
The status-quo of her life becomes upturned by a series of bizarre incidents that start to take place after she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from a dead student, Chisa Yomoda, and she pulls out her old computer in order to check for the same message. Lain Iwakura, a junior high school girl, lives in suburban Japan with her middle-class family, consisting of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her emotionally distant mother, and her computer-obsessed father Lain herself is somewhat awkward, introverted, and socially isolated from most of her school peers. It was awarded an Excellence Prize at the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival. Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere and thematics its dark depiction of a world fraught with paranoia, social alienation and reliance on technology has been considered insightful into 21st century life. The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk and conspiracy theory. Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery, and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity and communication. The series follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet.

Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe, the series was broadcast for thirteen episodes on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998. Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a Japanese anime television series directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura, written by Chiaki J.
