Omnipresence in Wired
An Omnipresence in Wired is the Serial Experiments Lain artbook that was released only in Japan in 1999. A heavily modified version, ab# rebuild, was released in 2006 in both Japan and the United States.
It contains illustrations by Yoshitoshi Abe, some of which feature text by Chiaki Konaka. The manga The Nightmare of Fabrication is included.
Note that any of the following information regarding the 2006 version is obtained from the hardcover English edition by Digital Manga Publishing. If you have the softcover edition, or the Japanese edition from Wani Magazine, please feel free to edit this page with information on them.
Contents
Under construction lol
an omnipresence in wired (1999)
| Page No. | Contents | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 001 | Title page | The title of the book with a bunch of identical pictures of lain, except withdifferent photoshop effects added to them. |
| 002 | Contents | The book's contents page. Most of the data in this table is taken from this page. Except the descriptions. |
| 003 | Introduction | A few paragraphs by ABe, with a translation, talking about his concept of Lain's existence and how it was manifested in his creative process. |
| 004 | the original layers | Illustrations that originally appeared in Sony Magazines' AX magazine in 1998. Some of them are overlaid with Japanese text by Konaka, most of which is translated to English. |
| 046 | VHS/LD jackets (lif.) | |
| 052 | sound track cover (CD) | |
| 055 | hair cut | |
| 056 | pre-image | |
| 058 | posters & others | |
| 066 | game illustrations | |
| 078 | special issue "the nightmare of fabrication" (DC1029) | Untranslated in this edition. See Manga for more information. |
| 097 | sketches (monochrome) | |
| 118 | about the layers (AB with CJK) | Untranslated. Abe and Konaka having a conversation about the Layers illustrations. The title of each Layer illustration is listed with the magazine issue it was originally published in. |
| 122 | about all of the illustrations | Untranslated. An index of comments by Abe about every illustration in the book and information on where each of them was originally published. |
| 127 | history of AB | Untranslated. A paragraph of general information about Abe, then a "general chronology" of events in his life starting in 1993 when he entered college, then a "fragile goods chronology" listing every computer he'd owned since 1990 (I think?) |
| The book has a total of 128 pages. | ||
yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations: ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired (2006)
Note: The pages are not numbered, so this might not be very useful. This book doesn't even have a contents page.
| Page No. | Contents | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | Title page | A picture of Lain on a semitransparent piece of paper. | |
| This book has a total of 153 pages. | |||
Differences between the two editions
Also under constructino lol
One would think that since Rebuild is 25 pages longer, it has more content. But it's not really so; some images that were printed on a single page in the original were given two pages in Rebuild. Rebuild also has many dividing pages that are blank except for the title of the next section of the book. Things like this contribute to the book's length without providing much new content over the original. There are even some sketches that appear in the original which did not make it into Rebuild.
What Rebuild has that the original does not have
- bigger pictures
more details to come
What the original has that Rebuild does not have
- Chibi Chibi Lain
- some more stuff
