Looker illustrations

From Serial Experiments Lain wiki

The Looker illustrations are a series of 7 one-panel humorous illustrations by Yoshitoshi Abe. They were drawn to accompany Chiaki Konaka's articles in Looker magazine. Two of them were never published in Looker magazine, but all seven of them can be seen in the original edition of Omnipresence.


Looker was a monthly anime magazine launched in August 1998 with the October issue. It ceased publication after only 8 issues. [1]

List of Looker illustrations

No. Looker issue Description
A 98/9 Lain squats in front of a goldfish-scooping tank wearing a bear-print kimono. Text reads "Goldfish... scary."
B 98/11 Title: "Birth! No-good experiments."

Lain sits at her old NAVI and sneezes, "Hekuchin!" The NAVI responds, "So your name is Hekuchin?"

A note from ABe reads: "If I had drawn something like this from the start... I shudder at the thought."

C 98/12 Alice teases a cat with her scarf. Lain stands in the far background, peeking out from behind a utility pole.

The text is too small and my eyes hurt from squinting, so I'll translate this one later.

D 99/01 Title: Lain's manners lecture

Greyn peeks around a door. Alice holds a pointer, indicating a poster that reads, "Properly atozeki!"

A note from ABe reads: "I heard that atozeki is the term in Kumamoto dialect for when you remember to close a door after opening it. Amazing. Do people in Kumamoto never shut their doors?"

E 99/05 Lain in her bear suit with the hood down looks at the viewer and waves. Text reads "Thanks for everything -Abe" "See you later"
F Unpublished Title: "This thing called fear"

Lain reaches for a roach motel with a pair of chopsticks. The roach motel reads "Serial Motel." The roaches are saying "Lain... Lain..." and one of them is saying, "my leg tore off." Lain is saying, "something's moving..."

Text in the background says, "they're in there they're in there they're in there [etc]... in droves." (That last part is a pun because if you say iru iru enough times it will begin to sound like rui rui.)

G Unpublished Alice is in the foreground looking at the viewer. In the background is Greyn peeking out from behind a UFO. I think the text says something similar to that of C.