[HN Gopher] The terrifyingly prescient 'Serial Experiments Lain,...
___________________________________________________________________
The terrifyingly prescient 'Serial Experiments Lain,' 20 years
later (2018)
Author : isomorph
Score : 145 points
Date : 2021-04-19 15:03 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theringer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theringer.com)
| ulzeraj wrote:
| I like SE Lain but I don't hold it as my favorite anime series.
| I'm more of a Texhnolyze fan and I do like Yoshitoshi Abe's
| character design.
|
| His designs are present in Lain, Niea Under 7, Haibane Renmei,
| Despera, Phenomeno, Texhnolyze and others. I really like his
| artwork and I made a habit of buying one of his artbooks
| everytime I visit the Akihabara Mandarake building.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| In case you or anyone else doesn't already know, ABe also
| livestreams on his YouTube channel. Recently he's been drawing
| a new short manga.
|
| https://youtube.com/c/abflygm
| jpdb wrote:
| Lain catches a lot of flak in anime circles for being "edgy" or
| "deep for the sake of being deep" in that it tries too hard to be
| something thought provoking, but lacks any real substance. People
| still assign what they think the show is trying to say, but
| because the show is so abstract anything sticks.
|
| I tend to agree with the above point, but it has been quite some
| time since I watched it. I wonder if a new personal perspective
| and rapidly changing tech landscape would change how I feel about
| it today.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Even if you if you think the show is lacking substance, however
| you define that, there's more to a show than just the story.
| The character designs (and art direction in general), music,
| sci-fi setting, Apple references, etc. are all other reasons
| for its critical success & popularity (or maybe cult following
| is the right term, I don't know). That the soundtracks and
| artbooks are still so sought after is a testament to that.
| cl0ne wrote:
| The atmosphere created by the sound design and music is a big
| reason I liked it.
| astrange wrote:
| The studio made a show called Boogiepop Phantom afterwards
| (based on some urban fantasy light novels) that reuses a
| lot of art assets, including the sounds. It is
| unfortunately not nearly as good and the animation quality
| is seriously low.
| medicineman wrote:
| >"deep for the sake of being deep"
|
| It is babies first philosophy: the anime. Nothing wrong with
| liking it, the problem comes when people think it is deeper
| than it actually is. It is quaint when viewed through current
| affairs, and much like the article, absolute thesaurus bait
| pretending to be something more.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| As much as I liked the anime, I tend to put it into the
| "pseudo-profound bullshit" category. They drop in loads of
| philosophical concepts, fringe science, wild extrapolation, and
| a bit of conspiracies and paranormal. There is no way you _can
| 't_ make parallels with the real world.
|
| If may sound harsh but it is not a bad thing. It creates an
| atmosphere, and it is thought provoking, as evidenced by the
| article. It is a work of fiction, and fiction is like magic, it
| is all fake, but we enjoy being tricked into it. And that is a
| perfectly good trick when well executed.
|
| Maybe Lain overdid it a bit, but I enjoyed the show, and for
| me, it is the important part.
| teekert wrote:
| Yeah I remember the weird fringe science, using certain
| frequencies to get online without a Navi, etc, but if you
| Googled it, it was all investigated before and real fringe-y.
| But I tend to agree with you, it is trying to be deep in some
| ways.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It's interesting how two people can have diametrically opposite
| readings of the same piece of art.
|
| I read the Wired as not less real than the real world, as the
| influence could flow in both directions, with events in one place
| causing effects in the other. The ultimate confirmation of that
| is the final scene, which was actually depicting Lain meeting her
| grown up school friend some 10 years later, while Lain stayed -
| timelessly - a child.
|
| I once read a story which dealt with the lack of purpose in a
| world dominated by technology, where humans had nothing left to
| do, nowhere obvious to progress. The story presented an escape
| into tradition and slavery along with the progression into
| virtual reality, where new worlds could be built, shaped by the
| will of the participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics,
| therefore granting a whole set of new universes in which to
| search for meaning.
|
| While we don't have fully fledged universes yet, we have gotten
| to various lengths along that road thanks to the Internet. Why
| should we say that experiences of the people who value their
| Internet goals more than the real world are invalid?
| anthk wrote:
| > Where new worlds could be built, shaped by the will of the
| participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics, therefore
| granting a whole set of new universes in which to search for
| meaning.
|
| There was a social oriented MUD in the 90's exploring that.
| munk-a wrote:
| It really saddens me that I no longer have the time to sink
| tens of hours a week into MUDs - the extremely low barrier to
| start one up meant that there were a lot of extremely
| interesting ideas out there - and the interactivity meant the
| art was a lot more engaging than more dead-tree related
| mediums.
| astrange wrote:
| > It's interesting how two people can have diametrically
| opposite readings of the same piece of art.
|
| Mostly because Chiaki Konaka is incapable of writing endings. I
| don't think Lain is that abstract (there's some early parts
| that look like it but I think are meant to be representative of
| schizophrenia), but it is hard to follow what the last episode
| is saying even though they're talking nonstop. With such a
| heavy script you can't always trust the translation to present
| it well either.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| > it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying
|
| I found it hard to follow what most episodes were saying, and
| I changed my interpretation several times, always feeling
| that I'm on the verge of understanding, but not quite getting
| it.
|
| And I actually liked it that way.
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| Never trust a "journalist," or anyone who uses the phrase "very
| online" to review anime in a meaningful way. I stayed away from
| Mob Psycho for ages because of nutty articles like this reading
| meaning and intention into it to a degree that would have made
| Freud blush. It's all just projection. To some people,
| everything has to be about preaching ideology, spreading their
| collection of neat, tidy just-so stories about how the world
| works. They can't just let the work speak for itself.
|
| Glad to see this though, because it reminds me I should get
| around to finally trying Lain. Oh, and I highly recommend Mob
| Psycho as well.
| vharuck wrote:
| Mob Psycho was, IMO, pretty blatant in its moral lesson. Are
| you saying it didn't have one, or the reviewers blazed their
| own trails in defiance of the show's message?
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Are we talking about the anime or the manga? It's been a
| long while but I don't remember the anime being preachy or
| blatant, what was the lesson?
| vharuck wrote:
| I've only seen the anime, but the lesson I got from it
| was: "Society requires many people who are good at
| different things to work together, and your value should
| come from how much you improve the world."
|
| The villains decided fighting with psychic power was the
| best thing, therefore they were the best humans. Mob
| thought helping people and living your life was best, so
| he idolized his master and the bodybuilding club.
| uncletaco wrote:
| You stayed away from Mob Psycho because "journalists" liked
| it and drew meaning from it? What a sad life that must be.
|
| What I find interesting about anime reviews, as opposed to
| video game ones IMO, is more often than not the review is
| about what the writer got out of it as opposed to trying to
| set expectations for the audience on what they will get out
| of it. I guess in a lot of ways that's because anime reviews
| often happen after the fact or are spurred on by genuine
| excitement. It seems very rare that someone publishing the
| review is doing so because the media was dropped in their lap
| and they were told to review the first three episodes for the
| release.
|
| I like that, and it works pretty well for video essays.
| analyte123 wrote:
| "A young girl can't stop posting" as a description for SEL is
| like describing Pan's Labyrinth as "a young girl struggles with
| mental illness in wartime".
| mullingitover wrote:
| Reminds me of the classic summary of Wizard of Oz:
| "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the
| first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers
| to kill again."
| exhaze wrote:
| Saw Lain growing up. Quite fond of it. Pretty weak at predicting
| the future. You know who was pretty good at it? Isaac Asimov
| (spoilers ahead). My favorite example:
|
| Protagonist visits a highly advanced planet where everyone lives
| on their own plot of land. People lead lives of leisure, all of
| their needs are taken care of by highly efficient robots.
| However, they are terrified of physical contact, especially with
| the protagonist, due to a risk of infection with off-planet
| viruses. Here's where it gets kinda scary:
|
| - all interactions are done via advanced telepresence. It's been
| perfectly replicated to mimic physical interaction. People only
| meet in person, apprehensively, for reproductive purposes
|
| - one of the main supporting characters is an extreme extrovert
| who subliminally craves physical human contact. Due to society's
| rules, the only thing she's able to do is take lots of socially
| distanced telepresence walks with a friend.
|
| This book was written in 1957.
| intergalplan wrote:
| This has a lot less to do with the modern world than Lain does.
| Yes, even with COVID. Do you mean it's predicting some future
| state of the world that you expect to come to be?
|
| The "meeting in person is odd, interactions are typically
| machine-mediated and remote" thing was also done (most
| famously) by EM Forster (1909; collected 1928), and also by
| Clarke's _The City and the Stars_ (1956 publication; based on a
| 1948 novella, though I don 't know whether that element was
| present in it as I've only read the novel). Probably a bunch of
| others, too. I'd rank the oracular qualities of Asimov's sci-fi
| fairly low, so far as that matters ( _shrug_ ), especially for
| any original and not already-tropey-by-the-time-he-did-it ideas
| of his.
|
| Asimov's use of the trope in that story had more to do with
| creating a setting as much the opposite of the packed-like-
| sardines city-world of the first Robot Detective book than
| trying to predict anything, or to present the mostly-remote-
| interaction society thing as a novel notion _per se_. The
| defining characteristics of the society on that planet were
| extreme wealth, individualism, and personal-security paranoia.
| Their interaction habits fell out of those traits and
| preferences.
| QuesnayJr wrote:
| I think about this all the time. When I read it way back when I
| thought it sounded like an absurd extrapolation of the future.
| And yet here we are.
| Groxx wrote:
| If you want to go even further back, I recently discovered "The
| Machine Stops" from 1909, which covers a fair bit of that:
| https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/th...
| Ma8ee wrote:
| What's the title of the book?
| intergalplan wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun
|
| Third (edit: second) "Robot" novel (human detective pairs up
| with a robot partner and solves crime mysteries). The world's
| written that way to provide a polar-opposite setting from
| earlier settings for that series (an incredibly tightly-
| packed and bustling city). In both cases, the natives of the
| worlds have adapted to their situation to the point of
| pathology--people from Earth (the city-world) tend toward
| agoraphobia, for instance. The whole setting is part of a
| sci-fi trend of settings that suppose Earth will become
| crushingly overcrowded with humans, leaving space as the only
| escape from that.
|
| EDIT: other poster is correct--I got the book wrong the first
| time (I had it as The Robots of Dawn, from the same series)
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It's _The Naked Sun_. The people aren 't averse to in-person
| contact due to disease (though that is their concern with
| people from Earth specifically). Nearly every one of the
| colony worlds (including the one in that book) have, in the
| books, essentially eradicated disease due to their
| opportunity to properly quarantine and treat it (versus the
| massive population still on Earth, you can't as easily wipe
| out a disease when you still have millions and billions of
| people living in megacities in close contact with each
| other). The particular world has a low population and people
| are spread out, so it's become the social custom to practice
| physical distancing to an extreme degree (think about the
| difference between personal space in different countries,
| then exaggerate it to an extreme).
| munificent wrote:
| Is this a sci-fi novel, or just a non-fiction account of
| Scandinavians in Wisconsin?
| hguant wrote:
| I thought this was a good article, but I wonder at the author's
| background.
|
| >her hardware expands to turn her bedroom into a dim, electrified
| jejunum
|
| I'd like to think I'm well read, but who the hell pulls "jejunum"
| out of their duodenum!
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Funnily enough, there's a whole segment of people who simply
| know words like duodenum, jejunum, etc because a large segment
| of Metal Gear Solid 2 took place inside the "intestines" of a
| giant submersible vehicle.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| I assumed it was a reference to the protagonist's lack of
| maturity, as in jejune[2], but I admit I had to look up what
| the word actually meant.
|
| [2] https://www.thefreedictionary.com/jejune
| [deleted]
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Fun fact, the creative team who did Lain was working on a show
| called Despera but it was cancelled when the director died.
| Apparently it's likely to come out in a few years under a new
| director as it was near fully funded right before Covid hit:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despera
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Serial experiments lain is my favorite anime of all time. I'm
| shocked at hoe obscure it continues to be, even in hacker
| circles.
|
| I figured that coding in lisp is all she needed for the show to
| become a cult classic - but here we are...
| intergalplan wrote:
| https://lainzine.org
|
| (a Neocities site)
| cl0ne wrote:
| There's also https://lainchan.org (imageboard)
| 14_lain_88 wrote:
| Please delete this.
| anthk wrote:
| Follow your leader and delete yourself.
| 14_lain_88 wrote:
| Please elaborate on your statement. That is, who is my
| leader and why did she delete herself?
|
| update: I am flagged. Someone informed me this is due to
| the numbers in my name. I was 14 years old when I first
| watched Lain and I was born in 1988. This number
| apparently has an association that is less than positive.
| Dear mods: feel free to change it to something else, I
| simply wanted to inform this user that I did not want
| them to link our website. Thank you and have a nice day.
|
| Remember: It is rude to issue statements of self harm and
| that those afflicted with mental health problems may be
| in even the most unexpected of areas. Please be mindful
| of your words.
| medicineman wrote:
| >I figured that coding in lisp is all she needed for the show
| to become a cult classic - but here we are...
|
| Style ain't substance.
| NotPavlovsDog wrote:
| I remember watching it and wondering what that code language on
| the screen was.
|
| Alan Kay's classification of modern state of computing as pop
| culture continues to ring true.
|
| I would have benefited greatly to be exposed to Lisp early on,
| but it was outside of the info-bubble I was in.
| honkycat wrote:
| Serial Experiments Lain is everything wonderful about anime. It
| is violent, dark, scary. In summary: ADULT.
|
| Anime tells stories in a visual format that for years and years
| you simply could not get anywhere else. Adult genre fiction was
| not well represented in American media. Even today, adult
| American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't
| want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they want
| to make more episodes.
|
| Today, people are spoiled with their options for genre fiction.
| Cowboy Bebop blew my mind as a kid. Berserk was also one of my
| favorites. I did not think anything could be cooler than Vampire
| Hunter D. This was before Game of Thrones or The Expanse or any
| number of other amazing science-fiction or fantasy media we have
| today. Coming from a small town, it felt like a secret that
| nobody else knew about and I loved immersing myself in this grim,
| beautiful, foreign worlds[0].
|
| A lot of anime has a lot of gross "fan service" that objectifies
| their female protagonists, and that is something I was never a
| fan of. It was something you tolerated because there wasn't
| anywhere else to go.
|
| Lain is a great example of all of this. Where else are you going
| to get a gorgeously rendered cyberpunk-horror series?
|
| 0: Probably at a younger age than I should have been allowed to.
| Though honestly I don't see myself censoring everything from my
| kids. Part of the draw was the adult nature and feeling like I
| was getting away with something.
| anthk wrote:
| European comics and novels did that before Japan ;). And with
| far more mature and adult themes.
| honkycat wrote:
| I'm talking about specifically animation, though. There are
| plenty of examples of excellent novels and comic books from
| all over the world. However, they represent a completely
| different tier of production cost. Comics and novels are
| cheap. Animation takes a team of sometimes hundreds of
| animators, sound designers, art directors, etc.
| anthk wrote:
| >Comics and novels are cheap
|
| Manga too, but in Japan it's much better praised than
| anime.
| dumb1224 wrote:
| Serial Experiments Lain felt very much like a dark dream when I
| watched it. And because it was so different from the mainstream
| stereotypical anime which can easily fit into well defined (and
| IMO overdone) categories.
|
| But I also think it's different from the sort of 'aim at
| western audience' type of anime (to be frank the appeal is a
| bit different from asia perspective, at least for me). The dark
| universes of Akira and Ghost in a Shell have some equivalent in
| the cyberpunk genre in the west, e.g elements of a dystopian
| society, which do not feature too often in the Japanese anime
| world. In that sense Lain really experiments with the genre and
| rebel against the typical characters and gave it a unique style
| (hence the name I guess :)
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Have any good adult animes come out these past few years?
| There's always been a lot of gross stuff but I'm starting to
| lose faith in the medium when I see stuff like Mushoku Tensei
| being praised as wonderful in the mainstream, the latest few
| seasons have felt like complete garbage.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Adult as in serious and less mindless tropes and
| entertainment to touch on more philosophical topics?
|
| Wonder Egg Priority comes to mind but due to production
| delays the final episode won't be coming out until a few
| months so it will leaving you hanging for the conclusion. In
| this age of gatcha-game, manga or light novel anime
| adaptations it's a rare anime only series. It follows teenage
| girls fighting what are essential nightmares with poppy color
| and well animated scenes but it's a symbolic battle with
| serious issues such as hikkomori, homosexuality, sexual abuse
| and suicide.
| Zevis wrote:
| I'm generally depressed by the state of anime. It seems the
| industry has generally taken "adult" to mean violent. I grew
| up watching the gruesome stuff. But the industry still seems
| to be in that edgy teen phase 99% of the time (3 decades
| later) and they have no idea how to handle adult themes
| without copious amounts of blood.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Assuming by "adult", you mean an R rating and not an NC-17
| rating, check out Dorohedoro. I think it's on Netflix.
| Riverheart wrote:
| "The Promised Neverland" if you stick with season 1. Heard
| season 2 went in a different direction from the manga
| unfortunately.
| specialist wrote:
| I quite enjoyed Castlevania. Other than stuff I watched with
| my kid (Dragonball, Avatar, Princess Monoke, etc) I don't
| know anything about anime.
| lhorie wrote:
| I've stopped following anime for several years now. The
| trajectory of one punch man from it's humble doodle-like
| beginnings to mainstream speak volumes about the state of
| commercialization these days IMHO.
|
| The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point, just
| as slice of life got done to death before it.
|
| Lately, I've been having more luck w/ manhwa (Korean manga).
| If steampunk sci-fi with social commentary plot is your cup
| of tea, I've been finding Leviathan enjoyable.
| riskable wrote:
| > The isekai genre is definitely overused at this point
|
| Yet somehow we can't get enough of it!
|
| I mean, I know _I 'm_ a sucker for isekai. Some of it is
| poorly animated with terrible stereotypes (for anime) and
| far too much fan service but it's not isekai that's cliche
| it's the story that's being told inside of it that could
| be.
|
| I'd argue that isekai is one of the best and truest forms
| of sci-fi: Instead of just "drama, in space!" or "drama, in
| the future!" isekais are (normally) answering the question,
| "what if?"
|
| Like, _what if_ you were reincarnated in another world but
| you weren 't human? What if you were a monster? Or a
| machine? Or immortal? Overpowered because of nature or
| overpowered because of nurture (i.e. the ability to carry
| forward knowledge from _this_ world)? The possibilities are
| endless!
|
| There's _so_ many great isekai anime that explore these and
| other questions. Some get quite detailed and realistic (in
| terms of emotions or the sorts of problems one might run
| into) while others are more about comedy or relationships
| (again, "drama, in <another world>!").
|
| Some of the more interesting aspects/concepts of isekai
| anime that I've watched: - Main character
| is not the only one that was brought to another world *but
| the others who also came are from completely different
| alternate universes* (Shield Hero). - An *entire
| group of people* get sent to another world (Arifureta, So
| I'm A Spider, So What?, Grimgar) - The other world
| is *super early* feudal-ish (so primitive they don't know
| how to make paper or even crochet... yet) and the main
| character remembers all the arts & crafts stuff her mother
| and grandmother taught her (Ascendance of a Bookworm).
| Hehe: How well do *you* understand the process of making
| paper (think you could figure it out in that situation? =)
| - What if your mom came to the other world with you? (this
| one is actually so over the top and ridiculous but the
| question itself is kind of interesting: Do You Love Your
| Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?)
|
| Some of those aren't _the point_ of the anime but they 're
| interesting questions/situations nonetheless.
| m4rtink wrote:
| The Isekai genre goes deep, _very very deep_. Anime
| adaptations only really cover the often good and /or
| mainstream series.
|
| If you start digging into Isekai manga, there at least
| one order of magnitude more works to choose from. Then if
| you look into light novels, there is even more stuff,
| again with just a fraction getting manga adaptations.
|
| But the real breath of Isekai are web novels - that's
| where most of the current hit novels started, on websites
| like "I'll become a novelist" (https://syosetu.com/)
| where people just type away their fantasies with minimal
| friction, one chapter at a time and often with lots of
| direct feedback from the community.
|
| That can result in even more original/crazy ideas being
| explored, such as:
|
| - What if you were transported to a fantasy world with
| your _solar powered camping vehicle_ ? (Himekishi to
| Camping Car)
|
| - What if you became your game character in a fantasy
| world that has a different gender (female) and is a total
| glass cannon ? (Alice Tale)
|
| - Whats more fun than raiding dungeons ? Running them!
| (Lazy Dungeon Master)
|
| - What if there is stable gateway between the other and
| the modern world and you can go back and forth ? (quite a
| few series actually, even some mainstream ones like Gate
| or Isekai Shokudo)
|
| - Fantasy is nice but steampunk and heavy industry is
| even better! There are quite a few rather non-mainstream
| series that introduce robots and guns into an Isekai
| setting. Yet there are others that set out to
| industrialize the whole thing as including building stuff
| like railroads.
|
| - What if magic was just a foreign language or alphabet
| the locals aren't good at but you are, as it's your
| native language ?
|
| - What if you are the only one who can see the GUI in an
| Isekai world ? Nothing better than meeting a famous
| aristocrat with "class: vampire" blinking above his head
| telling you about mysterious kidnapping cases in the
| vicinity. Or "goblin shaman [invisible]" floating in the
| air of dark cave. (Skill Takers World Domination")
|
| - What if due to some mistake no one person gets
| reincarnated as a son of poor aristocrat but _3_ - a high
| school student, a salaryman and _Nobunaga_ ?
|
| - What if you actually got reincarnated to the buggy mess
| of an MMO you helped to develop (Death March) ?
|
| - What if a modern Aegis cruiser or even the full
| Japanese archipelago (including some disputed islands, no
| less ;-) ) gets transported to an Isekai ?
|
| Really the possibilities are endless. There is definitely
| a lot of repetition and series that frankly are not any
| good (especially between web novels, thanks to the same
| zero entry barriers that enable so much creativity in the
| first place) but there are many gems to be found if you
| search a bit. :)
| livueta wrote:
| > Aegis cruiser
|
| Destroyer! But thanks, I laughed really hard at the
| realization that Zipang is indeed an isekai of sorts.
|
| Thanks to that show,
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daqing_Oil_Field is one
| of my favorite historical counterfactuals.
| monus21 wrote:
| Yeah, I know what you mean. I've read far too many isekai
| manga/manhwa than I should have (not super into anime).
|
| Shield Hero was good but FFF-Class Trashero probably tops
| the lot for me. Really good storytelling and incredible
| character development.
| lhorie wrote:
| I'll admit that I do like the premises of various isekais
| - kumo desuga nanika (I'm a spider so what) and honzuki
| no gekokujo (ascendance of a bookworm) that you mentioned
| are in fact two of my favorites - but it's worth
| remembering that these are light novel adaptations.
| Personally I think there's a bit of loss of "magic"
| directly attributable to bringing the story out of the
| text-based medium, particularly in the case of honzuki no
| gekokujo. I thought there was something very special
| about how Myne was sickly and could not physically go see
| how Parue was harvested, and how her family's description
| of the process was as bewildering to her (as an other-
| worlder) as it would be to any of us. It's a really
| clever storytelling device that masterfully helps convey
| the protagonist's situation.
|
| Another example: the orc arc of moonlight sculptor was an
| absolutely epic read in text format; I don't think the
| cartoon format can really do it justice.
| bozzcl wrote:
| Recently? Attack on Titan might be one of the best. It's a
| little too shounen-ish at times, but the setting is pretty
| mature and has absolutely no fan service. I've heard Vinland
| Saga is also great. The Promised Neverland is not about
| adults, but it's a very serious show and I personally liked
| it a lot.
|
| Unfortunately, the rest of my backlog is mostly just older
| shows I've been meaning to watch for a while. Golden Kamuy is
| probably one of the newest and it's still not that new. Same
| for Parasyte, which has some of the best body horror I've
| seen ever. High on my list is also Shin Sekai Yori, which
| I've heard nothing but praise for.
| munk-a wrote:
| For a recent anime that's a pretty good nab I'd actually
| suggest RE: Zero - it also starts out a little bit too
| shounen-y but gets really interesting in its exploration of
| both our relationships with others, pain and death. As
| someone who really enjoyed philosophy in uni it poses some
| really interesting questions.
|
| I'm also interested but not yet totally committed to Tower
| of God - there's some really neat stuff there, along with a
| lot of shounen - but I think it's a pretty solid production
| all together.
| m4rtink wrote:
| I would say quite a few, but they don't really seem that way.
|
| Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashii Desuka? Sukutte Moratte
| Ii Desuka? - might look like another lightweight fantasy
| harem story but actually has one of the best romantic pairs
| recently and handles some pretty hard topics.
|
| Actually I would say a Shield Hero is another one. It might
| look like yet another cookie cutter isekai show, even with
| some of the heroes being summoned taking it like if it was
| just a game. But it turns out it's a real and rather brutal
| feudal world where your actions have real consequences and a
| lot of people have very insidious evil and inhuman agenda.
|
| Hell, I would actually even call Kemono Friends (series 1) an
| adult series. What looks like a funny child series with
| anthropomorphic animals turns out into something much deeper
| once all the various hints and fragments of information start
| to fall in place.
| teraflop wrote:
| First of all, I'd _slightly_ push back on the way you 've
| framed your question. I agree there's a ton of crap in the
| world of anime, but whether a show has been created with care
| and thoughtfulness doesn't necessarily correlate with whether
| or not it contains "adult themes" that make it unsuitable for
| kids. I mean, Evangelion is considered a classic despite
| being aimed at a teenage audience.
|
| With that caveat, and bearing in mind that preferences are
| extremely subjective, here are a few recent shows that I'd
| suggest checking out:
|
| The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (a surreal interpersonal
| comedy/drama movie, from the writer and director of The
| Tatami Galaxy)
|
| SSSS.Gridman (a very loose reboot of a 90's live-action
| tokusatsu series, with a lot of stylistic homages to
| Evangelion; has a sequel, SSSS.Dynazenon, which is currently
| airing)
|
| Girls' Last Tour (a slow, contemplative journey through the
| ruins of a post-industrial civilization)
|
| Thunderbolt Fantasy (although it's debatable whether this one
| counts as "anime"; fantasy puppet wuxia, from the writer of
| Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass; it's deliberately
| kind of over-the-top, but with a great command of pacing and
| characterization)
| intergalplan wrote:
| Psycho-Pass. Sci-fi future where everyone's got a
| psychological profile built & monitored by a computer system,
| used for all the things you'd expect it to be, including to
| nab criminals before they crime. Our protagonist is a young,
| idealistic woman who's become a cop, basically. She'll be
| leading a squad of people whose profiles are considered
| dangerously outside the norm, whose job it is to catch other
| deviants (can't have normal-psych-profile people exposed to
| that kind of violence, after all, and anyway it takes a
| deviant to think like a deviant). It goes from there.
|
| Puella Magi Madoka Magica if you're into Anime-
| deconstructing-Anime. "What if Magical Girl... but actually,
| when you think about it that's entirely horrifying". There've
| been a bunch of other attempts at similar things, usually not
| as successful.
|
| Vinland Saga for heightened, violent historical drama.
|
| Mushishi if very-very-Japanese things aren't a turn-off.
| Largely episodic series about a guy who deals with dangerous
| spirits. Which I know reads like it'd be terrible or "oh my
| god not another one of these shows", but it's not. Slow-
| paced, brooding, bittersweet.
|
| Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Short slice-of-life
| series about kids, but actually about accepting loss. IDK how
| "adult" it is, but it's pretty good (I mean actually-good,
| not anime-good).
|
| Carole and Tuesday. Again, not sure how "adult" it is but
| it's just charming and heartwarming, while also not being
| terrible, which is a rare enough combo in any media to be
| worth a look, I'd say. From the creator of Cowboy Bebop, and
| also heavily music-focused.
|
| May not look like it from this list, but I don't actually
| watch that much anime. I know there's a fair amount of really
| good stuff I haven't seen, plus a huge pile of OK-but-not-
| great. I keep up with a couple ongoing series I didn't put on
| this list because they're definitely not aimed at adults (My
| Hero Academia, for instance). I find it's really hard to find
| good recommendations for anime unless they're personal recs
| from a person I know well--but I also find that's true of
| most other genre-fic sorts of things. Recommendations from
| Internet randos or "best-of" lists of fantasy are often (IMO)
| full of garbage, and sci-fi's barely better. Ditto comic
| books.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I watched one Japanese cartoon once in my childhood.
|
| There was a flying robots flying killing everybody. Do you know
| its's name? I always wanted to rewatch it, but have no idea
| what's its name.
|
| I'm trying to piece together what I watched in childhood.
|
| Since a few years ago, people who are more into cartoons cued
| me on that:
|
| Blue alien who shoots lasers from its bra is Guyver, and that
| it's not an alien, and is a guy.
|
| A communist coup in space is Ryvius, and on a closer look
| communists were actually high class cadets with parents in high
| up places, and not the other way around.
| grawprog wrote:
| Growing up, i was a lot like you. The stories, artwork and
| animation in a lot of those darker, more adult animes blew my
| mind. I remember the first time I saw Akira, like you when I
| was probably way too young, My mind just couldn't even really
| grasp what i was watching. I'd never seen anything like that
| before. I ended up somehow watching a dubbed version of ninja
| scroll that came on TV some time after that and i was pretty
| hooked.
|
| I find though, I can't get into newer anime, or a lot of newer
| animation in general these days. I really miss the old style of
| animation and artwork, both western and Japanese. Every series
| or movie had its own unique style, some of the artwork was so
| fantastic and just mind blowing. Some of the landscapes and
| scenery created in older animation could take you to some of
| the most amazing or terrifying or strange places you couldn't
| even imagine.
|
| I find a lot of animation to look generic and overproduced
| these days and in general, the format's become fairly formulaic
| and nothing really stands out as special in the ways a lot of
| those older animes did. Don't get me wrong, i have seen some
| fantastic modern animation. I was speaking more in general.
|
| I keep hoping that we'll have this Renaissance of artists who
| want to go back to the traditional ways just to break this new
| mold animation seems to have gotten itself stuck in.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Getting into anime in the US in the early 00s via friends who
| got into it in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a _lot_ of
| filtering that had already happened here in the US. So
| something sort of missed was the realization that Sturgeon 's
| Law (ninety percent of everything is crap) still applied to
| anime. It's just that in the US most of what had made it here
| was generally the better quality by some measure (better
| animation quality, better story, better characters, etc.).
| Not universally, crap still made it through, but it wasn't
| 90% crap.
|
| Fast forward to today, you have access to the full gamut of
| anime series and movies. Completely unfiltered by others
| unless you specifically only watch things that others (that
| you have some trust in or similar taste to) have watched and
| promote. And thanks to legit streaming services and less than
| legit streaming services and torrents, you can much more
| easily be one of the first people in the US to watch
| something so it's now much easier to find the crap if you
| don't specifically go through the filtering process of time
| or critics or peer group taste and recommendations.
| grawprog wrote:
| In Canada it was a little different than the US. We had
| some early animes that were actually dubbed up here you
| guys didn't have. We also had a totally different version
| of Dragonball up here originally.
|
| I noticed back then too, watching different dubbed versions
| of different animes, the censoring would be different
| depending on whether it was American or not.
|
| We also didn't really get much funimation stuff until later
| on, which as far as i know, whatever you think about their
| early work, was pretty fundamental in popularizing anime in
| the west.
|
| Honestly, back then most of the anime I watched were fan
| translations of varying qualities I found on file sharing
| programs i watched because I found them recommended on
| websites.
|
| Once I found out the anime we got here was often heavily
| altered compared to its original form, I kinda just focused
| on what was recommended online. My friends weren't really
| into anime or anything so it wasn't really something I
| could get peer recommendations on or anything.
|
| I never really got into a lot of those popular ones of the
| time. I just kept searching out the weird obscure stuff
| that never made it here.
|
| These days though, there's so much, I honestly wouldn't
| even know where to begin. I guess the last 'anime' I
| watched was Castlevania, but I'm not even sure if I would
| have classed that as anime back in the day.
| saalweachter wrote:
| The great thing about animation is that once you accept the
| cartoonish caricatures as real people, you get all of the
| special effects for free. You don't have that jarring
| disconnect between the actors and the (bad) special effects,
| and you don't need to husband your special effects budget
| carefully, saving it for a few big scenes. You can fill each
| frame with impossibilities that are just as real as the people
| filling them.
| trentnix wrote:
| A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion
| series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After
| slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-
| teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally
| reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of
| troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of
| traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex
| characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human
| weaknesses.
|
| I'll have to watch Lain now, thanks to your comment.
|
| I enjoy the usual suspects: Akira, Ghost in the Shell
| (including Standalone Complex), and Cowboy Bebop immensely. I
| like Robotech, though much of it is nostalgia. But I've found
| straying from the essentials to be challenging for my very
| Western tastes.
|
| I tried to watch Stein's Gate and thought it was very clever,
| but the awkward romance and over-the-top characteristics of the
| main character were a bit too much. Knights of Sidonia and
| Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly. I was too old for
| Dragonball. There's a lot of Western-focused, Japanese-animated
| options out there, but they almost universally lack the depth
| of their anime counterparts.
|
| I'd love some recommendations if you have any, whether they be
| newer stuff or classics that I've overlooked.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| If you're looking for series that really focus on the
| "character study" aspect, then I would recommend _Welcome to
| the NHK_ and _Tatami Galaxy_. Both series deal a lot with
| regret, hopelessness, and isolation, which I think are themes
| that might be especially potent given this past year. NHK in
| particular is a very intimate look inside the head of a
| deeply flawed person. Sometimes it 's hilarious, other times
| extremely tragic and moving. I happened to come across it at
| a point where I was very depressed and struggling to find
| direction in life, and it affected me deeply. Fair warning -
| the subtitles in Tatami Galaxy can sometimes be hard to
| follow because the characters talk so damn fast. The very
| first scene is especially bad offender, so give it a couple
| minutes before giving up for that reason.
| MadcapJake wrote:
| Eureka Seven is a great scifi anime that gets missed due to
| some similarities to NGE.
|
| Mushishi is an excellent philosophical supernatural journey.
|
| Samurai Champloo is very accessible samurai stories (Samurai
| X is less accessible but good)
|
| Soul Eater (and pretty much anything by the Bones crew) is
| great unqique fantasy with some interesting themes. Wolf's
| Rain is another thoughtful one.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with
| Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.*
|
| Planetes was recommended in the recent HN thread about space
| junk, and I ended up watching the whole series over the
| course of 4 days. It's similar to Evangelion, in that the
| first few episodes are goofy and awkward (except they're in
| their early 20s instead of teens). But by the end of the show
| I was blown away.
|
| It's effectively an adult coming-of-age story, set against a
| sad, beautiful near-future world in which everyone is just
| trying to live their lives and get by. The space debris stuff
| is fun and maybe metaphorical, but from a plot perpsective
| it's almost parenthetical. I'm too young and immature to have
| words for the journey it took me on, but (much like
| Evangelion) it was exactly what I needed at the time in my
| life when I first saw it.
|
| Survive through the "ninja" episode (you'll know which one I
| mean when you see it), and you will be rewarded.
|
| Edit: apparently the anime and manga diverge significantly
| because the show was finished first. I intend to read the
| latter after I've had a chance to cool off from the former!
|
| > Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly
|
| It picks up and starts to tie together. I almost didn't watch
| the second season, but a friend convinced me to and I don't
| regret it at all. Apparently the show and manga track closely
| together in plot, so you don't need to read if you've already
| watched, or vice versa (unless you want to read the last
| 20-ish chapters if you don't want to wait for the last season
| of the show to come out).
|
| Don't expect profundity like Evangelion, although the plot is
| clearly inspired by Evangelion in some ways. But do expect
| high drama, long threads of intrigue, and whopper plot
| twists. It's one of the most exciting TV shows I've ever
| seen.
|
| > I was too old for Dragonball
|
| Too old to take it seriously, maybe! But it's still good fun,
| just like Space Ghost and Looney Tunes. If I ever have kids,
| I plan to watch it with them (although IIRC there were some
| racist and sexist moments that would best be elided).
|
| > Western-focused, Japanese-animated options
|
| I also have to recommend _Avatar: The Last Airbender_! Its
| target audience and Western origin belies its depth.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Cannot recomment Planetes enough! I'm watching it again
| with my girlfriend, and after some initial skepticism, she
| was very much onboard. And we haven't even gotten to the
| really good stuff yet.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I'd suggest Inuyashiki. It's somewhat robot-y and explores
| responsibility and human weakness in a different way from
| Evangelion. I think it's on Amazon Prime.
| livueta wrote:
| A lot of great recommendations have already been made, but I
| wanted to throw out _Kuuchuu Buranko_ (https://en.m.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/List_of_Welcome_to_Irabu%27s...) as a personal
| favorite that doesn't get named as much as I think it
| deserves in this sort of conversation. Much closer to
| _Tatami_ than to _Lain_.
|
| While I'm at it: speaking of _Tatami_ , you should also check
| out Yuasa's _Kaiba_ : it's a lot more abstract than _Tatami_
| but ultimately ticks a lot of the same boxes.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descending_Stories:_Showa_Ge.
| .. is arguably the best character-focused drama of the last
| few years.
|
| Satoshi Kon has also already been mentioned, but I'd
| specifically call out _Paranoia Agent_ as it 's often less
| prominent than his feature films, yet (imo) is the most
| incisive of his stuff.
| serf wrote:
| >Satoshi Kon has also already been mentioned, but I'd
| specifically call out Paranoia Agent as it's often less
| prominent than his feature films, yet (imo) is the most
| incisive of his stuff.
|
| ignoring the good story and psychological elements,
| _Paranoia Agent_ is worth watching for the sheer style and
| drawing methods.
|
| Satoshi Kon was _always_ stylish, but Paranoia Agent is one
| of the best examples.
| Fargren wrote:
| Anything by Satoshi Kon is great, and in line with what
| you've been watching. If I had to pick, Perfect Blue for
| movies and Paranoia Agent for series.
|
| In the lighter more children spectrum, Mamoru Hosoda does
| beautiful things like Summer Wars or The Girl Who Leapt
| Through Time.
|
| The Tatami Galaxy is another great one
| dumb1224 wrote:
| For EVA I had quite an interesting experience. When I watched
| it I streamed it but was dubbed in cantonese. I can only
| understand a little but still need to rely on chinese
| subtitles. The tone of cantonese is of course different from
| the original Japanese voicing actors. But, surprisingly I was
| so immersed in its world it felt it was just the language
| that attach whatever emotions to the characters. The voice of
| Shinji e.g never felt displaced or making me associate with
| people from south part of China. They sound genuine and the
| monologues are so expressive and powerful to make my mind
| forget it actually is cantonese.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| If you liked Robotech and Evangelion, you might want to check
| out some of the Universal Century timeline Gundam shows.
| Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam are the classics, but for
| something with gorgeous modern animation, check out Mobile
| Suit Gundam: The Origin, it's a prequel series that follows
| the main rival character from the original through his
| childhood and up to the start of the war that's the setting
| for the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
|
| Oh, and check out Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's an epic
| along the lines of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, with like
| 30 'main' characters and maybe 300+ named characters
| throughout its run. Huge in scope and scale, but always
| willing to take a couple minutes and reflect on philosophy,
| politics, and the horrors of war. It's a seriously adult
| show.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Oh, and check out Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's an
| epic along the lines of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, with
| like 30 'main' characters and maybe 300+ named characters
| throughout its run. Huge in scope and scale, but always
| willing to take a couple minutes and reflect on philosophy,
| politics, and the horrors of war. It's a seriously adult
| show.
|
| Would echo this recommendation. It's a massive commitment
| to watch fully (even just the main series, not including
| spinoffs), but it's quite good.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Words of warning though - if you watch Legend Of The
| Galactic Heroes (or read the novels), read Webers
| Honorverse books as well some of the space battle
| material on Orions arm 99% of warship depictions in SF
| will look to you unrealistically small-scale and mundane
| in comparison.
|
| Like who goes in to battle with less than 20 thousand
| warships (LotGH), closes to less than 100 000 km before
| firing (Honorverse) or starts a campaign without god-AI
| driven relativistic autowar swarms of death (Orions Arm)?
| ;)
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Legend Of The Galactic Heroes
|
| I only recently found that it was a cartoon originally.
|
| I read it as a novell like 20 years ago.
| honkycat wrote:
| If you haven't watched End of Evangelion and the sequel
| movies, those are my favorite parts of the series.
|
| Gurren Lagann is a wonderful homage to other mecha series.
| The series evolves in a REALLY interesting way, it blew my
| mind. Is worth sticking it out to the end!
|
| Berserk (2016) is awesome, though I go back and forth on
| weather it transcends it's own violence. I'm probably just
| being a prude though, since nobody else seems to care haha.
|
| DevilMan Crybaby(2018) is worth a watch. It is a gorgeously
| animated edgelord anime, run through a modern filter to make
| it more palatable.
|
| Dorohedoro (2020) is bizarre and nihilistic and is written by
| a female author which is cool.
|
| JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012 - present) suffers from being
| the product of a "less woke" 80's and 90's but man... I love
| it so much. It is so dumb and fun. There is a LOT of it but
| you just have to go along for the ride.
|
| One Punch Man (2015) is great fun.
|
| I tend to follow individual studios and directors.
|
| Hiroyuki Imaishi has been consistently excellent.
|
| Satoshi Kon is a legend, pick ANYTHING by him and you will
| not be disappointed.
|
| Shinichiro Watanabe. I'm especially fond of Cowboy Bebop and
| Samurai Champloo.
|
| Studio Trigger makes great stuff.
| perardi wrote:
| [cracks knuckles, adjust sunglasses]
|
| _Kick reason to the curb and do the impossible!_
|
| Sorry.
|
| Gurren Lagann, paired with Evangelion, remains one of my
| favorites. Though it's a different production crew, it is
| the same studio, and it's fascinating to watch them as a
| counterpoint. There is an obvious point where the main
| character in Gurren Lagann could, and perhaps should,
| break, but hope comes through. It's the optimistic version
| of NGE.
|
| Also, their ridiculous explanation for where all this mass-
| energy comes from, and the consequences? Fun.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Also Mitsuo Iso (one of the lead animator) off-time animation
| technique is quite rare.
| wcarss wrote:
| So many recommendations, but no Trigun yet. Starts off very
| silly, but goes to some good places over its single season
| run. At least, I sure felt it did when I was 13.
|
| It's a western/sci-fi set in a vast desert-dwelling society,
| focusing on the legend of the mysterious criminal Vash, with
| a 60 billion dollar bounty on his head, usually called by the
| nickname "Vash The Stampede", who wreaks destruction and
| mayhem wherever he turns up.
|
| We follow around a goof who looks _just_ like him.
| Rhinobird wrote:
| The bit towards the end with Millie and Wolfwood makes me
| cry.
| throwamon wrote:
| (To be clear where I'm coming from: I'm not what you'd call
| an otaku, haven't watched many things of this kind. I really
| detest over-the-top stuff. I prefer realism to fantasy but
| can enoy it if it helps with the plot. I've watched and
| enjoyed Evangelion (wasn't enjoying it at all in the
| beginning but when it started getting "psychological" I loved
| it) and Ghost In The Shell, still haven't but want to watch
| the others you mentioned. I also watched Stein's Gate and
| felt exactly the way you did.)
|
| Death Note is awesome, especially the first half. There's a
| bit of cringy overconfident adolescent personality going on,
| but I think it's all for the best considering the plot.
|
| Monster is one I'm torn about. The themes it touches on are
| just perfect for a great dark story, but I feel like it
| under-delivers by always making it sound like it's gonna get
| really dark but never making it so. There's quite a bit of
| "semi-filler" episodes. Thought-provoking but never goes as
| deep as I'd like.
|
| One movie I'd recommend is Perfect Blue. Realistic
| psychological suspense/horror with great animation.
|
| Not at all the same genre, but Welcome To The NHK is pretty
| nice if you want some realistic "light-hearted dark humor"
| (if there's such a thing), but maybe not if you don't relate
| to being a hikikomori (or social recluse in general). There's
| over-the-top characteristics, especially in the first
| episodes, but it gets better. Watch, say, 10 episodes; if you
| don't love it by then, it may not be for you.
|
| EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so
| I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like
| it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what
| actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story
| behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to
| get it.
|
| EDIT2: For the sake of completeness, the show I actually love
| the most is Avatar (The Last Airbender. I'm right now
| watching the sequel and still making up my mind on it).
| Possibly because I was a kid when I first watched it, but it
| still really moves me. And yes, I said before I prefer
| realistic stuff, but this is one of the greatest exceptions.
| It's also not dark by any means - it's a kid's show after all
| -, plenty of light-hearted humor and all, but there are many
| many things I'd say even an adult can get from watching it.
| flobosg wrote:
| If you liked the subversion aspect of NGE, then Puella Magi
| Madoka Magica might be up your alley.
|
| EDIT: Add Revolutionary Girl Utena to the list, although it
| might be considered somewhat repetitive and _way_ too
| symbolic.
| freeflight wrote:
| Welcome to the N.H.K is an interesting exploration of the
| hikimori phenomena.
|
| Mushishi is a bit "standard anime fare" but I found it
| surprisingly wholesome and emotional.
|
| Samurai Champloo is a very well drawn, animated, and stylish
| show with an amazing soundtrack by nujabes.
|
| Fullmetal Panic! is _very_ mecha shonen, but probably my
| favorite of the genre without having to delve into the more
| massive franchises like Gundam with it 's bazillion different
| shows.
|
| Also: Check out Satoshi Kon's stuff like Perfect Blue or
| Paprika.
| teekert wrote:
| I also enjoyed Ergo Proxy, Texhnolyze and Planetes. Ghost in
| the Shell is still the only movie I revisit every now and
| then (out of all movies ever). They are all slow, I want to
| take the time to watch them again some day.
|
| Very different but I also enjoyed Naruto as I grew up myself.
| It's long (but you can skip all fillers) but sometimes very
| deep. I enjoyed Kenshin but never finished it.
|
| As mentioned below Samurai Champloo is also nice and Steins
| Gate (nice, strange atmosphere) and Death Note: very
| psychological: He thinks that I think that he thinks and I'm
| smarter so... Love that. And One Punch Man, puts a smile on
| my face.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I see no mention of Gunnm (battle angel alita) OAV was nicely
| done even though short. The manga has lot to offer somehow.
| tacotacotaco wrote:
| > Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely
| "sitcom" format.
|
| Agreed. Check out Final Space. It relies a bit on comedy in the
| beginning but grows into a drama. Give it a few episodes.
| mtzaldo wrote:
| close the world, open the next
| dane-pgp wrote:
| It's perhaps worth noting here that the tagline is actually
| stylised as:
|
| "Close the world, open the nExt."[0]
|
| with the capitalisation presumably being a reference to the
| company NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs.[1]
|
| [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0500092/taglines
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Seems likely, with how many other Apple-adjacent references
| are in the series (including Copland among another things).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system)
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Here's a list of all the references that people found at
| the time (ish)
|
| https://www.cjas.org/~leng/apple-lain.htm
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| fan websites: https://neocities.org/browse?sort_by=views&tag=lain
| BruceEel wrote:
| After all these years, I can still close my eyes and hear the
| static buzz of the power lines... Almost time to get a new navi.
| cbanek wrote:
| That buzz just makes me want to curl up into a bear suit.
| intergalplan wrote:
| I think about the dad on the computer every time my kids see me
| while I'm using one.
| creamynebula wrote:
| Scary!
| dane-pgp wrote:
| "Fulfil the prophecy!"
| corysama wrote:
| Lain does seem quaint when viewed today. But, it was thrilling at
| the time. A frequent theme was hearing background conversations
| of random users traveling through the wires. The idea of a couple
| having a fight and breaking up over "The Internet" was still
| weird. When the series was made, people were just starting to
| mainstream the practice of having serious personal interaction
| online and no one knew where it would lead.
|
| Previously you had in-person conversations, letters and phone
| calls. But, then the whole world quickly ramped up dealing with
| love, hate, sex and all the depths of humanity through the
| network. It was a exciting and worrying transition. For me, Lain
| was there to reflect on a lot of that angst.
| m4rtink wrote:
| I would recommend watching also Dennou Coil - it seems to me
| like similarly prescient description of how advanced Augmented
| Reality might look like - where you are in a physical world but
| can't be sure anymore that what you see is physically here or
| was added (or altered!) by the undistinguishable AR overlay.
| [deleted]
| lbeltrame wrote:
| Aside Chiaki Konaka from Lain, I would recommend some of the
| works of Sadayuki Murai (who, coincidentally, co-worked with
| Konaka in Bubblegum Crisis 2040):
|
| - Moryo no Hako (not sure what's the English name, but it's a
| nice horror/detective story from a novel)
|
| - Millennium Actress (an IMO nice way to show the evolution of
| the Japanese cinema)
|
| - Perfect Blue (mostly Satoshi Kon's work, but Murai worked in
| the screenplay)
|
| There's also Boogiepop Phantom, but you lose a bit of the plot if
| you haven't read the original novels.
| bozzcl wrote:
| To add a bit more, Perfect Blue is credited as being a huge
| inspiration for Black Swan.
| meowface wrote:
| There's a certain brooding, existential atmosphere and mystique
| to anime like Serial Experiments Lain, Neon Genesis Evangelion,
| and Steins;Gate that really make them stand out and stick with
| you.
|
| Even if the show turned out to not be prescient at all, it would
| still be one of the top classics. Combined with the fact that it
| was, it's really something special.
| [deleted]
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| The weird thing is that Evangelion and Lain (and other stuff
| like them) came out in the early 2000s, and really fit that
| era. Steins;Gate came out in 2011, but feels like an early
| 2000s anime, in both visual style, writing, mood etc. I suppose
| that's somewhat fitting given the content of the show though.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| >The weird thing is that Evangelion and Lain (and other stuff
| like them) came out in the early 2000s,
|
| Evangelion came out in 1995, Lain came out in 1998.
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| Just a nitpick, but Neon Genesis Evangelion came out in 1995
| and Lain in 1998. They do tend to be representative of their
| period, i.e. 90's tv anime productions. The early 2000's
| where characterized primarily by the Big 3 Shonen Jump titles
| (Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece).
| astrange wrote:
| > The early 2000's where characterized primarily by the Big
| 3 Shonen Jump titles (Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece).
|
| This category only exists in the minds of Westerners who
| were pirating shonen manga at the time. It's not the most
| popular anime in Japan at any point.
|
| It's also funny Bleach made this list since it was frankly
| terribly written and not as popular as the other two. The
| author had no control over his story and would try to get
| out of plot holes by introducing another 20 characters
| every so often (he liked designing them but not writing
| them). And for some reason his main strength was fashion
| but then he moved the plot to a world where everyone wears
| the same plain black and white robes.
| anthk wrote:
| >Westerners
|
| Avoid placing Americans as "westerners", because we the
| Europeans already finished Dragon Ball by 1994 for sure.
| astrange wrote:
| But what were you pirating in 2003?
| anthk wrote:
| One Piece maybe, but I had the manga readily available in
| Spain as early as 1997-8. Translated, not pirated.
| perardi wrote:
| Hey, lets introduce a group, the Quincy, that spends
| quite a lot of the first part of the series proclaiming
| they proudly use bows and not swords.
|
| And then let's finish the series by having their king,
| and all his powerful vassals, very blatantly fight only
| using swords.
|
| Very consistent.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| First season: We can't fly normally, we need a special
| device in order to fly. Every season after that: Somehow
| we're all flying and floating in the air but we won't
| discuss how.
|
| I found it became much more enjoyable when I decided to
| "finish" it (after ignoring it for a while) by watching
| every 5th episode. It was very rare that I missed any
| story elements because half of each episode was a recap
| of the recap of the recap from several episodes prior.
| Stupid completionist tendencies.
| PixelOfDeath wrote:
| The kind of anime that needs a compressed version, where
| all the relevant parts of 189* episodes are cut down
| without all the fillers to 10 minutes max...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-19 23:01 UTC)