Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain (1998) is an anime series about an adolescent girl in suburban Japan named Lain Iwakura, and her introduction to the Wired, an international computer network.

Girls

Man: "You! You're that scattered God's- What right do you have you!!? What the hell are you!!?"

Lain: No matter where you go, everybody's connected.

Religion

Mr. Iwakura: "I think that my little girl has, perhaps, become obsessed with the Wired. It's just an advanced medium for communication. Don't get it confused with the real world."

Distortion

Mrs. Iwakura: The body exists only to verify one's own existence.

Rumors

Deus: What is the definition of God? If you mean the creator of the world, it’s not me. If you mean an omnipotent ruler of the world, it’s not me.

Protocol

If you want to avoid the pain, you should believe in God. Whether you believe in God or not, he is always with you.

Love

Myu-Myu: Yeah, it's dead. Hey, why don't we go over to my place? ...You don't need to come, Masayuki.

---

Carl: ...but still, I know that I love you, Lain. Love certainly is a strange emotion, now isn't it, Lain.

---

Dad: I wasn't really given permission to tell you goodbye. But then I had to. Because, you see, I loved you.

---

Landscape

Lain: "But wait a minute. Who gave you those rights?"

Eiri: "Huh?"

Lain: "The program that inserted codes synced to the Earth's characteristic frequency into the corresponding Protocol 7 code ultimately raised the collective unconscious to the conscious level. So tell me: Did you honestly come up with all these ideas by yourself?"

Eiri: "What is it you getting at!!? It can't be!! Are you telling me there's been a god all along!!

Lain: "It doesn't matter, does it? Without a body, you'll never be able to truly understand."

Eiri: "It's a lie!! A lie!!! I'm omnipotent, do you hear me!!? I'm the one who gave you a body here in the real world, and this is the thanks I get!!? You are scattered all over the Wired!! I gave you an ego!!!"

Lain: "So if that's true about me, what about you?"

Eiri: "I'm different!! How dare you!! I'm different!!"

Lain: "The Wired isn't an upper layer of the real world."

Eiri: "What do you mean!!?

Lain: "When you were inside the Wired, you were God or so it seemed. But what about before the Wired ever came into existence? You were standing in for someone who was waiting for the Wired to reach its current state. You were just an acting god."

Eiri: "An acting god!!? That can't be!!!"

Lain: "Alice!! So what do you think now!? You still think a body doesn't mean anything to you!!?"

Ego

Wired Lain: "Why are you crying, Lain? Because you deleted yourself from everyone's memory? But, Lain, isn't that what you wanted all along?"

Lain: "It is, but..."

Wired Lain: "You must feel good that no one is dying in any strange way and no one is being hurt and no one hates you, either."

Lain: "Yeah. I guess."

Wired Lain: "And don't forget that dead people's information is no longer leaking out of the Wired anymore. Not anymore. So at last Lain is free and no longer needs to be anywhere. This the way you wanted it to be, isn't it, Lain?"

Lain: "You sound just like him."

Wired Lain: "Him? That man has never existed all along. Even if he had, he wouldn't have had thoughts about being God."

Lain: "I know, but I'm nowhere now. If I'm nowhere, then what? Then who am I? And where am I?"

Wired Lain: "You yourself said it: 'The Wired isn't an upper layer of the real world, isn't that right? That's what that man was mistaken about."

Lain: "Huh?"

Wired Lain: "A network is a field to pass along information. The information doesn't stand still there. Information functions by always being in motion."

Lain: "I have..."

Wired Lain: "People's memories aren't just personal or one part or unrelated fragment of the history of humanity. But they're shared in the collective unconscious. Do you think that humans could create something that could store memory that's that vast? I really don't see how."

Lain: "The Wired has just connected to something else all along. But then what was it made to connect to?"

Wired Lain: "Do you believe most people really need to know that?"

Lain: "Huh?"

Wired Lain: "Just look how far they've come and how much they've accomplished without ever knowing. The human world creates and prays to its various Gods, and they convince themselves this is how the world is."

Lain: "I don't like how you're saying this."

Wired Lain: "Either way, it is Lain who is saying it. Me. Understand? Oh, that's right. Lain was never a person now, was she? Lain is omnipresent, existing everywhere. Lain watches quietly, seeing everything. Right- Lain is God."

Lain: "Wrong. You're wrong!!"

Wired Lain: "It would be much easier if you became God. I think it would be a lot easier than being a human being. You wouldn't have to do anything, just stand there and watch all day. No one would ever look down on Lain or pass judgement. No one would ever hate Lain, either."

Lain: "I don't know."

Wired Lain: "Hey, Lain, why don't we go back to the way it was and start things all over again? I mean, you already reset things once."

Lain: "Enough!!"