I’ve watched the first 6 episodes of this show, imo everything past episode 4 is really vague and hard to understand. I’ve read that I shouldn’t expect to understand it on my first watch but if I’m not enjoying it my first time through I’m not gonna torture myself by rewatching something I dont like a bunch of times to understand it. It also makes me feel dumb for not appreciating something deep like this, especially since it’s something that you’re actually supposed to think about while watching it. Credit where credit is due, it is definitely one of the most unique anime I have seen.
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Seeing that monitor threw me for a loop. I can feel the chunky press of that power button.
It is not that deep, really. It is almost impossible to understand on a first watchthrough because all context for what is happening is only given towards the very end, so it just looks like a mess. On second watch it should be more understandable, but if you did not enjoy it the first time you wouldn’t the second time either, and you don’t really lose much by not doing it. Just watch a video essay about dissociative disorder in media or something if you want to watch something with meaning.
I’d recommend you just power through it and absorb what you can. An explanation is given at the end, and things make alittle more sense when that’s given. I enjoyed the visuals and just went along for the ride.
why do i have to pass a cloudflare challenge :s
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But you don’t seem to understand
A shame you seemed an honest man
Very cool visuals, but I thought it was a good anime to watch stoned, and obviously for me it isn’t. I had absolutely no clue what was going on.
Need to sit down and give it another go.
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I’ve dealt with depression before, I guess it’s the same way Dostoevsky doesn’t feel the same when I’m reading it with a completely lucid lense. I also take pride in understanding things others don’t, so that’s part of the reason why I don’t like that I don’t understand it. So far as the monitor goes, my mom gave me her old PC she used to use back in, iirc, the 90’s. I do have a matching keyboard for it, but she lost the mouse, I just hooked up the monitor to modern PC cuz I read it was the best way to watch it, along with a low quality recording of the show itself.
It looks similar to the lemon sold to my family in 1995.
psychotic rambling are awesome and I wish more shows were based of them.
Let’s all love lain!
it’s something that you’re actually supposed to think about while watching it
Says who? IMO the strongest aspect of Lain is the vibe (style, sound, art, the whole world). The overall narrative is jarringly structured, a bit chaotic, with sudden introductions and resolutions of subplots, and especially on the first watch it’s futile to try to treat it as some sort of a (solvable) puzzle, or, even worse, a philosophical tractate. Not that it might not be treated that way on a rewatch sometime down the line (though honestly I wouldn’t expect that to be possible even then), but the first time around it has to draw you into the world and into Lain’s mind. Just relax, make yourself comfortable, and let it be an irrational, intimate experience that it’s probably meant to be. (Or, well, don’t, if you’ve already given up.)
Serial Experiments lain is my favourite anime, so I’d definetly recommend watching more… but if it’s just not for you it’s not going to click. For me, I enjoyed the anime already from the first few minutes and watched the whole thing on the edge of my seat in a single night.
Even when I didn’t understand anything on my first watch, I still enjoyed the visuals, audio, unique direction and storytelling, and really liked trying to make sense of it all and thinking about everything I just saw between episodes. Plus I could relate a lot to lain. But it’s definetly not for everyone.
I actually really liked lain and thought it was gonna be my new favorite anime until I got to episode 5, my comprehension went downhill from there. I enjoyed the surreal visuals and sound too but without a coherent plot to follow I just couldn’t be bothered to keep watching.
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I actually didn’t have any leads on what it was going to be like at all. I just decided a few days ago that I wanted to watch lain for some reason and started watching it. It wasn’t until the third episode until I switched to a crt because I felt like the picture was too clean on a flat screen tv. The closest thing I’ve experienced in regards to pieces coming together to form a narrative is outer wilds, but even that manages to get the player emotionally invested in the story better than lain.
