MeMyself
03-02-2010, 09:15 PM
I just finished watching Lain for the third time. I watched each episode twice, once in English and one in Japanese with subtitles. There are a few things I forgot about, but even more which I did not notice before. Most of this I discussed in other threads, but I am consolidating it all here.
By episode 2, the Lain of the Wired has already made an appearance. We just haven’t seen her. The gunman who was shooting up Cyberia is shouting out what before seems to be nonsense, but if you know the entire story it makes sense. He clearly recognizes Lain, thinking that she is Lain of the Wired. I missed it before, but when she tells the gunman that all are connected her voice changes. This occurs both in the English and Japanese versions. Lain of the real world briefly becomes Lain of the Wired.
There is a lot of speculation about episode 4 when Mika goes nuts. It now occurs to me that it is “God” speaking to her, although he obviously is trying to communicate with Lain -- hence the words about fulfilling the prophecy. It cannot be the Knights as some have suggested because Lain does not make contact with them until episode 5, and the Knights do not try to attack Lain before the end of episode 5 after she learns about KIDS.
Episode 10 gets rather eerie (no pun intended) when Lain and Eiri talk to each other saying what the other is thinking. If you don’t pick up that that is what is really happening, the conversation gets confusing. I don’t remember if I picked up on this the first two times I watched the series.
When we first learn of Alice’s/Arisu’s crush on a teacher, it seems clear that the affair is all in her head. She imagines the teacher touching her as she masturbates, which Lain of the Wired witnesses. But in episode 11, Alice/Arisu seems about to confess her affair to her friends. It is as if the affair was not in her imagination, but real. Did anyone else see this contradiction? Or maybe the earlier episode was before Alice/Arisu actually started messing around with the teacher and was just thinking about it? That point is not too clear to me.
It occurs to me that after Lain resets the world in episode 13, we are actually following the unseen Lain around from person to person as she checks up on everybody. I always noticed that of all the people who Lain reset, Eiri was the only one who was unhappy. Then again, he was the closest thing that the series had to a villain.
I am still puzzled by the appearance of Lain’s father at the end. Was that just an image of her father that Lain created? When we see him earlier in the episode, the human “father” does seem to have some residual memory of Lain, as Alice/Arisu does at first. But that residual memory quickly fades. So is there a second Dad in the Wired? Lain does hint in episode 11 that she may not be the only person with another Wired identity.
Anyway, please respond so we can discuss further.
By episode 2, the Lain of the Wired has already made an appearance. We just haven’t seen her. The gunman who was shooting up Cyberia is shouting out what before seems to be nonsense, but if you know the entire story it makes sense. He clearly recognizes Lain, thinking that she is Lain of the Wired. I missed it before, but when she tells the gunman that all are connected her voice changes. This occurs both in the English and Japanese versions. Lain of the real world briefly becomes Lain of the Wired.
There is a lot of speculation about episode 4 when Mika goes nuts. It now occurs to me that it is “God” speaking to her, although he obviously is trying to communicate with Lain -- hence the words about fulfilling the prophecy. It cannot be the Knights as some have suggested because Lain does not make contact with them until episode 5, and the Knights do not try to attack Lain before the end of episode 5 after she learns about KIDS.
Episode 10 gets rather eerie (no pun intended) when Lain and Eiri talk to each other saying what the other is thinking. If you don’t pick up that that is what is really happening, the conversation gets confusing. I don’t remember if I picked up on this the first two times I watched the series.
When we first learn of Alice’s/Arisu’s crush on a teacher, it seems clear that the affair is all in her head. She imagines the teacher touching her as she masturbates, which Lain of the Wired witnesses. But in episode 11, Alice/Arisu seems about to confess her affair to her friends. It is as if the affair was not in her imagination, but real. Did anyone else see this contradiction? Or maybe the earlier episode was before Alice/Arisu actually started messing around with the teacher and was just thinking about it? That point is not too clear to me.
It occurs to me that after Lain resets the world in episode 13, we are actually following the unseen Lain around from person to person as she checks up on everybody. I always noticed that of all the people who Lain reset, Eiri was the only one who was unhappy. Then again, he was the closest thing that the series had to a villain.
I am still puzzled by the appearance of Lain’s father at the end. Was that just an image of her father that Lain created? When we see him earlier in the episode, the human “father” does seem to have some residual memory of Lain, as Alice/Arisu does at first. But that residual memory quickly fades. So is there a second Dad in the Wired? Lain does hint in episode 11 that she may not be the only person with another Wired identity.
Anyway, please respond so we can discuss further.