
	Format VHS Released in North America by Pioneer Length 100 minutes English Subtitled version reviewed
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Serial Experiment Lain: Navi

seriel experiments lain

Lain is the first film in a while to really draw me in. With its stark look at a young social outcast, how the internet has become an alternate reality for Lain, and how this existence in turn draws her even further away from society, Serial Experiment Lain: Navi (SELN) really can get the viewer thinking.

Navi is the first volume in a four-volume set, with this installment containing four Layers (episodes). Like any first volume Navi introduces a number of the main characters and gives viewers a little insight into the casts’ demeanor. Basically the story begins with a junior high school girl committing suicide, however, a few days her death some of her classmates begin to receive emails from her dated after she had died. One of these recipients is the quiet, awkward Lain. This message sparks Lain’s interest in the internet; so begins her decent into Cyberspace and withdrawal from society.

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It’s easy to really feel bad for Lain’s predicament. Most of her classmates, as well as her older sister, tease her, her mother is an incredibly cold woman who hardly acknowledges Lain as a person, and her father has already succumbed to the Internet. She has one friend at school, and for reasons as yet unexplained, she seems to be friends with one of the DJs at a popular club. By and large though she doesn’t have much of a tactile life, so the Internet looks like the next best thing to Lain.

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From a visual standpoint the art is very well done, both in design and in overall production quality.

What’s really nice is the use of color and light working together to give a more surreal look to the movie, helping to emphasis the feeling of being outside society that has been bothering Lain.

Navi’s entry into this series tackles social cliques and escapism in a very powerful manner. From Lain’s wanderings through Cyberspace to the hints of drug use (being a microchip that "accelerates" the user in the film), to the visuals, and surreal, abstract music, Lain is an excellent title well worth taking a look at.

Reviewed by Mr. Nash