me because it was, after all, a title mainly developed in china and it's still very recent history. but i'm glad the developers took the risk and it's an impressive episode.

i'd seriously recommend this game if you haven't tried it. it's seriously a sleeper hit.

Chuusotsu

https://store.steampowered.com/app/630870/Chuusotsu_1st_Graduation_Time_After_Time/

the first of an ongoing series, chuusotsu 1st is about a bunch of middle school graduates who can't graduate into high school for various reasons. stories about their traumas are interlinked with the chaos of japanese social media.

likewise, it's also about trying things that they are scared to try. the protagonist is an anxious girl who wants to do art, but she keeps failing at socializing. she's cute.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158850/The_Great_Ace_Attorney_Chronicles/

since this was featured in the festival, i might as well give it a shout. this is more an adventure game in the Ace Attorney series, but i consider it to be the best game and everyone should play it.

it explores a historical period dear to my heart: the era of meiji japan and victorian england. here are two imperialist nationstates, but the latter is stronger than the former and is secretly dictating how japan should behave.

not only does the game explore this colonial dynamic but it also looks into how racism functions in the british justice system. any pretense of democracy and fairness is ultimately failed when the british jury sees the protagonist and calls him an ape.

i credit the final chapter for changing my dissertation thesis when i was still doing my masters. if i ever do a phd, i'm going to continue studying the history of international students and what it reflects about us as a humanity.

Return to Shironagasu Island

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1156990/Return_to_Shironagasu_Island/

a surprise doujin hit in japan, this visual novel written by an ex-mystery writer is very old-school to a fault. you are exploring one of those MURDER ISLANDS and there's orthodox mystery tricks, but it's well-executed.

the main star is neneko who's a little cringe beast. she's cute.

games i've heard are good but haven't played yet

Bustafellows

Taisho x Alice

The Flowers series

Symphonic Rain

Tangle Tower

Fatal Twelve

Furikake Spacy

A Year of Springs

Narcissu 10th Anniversary Project

2064: Read Only Memories

Analogue: A Hate Story

if you are looking for more recommendations on steam, i have a curation page.

#visual novel #steam visual novel fest #game recommendations

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redsamuraiii · 8 months

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Book Recommendation : JAPAN JOURNEYS

Unlike today where you can post countless travel photos on social media for all to see, in Edo Period Japan, people share pictures of beautiful travel destinations via woodblock art.

After years of civil wars and restrictions on individual mobility, travel became a popular leisure activity in Japan, thanks to the development of a network of well built and fairly safe roads.

Like today, traveling provides opportunities to experience culinary and cultural specialties. This enjoyment was reflected vividly in woodblock prints for those who did not get to travel.

These prints were sold or displayed at marketplaces or festivals where people get to see beautiful sceneries of places they had never been to before, which encouraged more to travel.

The historic views of Japan have been preserved over the generations, offering a fascinating perspective on familiar locations for tourists both domestic and foreign today.

In this book, art historian, Andreas Marks, has gathered a selection of detailed woodblock prints depicting scenic spots and cultural icons that still delight visitors today in Japan.

You’ll see what places like Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo looked like in the 19th century. And you’ll be surprised to see how the temples and castles look the same but not the background.

Buildings and architectures that have withstood the test of time, being rebuilt or preserved from Edo Period till today, which makes Japan one of the most unique travel destinations.

A pleasant read for travel and Japan enthusiasts who love photography and art. As each woodblock print has a story of its own through the eyes of the Japanese artists.

#japan journeys #andreas marks #tuttle publishing #japan #woodblock print #edo period #japanese culture #japanese art #japanese book #book therapy #book of the day #book recommendations #geisha #japanese castle #kyoto #kamakura #himeji #hiroshima

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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I hope you are not bored with the BL talks, but I found out a bit that it seems the eastern perception and western perception on BL felt different, but not in a way that most people talked about. I find it a bit odd that more mlm on the US like BL than any other place. I dunno, I used to find it odd cause I relate BL as something more feminine oriented (not saying it dictates someone gender roles, but target audience is a thing). I wonder if it relates to US gender roles and lgbt culture, then stuff like censorship because US seems to go harder on LGBT censorship. At the same time, I realized that it should not be weird if cis gay men in some places read BL more or relate to BL more, considering how it is one of the easiest "gay content" you can find on the internet. Though, just like most of the people who talks about BL and on tumblr, I'm not a gay men, my views might be bullshit and biased.

The US has more censorship? What the fuck are you smoking?

The US is bad at putting queer characters in action blockbusters, but it isn't particularly censored. There have been gay bookstores going back decades. There have been film festivals. We queer people have it good in the US compared to many countries, including a lot of the ones with BL industries.

BL isn't a genre in the sense that it doesn't have specific mandatory genre elements that define it, but it certainly has strong aesthetic trends when compared to gei komi or gay art films by dudes or whatever. It makes sense that people would often prefer one or the other.

My guess is that the readership split is like it is most places: dudes who really like the tropes from "women's" media will gravitate to BL. Many a dude has said that if you want a romance novel, you find a female author. Dudes who aren't looking for that vibe will gravitate to media made by men with an intended target audience of men.

I've seen the stats that Viz in the US is finding that a sizeable chunk of the buyers of BL titles in English are dudes. If I had to guess why, I'd say it's because the US is more prone to assuming that all m/m content is for mlm, and the places one can buy such content aren't like "THIS IS THE GIRLS' SECTION!!!" A guy doesn't have to walk into a store or section aimed at women where women will side-eye him and be uncomfortable to see him there in order to buy BL.

Because the general public in the US has no clue about BL, a guy won't be seen as any more or less effeminate for consuming this particular m/m media vs. other m/m media. (Though a bigot might think he's unmanly for liking men in general.)

The default US view is to accuse women of "stealing" while actually trying to steal BL from us, which is a huge cultural difference from a lot of places with bigger BL industries. I'm sure that has an effect.

But frankly, if a lot of US mlm are buying BL openly, it's probably just because it's relatively easy to openly be a gay man in the US, so they don't care if people know they're buying girly m/m books. Maybe being out in Taiwan is okay, but Japan? China?! Things are improving rapidly in some countries, but that doesn't make them great.

I dunno, man, are we comparing the spending habits of out mlm to other out mlm, or are we comparing the proportion of people who admit what they're reading? Which specific countries are we comparing? There are a lot of factors to consider here.

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studentofetherium · 2 years

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@previous anon: FUCK YOU

Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a Japanese anime television series created and co-produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura. Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe, the series was broadcast for 13 episodes on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from July to September 1998. The series follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet.

Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity, and communication.[3] The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk, and conspiracy theory. Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere, themes, and its dark depiction of a world fraught with paranoia, social alienation, and reliance on technology considered insightful of 21st century life. It received the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 1998. Contents1 Plot 2 Characters 3 Production 3.1 Writing 3.2 Character design 3.3 Themes 3.4 Apple computers 4 Broadcast and release history 4.1 Episode list 5 Reception 6 Related media 6.1 Art books 6.2 Soundtracks 6.3 Video game 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Plot

Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father; Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from a dead student, Chisa Yomoda, and she pulls out her old computer in order to check for the same message. Lain finds Chisa telling her via email that she is not dead but has merely "abandoned her physical self" and is alive deep within the virtual realm of the Wired itself, where she claims she has found "God" there. From this point, Lain is caught up in a series of cryptic and surreal events that see her delving deeper into the mystery of the network in a narrative that explores themes of consciousness, perception, and the nature of reality.

"The Wired" is a virtual realm that contains and supports the very sum of all human communication and networks, created with the telegraph, televisions, and telephone services, and expanded with the Internet, cyberspace, and subsequent networks. The series assumes that the Wired could be linked to a system that enables unconscious communication between people and machines without physical interface. The storyline introduces such a system with the Schumann resonances, a property of the Earth's magnetic field that theoretically allows for unhindered long-distance communications. If such a link were created, the network would become equivalent to Reality as the general consensus of all perceptions and knowledge. The increasingly thin invisible line between what is real and what is virtual/digital begins to slowly shatter.

Masami Eiri is introduced as the project director on Protocol Seven (the next-generation Internet protocol in the series' time-frame) for major computer company Tachibana General Laboratories. He had secretly included code of his very own creation to give himself absolute control of the Wired through the wireless system described above. He then "uploaded" his own consciousness into the Wired and "died" a few days after, leaving only his physical self behind. These details are unveiled around the middle of the series, but this is the point where the story begins. Masami later explains that Lain is the artifact by which the wall between the virtual and material worlds is to fall, and that he needs her to go into the Wired and "abandon the flesh", as he did, to achieve his plan. The series sees him trying to convince her through interventions, using the promise of unconditional love, romantic seduction and charm, and even, when all else fails, threats and force.

In the meantime, the anime follows a complex game of hide-and-seek between the "Knights of the Eastern Calculus" (based on the Knights of the Lambda Calculus), hackers whom Masami claims are "believers that enable him to be a God in the Wired", and Tachibana General Laboratories, who try to regain control of Protocol Seven. In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute control over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself shows how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of an almighty goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone else's memories of her and everything else that has happened since the premiere. She is last seen, unchanged, encountering her oldest and closest friend Alice once again, who is now married. Lain promises herself that she and Alice will surely meet again anytime as Lain can literally go and be anywhere she desires between both worlds. Characters

Lain Iwakura (岩倉玲音, Iwakura Rein) Voiced by: Kaori Shimizu (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman4 The titular character of the series. Lain is a fourteen-year-old girl who uncovers her true nature through the series. She is first depicted as a shy junior high school student with few friends or interests. She later grows multiple bolder personalities, both in the physical world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually comes to discover that she is, in reality, merely an autonomous, sentient computer program in the physical and corporeal form of a human being, designed to sever the invisible barrier between the Wired and the real world. In the end, Lain is challenged to accept herself as a de facto goddess for the Wired, having become an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being with worshippers of her own, as well as an ability to exist beyond the borders of devices, time, or space.

Masami Eiri (英利政美, Eiri Masami) Voiced by: Shō Hayami (Japanese); Kirk Thornton4 The key designer of Protocol Seven. While working for Tachibana General Laboratories, he illicitly included codes enabling him to control the whole protocol at will and embedded his own mind and will into the seventh protocol. Because of this, he was fired by Tachibana General Laboratories, and was found dead not long after. He believes that the only way for humans to evolve even further and develop even greater abilities is to absolve themselves of their physical and human limitations, and to live as virtual entities—or avatars—in the Wired for eternity. He claims to have been Lain's creator all along, but was in truth standing in for another as an acting god, who was waiting for the Wired to reach its more evolved current state: Lain herself. According to another Lain, however, he has never truly existed all along and would not have had any self-obsessed ideas about being God if he had.

Yasuo Iwakura (岩倉康男, Iwakura Yasuo) Voiced by: Ryūsuke Ōbayashi (Japanese); Barry Stigler4 Lain's father. Passionate about computers and electronic communication, he works with Masami Eiri at Tachibana General Laboratories. He subtly pushes Lain, his "youngest daughter", towards the Wired and monitors her development until she becomes more and more aware of herself and of her raison d'être. He eventually leaves Lain, telling her that although he did not enjoy playing house, he genuinely loved and cared for her as a real father would. Despite Yasuo's eagerness to lure Lain into the Wired, he warns her not to get overly involved in it or to confuse it with the real world. Miho Iwakura (岩倉美穂, Iwakura Miho)

Voiced by: Rei Igarashi (Japanese); Dari Lallou Mackenzie4 Lain's mother. Although she dotes on her husband, she is indifferent towards both her kids. Like her husband, she ends up leaving Lain. She is a computer scientist. Alice Mizuki (瑞城ありす, Mizuki Arisu) Voiced by: Yōko Asada (Japanese); Emily Brown4 Lain's classmate and only true friend throughout the series. She is very sincere and has no discernable quirks. She is the first to attempt to help Lain socialize; she takes her out to a nightclub. From then on, she tries her best to look after Lain. Alice, along with her two best friends Julie and Reika, were taken by Chiaki Konaka from his previous work, Alice in Cyberland. Mika Iwakura (岩倉美香, Iwakura Mika)

Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Patricia Ja Lee4 Lain's older sister, an apathetic sixteen-year-old high school student. She seems to enjoy mocking Lain's behavior and interests. Mika is considered by Anime Revolution to be the only normal member of Lain's family:[5] she sees her boyfriend in love hotels, is on a diet, and shops in Shibuya. At a certain point in the series, she becomes heavily traumatized by violent hallucinations; while Lain begins freely delving into the Wired, Mika is taken there by her proximity to Lain, and she gets stuck between the real world and the Wired.[6] Taro (タロウ, Tarō)

Voiced by: Keito Takimoto (Japanese); Brianne Siddall4 A young boy of about Lain's age. He occasionally works for the Knights to bring forth "the one truth". Despite this, he has not yet been made a member, and knows nothing of their true intentions. Taro loves VR games and hangs out all day at Cyberia with his friends, Myu-Myu and Masayuki. He uses special technology, such as custom Handi Navi and video goggles. Taro takes pride in his internet anonymity, and he asks Lain for a date with her Wired self in exchange for information. Office Worker Voiced by: Shigeru Chiba A top executive from Tachibana General Laboratories. He has a personal agenda, which he carries out with the help of the Men in Black. He looks forward to the arrival of a real God through the Wired, and is the man behind the Knights' mass assassination. There are many things he does not know about Lain, but he would rather ask questions about her than disclose his agenda. Men in Black Karl Haushoffer (カール・ハウスホッファ, Kāru Hausuhoffa), Voiced by: Jouji Nakata Lin Suixi (Chinese: 林随錫; pinyin: Lín Suíxī), Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki The Men in Black work for the above "Office Worker" in tracking down and murdering all of the members of the Knights. They are not told the true plan, but they know that Masami Eiri is somehow involved, despite having been "killed." They see no need for an almighty, all-powerful God—let alone Lain—in the Wired. Chisa Yomoda (四方田千砂, Yomoda Chisa)

Voiced by: Sumi Mutoh (Japanese); Lia Sargent4 A teenage girl who committed suicide at the beginning of the series. After her death, she e-mails Lain, Julie, and a few other kids, saying that she is still alive in the Wired, leading to the series events. Reika Yamamoto (山本麗華, Yamamoto Reika) Voiced by: Chiharu Tezuka (Japanese); Lenore Zann4 One of Alice's friends from school. She does not seem to care for Lain, since she harasses her quite a lot. She is more serious than Julie, and also somewhat meaner. Julie Kato (加藤樹莉, Katō Juri)

Voiced by: Manabi Mizuno (Japanese); Gracie Moore4 Another friend of Alice. She also harasses Lain, but not as severely as Reika does. She is sometimes insensitive to other people's feelings. Masayuki (マサユキ) Voiced by: Sora Fujima (Japanese); Dorothy Elias-Fahn (English) Taro's best friend. He is usually seen hanging out with Taro and Myu-Myu. Myu-Myu (ミューミュウ, Myūmyuu)

Voiced by: Yuki Yamamoto (Japanese); Sandy Fox (English) A young girl who hangs out with Taro and Masayuki at Cyberia Café. She has feelings for Taro, so she gets jealous when he flirts with Lain. Narrator Voiced by: Takashi Taniguchi (Japanese); Paul St. Peter (English)

Production

Serial Experiments Lain was conceived, as a series, to be original to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda.[7]

Producer Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement made in an Animerica interview.[6][8][9] The controversial statement said Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [Japan] adopted after World War II".[10] He later explained in numerous interviews that he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. When he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed.[9]

The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga). Producer Yasuyuki Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series, though the series was released first. A dōjinshi titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in Japanese in the artbook An Omnipresence in Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared in an interview that the idea of a multimedia project was not unusual in Japan, as opposed to the contents of Lain, and the way they are exposed.[11]

Writing

The authors were asked in interviews if they had been influenced by Neon Genesis Evangelion, in the themes and graphic design. This was strictly denied by writer Chiaki J. Konaka in an interview, arguing that he had not even seen Evangelion until he finished the fourth episode of Lain. Being primarily a horror movie writer, his stated influences are Godard (especially for using typography on screen), The Exorcist, Hell House, and Dan Curtis's House of Dark Shadows. Alice's name, like the names of her two friends Julie and Reika, came from a previous production from Konaka, Alice in Cyberland, which in turn was largely influenced by Alice in Wonderland. As the series developed, Konaka was "surprised" by how close Alice's character became to the original Wonderland character.[12] A young girl in a white shift sits with her back to us in the dark, focusing her attention on many glowing computer screens which surround her. Lain's custom computer features holographic displays and liquid carbon dioxide cooling.

Vannevar Bush (and memex), John C. Lilly, Timothy Leary and his eight-circuit model of consciousness, Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu are cited as precursors to the Wired.[11] Douglas Rushkoff and his book Cyberia were originally to be cited as such,[6] and in Lain Cyberia became the name of a nightclub populated with hackers and techno-punk teenagers. Likewise, the series' deus ex machina lies in the conjunction of the Schumann resonances and Jung's collective unconscious (the authors chose this term over Kabbalah and Akashic Record).[10] Majestic 12 and the Roswell UFO incident are used as examples of how a hoax might still affect history, even after having been exposed as such, by creating sub-cultures.[10] This links again to Vannevar Bush, the alleged "brains" of MJ12. Two of the literary references in Lain are quoted through Lain's father: he first logs onto a website with the password "Think Bule Count One Tow" [sic] ("Think Blue, Count Two" is an Instrumentality of Man story featuring virtual persons projected as real ones in people's minds);[13] and his saying that "madeleines would be good with the tea" in the last episode makes Lain "perhaps the only cartoon to allude to Proust".

[14][15] Character design

A young girl in a white shift kneels facing us with scissors in her hand, and hanks of her own hair on the ground, leaving one forelock uncut. The background is blue. ABe came up with Lain's hair by imagining Lain cutting it herself and making a ponytail of what was left.[8] This was later included in his An Omnipresence in Wired artbook.[16]

Yoshitoshi ABe confesses to have never read manga as a child, as it was "off-limits" in his household.[17] His major influences are "nature and everything around him".[6] Specifically speaking about Lain's character, ABe was inspired by Kenji Tsuruta, Akihiro Yamada, Range Murata and Yukinobu Hoshino.[8] In a broader view, he has been influenced in his style and technique by Japanese artists Kyosuke Chinai and Toshio Tabuchi.[6]

The character design of Lain was not ABe's sole responsibility. Her distinctive left forelock for instance was a demand from Yasuyuki Ueda. The goal was to produce asymmetry to reflect Lain's unstable and disconcerting nature.[18] It was designed as a mystical symbol, as it is supposed to prevent voices and spirits from being heard by the left ear.[8] The bear pajamas she wears were a demand from character animation director Takahiro Kishida. Though bears are a trademark of the Konaka brothers, Chiaki Konaka first opposed the idea.[12] Director Nakamura then explained how the bear motif could be used as a shield for confrontations with her family. It is a key element of the design of the shy "real world" Lain (see "mental illness" under Themes).[12] When she first goes to the Cyberia nightclub, she wears a bear hat for similar reasons.[18] Retrospectively, Konaka said that Lain's pajamas became a major factor in drawing fans of moe characterization to the series, and remarked that "such items may also be important when making anime".[12]

ABe's original design was generally more complicated than what finally appeared on screen. As an example, the X-shaped hairclip was to be an interlocking pattern of gold links. The links would open with a snap, or rotate around an axis until the moment the " X " became a " = ". This was not used as there is no scene where Lain takes her hairclip off.[19] Themes

Serial Experiments Lain is not a conventionally linear story, being described as "an alternative anime, with modern themes and realization".[20] Themes range from theological to psychological and are dealt with in a number of ways: from classical dialogue to image-only introspection, passing by direct interrogation of imaginary characters.

Communication, in its wider sense, is one of the main themes of the series,[21] not only as opposed to loneliness, but also as a subject in itself. Writer Konaka said he wanted to directly "communicate human feelings". Director Nakamura wanted to show the audience — and particularly viewers between 14 and 15—"the multidimensional wavelength of the existential self: the relationship between self and the world".[11]

Loneliness, if only as representing a lack of communication, is recurrent through Lain.[22] Lain herself (according to Anime Jump) is "almost painfully introverted with no friends to speak of at school, a snotty, condescending sister, a strangely apathetic mother, and a father who seems to want to care but is just too damn busy to give her much of his time".[23] Friendships turn on the first rumor;[22][24] and the only insert song of the series is named Kodoku no shigunaru, literally "signal of loneliness".[25] A series of drawings depicting the different personalities of Lain—the first shows shy body language, the second shows bolder body language, and the third grins in an unhinged fashion. The different personalities of Lain have their names written using different scripts.

Mental illness, especially dissociative identity disorder, is a significant theme in Lain:[19] the main character is constantly confronted with alter-egos, to the point where writer Chiaki Konaka and Lain's voice actress Kaori Shimizu had to agree on subdividing the character's dialogues between three different orthographs.[19] The three names designate distinct "versions" of Lain: the real-world, "childish" Lain has a shy attitude and bear pajamas. The "advanced" Lain, her Wired personality, is bold and questioning. Finally, the "evil" Lain is sly and devious, and does everything she can to harm Lain or the ones close to her.[12] As a writing convention, the authors spelled their respective names in kanji, katakana, and roman characters (see picture).[26]

Reality never has the pretense of objectivity in Lain.[27] Acceptations of the term are battling throughout the series, such as the "natural" reality, defined through normal dialogue between individuals; the material reality; and the tyrannic reality, enforced by one person onto the minds of others.[22] A key debate to all interpretations of the series is to decide whether matter flows from thought, or the opposite.[22][28] The production staff carefully avoided "the so-called God's Eye Viewpoint" to make clear the "limited field of vision" of the world of Lain.[27]

Theology plays its part in the development of the story too. Lain has been viewed as a questioning of the possibility of an infinite spirit in a finite body.[29] From self-realization as a goddess to deicide,[14] religion (the title of a layer) is an inherent part of Lain's background.[29] Apple computers

Lain contains extensive references to Apple computers, as the brand was used at the time by most of the creative staff, such as writers, producers, and the graphical team.[12] As an example, the title at the beginning of each episode is announced by the Apple computer speech synthesis program PlainTalk, using the voice "Whisper", e.g. say -v Whisper "Weird: Layer zero one". Tachibana Industries, the company that creates the NAVI computers, is a reference to Apple computers: the tachibana orange is a Japanese variety of mandarin orange. NAVI is the abbreviation of Knowledge Navigator, and the HandiNAVI is based on the Apple Newton, one of the world's first PDAs. The NAVIs are seen to run "Copland OS Enterprise" (this reference to Copland was an initiative of Konaka, a declared Apple fan),[12] and Lain's and Alice's NAVIs closely resembles the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh and the iMac respectively. The HandiNAVI programming language, as seen on the seventh episode, is a dialect of Lisp; the Newton also used a Lisp dialect (NewtonScript). The program being typed by Lain can be found in the CMU AI repository;[30] it is a simple implementation of Conway's Game of Life in Common Lisp.

During a series of disconnected images, an iMac and the Think Different advertising slogan appears for a short time, while the Whisper voice says it.[31] This was an unsolicited insertion from the graphic team, also Mac-enthusiasts.[12] Other subtle allusions can be found: "Close the world, Open the nExt" is the slogan for the Serial Experiments Lain video game. NeXT was the company that produced NeXTSTEP, which later evolved into Mac OS X after Apple bought NeXT. Another example is "To Be Continued." at the end of episodes 1–12, with a blue "B" and a red "e" on "Be"; this matches the original logo of Be Inc., a company founded by ex-Apple employees and NeXT's main competitor in its time.[32] Broadcast and release history

Serial Experiments Lain was first aired on TV Tokyo and its affiliates on July 6, 1998, and concluded on September 28, 1998, with the thirteenth and final episode. The series consists of 13 episodes (referred to in the series as "Layers") of 24 minutes each, except for the sixth episode, Kids (23 minutes 14 seconds). In Japan, the episodes were released in LD, VHS, and DVD with a total of five volumes. A DVD compilation named "Serial Experiments Lain DVD-BOX Яesurrection" was released along with a promo DVD called "LPR-309" in 2000.[33] As this box set is now discontinued, a rerelease was made in 2005 called "Serial Experiments Lain TV-BOX". A 4-volume DVD box set was released in the US by Pioneer/Geneon. A Blu-ray release of the anime was made in December 2009 called "Serial Experiments Lain Blu-ray Box| RESTORE".[34][35][36][37] The anime series returned to US television on October 15, 2012, on the Funimation Channel.[38] The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed by Jasmine Rodgers and the British band Bôa. The ending theme, "Distant Scream" (遠い叫び, Tōi Sakebi), was written and composed by Reichi Nakaido.

The anime series was licensed in North America by Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon USA) on VHS and DVD in 1999. However, the company closed its USA division in December 2007 and the series went out-of-print as a result.[39] However, at Anime Expo 2010, North American distributor Funimation announced that it had obtained the license to the series and re-released it in 2012.[40]

Episode list

No. Title Directed by Original air date

1 "Weird" Ryūtarō Nakamura July 6, 1998 A high school girl commits suicide by jumping off a rooftop late at night. A week later, students are getting emails from the girl, named Chisa Yomoda, which claim that she only gave up her body, but is actually still alive inside the virtual world known as the Wired, saying that there is a God that exists there. After getting one of these emails, introverted fourteen-year-old Lain Iwakura becomes much more interested in computers and asks her techie father, Yasuo Iwakura, for a new NAVI computer system. When she returns to school the following day, the blackboard writes a subliminal message, inviting her to come to the Wired as soon as she can, revealed to be written by Chisa herself.

2 "Girls" Ryūtarō Nakamura July 13, 1998 At Cyberia, a hardcore techno club, a man buys a nanomachine drug called Accela. On the way to school the next day, Alice Mizuki, along with her friends Julie and Reika, tell Lain they saw her during their first visit to Cyberia, but with a far more vigorous and forceful personality. Lain has her father set up her NAVI computer system at home later that evening. After some persuasion, Lain decides to join Alice at Cyberia that night to prove that she was not there before. However, Lain becomes involved with a shooting in the club by the same man under the influence of Accela. She approaches the man, saying that everyone is connected in the Wired no matter where they are. This leads the man to shoot himself out of psychological shock and trauma.

3 "Psyche" Jōhei Matsuura July 20, 1998 The following day, Lain is scolded by her cold mother, Miho Iwakura, for waking up too late. When she leaves the house, she believes she is being spied on when she sees a black car parked near her house. Furthermore, she hears a voice calling out to her when she enters the train, telling her that she is not alone. Her life is thrown into further disarray when she is anonymously sent a mysterious computer chip. She asks her father what it is, but he says he does not know. When she goes to see Taro, with his friends Myu-Myu and Masayuki, at Cyberia, he recalls seeing Lain on the Wired once, noting her Wired personality being the complete opposite of her restrained real world personality. Mika Iwakura, Lain's older sister, comes home the next day, only to see Lain not acting herself as she starts to modify and upgrade her NAVI computer system.

4 "Religion" Akihiko Nishiyama July 27, 1998 Rumors are flying around school and on the Wired in regards to numerous senior students of various high schools committing suicide, with each of the deceased being addicted to the online action game known as PHANTOMa. Interested, Lain investigates only to discover that the game was glitched with a tag game for kids, in which a little girl scares the students to their deaths. Moreover, she finds out that the deaths were most likely caused by the elite secretive hacker group known as the Knights of the Eastern Calculus. Later at night, she senses the Men in Black, who had been spying on her earlier. When she tells the two to go away, a sound wave penetrates through her window, causing the two to fall back and drive away in their black car.

5 "Distortion" Masahiko Murata August 3, 1998 Amidst the events surrounding Tokyo having its traffic information transmission system hacked to cause deliberate accidents, Lain experiences a series of hallucinations that teach her the nature of the Wired in relation to the real world, by means of inanimate objects in her room and eventually her parents. In the meantime, Mika is driven to terror from the Knights repeatedly communicating in unusual ways for her to "fulfill the prophecy."

6 "KIDS" Ryūtarō Nakamura August 10, 1998 At night, when Yasuo checks on Lain, he sees a dramatic change in her room arrangement and the upgrades on her NAVI computer system, which worries him. As Lain hangs out with Alice, along with Julie and Reika, in the district, she notices that children are looking up into the sky and raising their arms, only to realize that they are looking at an image of herself that appears in the sky. Lain searches for the reason behind the strange happenings and finds Professor Hodgeson, the creator of KIDS, an experiment that started fifteen years ago that tried to gather psi energy from children and store it, though the result of the project destroyed the children. Now it seems that the Knights have gotten hold of the project's schematics. When the Men in Black return, Lain goes outside to see them. The coolant system in her room bursts, leading the Men in Black to confirm that the Knights planted a parasite bomb there.

7 "SOCIETY" Jōhei Matsuura August 17, 1998 As Lain gets more and more involved in the Wired world, albeit at home and at school, Alice starts to worry about her closing up again. It is reported that the Knights cracked the firewall of the information control center of the Wired. As the activity of the Knights begins to surface, the network is in search for Lain. The Men in Black ask Lain to follow them to an office in the Tachibana General Laboratories, where the Office Worker in charge of the Men in Black, after her help of fixing his computer, shows Lain a projection of herself in the Wired taking out one of the members of the Knights. After the Office Worker deduces that Lain in the real world and in the Wired are one and the same, he questions her about her origins. However, she breaks down for not knowing, altering her timid personality to that of a more serious one before she shoves her way out of the room. 8 "RUMORS" Shigeru Ueda August 24, 1998 Lain's family has been acting weird lately, much to her surprise. Upon further investigation, Lain disbelieves that she is omnipresent in the Wired, while she is merely a body, more or less a projection of herself, in the real world. A rumor is spread in the Wired about Alice having sexual fantasies about a male teacher, and a second one says that Lain has spread the first. To cope with the distress of rejection, Lain acts directly on reality for the first time, finding out that she can "delete" the event of the rumors. A lookalike duplicate of herself with its own distinct personality starts appearing more frequently, which leads her to question her own existence.

9 "PROTOCOL" Akihiko Nishiyama August 31, 1998 Throughout the episode, background information is being shown from "archives". Information regarding the Roswell UFO incident, the Majestic 12, which was formed by President Harry S. Truman, engineer Vannevar Bush, who developed what is called memex, physician John C. Lilly, who conducted experiments with dolphin communication, pioneer Ted Nelson, who founded Project Xanadu, and the Schumann resonances are all mentioned, explaining how the human consciousness can be communicated through a network without the use of a device. It is also noted that a man named Masami Eiri has suddenly committed suicide. During that time, Lain gets a computer microchip from J.J., the disc jockey from Cyberia. She then asks Taro on a "date" and takes him to her home, where she asks him about the microchip. After becoming frightened, he admits it is a computer code made to disrupt human memory, and it was made by the Knights. Although he defends them, he admits not knowing much about them. He later kisses Lain before leaving. 10 "LOVE" Masahiko Murata September 7, 1998 As both are seen to have switched bodies, Eiri introduces himself to Lain as the creator of Protocol Seven, saying that Lain no longer needs to have a body in order to be alive. As she, back in her own body, comes home, Yasuo says his farewell after realizing she knows the truth behind her existence. Eiri is considered the God of the Wired because he explained that he is worshiped by the Knights. Knowing this, Lain deals with the Knights once and for all by leaking a list of all of its members onto the Wired, leaving a trail of murder by the Men in Black and suicide in its wake. Even with the Knights gone, Eiri still claims he is the God of the Wired, since he says that the real Lain exists in the Wired, not the real world.

11 "Infornography" Jōhei Matsuura September 14, 1998 Lain lies exhausted in her room, and wakes up to find herself all wrapped in electrical cords. After a really long and complicated memory flashback, seen throughout the series, Eiri appears in her room and congratulates her, for having succeeded in downloading her NAVI into her own brain to see and hear all that is happening. However, he warns her about her "hardware capacity," and that she is merely a sentient and autonomous software computer program with a physical body in the form of a teenage human girl. Lain later appears to Alice in her room to make things right with her again concerning the false rumors. Lain declares that anything is possible now, as devices are no longer needed anymore to enter the Wired freely. The next day, nobody seems to remember the rumored incidents and Lain smiles at Alice's complicity.

12 "Landscape" Ryūtarō Nakamura September 21, 1998 Lain witnesses the frontier between the physical and the Wired worlds finally beginning to collapse. The Men in Black are approached by their Officer Worker, who gives them a final "payment" for their services, telling them to leave town away from any power lines or satellite coverage. After he leaves, both Men in Black suffer death from an image of Lain etched in their retinas. Alice enters Lain's eerie house and goes inside her room. Lain explains that she is actually a computerized program designed to destroy the barrier between the two worlds. Lain is still affixed on the fact that humans no longer need a physical body to stay alive, but Alice shows that her heartbeat proves otherwise. Suddenly, Eiri, first unseen to Alice, appears behind Lain, assuming she needs to be "debugged". Lain argues that Eiri was just an "acting god", for she is the true Goddess of the Wired. Eiri retaliates by transforming into a monstrous form to attain the vastly limitless power and strength that she possesses, but Lain manages to crush Eiri with her electrical equipment, wiping him out for good.

13 "Ego" Ryūtarō Nakamura September 28, 1998

Lain's attempts to protect her from Eiri's attack result in traumatizing Alice, Lain's only true friend; in order to fix this, Lain decides to do a "factory reset" on her life, deleting herself from everyone's memory. Distraught from doing so, Lain is determined to discover her true form and identity and takes radical action. She is confronted by her separate bolder self of the Wired, who reminds her that the Wired is not an upper layer of the real world. Her bolder Wired self then assures her that she is the true Goddess of the Wired, saying she is an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being that can go and be anywhere she desires and merely watch the real world from afar. After causing her bolder self to disappear, Lain sees her father. Alice, now older with a spouse, spots Lain standing on an overpass, having some déjà vu about Lain but not recognizing who she is. Alice says goodbye and that she may run into Lain again someday. Lain asserts that this is true, since she is everywhere at once. Reception A suburban scene on a sunny day, showing houses and telegraph poles, but the shadows contain unnatural red splotches. Lain's neighborhood. The "blood pools" represent the Wired's presence "beneath the surface" of reality.[6]

Serial Experiments Lain was first broadcast in Tokyo at 1:15 a.m. JST. The word "weird" appears almost systematically in English language reviews of the series,[23][41][42][43][44] or the alternatives "bizarre",[45] and "atypical",[46] due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction themes, and due to its philosophical and psychological context. Critics responded positively to these thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions" it asks.[47]

According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". Nutt saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series, saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."[48] Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5,[23] and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on all criteria for volume 1 and 2, and a mix of A and A+ for volume 3 and 4.[42] Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet".[49] It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools (see picture). It notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo.

The Anime Essentials anthology by Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.[50] Professor Susan J. Napier, in her 2003 reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation (published 2005), compared Serial Experiments Lain to Ghost in the Shell and Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.[51] According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain cannot. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'".[52] Mike Toole of Anime News Network named Serial Experiments Lain as one of the most important anime of the 1990s.[53]

Despite the positive feedback the television series had received, Anime Academy gave the series a 75%, partly due to the "lifeless" setting it had.[54] Michael Poirier of EX magazine stated that the last three episodes fail to resolve the questions in other DVD volumes.[55] Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network noted that the English dub was decent, but that the show relied so little on dialogue that it hardly mattered.[56] Related media

Art booksAn Omnipresence In Wired: Hardbound, 128 pages in 96 colors with Japanese text. It features a chapter for each layer (episode) and concept sketches. It also features a short color manga titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication". It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/SR-12W/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1343-1) Yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in Wired: Hardbound, 148 pages. A remake of "An Omnipresence In Wired" with new art, added text by Chiaki J. Konaka, and a section entitled "ABe's EYE in color of things" (a compilation of his photos of the world). It was published in Japan on October 1, 2005, by Wanimagazine (ISBN 4-89829-487-1), and in America as a softcover version translated into English on June 27, 2006, by Digital Manga Publishing (ISBN 1-56970-899-1). Visual Experiments Lain: Paperback, 80 full-color pages with Japanese text. It has details on the creation, design, and storyline of the series. It was published in 1998 by Triangle Staff/Pioneer LDC. (ISBN 4-7897-1342-3) Scenario Experiments Lain: Paperback, 335 pages. By "chiaki j. konaka" (uncapitalized in original). It contains collected scripts with notes and small excerpted storyboards. It was published in 1998 in Japan.(ISBN 4-7897-1320-2)

Soundtracks

The first original soundtrack, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack, features music by Reichi Nakaido: the ending theme and part of the television series' score, alongside other songs inspired by the series. The second, Serial Experiments Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix, features electronica songs inspired by the television series, including a remix of the opening theme "Duvet" by DJ Wasei. The third, lain BOOTLEG, consists of the ambient score of the series across forty-five tracks. BOOTLEG also contains a second mixed-mode data and audio disc, containing a clock program and a game, as well as an extended version of the first disc – nearly double the length – across 57 tracks in 128 kbit/s MP3 format, and sound effects from the series in WAV format. Because the word bootleg appears in its title, it is easily confused with the Sonmay counterfeit edition of itself, which only contains the first disc in an edited format. All three soundtrack albums were released by Pioneer Records.

The series' opening theme, "Duvet", was written and performed in English by the British rock band Bôa. The band released the song as a single and as part of the EP Tall Snake, which features both an acoustic version and DJ Wasei's remix from Cyberia Mix. Video game Main article: Serial Experiments Lain (video game)

On November 26, 1998, Pioneer LDC released a video game with the same name as the anime for the PlayStation.[57] It was designed by Konaka and Yasuyuki, and made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story.[12] The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware",[12] and it has been described as being a kind of graphic novel: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock.[58] Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected.[12] The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that they would have to sort through, and that they would have to do with less than what exists to understand.[12] As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her".[11] A guidebook to the game called Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide (ISBN 4-07-310083-1) was released the same month by MediaWorks.[59] See alsoNoosphere

References

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Napier, Susan J. (November 2002). "When the Machines Stop: Fantasy, Reality, and Terminal Identity in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain". Science Fiction Studies. 29 (88): 418–435. ISSN 0091-7729. Archived from the original on June 11, 2007. Retrieved May 4, 2007. "Serial Experiments Lain (1999 TV Show)". Behind The Voice Actors. Archived from the original on January 31, 2022. Retrieved January 31, 2022. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information. "[SEL] Character Profiles". Anime Revolution. Archived from the original on March 23, 2007. Retrieved December 30, 2006. "Otakon Lain Panel Discussion with Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe". August 5, 2000. Archived from the original on October 26, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006.

Scipion, Johan (March 1, 2003). "Abe Yoshitoshi et Ueda Yasuyuki". AnimeLand (in French). Anime Manga Presse. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2006. The Anime Colony (August 7, 2000). "Online Lain Chat with Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe". Archived from the original on October 24, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006.

"Anime Jump!: Lain Men:Yasuyuki Ueda". Archived from the original on August 4, 2008. Retrieved September 26, 2006. Animerica, (Vol. 7 No. 9, p. 29) Animerica, (Vol. 7 No. 9, p. 28) "Serial Experiments Lain". HK Magazine. Hong Kong: Asia City Publishing (14). April 2000. in "HK Interview". Chiaki J. Konaka. Archived from the original on November 24, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010. and "HK Interview". Chiaki J. Konaka. Archived from the original on November 1, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Serial Experiments Lain, "Layer 01: WEIRD"

"Movie Gazette: "Serial Experiments Lain Volume : Reset" Review". Archived from the original on May 21, 2006. Retrieved October 11, 2006. Yasuo: "I will bring madeleines next time. They will taste good with the tea." Serial Experiments Lain, Episode 13, "Ego". Lain has just erased herself from her friends' memories, while for Proust the taste of madeleines triggers memories of his childhood. ABe, Yoshitoshi (1998). "Hair cut 01-04". An Omnipresence In Wired (in Japanese). Pioneer LDC. ISBN 978-4-7897-1343-6. "Anime Jump!: Lain Men: Yoshitoshi ABe". 2000. Archived from the original on May 10, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006. FRUiTS Magazine No. 15, October 1998.

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Beveridge, Chris (July 13, 1999). "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #1". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Southworth, Wayne. "The Spinning Image: "Serial Experiments Lain Volume 4: Reset" Review". Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Silver, Aaron. "Anime News Network: Serial Experiments Lain DVD Vol. 1–4 Review". Archived from the original on March 25, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Lai, Tony. "DVD.net: "Lain: Volume 1 – Navi" Review". Archived from the original on September 20, 2006. Retrieved September 16, 2006. Japan Media Arts Plaza (1998). "1998 (2nd) Japan Media Arts Festival: Excellence Prize – serial experiments lain". Archived from the original on April 26, 2007. Retrieved September 16, 2006.From the Internet Archive. Nutt, Christian (January 2005). "Serial Experiments Lain DVD Box Set: Lost in the Wired". Newtype USA. 4 (1): 179. Bush, Laurence C. (October 2001). Asian Horror Encyclopedia. Writers Club Press. ISBN 978-0-595-20181-5., page 162. Poitras, Gilles (December 2001). Anime Essentials. Stone Bridge Press, LLC. ISBN��978-1-880656-53-2., page 28.

Napier, Susan J., Dr. (March 2005). "The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 149 (1): 72–79. JSTOR 4598910. Napier 2005, p. 78 Toole, Mike (June 5, 2011). "Evangel-a-like – The Mike Toole Show". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on October 10, 2015. Retrieved November 20, 2015. "Serial Experiments: Lain". March 16, 2002. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain – Buried Treasure". May 11, 2000. Archived from the original on August 26, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain – Buried Treasure". November 20, 2008. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "Serial Experiments Lain". Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2010. "Games Are Fun: "Review – Serial Experiments Lain – Japan"". April 25, 2003. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2006.シリアルエクスペリメンツレイン公式ガイド [Serial Experiments Lain Official Guide] (in Japanese). ASIN 4073100831.

Further readingBitel, Anton. "Movie Gazette: 'Serial Experiments Lain Volume 3: Deus' Review". Movie Gazette. Archived from the original on May 21, 2006. Retrieved October 11, 2006. Horn, Carl Gustav. "Serial Experiments Lain". Viz Communications. Archived from the original on February 19, 2001. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Moure, Dani. "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #2". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Moure, Dani. "Serial Experiments Lain Vol. #3". Mania.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Napier, Susan J. (2005) Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation ISBN 978-1-4039-7052-7 Prévost, Adèle-Elise; Musebasement (2008)

"Manga: The Signal of Noise" Mechademia 3 pp. 173–188 ISSN 1934-2489 Prindle, Tamae Kobayashi (2015). "Nakamura Ryûtarô's Anime, Serial Experiments, Lain (1998)". Asian Studies. 3 (1): 53–81. doi:10.4312/as.2015.3.1.53-81. ISSN 2350-4226. Sevakis, Justin (November 20, 2008). "Buried Treasure: Serial Experiments Lain". Anime News Network. Retrieved September 25, 2010. Jackson, C. (2012). "Topologies of Identity in Serial Experiments Lain". Mechademia. 7: 191–201. doi:10.1353/mec.2012.0013. S2CID 119423011.

External links Wikiquote has quotations related to Serial Experiments Lain. Look up Appendix:Serial Experiments Lain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

this is definitely the new weirdest anon ive gotten

#in case you're wondering this is the entire text of the lain wikipedia article #asks tag

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