8.324 minSeason 1 • Episode 13
LatestThe world is crumbling, people are dying and Alice's sanity is threatened. To save humanity, there is only one thing Lain can do; she must make the ultimate personal sacrifice.
Lain—driven by the abrupt suicide of a classmate—logs on to the Wired and promptly loses herself in a twisted mass of hallucinations, memories, and interconnected-psyches.
Direction
Nakamura's fragmented visual language predicts TikTok dissociation.
Sound
Bôa's 'Duvet' OP still lives rent-free in millennial trauma.
Writing
Every line of dialogue is a riddle wrapped in static.
Kaori Shimizu
Lain Iwakura (voice)
Yoko Asada
Arisu Mizuki - Lain's friend (voice)
Ayako Kawasumi
Mika Iwakura - Lain's older sister (voice)
Ryusuke Ohbayashi
Yasuo Iwakura - Lain's father (voice)
Rei Igarashi
Miho Iwakura - Lain's mother (voice)
Sumi Mutoh
Chisa Yomoda (voice)
Chiharu Tezuka
Reika Yamamoto (voice)
Manabi Mizuno
Yūri Katō (voice)
Show Hayami
Eiri Masami (voice)
Shigeru Chiba
Office worker
Jouji Nakata
Karl Haushoffer - Man in Black 1(voice)
Takumi Yamazaki
Lin Sui-Xi - Man in black 2 (voice)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released in 1998, it predicted internet culture's psychic toll before Twitter existed. Japan's 'lost generation' anxiety made flesh.
The 'knights' are never fully explained—creator Yoshitoshi Abe wanted viewers to feel as lost as Lain. The title card font? Custom, unreadable by design.
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