Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime first aired in 1998 which continues to enjoy a cult following today.

Plot Summary

A middle school girl, Lain, receives an email from a girl in her class who committed suicide. She tells Lain that she has only "abandoned the flesh" and gone to a new plane of existence called the Wired. Later, Alice, her friend, and two of her friends take Lain to a nightclub called Cyberia. While there, one of the friends is shot. Lain seems to be paralyzed by the shock, but she bravely confronts the shooter, who shoots himself. (This is usually interpreted as the appearance of Wired Lain, one of her personalities, the timid "real life" Lain being another.) Lain's father helps her set up her new NAVI (computer).

The next day at school, Lain finds a chip in her locker. At home, she asks her father what it is, but he doesn't know. However, a small boy at Cyberia identifies it as an extremely powerful processor that will allow full access to the Wired for any device on which it is mounted. She installs the chip in her NAVI and continues to work on it.

Lain and her family attract the attention of two mysterious men in black wearing laser pointer headsets. They shine their lasers on Lain's room. Lain tells them to go away, they refuse, and the NAVI destroys their headsets. The Knights of the Eastern Calculus, an organization based on the Wired, turn Lain's elder sister into a human modem and bomb Lain's room. The two men in black take Lain to their headquarters, and question Lain about her family. She becomes frustrated as she realizes she does not know the most basic things about her parents.

Alice is spied on by Evil Lain, another personality of Lain. Wired Lain confronts and wrestles with Evil Lain, but because they are the same person, neither can defeat the other. Wired Lain deletes her friends' memories of the incident, but becomes invisible and is replaced by a copy of herself.