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PLOT-
The sixth episode of the 1998 anime Serial Experiments Lain called “Layer 06: Kids” is a great example of a Sci-Fi show that pushes the limit of what sci-fi and anime can do with storytelling. The story follows Lain Iwakura, a 14-year-old who has recently become obsessed with technology and “the wired” (a near-future Internet that you can experience mentally and sometimes physically) But she is watched by shadowy corporations, a group of hackers called, the knights and she has had other strange experiences as well since wandering deeper into the wired. In this episode, Lain’s father enters her room and sees that she has filled her room completely with technology to help her better surf the Wired. We see her talking to random people on the Wired and the scene is very abstract. This episode also shows children beginning to act strangely, raising their arms to the sky and standing still. Lain notices this more and more and at one point, while out with a group of girls from her school, one of whom being her only friend in her offline life, Alice (Arisu) the clouds in the sky part and a large image of Lain appear in the sky. People do not know what to make of it. Later Lain’s family all seem to be strange and her sister looks almost comatose and can barely speak. She returns to her room, which is not only filled with computer parts but also seems to be flooded with a liquid. Lain signs on her Navi, gets on the Wired, and speaks to a disembodied mouth that is another user on the Wired. The mouth tells her that she needs to find Doctor Hodgeson who is waiting in a hospital to die. Lain calls the doctor a “Child-killer” and the mouth guiding her tells her to ask him about “kids”.
Lain finds the Doctor in the Wired and it appears like they are on a beautiful balcony. Lain asks him about the game everyone is playing, and the doctor tells her about the Kensington Experiment he ran fifteen years prior. He explains that using the minds of children; he made a program to use their psychic energy. But after Lain is disgusted that he did not care at all about the children in his experiments, he tells her he destroyed the program and tried to destroy the data behind it, but that someone must have found it on the Wired and rebuilt it. The Doctor seems to admire the people that did this and Lain is even more disgusted by him. But he tells her that if there is a god in the Wired, she has been blessed. He explains that rogues are controlling the new “kids” programs and that they are controlling a video game to affect the children. Lain has seen the children standing with their arms in a V shape, but it doesn’t seem that they have psychic powers. But before he can say more, he fades out of the Wired and most likely dies. Lain thinks that a group that has been a little too close for comfort, the “knights” are probably behind the kids’ program/games. Lain, now back in the physical world, yells into her computer (Navi) that she wants to know why she is being given this information, and if they are playing with her. She asks what the people behind the new kids’ program want with the children, anyway. She says to whomever she is addressing online that they do not care who they hurt, then laughs as she calls them losers. We see cuts to a pressure gauge on her machine every so often, it spikes and dips as she insults the people she is messaging, online, she continues to make fun of the people online, but when she leans back in her chair, she sees’s two red laser dots on the ceiling.
She runs outside to find the two men in black with laser goggles on who have been following her around before this. She asks them if they are the Knights, but they will not answer her. Then they suddenly tell her to get down, and there is an explosion from Lain’s bedroom, which we see through her window, shattering. Lain asks them what the explosion was and they tell her it was just her cooling system on her Navi. One man tells her, “They must have planted a parasite bomb inside your cooling system. Lain asks them if they did this, and they say they did not, and then Lain asks them if not them, then who planted the bomb? And they answer in a single word “Knights”. They get in the car and drive away, leaving a stunned Lain standing in the street, watching as they drive away.
ANALYSIS-
This episode has various tropes that make it sci-fi, and maybe more specifically, cyberpunk media. One of those elements is advanced technology. The tech in the series Lain is futuristic, but is realistic enough that we can almost imagine it existing in our world. Lain’s computer, “Navi” is so much more than a computer. It is a highly sophisticated system that allows deep interaction with the Wired. Even the Wired is a sort of future tech, almost like an evolution of the internet we have in our world today (2024). This evolved internet allows the user to travel within the Wired and also to manipulate reality. In episode 6 we see that Lain is expanding her Navi as much as she can, to have a more powerful connection to the Wired. Another common theme of science fiction and cyberpunk is the possibility of becoming addicted to technology. Lain is definitely by this point in the story addicted to being on the Wired and she becomes braver and more curious online, but her offline life suffers. The Wired is a place where the series hints that you may even exist after death if you want to, a sort of ether that can contain a new reality. This is reminiscent of “Pretty Boy Crossover” by Pat Cadigan another cyberpunk story that explores humans “crossing over” from physical offline bodies into data on a computer system that resembles the Internet. In both stories, the characters are lured to leave the physical form by the siren song of no longer having to answer to time. The transference from physical to digital is usually because of vanity but is also sometimes to tap into all the pieces of knowledge of the internet or simply curiosity. By episode 6 Lain is addicted enough to the Wired, that she wonders which version of her is real, the online or the offline, and of course it does not help that there seems to be another version of her, some sort of doppelgänger wandering around.
Another theme that Serial Experiments Lain often presents, but speaks of more strongly, starting with episode 6, is the impact of technology on the youth that use it. Literally in this episode, children are being affected by being on the wired. They are all playing a game called Phantoma that some kids have become especially addicted to, but it is causing weird side effects. It does not seem accidental that this is happening, and it is part of some larger scheme or experiment involving the Wired. This could be an allegory of the deceptive ways that companies market to children through commercials or YouTube videos. The manipulative way that children are treated by people and corporations is definitely something that Lain’s world has as well, the addictive nature of the Phantoma game is probably even worse than what children in our lives have to engage with because of the pervasiveness of the wired. What I mean by this is, even though in our reality, in our world, in our life technology is all around us, in the world of Lain the wired is even more interactive than our Internet and thus may be more addicting to children and some adults.
The idea of reality distortion is also a common theme in sci-fi, specifically the cyberpunk genre. In Serial Experiments Lain, there is a constant blurring of the physical and digital world. In episode 6, Lain meets with Doctor Hodgeson on a beautiful veranda. We know their meeting is occurring in the wired, but the wired is looking more and more like the physical world. The way Serial Experiments Lain goes about showing this and the way the writers implemented it in the story is unique because it is a fusion of Virtual Reality (Digital environments), Augmented Reality (a digital reality overlaying the physical one), and Mind-machine interfaces(direct neural connections to digital spaces.). Usually, stories seem to focus on one of these types as a way for reality distortion to occur, but Serial Experiments go for all three. Another way the writers play with reality distortion is as the series progresses, the timeline becomes more and more non-linear. Another example of the digital events in the Wired having a physical consequence is seen in episode 6 when the children who played the game “Phantoma” on the Wired have a mass hallucination of having psychic powers (but this is ambiguous and the appearance of a large Lain in the sky may have been their doing, the truth is never revealed.)The effect of the digital on the physical “real” world is another modern-day fear that sci-fi often touches on that is related to technological addiction and is a running theme of Serial Experiments Lain. In Cyberpunk literature that has to do with the Internet or other technological spaces, often blurred or distorted reality is a key concept, cyberpunk often discusses what constitutes a “real” experience.
In the technologically advanced world, Lain lives in, she is meek, ignored, and has no sense of self or purpose. In the wired world, Lain is seen as a sort of wunderkind with using the wired. The disembodied mouth she speaks to during episode 6 seems to be a little star-struck and explains that it will be regarded highly for having helped “the Lain”. The mouth also mentions that it is not skilled enough to have an entire body trans-morphed into the wired and explains that it is impressive that Lain can bring her entire form into the wired. Transmorphing seems to be a way of bringing your physical form to the wired and existing inside the wired. So we see she is not only something of a celebrity online but also she is gifted in ways that other wired users are not. But in Lain’s real life, she has only one friend, Alice (Arisu) (even though Arisu’s group of friends seems to accept Lain somewhat. It appears to be solely because Lain is friends with Arisu). Also in reality, Lain’s family is not warm towards her, and throughout the series, their behavior gets more and more erratic. Outside of the Wired, Lain’s life seems very isolated. The fragmentation between her “real life” persona and her online persona is a common motif found in cyberpunk narratives, symbolizing the individual’s battle within a world characterized by advanced technology but lacking human connection. Many times in Cyberpunk literature the main character may seek a sort of escape from the world around them, and that makes the digital spaces they exist in so addictive. While Lain’s world is not as dystopian as many Cyberpunk story settings are, there is an undercurrent of a darker world under the seemingly normal Japan Lain lives in. This is another theme of Lain, is things are not as they seem. Lain seems to escape a life of alienation and nothingness to be among “friends” on the Wired. In episode 6 we see her laughing and having a great time while talking with others online. She even says, “Why are you all so nice?” Lain in many ways also represents the fears of 1990s Japan, but with exaggerated technology and hidden behind a sci-fi story. (See Japan Essay)