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Lol... I was going to say this exactly. Evangelion and Lain were pretty popular even in the US around the year 2000, so I imagine they were near ubiquitous in J

Lol... I was going to say this exactly. Evangelion and Lain were pretty popular even in the US around the year 2000, so I imagine they were near ubiquitous in Japan. Both were well-animated and the power lines a symbol that was returned to again and again. Anime/manga also loves to meme/trope things like this because animation studios are cheap and love 30s tracking shots across 2 hand-drawn panel with nothing more to animate than a bit of lens flare. IMO it started as a style thing but quickly became a “this is a cheap way to pad our runtime” thing.

sevensor 9y ago
Serial Experiments Lain remains a point of reference for me. Whenever the modern world seems especially surreal, I hear it in my head: "present day, present time!" followed by the mad cackle of laughter. It also deepened my appreciation for the electrical infrastructure when I first visited East Asia.
- exelius 9y ago
  Yeah, I feel Lain is one of those underrated classics that people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004. Any later than that and the reaction was kind of "well, duh, of course that's what happens". I feel the same way about much of the societal commentary in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- they totally nailed the way groups like ISIS and the alt-right would spread like wildfire over social media, and the way that "fake news" makes finding the truth an exercise in futility. It was so accurate a decade before any of it happened that anyone who watches it now is unimpressed because it seems so topical as to be trite.
  - distrill 9y ago
    I saw lain a few years ago for the first time and I wasn't underwhelmed at all, I thought it was great.
    - ZenoArrow 9y ago
      I remember enjoying Serial Experiments Lain back in the day, good to hear it still holds up. If you (or anyone else reading this) enjoy cyberpunk anime, I can recommend checking out the UK dub of Cyber City Oedo 808. Very different from Lain, but has a classic 90s anime feel, and has more of an adult-oriented tone without being unnecessarily graphic. The UK dub has a different soundtrack from the Japanese release, has only been released on VHS, but luckily all three episodes are easy to find on YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBXPsetOHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBXPsetOHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSTGjmRHps https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSTGjmRHps https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRb_7W0Ffc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRb_7W0Ffc
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I saw Lain this year and... I couldn't understand any of it, even though I tried hard. I found it pretty confusing. Could someone explain to me what were the intended (or unintended, but interesting) messages in that anime?
  - sevensor 9y ago
    > people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004 That's me! My friend who got me into anime had watched Lain in fansub, but he took "not for sale or rent" very seriously and taped over it as soon as it got picked up for US distribution. As a result, it's one of the first things I ever watched on DVD instead of VHS.
- elihu 9y ago
  For me it serves (alongside Weird Al's "It's all about the Pentiums") as a reminder of what an odd time the 90's were. People were just getting onto the Internet, and computers were really slow and expensive and painful to use, but progress was being made rapidly into totally uncharted territory (both socially and technologically) and it seemed like some sort of singularity-ish event was just around the corner.
vorotato 9y ago
In Lain it was a motif which represented the interconnectedness of modern society. Notice how they called the internet "The Wired". Idk enough about evangelion to comment.
- exelius 9y ago
  In Evangelion, power represented civilization in various stages of decline. It's post-apocalyptic, so the state of the infrastructure shows you if an area has been abandoned, reclaimed, etc. The Evas (basically giant mecha) have to be tethered to power to work, etc. The whole theme of the anime centers around the type of arrogance Man (in this case, a single man) would show in the face of annihilation by God, and how a man could resist God's influence and effectively become a god himself. Christian iconography is very prevalent as well (power lines form natural crosses); especially in End of Evangelion. Electric power is then itself a form of rebellion against God. It's a super symbolically dense anime; in fact they pack in too much symbolism and it causes the show to lose focus toward the end which it never really regains -- the last 2 episodes of the original series are essentially 100% symbolism because the studio ran out of money and had to use recycled animation and stock footage with voice-overs (End of Evangelion replaces those two episodes in the storyline).
  - sexydefinesher 9y ago
    Ive heard that they put in christian imagery just because it was cool and with no real purpose.
    - exelius 9y ago
      I dunno; the biblical imagery is pretty central to the plot (Adam/Eve, Angels, Lance of Longinus, etc.) There's a strong implication that this takes place during "the rapture" and in fact, EoE shows what is basically a textbook version of rapture. It's not used with the same level of reverence it would be in the West (it's treated more of the way we would treat a story about Greek gods) so it may seem hokey to Western viewers, but the imagery is definitely there and used for central plot purposes.
deadmetheny 9y ago
It's definitely a stylistic thing in Serial Experiments Lain. The transformer hums are evocative of Lain's power within the Wired, and the power lines are explicitly everywhere to illustrate how everyone is now connected. It's a great series, and relatively short at 13 episodes, highly recommended as a series to binge sometime.
bitwize 9y ago
One thing I learned about anime (from discussing it with Japanese folks) is that "anime Westerners like" and "anime Japanese like" can be way different. Something may come out in Japan that has only niche appeal, only to blow up in the West. Azumanga Daioh -- Mother of a Thousand 4chan Memes -- comes to mind. Likewise, sometimes a title takes off in Japan only to find rocky soil here. I think Evangelion was well loved on both sides of the pond but I have no idea about Lain. It seemed a closer fit for Western cyberpunk sensibilities though, and I have no recollection of it turning into a media phenomenon the way Macross, Eva, or One Piece did.
- exelius 9y ago
  I think that's easier now with the Internet, but keep in mind when Lain came out the Internet fansub community was really just getting going. I remember in 2001 being blown away that I could download an entire series in under an hour from a friend at another university (it ran over Internet2 so I could actually saturate my 100mbps ethernet connection with it). This was years before streaming video was even possible outside RealPlayer. Back then, it didn't really get popular in the US unless it was already popular in Japan. I realize that's changed now, but back in the early days of Internet video there just wasn't the same level of access.
- deadmetheny 9y ago
  If I recall correctly, Lain was fairly popular both in the West and Japan, largely for similar reasons, although it was less big in the West since at the time it came out anime had not really become A Thing yet. To your point, Cowboy Bebop can probably be considered to be one of the biggest causes for anime to gain so much traction in the US due to being on Adult Swim and having a killer feel and soundtrack, but its lasting power wasn't nearly as strong in Japan.
  - exelius 9y ago
    IIRC Cowboy Bebop was developed explicitly with western audiences in mind. It’s success informed later shows (in a similar way to how thr Chinese market is influencing Hollywood movies) so it really is a landmark show, even if it wasn’t as well received in Japan.
lanius 9y ago
Were they that popular in the US in 2000? Evangelion started airing on Adult Swim in 2005, and Lain started in 2002 on TechTV IIRC.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  They got US cable distributors because they were insanely popular for years even though that kind of distribution wasn't available.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Eva aired in Japan in 1995, and basically any and all anime fans of the late 90's were using torrents and fansubs to watch shows (including me, since I was living in the states at that point in my life).
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sevensor 9y ago

Serial Experiments Lain remains a point of reference for me. Whenever the modern world seems especially surreal, I hear it in my head: "present day, present time!" followed by the mad cackle of laughter. It also deepened my appreciation for the electrical infrastructure when I first visited East Asia.

exelius 9y ago
Yeah, I feel Lain is one of those underrated classics that people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004. Any later than that and the reaction was kind of "well, duh, of course that's what happens". I feel the same way about much of the societal commentary in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- they totally nailed the way groups like ISIS and the alt-right would spread like wildfire over social media, and the way that "fake news" makes finding the truth an exercise in futility. It was so accurate a decade before any of it happened that anyone who watches it now is unimpressed because it seems so topical as to be trite.
- distrill 9y ago
  I saw lain a few years ago for the first time and I wasn't underwhelmed at all, I thought it was great.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    I remember enjoying Serial Experiments Lain back in the day, good to hear it still holds up. If you (or anyone else reading this) enjoy cyberpunk anime, I can recommend checking out the UK dub of Cyber City Oedo 808. Very different from Lain, but has a classic 90s anime feel, and has more of an adult-oriented tone without being unnecessarily graphic. The UK dub has a different soundtrack from the Japanese release, has only been released on VHS, but luckily all three episodes are easy to find on YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBXPsetOHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBXPsetOHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSTGjmRHps https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vCSTGjmRHps https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRb_7W0Ffc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRb_7W0Ffc
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I saw Lain this year and... I couldn't understand any of it, even though I tried hard. I found it pretty confusing. Could someone explain to me what were the intended (or unintended, but interesting) messages in that anime?
- sevensor 9y ago
  > people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004 That's me! My friend who got me into anime had watched Lain in fansub, but he took "not for sale or rent" very seriously and taped over it as soon as it got picked up for US distribution. As a result, it's one of the first things I ever watched on DVD instead of VHS.
elihu 9y ago
For me it serves (alongside Weird Al's "It's all about the Pentiums") as a reminder of what an odd time the 90's were. People were just getting onto the Internet, and computers were really slow and expensive and painful to use, but progress was being made rapidly into totally uncharted territory (both socially and technologically) and it seemed like some sort of singularity-ish event was just around the corner.

vorotato 9y ago

In Lain it was a motif which represented the interconnectedness of modern society. Notice how they called the internet "The Wired". Idk enough about evangelion to comment.

exelius 9y ago
In Evangelion, power represented civilization in various stages of decline. It's post-apocalyptic, so the state of the infrastructure shows you if an area has been abandoned, reclaimed, etc. The Evas (basically giant mecha) have to be tethered to power to work, etc. The whole theme of the anime centers around the type of arrogance Man (in this case, a single man) would show in the face of annihilation by God, and how a man could resist God's influence and effectively become a god himself. Christian iconography is very prevalent as well (power lines form natural crosses); especially in End of Evangelion. Electric power is then itself a form of rebellion against God. It's a super symbolically dense anime; in fact they pack in too much symbolism and it causes the show to lose focus toward the end which it never really regains -- the last 2 episodes of the original series are essentially 100% symbolism because the studio ran out of money and had to use recycled animation and stock footage with voice-overs (End of Evangelion replaces those two episodes in the storyline).
- sexydefinesher 9y ago
  Ive heard that they put in christian imagery just because it was cool and with no real purpose.
  - exelius 9y ago
    I dunno; the biblical imagery is pretty central to the plot (Adam/Eve, Angels, Lance of Longinus, etc.) There's a strong implication that this takes place during "the rapture" and in fact, EoE shows what is basically a textbook version of rapture. It's not used with the same level of reverence it would be in the West (it's treated more of the way we would treat a story about Greek gods) so it may seem hokey to Western viewers, but the imagery is definitely there and used for central plot purposes.

deadmetheny 9y ago

It's definitely a stylistic thing in Serial Experiments Lain. The transformer hums are evocative of Lain's power within the Wired, and the power lines are explicitly everywhere to illustrate how everyone is now connected. It's a great series, and relatively short at 13 episodes, highly recommended as a series to binge sometime.

bitwize 9y ago

One thing I learned about anime (from discussing it with Japanese folks) is that "anime Westerners like" and "anime Japanese like" can be way different. Something may come out in Japan that has only niche appeal, only to blow up in the West. Azumanga Daioh -- Mother of a Thousand 4chan Memes -- comes to mind. Likewise, sometimes a title takes off in Japan only to find rocky soil here. I think Evangelion was well loved on both sides of the pond but I have no idea about Lain. It seemed a closer fit for Western cyberpunk sensibilities though, and I have no recollection of it turning into a media phenomenon the way Macross, Eva, or One Piece did.

exelius 9y ago
I think that's easier now with the Internet, but keep in mind when Lain came out the Internet fansub community was really just getting going. I remember in 2001 being blown away that I could download an entire series in under an hour from a friend at another university (it ran over Internet2 so I could actually saturate my 100mbps ethernet connection with it). This was years before streaming video was even possible outside RealPlayer. Back then, it didn't really get popular in the US unless it was already popular in Japan. I realize that's changed now, but back in the early days of Internet video there just wasn't the same level of access.
deadmetheny 9y ago
If I recall correctly, Lain was fairly popular both in the West and Japan, largely for similar reasons, although it was less big in the West since at the time it came out anime had not really become A Thing yet. To your point, Cowboy Bebop can probably be considered to be one of the biggest causes for anime to gain so much traction in the US due to being on Adult Swim and having a killer feel and soundtrack, but its lasting power wasn't nearly as strong in Japan.
- exelius 9y ago
  IIRC Cowboy Bebop was developed explicitly with western audiences in mind. It’s success informed later shows (in a similar way to how thr Chinese market is influencing Hollywood movies) so it really is a landmark show, even if it wasn’t as well received in Japan.

lanius 9y ago

Were they that popular in the US in 2000? Evangelion started airing on Adult Swim in 2005, and Lain started in 2002 on TechTV IIRC.

dragonwriter 9y ago
They got US cable distributors because they were insanely popular for years even though that kind of distribution wasn't available.
hkmurakami 9y ago
Eva aired in Japan in 1995, and basically any and all anime fans of the late 90's were using torrents and fansubs to watch shows (including me, since I was living in the states at that point in my life).

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]