For day 11 in the 12 Days of Anime I have some quick thoughts on Serial Experiments Lain. An anime I had on my plan to watch for years, and finally made time for it this year. Twice in fact. I saw it with my bro since it was something he also wanted to watch. Needless to say we both are huge fans of it. The second time I completed the anime was in a group with other anime watching pals on that good old Discord I keep bringing up. The group watch wasn’t unanimous in loving Lain, though it wasn’t the worst thing they’ve seen by their reaction.
There’s a lot I like about Serial Experiment Lain worth talking about that it’s daunting figuring out what to talk about, and what not to talk about. I’ll touch about how it subtle storytelling was a lot to my liking. Never feeling like it talked down to it viewers when giving them information, especially during some of those long exposition scenes. A nice touch I enjoyed about it subtle storytelling is the change Lain Iwakura room undergoes. Slowly becoming more mechanical as the series progresses. Becoming an entirely different creation of its original intent.
My desk looks similar when I do paper work at my job
Serial Experiment Lain was ahead of its time depicting the psychological, and social impact the internet can have on a person. Treating the Wire (which is basically the internet) almost as if it’s some kind of drug to Lain Iwakura. Showing a gradual progression of simply being fascinated with the Wire to becoming obsessive with it. To the point she eventually surpasses her own father knowledge on what’s possible with the Wire. Losing herself between two realities she has difficulty telling apart.
Lain Iwakura also lives in a world where she feels isolated in. She becomes very philosophical dissecting many issues on plenty of subjects. The most memorable one for me is when she has a long discussion about oneself, and if such a thing is real. With the advancement, and better understanding of the internet it further muddies what is real, and what’s not. In a way, making it even easier than it was during the creation of Serial Experiment Lain to create your own world on the web. Feeding yourself into a dangerous mindset with even greater possibilities. Further making it easier to create an alter ego that you loose yourself into, and become impossible to separate from.
Another aspect to Lain herself is her limited interaction in the real world. It eventually comes back to affect her negatively being caught up on the Wire. Usually through her discovering of the shadier sides of people, and the Wire itself. Through her simplistic characteristic the anime is able to present a complex storyline that is basically like The Matrix, but more subtle in its delivery. Also, significantly easier to comprehend as a whole. Making up the lack of flashy animations with deep theme explorations, and characters to dissect.
Also, she hack even my blog. She’s scary!
The last thing I would probably about Serial Experiment Lain before I go into spoiler territory is the handling of Lain in the series. There was a balance of her dealing with her own issues, and what the environment around her created for her. Showing her struggle to commit to social interaction in the world when the Wire is so much easier to express herself. Almost as if saying a complete stranger on the web is easier to talk too than someone you don’t know in person. There’s also some family drama in their she deals with, alongside what makes her human, but that would require spoilers. Plus, it been months since I’ve last seen it so I wouldn’t feel like I would be doing it justice if I left something out.
That wraps up day 11 in the 12 Days of Anime. You can expect one more post tomorrow since I forgot my time in real life & WordPress are different. Whoops! I should look into that eventually, but in the mean times I’ve got the holidays to celebrate. So, expect the conclusion in my 12 Days of Anime post a bit late because of that. See ya later, and happy holidays wherever you are!
Well this is a surprise. When I think about unique I am the furthest thing from that definition. In fact, before typing this opening I looked up the definition for unique on Dictionary, and it said “everyone is capable of being one of a kind, except Arsene_Lucifer. F*&% that guy!”. Of course I thought this was a troll until I actually looked it up in my own dictionary, and it said the same thing! Refusing to believe this I asked random people on the streets the definition the of unique. They all told me to go away. It’s as if I’ve been living in a entirely different world than I thought I was a part of. Only one way to get over this revelation, blogging! Firstly, those rules.
Display the award!
Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog. (Try and include a little bit of promotion!)
Answer the questions they’ve written for you!
Nominate bloggers and give them three questions in the spirit of sharing love and solidarity within our blogging family!
Look at Asta! He craves that recognition XD
Before I answer the questions I would like to thank, and provide some kind words about our sponsor Eumiiboo. Do you like reading, but don’t what to read? Well don’t worry because Sakura Galleria is all about further adding things to your reading backlog. Covering a wide arrange of comedy, romance, horror, and you name it Webtoons that’ll make you wish you had more time to read muahaha! Not only that, but you’ll get her thoughts on anime music, manga, and discussion pieces all for the low, low price of absolutely free! Best part of all, she’s pretty good at it. So go check it out! Do it, she holding my Pandas hostage!
Now that we returned to our regularly scheduled blog, lets get to the questions!
If you were to describe your life based on a anime character, who would it be, and of course why?
That’s a tough one. I guess I’ll have to go with Yato from Norgami. Much like Yato, I tend to generally go around doing odd favors, except for people I know. Just like with Yato, his jobs will lead him to some strange situations to almost comical level. Whenever I share my stories in Bobsamurai’s Discord server they tell me my stories sounds like things out of a sitcom. I’m inclined to agree when you have stories that includes a car getting blown up, helping out a friend to fix his problem vomiting on women, taking one of my bosses daughter out to prom as a favor, going into a gay club to help my friend get a guy he has a crush on be jealous, and so many other random things.
Another thing I would say I have in common with Yato is his goofball nature despite the dark past he has. I try to maintain some fun in my life despite the hand life dealt me with. Because hey, there’s no point in moping around as I eventually gotta move forward since you can’t run away from your future.
Now let’s try to get personal, what was one of the anime’s you’ve watch that left an impact on your life, or perhaps change your view in a certain point in your life.
In Cardcaptor Sakura case, it was specifically episode 22, that unexpectedly moved me in a way I wasn’t expecting it too. The series did a good job providing me with a cast of likable characters who grew on me. Then come in episode 22 getting me on a emotional level, and actually made me tear up from happiness of the strong family bond presented between Sakura, and her father. It was touching to the point it made me consider wanting to be a father one day. I can’t name you another piece of media that ever made me consider that.
In 2003’s Fullmetal Alchemist, there’s a funeral scene that has more hard hitting the second time around. I knew the death of this certain character was coming, but it didn’t make it any less gut wrenching, and shocking seeing it a second time. That funeral scene was very sad for me to watch, and is one of the most powerful moments I’ve seen in any anime. It’s only during the closing credits did I realize I teared a up bit.
Both of these anime have a strong theme revolving around families, and both make made me appreciate the same thing even more after watching them. Serving as a reminder no matter how distant the bridge between me, and my family can be at times they’ll always be my family. In a very cliche way, for better, and worse.
Imagine, you have been chose to create a crossover between three anime series, which would it be and why?
For my answer I would combine Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Serial Experiment Lain. A odd combination right? Well with Gundam I get the mecha action, and war politics cover, while Neon Genesis Evangelion has the psychology, and Serial Experiment Lain has existentialism. If I combined story elements from all three anime it’ll be a clusterfuck to manage the information delivered to the viewer, yet I would like to see that. Something like Lain diving into the wire to see all kinds of reaction people have in this world that has mecha wars, and end of world monsters to content with would be interesting.
Witnessing these series to trying to make something coherent in their crossover would be a blast to watch. As for the character interaction side that’ll unlikely happen given Shinji doesn’t want to get in the robot, Lain is addicted to the web, and Ray Amuro hates war. Although, if there is ever a Gundam crossover with Neon Genesis Evangelion I’m still happy with that.
Now my turn to ask the questions muahaha!
What’s the most challenging post you’ve written for your blog?
If you had to choose between making your husbando/waifu a real person, or being in charge of making a continuation to one of your favorite series which would you choose? Of course, don’t forget the why.
Which animal from any anime is your spirit animal?
Now the one thing you’ve all been waiting for. Time to see who wins the big one. My nominees for unique bloggers are:
If you’ve already been nominated, I would apologize, but that just makes you twice as unique. And the winner is, oh my gosh! It’s a three way tie! Never in my entire life hosting such an event has this ever happen! Congratulations everyone! Give yourself a round of applause. You’re all wonderful bloggers.
It’s my time to make my exit, and let the offline me at this time get back to working at his miserable job. Muahaha, wait that’s also me! I’ll see you in the next post. Sayonora bloggers!
A majority of the time I watch anime alone, but on the off chance that I don’t have led to some, um, interesting experiences. Most of these happened on a Discord server that I use to visit frequently. Nowadays I make the occasional drop in, but not as frequently as I use too. I might expand on this down the line with something more coherent, but for now I shall ramble on about something related to anime.
I can’t remember exactly how the four of us came into this agreement, but me the lord of evil Lucifer, Gintoki the New Yorker, Josuke the Australian, and I’ll refer to the last person as Chill. Our obligatory female character who wouldn’t talk agreed to watch Rainbow by Madhouse together. Before the discovery of a site called Rabbit where it’s basically a site where you can watch things in group on a single screen. Me, and the other three folks had to find the episodes of Rainbow on our own, and then all start it at the same time. I saw it on my laptop so for me to check the Discord chat I would have to quickly go into another window to read what Chill said in the text chat said, and then quickly go back to the video player to make sure I read the subtitles quickly enough. Eventually I found an easier to do both.
So during our viewing of Rainbow I, and Josuke were in the indifferent party, and we had Gintoki, and Chill who enjoyed the first episode of Rainbow. So as we continued viewing Rainbow, we became more relaxed with each other, and openly mocked some things in the series. Like in episode 2 making fun of the fact of how easy it was for the prisoners to escape from prison. Me, and Josuke also gave silly reaction when seeing this one elderly character at an orphanage. She had the face that would turn a broken mirror into dust. Gintoki then told us a bit about his background, and how he could relate to the character living in a orphanage. Something like that, can’t remember to be honest. While he’s opening up to the entire group, in the back of my mind I’m thinking “Where did this come from! I thought we were just watching anime”.
There she is, the woman who Gintoki nightmares!
What got me, Josuke, and Gintoki the most was in a later episode of Rainbow reading the line “I’ll rape the fuck out of her”, and the three of us burst out laughing! We still quote that line whenever we bring up terrible writing in anime. Despite all this negativity surrounding her, Chill acted like the fan girl, and loved every minute of Rainbow. Yes, even the “I’ll rape the fuck out of her” line made her hate the character Ishihara (who says that line) that much more. Also during that episode, we had Naruto (his nickname) pop in one day to see what we were watching even though he had no idea what was going on. He liked the episode enough to check out the series, and it become one of his favorites. Something I still poke fun of, alongside everyone constantly bringing up a certain anime I hate.
For the first half of the anime it would basically be 50/50 in terms of what we thought. It wouldn’t be until the second half where I warmed up a little bit to it. We started not making fun of Rainbow as much for a little bit. It was strange going from poking fun of it, to taking it seriously, and then all of us, except Chill, being bored with it. Another thing we sometime did after each episode is talk about what we saw, and than babble on about random stuff. It didn’t matter how serious the anime was since the group was pretty casual with each other.
When we finally finished Rainbow, two of us didn’t like it (one of them being me), the other one thought it was alright, and finally Chill thought it was amazing. 11/10, better than water material we’re talking about here. Something this group watch provided for me is the discussion part of it. Instead of waiting for someone to eventually talk about an anime I watched either searching on a forum post, or a comment section. It was instantly there in the watchalong group, and the conversations typically ended up being more enjoyable than watching the anime themselves at times.
Can’t forget this classic moment either.
The watchalongs, as they were called, eventually got bigger on the Discord server, and suddenly many others wanted to join. It got messy so instead of their being one massive watchalong group there’s a couple smaller ones. I would occasionally join on some of them before everyone got busy with their personal lives. Gintoki is still busy doing New York stuff, and Josuke is finding his inner artist learning the finest painting technique to paint a mural of Australia greatest person, Crocodile Dundee. As for Chill, she’s getting some kind of degree. It would be like a few months I think before I joined in on another watchalong group because my job didn’t want to give me a day off. They love working me 8 days a week.
The next series I saw with a group was Serial Experiment Lain. In the first episode of Serial Experiment Lain, in a Rabbit group watch there was a viewer, who I’ll refer to as Naruto (he likes it a lot). Naruto had to close his eyes, and stare away from the scream because he didn’t want to see a fictional character jumping off a roof. Needless to say it trigger hims seeing that. I would have asked Naruto if he was sure if he wanted to watch the anime, but the group just continued on with it. The experience was different since everyone was talking during the damn English dub! Making it impossible to catch important details when constantly hearing “This is boring” in a chat room.
The Serial Experiment Lain watchalong wasn’t quite as fun as Rainbow, but there were a few highlights. I decided to get the series on blu-ray, and watch it at home with my bro so I knew what was going to happen before anyone else. I took joy in seeing the group’s reaction to a number of things that transpire in the series. Especially Chill shocked reaction when hearing one of the characters played with herself.
Artistic reaction of Chill’s reaction
Another highlight in that watchalong would be someone who I’ll refer to as Diamond Guy who makes the comment that Lain Iwakura was ugly out of nowhere. So I blurted, or typed out the first thing that came to mind that he was checking out a little girl. I, along with some other, picked on him for that as long as we kept watching Serial Experiment Lain. The reaction, as you would expect with a group who just talked over the English dub of an anime, is that they didn’t like it, or understood it. There was a also a discussion, and the rating we would give the series afterwards. There was this one elitist wannabe who just tried too hard to trash it by having little to back himself with. Granted, I did prefer the discussion I had with my brother after watching Lain since we went pretty deep into it themes, but the discussion was fun regardless.
Another thing I saw with this same group was King of Thorn. It’s an anime movie from 2009 by studio Sunrise, and it’s about something. The story was told in a confusing manner, and what better way to experience a sloppily told story than having people talk over it. Once again, we had that one guy trying to be an elitist, and saying things aren’t making sense when he talked over dialogue explaining things he was complaining about. Like barely realizing around 20 something minutes into the movie the main character has a sister.
This viewing stands out to me all because Naruto made a brief serious remark when I said I liked a character name Katherine because she was crazy, and slapped a kid. It started with him saying “Dude, that ain’t cool”. The only response I had to that was the kid was being annoying, and that woman made him silent through that slap. It brought me great joy. However, later on in the movie when Katherine started to become more crazy I referred to her as Psycho Bitch. I jokingly kept calling her Psycho Bitch, and saying she was my favorite character in the movie for being crazy. Long story short, Naruto says “Dude, making fun of people with mental disorder ain’t cool” in a serious tone. All I could think of is “You’re taking my comment way too seriously”.
Must, keep, watching!
Luckily that didn’t kill the mood, and everything went back to normal. Especially me referring to Katherine as Psycho Bitch. When the movie ended everyone came to the agreement that it was a pretty mad movie, especially the clusterfuck of the climax that threw a bunch of nonsense at you. Like before, the group talked about the anime, and than simply had fun on talking about whatever came to mind. These watchalongs helped me make closer connection to these online friends I wouldn’t have otherwise. Of course it did cost me plenty of hours I could have spent sleeping, but then again I’m good enough at my job that even on a sick day I still perform better than a majority of my co-workers.
I would continue watching anime in different groups, and eventually learning more about the people who joined in. Finally receiving character development beyond one trait I recognize them for. So, where am I going with all this rambling about watching anime with other people? I really can’t say I just babbled on about random things that happened. Things at a certain point just all became a blur for me after a whilw. Maybe thinking about it in hindsight it’s anime that brought me, and other people on that Discord server together, regardless were we stand on anime.
Where did it lead me now exactly? Well, whenever possible I still chat, and check in on several people on that Discord server from time to time. Being more like a group of friends who know each other pretty well besides the fact we all like anime. My interactions in the Discord servers also led me to get invited into like over 10 Discord servers, only two of which I actually bother keeping up with. It also led me to appear in an episode of a friend’s podcast (I’m the dude with the jacket) on the Channel Gyre Media. Speaking of which, go check out his channel. He’s a pretty cool guy, with a cooler beard. He loves his My Hero Academia body pillow.
Not sure what to put here. Have another WataMote gif
Talking, and watching anime was the introduction to meeting several of these people on Discord, and it got to a point where we can talk about anything now with each other, sometimes not even bringing up anime. It also led me to having a voice chat that went on for about 8 hours with dozens of people coming in, and leaving because of how chaotic it got. Anime, like any other form of medium, can be more than just a piece of entertainment you consume. It could be a way to make some good friends online, and offline.
Well, I guess that’s all I have to say in this series of jumble thoughts. I discarded this post three previous times because no matter what I did it didn’t come on out right to me. Felt too impersonal in a way. This post has no organization to it, but it’s more to true to how I would about talk about this with someone. I should actually end this before I go even further. So, um, keep watching anime, and talking about it. Especially that bad line of dialogue in Rainbow. Always remember that!
Personafication 