Serial experiments: Lain. Vol. 01: Navi

Japanese animated series “Lain”, Volume 01 “Navi”, episodes (layers) 1, 2, 3 and 4. Lain is an introverted thirteen year old schoolgirl who is startled to receive emails from a fellow classmate, Chisa, who has recently committed suicide. Chisa tells Lain about where she lives, “The Wired” (a euphemism for the Internet), an alternate reality where minds roam freely unencumbered by their mortal body. “Weird” Episode 1 (or layer one) establishes Lain’s isolation from her emotionally remote family, and her eagerness to form relationships in the cyber world when she fails to connect with those in the real world. Episode 2, “Girls”: Lain suspects she has an alternate personality operating on the Wired, an uncontrollable alter ego that is the opposite of her true self. When a killer, high on mind-altering drugs runs amok in a nightclub, Lain is mysteriously spared. Episode 3, “Psyche”: Lain is being trailed by several mysterious men in black and gets unusual mental communications regarding the set-up of the Wired. A package, enabling unencumbered access to The Wired, is anonymously delivered. Episode 4, “Religion”: now engrossed with cyberspace, Lain modifies her computer, gaining extensive access to the Wired. Conceptually, “Lain” is comparable to the classic definition of cyberpunk - a paranoid moral and psychological parable that centres on the relationships between people and technology.