Lain Discussion Panel At Otakon

Lawrence Eng writes: "At Otakon 2000 earlier this month, the producer and character designer of Serial Experiments Lain, Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe, answered questions at a Lain discussion panel. The full transcript of that discussion, the IRC transcript of the talk with Ueda and ABe that took place the day after the convention, and other related interviews can be found here. I thought people might appreciate a chance to look into the minds of the Lain creators."

Lain came before the Matrix.

There is no way that the Lain creators could have possibly ripped the Matrix off, since they were working on Lain before the Matrix was released.

The two have a lot in common superficially, but if you actually watch all 13 episodes of Lain, you'll see that the two are like night and day.

The US release of Lain happened after everyone saw the Matrix, so a lot of misinformed people on this side of the ocean think that Lain ripped off the Matrix, when in fact it did not.

GRR

People, if you don't like anime, CHECK THE EXCLUDE BOX FOR ANIME ON YOUR PREFERENCES. Then you won't even have the opportunity to start screaming about anime being a "genre" (it's a MEDIUM) in which people get raped by tentacles (and it isn't -- all you've being watching is hentai if you think this is so).

I don't apologize for this sounding like a rant, because it is. I'm rather annoyed, and I think that all of the other otaku out there who read Slashdot are also, because they too have to go wading through a bunch of crappy posts by uninformed people just to read anything of value.

Please, for the love of God, if you don't like anime, check "the box."

Now watch me get moderated down for this post by some moderator just because they don't like anime. >_

Folks, you're on the wrong track here

As one friend to another, I must clue you people in.

*lain* is not the same as *laid*. If you think that getting lain is the same as getting laid, please check again.

We geeks won't become the sex symbols of the 21st century if we can't even get the slang right. :-)

Lain Link and various rambles about anime and /.

Lain is one of my favorite anime series, and with regards to whether or not it should be posted on /., there's nothing wrong with it being posted. I, for one, enjoy it when there is an anime post on /. I consider myself a geek, and I think that many geeks do enjoy their anime. I am careful to say that not all geeks enjoy anime - as they all don't - which is shown by many of the "Stop posting this sh*t on /." posts. However, I think there are as many people who enjoy anime posts as there are people who enjoy Space posts, and who enjoy posts about games for Linux. /. posts many things for many different people and their interests.

Anyway, back to my subject - Lain. Cafe-Lain [cafe-lain.net] is a nice site for people who enjoy Lain as well as other anime. I highly recommend it.

Lain Links an other stuff

okay...


Here is a link to an interesting Lain site, Thought Experiments Lain. [cjas.org] It has spoilers galore, and a good explanation of the computer, literary and historical references in the anime. Don't visit the site unless youve seen Lain in its entierty and are trying to make some sense of it.

Here's a link to my little' 'ol Lain Gallery [slack.net]. With plenty of pretty pictures for you to look at.

I was also at otakon, but I went to the bandai panel instead of Lain. Got an interview with the guys for atanime.com [atanime.com] too. (eep, shameless self promotion!) BTW, did anyone else who was there think that BOA's Performace at otakon was sub-par?

Anipike [anipike.com] has plenty of links for other stuff.

Personally, I loved this anime and found it intriguing. Yes, I do think it is VERY pretencious, but that just part of the experience. When doing an anime like this, its impossible to avoid it. Eva was amazingly pretencious too. Lain is currently my favorite set of anime dvds, and if you havnt seen it yet, I honestly reccomend checking it out.

Okay, Im done..

Not *entirely* anime related, but...

AnimeOnDVD.Com [animeondvd.com] is basically the source for anime on DVD news. This past Monday, the site's main artist - Bethany Neal (who drew the marvelous Divi-Chan [animeondvd.com]) and her husband, Justin, passed away in a car accident.

I don't know the details since that's what was posted on AnimeOnDVD. There is an address to send condolences to the family:

Bethany and Justin Neal
130 SW 112th Street
Seattle, Washington 98146

More information is here [animeondvd.com].

[rant] It was probably some moron who felt he could drive while having a beer. Fucking morons. [/rant]

Re:what i do not understand.

"Its not a bad style, but where's the variety?"

I want so badly to argue this point but I ...really can't. I have a half-dozen titles (all of Lain, some Evangelion, Macross, a few assorted movies) and you're pretty much correct. I can say that you find some great stories though. I'll agree with the previous poster who said "anime is not afraid to take cultural and subject-matter related risks ". Some examples are Grave of the Fireflies (not nearly as jingoistic as dozens of American movies I can cite), Ghost in the Shell (cybernetics seems to be a taboo here in the states, it's always freakish instead of our evolution).

Lain is wonderful but very, very tedious. Ghost in the Shell is a classic of course and I'm almost ashamed to admit my affection for Maison Ikokku. =)

My .02
Quux26

Re:Umm, right.

-1 Flamebait

If I were Rob, I'd be reading this trash while humming the tune to "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" happily to myself. I think it's pretty obvious by now...if you don't want to read about a topic...DON'T READ THE FUCKING TOPIC. This is a simply concept, one would think.

I laugh everytime I read a comment from some half-assed imbecile that actually took the time to open up a topic they didn't want to read about, click the reply link, and explain how "inappropriate" the content is on slashdot.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me..what, pray tell, is appropriate content here? News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters....seems pretty broad...whatever that nerd Rob feels is news, and whatever matters to him...