Interviews
This page aims to be a comprehensive list of recorded staff interviews related to Serial Experiments Lain, or things that vaguely resemble interviews such as panel transcriptions or descriptions, and supply sources for those interviews, digital or print. (It probably never will be comprehensive, though.)
Most of the interviews listed below are on the MisceLAINeous interview page.[1] Titles of interviews that do not appear there are in bold. Japanese only or English only indicates that an interview was never made available in another language, to the best of our knowledge. Interviews are listed in roughly chronological order.
1998
- FRUiTS
October 1998
English: [2]
Interviewee: Yasuyuki Ueda
- AX Magazine
August 1998, October 1998
Japanese only: [3]
Interviewees: Ryuutarou Nakamura, Kaori Shimizu, Chiaki Konaka
Note: It's unknown if other issues of AX contained interviews of lain staff. These are listed because fragments of staff interviews are clearly visible in the scans of these issues on MisceLAINeous.
1999
- Lain talk live
February 27, 1999
Interviewees: Nakamura, Ueda, Konaka, Yoshitoshi Abe, Takahiro Kishida, Hiroyuki Kakudou (who worked on Layer 09's documentary film portion[4]), Akira Takemoto, etc.
English:[5]
Japanese:[6]
Note: No full transcription available.
- Animerica
October 1999
Interviewees: Ueda, Nakamura, Konaka
English only: [7]
- HK Magazine
Winter 1999
Interviewee: Konaka
English: [8]
Japanese: [9]
Note: Published in French.
Note: This interview was translated from Japanese by the same guy who wrote about Lain Talk Live above. Cool!
- What is "lain"?
Interviewees: Ueda, Konaka
Japanese only: Visual Experiments Lain, page 2
- Digital Effects and "NAVI" System
Interviewees: Junji Nakahara, Tomokazu Tokoro
Japanese only: Visual Experiments Lain, page 24
- Opening and Ending Themes
Interviewees: boa, CHABO
Japanese only: Visual Experiments Lain, page 72
- Sound Direction, Effects, and Design
Interviewees: Youta Tsuruoka, Kouji Kasamatsu, Akira Takemoto
Japanese only: Visual Experiments Lain, page 74
- Film Direction & Design
Interviewees: Nakamura, Kishida
Japanese only: Visual Experiments Lain, page 76
2000
- That Of Lain Which Couldn't Be Spoken Of Until Now
（今だから話せる『lain』のあれ）
Interviewee: Ueda
Japanese only: [10]
Note: The date of its publication is unknown. 2000 at the latest, but it could have been as early as 1998.
- Otakon 2000 panel
August 5, 2000
Interviewees: Ueda, Abe
English only:[11]
- A Fan's View
August 4-5, 2000
Interviewees: boa, Ueda, Abe
English only: [12], [13], [14]
Note: the second link is an account of the same Otakon 2000 panel as above.
- Anime Jump
August 2000
Interviewees: Ueda, Abe
English only: [15], [16]
- The Anime Colony online chat
August 2000
Interviewees: Ueda, Abe
English only: [17]
- Zigzag Asia
Date unknown
Interviewee: Abe
English only: [18]
Note: this is more about NieA_7 than lain
2001
- Anime Central 2001
May 11-13, 2001
Interviewee: Abe
English only: [19]
- Anime Expo 2001
Summer 2001
Interviewee: Konaka
English only: [20]
2002
- Mangaes
March 2002
Interviewee: Abe
Spanish only: [21]
2010
- Bluray Box|RESTORE blog
2009-2010
Interviewee: Ueda
Japanese only: [22]
Note: Ok, so this is not really an interview at all, but I don't know where else to put it. It's a blog Ueda kept during the restoration process, for publicity, of course.
- Lain 12 Years Later (12年目のlain)
August 30, 2010
Interviewees: Ueda, Abe, Konaka
Japanese only; interview included in the 2010 reissue of Scenario Experiments Lain
Note: maybe this should be translated as "lain turns 12"? i don't know, it's literally "lain of the twelfth year"
- serial experiments lain|REUNION
November 2010
Interviewees: Ueda, Abe, Konaka, Shimizu, Akihisa Okuda, Hiroshi Saitou, Youichi Senzui, Tetsuro Satomi, Burger Suzuki
Japanese only: [23], [24]
Note: This was an event held at Cine Libre Ikebukuro in Tokyo to promote the release of the Bluray Box|RESTORE.[25] It seems like most of the people on stage were random animators who had nothing to do with the production of Lain, unless I'm just bad at finding credits. And one of them was named Burger! But my best guess is that they were the people involved in the restoration process.