# Serial Experiments Lain (1998)

> A withdrawn schoolgirl's classmate suicide draws her into the Wired, where her sense of self dissolves into networked hallucinations.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/1020

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 13
- Episode runtime: 24 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, science fiction, mystery
- Network: TV Tokyo
- Cast: Kaori Shimizu, Yoko Asada, Ayako Kawasumi, Ryusuke Ohbayashi, Rei Igarashi, Sumi Mutoh, Keito Takimoto, Chiharu Tezuka
- TMDB rating: 8.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0500092/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: slow
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: labyrinthine
- Violence: mild
- Tone: melancholic, eerie, paranoid, surreal, unsettling

## What critics say

Viewers broadly regard the series as a positive, cult-level work whose unsettling psychological cyberpunk vision of networked identity is praised despite its abstraction.

## Synopsis

Serial Experiments Lain (1998) is a Japanese seinen cyberpunk anime series created for TV Tokyo, running thirteen episodes of 24 minutes each. Lain Iwakura, a withdrawn schoolgirl voiced by Kaori Shimizu, is shaken by a classmate's abrupt suicide and begins logging onto the Wired, a vast networked realm where hallucinations, memories and interconnected psyches blur together. Her friend Arisu Mizuki, voiced by Yoko Asada, and her older sister Mika Iwakura, voiced by Ayako Kawasumi, anchor the everyday world she slowly drifts away from. Each episode unfolds as a fragmented, unsettling puzzle in which domestic routine, school life and digital space bleed into one another, and the central question is whether Lain is searching for connection or losing herself entirely. The series is a single continuing story rather than a case-of-the-week format, built from dense imagery, layered audio and recurring motifs that reward attentive viewing. Its tone is melancholic, eerie and paranoid, with a late nineties atmosphere of wired alienation in a suburban Japanese setting. Fans of Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Paranoia Agent will find resonance in its blend of technological dread, identity crisis and psychological ambiguity.

## Shows like Serial Experiments Lain

- [Accel World (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/39382)
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- [Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002)](https://ember.film/tv/1028)
- [Ergo Proxy (2006)](https://ember.film/tv/1030)
- [Haibane Renmei (2002)](https://ember.film/tv/31447)
- [.hack (2002)](https://ember.film/tv/8209)
- [Wonder Egg Priority (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/92796)
- [Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (1998)](https://ember.film/tv/8848)
- [Hell Girl (2005)](https://ember.film/tv/8314)
- [Kaiba (2008)](https://ember.film/tv/31978)

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