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In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone’s memories. She is last seen unchanged - re-encountering her old friend [[Alice]], who is now married. Lain promises herself to look after Alice.
In the end, the viewer sees Lain realizing, after much introspection, that she has absolute power over everyone's mind and over reality itself. Her dialogue with different versions of herself show how she feels shunned from the material world, and how she is afraid to live in the Wired, where she has the possibilities and responsibilities of a goddess. The last scenes feature her erasing everything connected to herself from everyone’s memories. She is last seen unchanged - re-encountering her old friend [[Alice]], who is now married. Lain promises herself to look after Alice.
==Reception==
Words like "weird" or "bizarre" are almost systematically associated to review the series by English Language reviews due mostly to the freedoms taken with the animation and its unusual science fiction, philosophical and psychological context. Despite the show judged atypical, the critics responded positively to the thematic and stylistic characteristics. It was praised by the Jepan Media Arts Festival, in 1998, for "its willingness to question the meaning of contemporary life" and the "extraordinarily philosophical and deep questions".
In 2005, Newtype USA stated that the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". the author saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack". It concluded saying that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime."
In 2001, Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet" noticing the presence of horror lore (like ghost from train accident story) and horrific visuals.
The Anime Essentials anthology, Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s, alongside the much better known Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop.
In 2003, Professor Susan J. Napier, in her reading to the American Philosophical Society called The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation. Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty real and a dark virtual".
In 2020, the review-aggregation website website Rotten Tomatoes, classified Serial Experiments Lain as one of the 25 anime TV series that have been essential to the medium over the last five decades. ([https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/essential-anime-series/ source])
"Serial Experiments Lain helped usher in a new style of anime, of more digitally-produced shows with a glossy bloom and deeper, darker, complicated storylines. In the wake of Neon Genesis tearing up the typical anime playbook, Lain pursues a surreal, interior cyberpunk story about a withdrawn high school girl who receives an email from a classmate who has recently committed suicide. Questions of hyperreality, consciousness, and the everyday tangibility of cyberspace ensue. Lain is pretentious, symbolic, and absorbing – a prime example of a brave new world in anime."
Despite the general positive feedbacks, some negative critics stated the "lifeless" setting it had, how the last episodes failed to resolve the questions, and how the show relied so little on dialogue. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20110826092828/http://www.ex.org/5.2/25-anime_followup_lain.html source])
===Awards===
* Japan Media Arts Festival 1998: Excellence Prize ([http://archive.j-mediaarts.jp/en/festival/1998/animation/works/06an_serial_experiments_lain/ source])
==Trivia==
==Trivia==
