Notes watching Serial Experiments Lain

These notes will probably spoil the show for you, so don't read them unless you've watched it! I'm also writing as I watch as a way to make sense of what I'm looking it.

Episode 1

• Lain seem like she's not really there. The environment is faded. People barely notice her.
• Yomoda Chisa died by jumping off a building in Shibuya. She sends email. She was in class D.
• Lain is studying programming (C, it seems).
• She says she's not very good with computers.
• The shadows have a strange color with red dots.
• Lain seems to get back home at 6pm.
• She has a red computer. Uses "Communication OS".
• Her ID is "lain"
• It's locked by voice. Everything on the computer is driven by voice.
• Death is a theme. Suicide too.
• She seems to love teddy bears. She has a lot and even a pyjama.
• The Wired is mentioned. Is that the Internet?
• Many computer interfaces.
• Speaking of computers, they seem to be called "Navi".
• "Even a girl like you can make friends right off the bat, Lain."
• Her dad has like 10 computers on his desk. Her mother doesn't seem to be into computer that much?
• Iwakura is her last name,
• Seem as if Lain is able to see parts of the Wired in the real world.
• The Wired almost look like a different dimension of its own. One where some people go in the after life?

Episode 2

• Layer2: girls
• Cyberia? It's a club. Someone that looks like Lain is there.
• Accela?
• Creepy people outside Lain's home.
• Accela, smart supplement. Secrets a hormone that affects the time-sense. Makes it seems as if one's awareness is accelerated. Multiply the brain's operational capacity by 2 to 12 times. It only lasts 24h.
• Lain has what looks like a smartphone -- capable of receiving emails. Which is definitely not something we had back when the show was created in 1998.
• Arisu is her friend.
• Lain received a new Navi.
• Lain's dad associate a good computer with good relationship with people.
• The new Navi runs "Copland OS Enterprise", by TachibanaLab.
• Lain's older sister is Mika
• The email application on the phone is called "Lain's Pokate Mailer", which I think is really cool.
• Cyberia - Cafe & Club. That's a cool name.
• Info Guard Center?
• Someone shot people at the club.
• The shooter seems to know Lain. Is it the guy who took the Accela?
• "The Wired can't be allowed to interfere with the real world!".
• "No matter where you go, everyone's connected".
• The shooter shot himself.

Episode 3

• Layer 3: Psyche
• The Navi seems to have an AI.
• A black car in front of the house.
• The psyche can increase the power of a Navi.
• Accel is a way to increase psyche? Designed by the Knights?
• So Lain knows Cyberia?
• So the chip Lain recevied is called a Psyche.
• Looks like we can get inside a Navi.
• We need to connect the chip to the board.
• Apparently it manipulates the data on its own.
• People seems to know Lain from the Wired.
• People take a personality on the Wired that's different from real life.
• Apparently the Lain in the Wired is very different.
• Lain connected to the Wired at the end?

Episode 4

• Layer 4: Religion
• "I don't need parents. Humans are all alone. They're not connected to anyone at all"
• A young girl with a dog teddy bear follows someone. The person is terrified.
• Lain is reading "HackerZ Heavens vol 5".
• There's a game on the Wired apparently.
• The young girl that was following the person is back. Was she just playing in the Wired?
• Phantoma is the name of the game.
• Okay so people playing the phantoma game are actually in the real world. So if they fall, they actually can hurt themselves. A sort of real virtual reality. Looks like one can break their Navi to get out of it though.
• There are "PK" in the game.
• Phantoma has been linked to a "tag game" played by kids. Thus the little girl?
• Looks like the Knights are behind it?
• "The border between the wired and the real world isn't so clear"
• "The knights can be thought as a religion that is spreading through the Wired"
• Lain has made people go away with a special power. Were they in the real world or the Wired?

Episode 5

• Layer 05: Distortion
• The Wired / Network is mentioned as a way to escape.
• Lain seems to be very good at hacking, but she isn't aware of it.
• "It's reasonable to see the Wired as an upper layer of the real world."
• Strange how no one in Lain's family wants to talk about Lain's relationship with the Wired.
• There's mention of a prophecy.
• People in the Wired can affect the real world, in the form of a prophecy.
• Something wrong with Lain's sister.

Episode 6

• Layer 06: Kids
• There's a valve with a throttle and a url beneath: mebious.co.ul
• Lain's computer says "coma"
• She speaks to the Knights
• "A net-pal isn't the same as a real friend" - i like the term "net-pal"
• Lain appeared in the sky?!
• She's able to translate her real life form well in the Wired.
• Lain is apparently searching for someone who appears to be an old man. Professor Hodgeson.
• He wants to live in the wired.
• KIDS?
• Experiment data from 15 years ago?
• Kids are playing now, reproducing an experiment?
• Th Kensington Experiment?
• Psi, parapsychological ability is present in most children, but faint in most.
• ESP?
• Outer receptors is what receive the Psi
• KIDS: individually their Psi is weak. Wanted to collect it.
• KIDS was smashed to never be rebuilt.
• But the schematics have been found. Rebuilt without outer receptors.
• KIDS emulation is ran. Ran by Rogues? Knights?
• Lain's room exploded. Someone wanted to get her? Knights?

Episode 7

• Layer 07: Society
• Some strange person seem to be walking outside with a Navi.
• We see a program written in lisp. It defines the "life" function.
• The strange person wants to break the barrier between the Wired and the real world.
• Is Lain a Knight? She doesn't seem to know she is.
• Is Lain the real Lain? She doesn't know when she was born.
• Border between real world and wired starts to crumble.
• Looks like the strange person is no more...

Episode 8

• Layer 08: Rumors
• Gen-7 protocol? Current protocol (6th) reach throughput limit.
• "To control the protocol is to control the economy of the Wired."
• Tachibana are the one sabotaging attempts to use gen-7?
• What's up with Lain's parents?
• Lain seems to be speaking to herself, to have met who she is in the wired. This is all very schizophrenic.
• Looks like Lain from the Wired is swapping with the one from real life.

Episode 9

• Layer 9: Protocol
• MJ-12 Document
• Lain has been there since the creation of the Wired.
• That little kid is a knight.
• It's a chip that overrides memory.
• Hypothesis of a worldwide neural network: a wireless network whereby all humanity would be plugged in at an unconscious level without the need for any device.

Episode 10

• Layer 10: Love
• Lain speaks to herself through someone else
• "To die is merely to abandon the flesh" - that's what Chisa said - ties back to the beginning.
• Lain evolved the Wired's protocol? She added her memories to it. The man Eiri Masami. Is that who Lain is? Is it a way for them to live forever?
• Lain created the Knights to worship her?
• She's being told that "she doesn't need a body", since she lives in the Wired, but she's very sad to not be in the real world. Looks like she feels very much alone. Virtual worlds aren't replacements for social life.
• Lain's parents aren't her parents.
• "Don't leave me alone", "Alone? If you connect to the Wired, everyone will welcome you."
• She removed herself for the physical world to become a sort of super being in the Wired. She now feels very alone.
• Is there a fake lain or is she that person?
• Members of the knights have leaked apparently... and are being neutralized.
• Killing the knights was a request from someone that's not lain. Who's that person?
• "The Wired can't be allowed to be a special world", "It can only be a field that functions as a sub-system reinforcing the real world."
• Eiri Masami's "Residual Thought Program"
• The special agents are looking to remove the program from the Wired. The client is working on a rewrite of Protocol Seven code.
• "We still haven't figured out what you are, but I love you".
• Lain was born in the Wired? Never had a body? That's why she didn't have a family?

Episode 11

• Layer 11: Infornography
• Quite like the intro phase. The jazz music contrasts well with the images.
• There's an Apple reference. It says "Think up different", with what appears to be an iMac.
• Loaded an emulator of the navi on her own brain.
• "Lain, you're software".
• "An executable program with a body".
• Speaking of iMac, looks like this is what Lain's friend is using.
• If Lain is a software, it means multiple instances can run at the same time?

Episode 12

• Layer 12: Landscape
• "You should just re-write bad memories".
• "People only have substance within the memories of others".
• Protocol 7 allows the seamless sharing of info between real world and the Wired.
• Possible to connect to the Wired without device.
• Lain is a program designed to destroy the barrier between the worlds.

Episode 13

• Layer 13: Ego
• "If you don't remember something, it never happened".
• People don't seem to remember Lain.
• "Information functions by always being in motion"
• Lain has reset everything and now she's on no one's memory.
• Arisu remembers Lain.