In the second episode of\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain<\/i>, Lain gets a new computer and has a bizarre experience in a club. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of drug use, unreality, suicide.<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand this show at all, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m intrigued by what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m experiencing. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much blank space within\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain<\/i>, and the show asks us to fill them in often. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not so sparse that you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do so; I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a rich fabric of storytelling at work here, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largely impenetrable so far. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll give an example right at the start: the opening sequence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d makes little sense at all, but only because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re thrust into the middle of someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. The unnamed man was clearly seeking out Accela, but we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why. Is that even important? Or is his reaction the most important part of the story? How has technology developed to a point where Accela is even possible?<\/p>\n
Of course, the biggest mystery is\u00c2\u00a0how<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0the man behaves once he takes Accela. The world does not accelerate, as the drug warning tells us. Instead, everything slows down, and a strange woman appears, one who looks awfully like Lain, and I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET ANY OF THIS. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point; this story is designed to give us pieces, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. Where does the man go? Is he truly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153high\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for a full day, or did he take another Accela afterwards? Is Accela a lie?<\/p>\n
There are no answers here. Instead, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d focuses on Lain and the pressure she is under to conform. It was frustrating and sad to watch how her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153friends\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who really are way too cruel to ever deserve that title \u00e2\u20ac\u201c pressure her into doing something she clearly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to. Not only that, but they speak about her as if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually in the room. Instead, they insult her at the same time as they ask her to do more and\u00c2\u00a0be<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0more. In this context,\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feels less like an absurdist nightmare and more like an examination of the social complexities of high school.<\/p>\n
Lest I forget that this is an surreal nightmare, though, Lain has a pervasive and unnerving experience spread throughout this episode. Now, I cannot determine if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s imagining things, if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hallucinating, or if there really\u00c2\u00a0are<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0mysterious people hovering about in her field of vision. Both sequences \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the one on the street and the one in the darkened hallway at school \u00e2\u20ac\u201c felt impossible and yet frighteningly real. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out of the realm of possibility that creepy older men are hanging out on the street and being weird to young women. And perhaps we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re\u00c2\u00a0supposed<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to think about that kind of anxiety. But that scene in the school felt like a twisting of reality, as if Lain had a glimpse into another world.<\/p>\n
Really, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the only thing I can latch on to while watching this.\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0feels like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being shown a new world, one that exists in secret within our own. I have to wonder, then, if Lain is such an unreliable narrator that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even see the full extent of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to her. Are her visions due to what happened to Chisa in the previous episode, or did they exist outside that? Has Lain had an experience in the Wired that the audience doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about? Or is she as much in the dark as we are? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the latter, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d certainly suggests there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more going on here. The delivery man warns of the day when Lain will understand computers and The Wired; the man in the club makes it impossible to ignore the angry woman he saw; Lain is even saying things that she appears to have not even known. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, the very sight of Lain triggered a negative reaction in the shooter, and with just a couple sentence, she appears to have compelled the man to kill himself.<\/p>\n
WITHOUT REACTING HERSELF. WHAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HAPPENING, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL??? Why did that man and her school friends all think Lain was there? Something\u00c2\u00a0had<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to have happened that we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what that was. Did the Wired somehow create a new version of Lain???<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a>! There are various levels of support, from $1 up to whatever you want! You’ll get to read a private blog, extra reviews, and other such rewards.<\/b> In the second episode of\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain, Lain gets a new computer and has a bizarre experience in a club. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Serial Experiments Lain.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[661],"tags":[662],"class_list":["post-5820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serial-experiments-lain","tag-mark-watches-serial-experiments-lain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches have been announced here.<\/a>
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"