Anime & Manga Serial Experiments Lain Is Our Present Time

I did this deep dive video essay/documentary on Serial Experiements Lain a couple years back. It's been pretty positively received, so I figured I'd share it here. The video itself goes pretty indepth and I wouldn't be able to do a good summary of it. But it's just as the title says, it's an analysis of how Lain accurately predicted where the world was heading as well as being an investigation regarding what it was responding to at the time.

 

[SEVEN]

the algorithms had recommended this video to me at some point, never got around to watching it but I stuck it in my watch later list. I'll have to check it out

 

[Dema]

Just watched it and I really liked it, to be honest I would have liked if you talked about the addictive/ dependency aspect, but I loved the documentary either way. Also would like to add that in your closing sentence you said that we will live in the world decided/created by computers and A.I and not the other way. I guess nowadays you could even argue that that is already the truth, we can see it on how trends and what gets popular/pushed is chosen a lot of the time in a synthetic way E.g. any of the algorithms used by the different social media. Overall it was a great listen and 1000x more enjoyable than the average regurgitated Lain youtube video.

Also, months after your video came out, in 2021, Konaka Chiaki was literally cancelled for some dumb shit on twitter if I remember correctly, it would have been perfect to add it during that part of your video.

 

[T_Q]

Just watched it and I really liked it, to be honest I would have liked if you talked about the addictive/ dependency aspect, but I loved the documentary either way. Also would like to add that in your closing sentence you said that we will live in the world decided/created by computers and A.I and not the other way. I guess nowadays you could even argue that that is already the truth, we can see it on how trends and what gets popular/pushed is chosen a lot of the time in a synthetic way E.g. any of the algorithms used by the different social media. Overall it was a great listen and 1000x more enjoyable than the average regurgitated Lain youtube video.
View attachment 2477
Also, months after your video came out, in 2021, Konaka Chiaki was literally cancelled for some dumb shit on twitter if I remember correctly, it would have been perfect to add it during that part of your video.

It's originally from /x/, so take it with a gain of salt. But despite that, there's definitely some interesting stuff mentioned in this thread about 'Digital Demons' (personally I rec this vid over the archived thread as the AI voices and music add a nice touch). But definitely it's scary how much content online dependents solely on whether an algorithm decides to promote it or not. On top of that search features on sites like YouTube and Google are horrible now. Not 4 videos down on any given topic you search up on YouTube and you'll be bombarded with what's recommended rather than what you searched for. Everything we see on major social media sites is purely at the mercy of a disguised algorithm.

The incident with Konaka Chiaki is just crazy and I just wish I could have time traveled or something to include it. If I recall correctly, he wrote something that criticized political correctness and cancel culture and then got cancelled for it. Truly clown world at its peak.

And btw, happy to hear you liked the video!

 

[Dema]

/x/ has some nice stuff, but sadly lately the line between meme and serious threads has dwindled so I don't frequent it as much. Will listen to the yt vid though.

 

[SEVEN]

/x/ has some nice stuff, but sadly lately the line between meme and serious threads has dwindled so I don't frequent it as much. Will listen to the yt vid though.
View attachment 2506

okay it is a bit schizo of me but isn't it strange how all our tech resembles occultic symbolism? circuitry looks like demon sigils and we literally cary around black mirrors (considered extremely powerful portals into the spirit realm in ancient times and now are just modern screens) in our pockets and keep them in our homes.

I am not saying it is necessarily demonic in nature because I don't really believe in a lot of that stuff, but the symbolism is definitely there and I think there is something to that.

 

[Malice]

LETS ALL LOVE LAIN
I LOVE YOU LAIN

 

[melty]

I watched lain a long while ago and didn't have much interest for it. Does it have some deeper meaning that I'm supposed to get?

 

[Khastle]

I watched lain a long while ago and didn't have much interest for it. Does it have some deeper meaning that I'm supposed to get?

I don't know tbh, I think theres to be some additional esoteric meaning and symbolism to it but I never got around to understanding it personally, never even finished the show as I found it boring lol

Worth watching the video by the OP tbh.

 

[BaloneyPony]

Since this thread has been necroed I figure I'll bring up an understated aspect of the series and of Internet culture as a whole:
It's not so much that Lain "predicted" the modern internet as it is that Lain was made during the early technological revolution Japan experienced in the late 90s and early 2000s which very much mirrors our modern technological revolution in the west. Aspects such as Social Isolation through digital spaces, the youth's obsession with portable electronics and specifically cell phones, the mass migration of artistic mediums to a digital space, the debate both literally and metaphorically over the place of the divine in the modern world and so much else that Lain is said to have "predicted" was already occurring at the time of the show's release. This future was far closer and far more clear from a Japanese perspective and makes more sense from that lens how it got so much right. That's why news articles from a decade ago coming out of Japan such as "youths adopting older flip phones" and "Japanese web pages look like they're still out of the 90s and that's a good thing" are now making their way over here as we realize how to temper and balance our relationship with technology and the Internet.
When Lain came out in the west it was enjoyed as fun sci fi but as time passes and the west goes through more of the stages of technological progression the Japanese saw at the time westerners have seen more and more what it was trying to tell the society it was made for. Funnily enough the novel 1984 which is commonly cited by people as predicting the future has a lot in common as it applied the at the time modern Soviet and Nazi surveillance techniques to the expanse of technologies and the ever growing intelligence agencies of the now rebuilding western world.
History is cyclical and it's not as hard as people think to see where the world might be going. That's how Deus Ex, a game based on the then joke premise of what if we made a sci fi future where all your dad's conspiracy theories turned out to be true can seem so prophetic. Remember that in 2016 it was considered fringe to believe that a group of elite politicians had an underground child sex trafficking ring connected heavily to the Clinton foundation. Today Epstein's Island is uncontested fact and has more people asking "Well how much child sex is too much child sex for my politicians".
Anyways that's my Ted Talk for why I have an Anime profile picture of a 14 year old girl who got psy op'd by the CIA into killing herself!

 

[Khastle]

Since this thread has been necroed I figure I'll bring up an understated aspect of the series and of Internet culture as a whole:
It's not so much that Lain "predicted" the modern internet as it is that Lain was made during the early technological revolution Japan experienced in the late 90s and early 2000s which very much mirrors our modern technological revolution in the west. Aspects such as Social Isolation through digital spaces, the youth's obsession with portable electronics and specifically cell phones, the mass migration of artistic mediums to a digital space, the debate both literally and metaphorically over the place of the divine in the modern world and so much else that Lain is said to have "predicted" was already occurring at the time of the show's release. This future was far closer and far more clear from a Japanese perspective and makes more sense from that lens how it got so much right. That's why news articles from a decade ago coming out of Japan such as "youths adopting older flip phones" and "Japanese web pages look like they're still out of the 90s and that's a good thing" are now making their way over here as we realize how to temper and balance our relationship with technology and the Internet.
When Lain came out in the west it was enjoyed as fun sci fi but as time passes and the west goes through more of the stages of technological progression the Japanese saw at the time westerners have seen more and more what it was trying to tell the society it was made for. Funnily enough the novel 1984 which is commonly cited by people as predicting the future has a lot in common as it applied the at the time modern Soviet and Nazi surveillance techniques to the expanse of technologies and the ever growing intelligence agencies of the now rebuilding western world.
History is cyclical and it's not as hard as people think to see where the world might be going. That's how Deus Ex, a game based on the then joke premise of what if we made a sci fi future where all your dad's conspiracy theories turned out to be true can seem so prophetic. Remember that in 2016 it was considered fringe to believe that a group of elite politicians had an underground child sex trafficking ring connected heavily to the Clinton foundation. Today Epstein's Island is uncontested fact and has more people asking "Well how much child sex is too much child sex for my politicians".
Anyways that's my Ted Talk for why I have an Anime profile picture of a 14 year old girl who got psy op'd by the CIA into killing herself!

Wow, I might have to give this a rewatch after reading what you stated, didn't know it predicted that much. Makes you wonder what's being written and released as of present that has correctly predicted what's to come in the next twenty such as Lain did in the 90s.