Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

theringer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 177 posts

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#161

Post by bsanr2 »

mullingitover wrote: post #53
analyte123 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A young girl can't stop posting" as a description for SEL is like describing Pan's Labyrinth as "a young girl struggles with mental illness in wartime".

Reminds me of the classic summary of Wizard of Oz: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”

This will make my contention that The Hunger Games is a sort of twisted, modern reapplication of the same (very American) perspective and values that underpin WoO much easier to defend.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#162

Post by GreedCtrl »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #54
honkycat wrote: post #35

Serial Experiments Lain is everything wonderful about anime. It is violent, dark, scary. In summary: ADULT. Anime tells stories in a visual format that for years and years you simply could not get anywhere else. Adult genre fiction was not well represented in American media. Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they…

Have any good adult animes come out these past few years? There's always been a lot of gross stuff but I'm starting to lose faith in the medium when I see stuff like Mushoku Tensei being praised as wonderful in the mainstream, the latest few seasons have felt like complete garbage.

I'd recommend Megalobox 2: Nomad as a rare gem, much more so than its first season. It takes a classic underdog story then asks: What happens after the hero wins?

It's an adult story. A story of homelessness, of community; of addiction, of compassion; of parenthood, of adolescence. And there's some boxing.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#164

Post by bullfightonmars »

nrclark wrote: post #154
trentnix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex charact…

I dunno whether these count or not, but I enjoyed the hell out of Kid Cosmic, Steven Universe, and Adventure Time. These maybe aren't the same kind of show as your traditional animes, but they all really resonated with me during Covid times.

I have fallen in love with Adventure Time. Not only is it something my son and I can watch together, but tells real coming of age stories that are relevant to both kids and adults.

Adventure Time is deeply empathetic to the human condition. To communicate this connection it rewrites all the rules about how the world works and forces you to navigate them with no explaination.

To a child this is taken as a mater of course, to them that is how the real wold works. Children have to discover the world on their own and learn to navigate it, hopefully with the guidance of parents, family and teachers.

Most lessons are hard won and come only through experience. As the story progresses you see the characters in Adventure Time strugle to learn these lessons, sometimes succeeding sometimes failing.

As an adult this show opens me up to all these lessons again and gives me a chance to reevaluate my experiences as well as consider those my son is or will go through and how I cam be there for him.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#165

Post by astrange »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #49
astrange wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's interesting how two people can have diametrically opposite readings of the same piece of art. Mostly because Chiaki Konaka is incapable of writing endings. I don't think Lain is that abstract (there's some early parts that look like it but I think are meant to be representative of schizophrenia), but it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying even though they're talking nonstop. With such a heavy scr…

> it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying I found it hard to follow what most episodes were saying, and I changed my interpretation several times, always feeling that I'm on the verge of understanding, but not quite getting it. And I actually liked it that way.

You know how you live in the real world and post on forums? Lain lives on forums and posts in real life. #whoa

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#166

Post by nrclark »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #164
nrclark wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno whether these count or not, but I enjoyed the hell out of Kid Cosmic, Steven Universe, and Adventure Time. These maybe aren't the same kind of show as your traditional animes, but they all really resonated with me during Covid times.

I have fallen in love with Adventure Time. Not only is it something my son and I can watch together, but tells real coming of age stories that are relevant to both kids and adults. Adventure Time is deeply empathetic to the human condition. To communicate this connection it rewrites all the rules about how the world works and forces you to navigate them with no explaination. To a child this is taken as a mater of cou…

Agreed with everything you said. Also you should check out Steven Universe, if you liked the feeling of Adventure Time. It hits a lot of the same emotional beats, and tells very powerful stories about family. You'll take different things from it than your son, but you'll both like it.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#167

Post by meowface »

corysama wrote: post #28

Lain does seem quaint when viewed today. But, it was thrilling at the time. A frequent theme was hearing background conversations of random users traveling through the wires. The idea of a couple having a fight and breaking up over “The Internet” was still weird. When the series was made, people were just starting to mainstream the practice of having serious personal interaction online and no one knew where it would…

>Lain does seem quaint when viewed today.

I don't agree, personally. The visuals seem a bit dated, due to it being released 23 years ago, but I watched it for the first time a few years ago and found it very thrilling and memorable.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#168

Post by miej »

trentnix wrote: post #47
honkycat wrote: post #35

Serial Experiments Lain is everything wonderful about anime. It is violent, dark, scary. In summary: ADULT. Anime tells stories in a visual format that for years and years you simply could not get anywhere else. Adult genre fiction was not well represented in American media. Even today, adult American cartoons are almost entirely "sitcom" format. They don't want to ever end, and they do not want to tell a story, they…

A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex charact…

magnetic rose by otomo. one of my faves.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#169

Post by miej »

miej wrote: post #168
trentnix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex charact…

magnetic rose by otomo. one of my faves.

oh, and perfect blue.

Re: The terrifyingly prescient ‘Serial Experiments Lain,’ 20 years later (2018)

#170

Post by licebmi__at__ »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #46
vharuck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mob Psycho was, IMO, pretty blatant in its moral lesson. Are you saying it didn't have one, or the reviewers blazed their own trails in defiance of the show's message?

Are we talking about the anime or the manga? It's been a long while but I don't remember the anime being preachy or blatant, what was the lesson?

Well, literally portrayed a villain as a baby when he was on his speech about how normal people should bow to the talented ones.
Post reply on HN