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← darkroom
Serial Experiment Mid
I forced myself through this, only enjoyed the intro and outro, but the entirety of the show is this sound effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W1P7AvV17w&t=4787s&ab_channel=crysknife007
and then lain walking 5 minutes, and then eating rice 5 minutes, and then Russian men talking about new technology, i wish i could defend the show as it has a fucking awesome art style and vibe, but they just ditched plot, and it's episodic edgy garbage, this could have been a really good show if it had plot, since it's themes and philosophy/premise of the wired is cool, but no. I know im gonna get slight hate for this but yup. give ur arguments.
Edit: I don't look purely for entertainment in an anime too, I actually have jjk rated pretty low, so don't think I'm a caveman who cant appreciate writing lmao
What I don't get is the point of this thread. It seems like you're already set in your ways, so are you really looking for a discussion?
yeah, curiosity as to why people like it
there are countless reviews and videos on it, no need to start a discussion for that unless you want the attention
the reviews are all the same, and was hoping someone would directly tell me why its good, few people in this thread gave very good points
You haven't read the reviews, and you are looking for attention. If you did read the reviews, then you wouldn't say that they are the same. Do you fail to understand big words or what? No one is going to take their time to spoon-feed you the basic plot of the anime which you failed to understand. That's what the reviews are for, which you also failed to understand. Just give up on the thread already.
Also, I just noticed that you watched only 65 anime and half of them are mainstream stuff. Maybe broaden your horizon more, watch more anime, then you'll fall in love with SEL. It is a unique oddity among all the other anime, except for a few notable ones.
i would say it's naive for you to be certain that i haven't read any reviews, or that since i don't agree with the reviews, its due to the fact that i don't understand them, i understand the show, just not as to why people like it so much, i get that its unique, but unique doesn't = good, and i don't think the shows symbolism, philosophy, psychology, make up for what it lacks, and furthermore elevates it to a masterpiece of an anime, its interesting and deep, and that's all it is. It could have had a more straight forward plot rather than the author just messing around with it and thinking of the craziest scenes possible, aswell as deep and relatable characters, their backstories, and unique personalities, there could have been far more dialogue, and if SEL is trying to be what it seems, then its good for what it's goal is, just not good as an anime in general.
honestly have not seen it but Ik I will like it because I like these kind of shows and am planning on it but stuff like perfect blue, paprika, paranoia agent, ect... I watch a YT video on them to see if there is anything I missed and then make my rating, so idk maybe see what u missed... lol
What I don't get is the point of this thread. It seems like you're already set in your ways, so are you really looking for a discussion?
Hella good point^
okay
What made you continue watching it tho? Why didn't you just drop the show if you weren't having a good time? This ain't me shitting on you opinion btw, I haven't watched the series myself yet, just curious.
It's useless to argue with you since you already made up your mind and don't seem to be very bright to differing opinions. If you really want to know why people like SEL, maybe go read some reviews and counter that instead of making a thread saying "Serial Experiment Mid"
i read reviews, and despite of the positives things it has going for it, it still doesn't make up for its flaws, it just seems like certain people who rate SEL, FLCL, and others like these just think random=good.
make a better thread and maybe people would properly respond to it.
it's episodic edgy garbage
Uhhh since when?
could have been good if it had plot
But it has.
Now stealing something from another comment from someone else:
i think they like it to look smart
No, i genuinely think its a nice anime that plays smart with its plot not revealing anything at the beginning and you are clueless for a good amount of time just like your MC girl and you learn stuff along the way. Obviously it isnt an anime for everyone and no, not bcs people that dislike it are dumb but more bcs it is just an anime that isnt for everyone, its slow, not a lot of dialogue, no comedy at all that could you get entertained between plot points, etc, etc other stuff that would make the anime more appealing for everyone.
plays smart with its plot when the antagonist is revealed in second to last episode, and plot never really develops other than lain developing, i would be fine with her character development if she was actually a good and relatable character, but she has like 2 lines of dialogue and is just supposed to come off as this edgy creepy girl, her lines consist of "come to the wired! its fun in the wired!" and then she's like "who are you? who am i?" like its just cliché writing that a horror fanatic would come up with on lsd
the plot does develop like 2-3 eps in tho + the antagonist isnt really the point of the plot, he could have appeared in the last ep, wouldnt care much, he just appeared to answer us questions and make Lain decide for herself the answer for the question she has been asking since the beginning
clearly if u went on youtube, searched "filthy frank nobody gives a shit", copied the link, went back to the thread, pasted, and click send, that has a certain amount of consciousness put into it that only someone who cares enough to send it, does that
its alright, and there is no way you can understand it i watched 2 youtube videos to understand that series. i also forced myself through it LULW
this seems more like an activity but mistakenly made as a thread
seriously, sure, you don't like it but do you really think it's worth making a thread over when literally nobody gives a shit?
the anime itself really is garbage. the aesthetic and its message combine to make something extremely easy for midwits to latch on to, while actually saying some important things. that's just the case for any media that injects philosophy into itself.
no like this show would have actually been insanely good if there was like a progressing plot and lain actually had dialogue and thoughts and didn't say dumb shit like "who am i? am i really me? the people, they are real" like this deadass is her dialogue and also the other characters in this show don't give anything meaningful to
I know you're going to say "it's not that deep" or whatever, but you need to watch it a couple times to fully get it as it uses a lot of "show, don't tell", I love it and am pretty sure I'll get something new out of it whenever I rewatch it. As you said, the atmosphere is an important attractor, I love it's surreal and melancholic feel and Abe's artwork and character design bring that atmosphere to the forefront. I also appreciate it for how much it got right about issues regarding the Internet such as the double identity that people build or that some can't separate the two realities (to name a few), keep in mind, the Internet was very new at this time. I don't know how old you are, but if you're in your teens, maybe this has less impact since you didn't grow up with the whole Internet revolution happening as I did for example.
no its deep and all, just more of an art rather than a show if that makes sense, like i want to watch a show for the plot and characters, and then you can add a cool vibe/ premise of top of that, this show skips the characters and plot and just focuses on the premise/plot, and because of that i wouldn't say its a good anime
well, i guess that comes down to preference then
(fyi: have not seen lain)
but i would grade the quality of a show by how well it does what it wants to do, so by that logic i would say you probably don't like the show, but it's probably not "bad" because as you stated, it's art and deep so i think thats good?I would argue there's a very complicated plot and that Lain develops through her confrontation with the other Lains and the self proclaimed "God of the Net", however, I will agree with you that the show is more hermetic that it needs to be, that's Chiaki's style of writing I think; it appeals to me, but I understand that it can feel unnecessary and annoying.
I went into Lain shitting on Lain for the first few episodes as some avant garde pseudointellectual bullshit with my friends but we all ended up genuinely liking Lain afterwards. I guess my reason to like the show is that I just enjoy the parts of the show where Lain is in the wired itself (an alternate internet where you yourself are immersed into it) and I do like the plot element of there being two Lains (Lain of the Wired and Lain) that each reflect a different personality, cause in a way its like how people on the internet act different in real life.
Honestly the plot is highly confusing and not the best plot, but this quote from the writer of Lain itself may explain why Lain is the way it is:
"During the promotion of the anime tv series Serial Experiments Lain, which he created the concept in 1998, Yasuyuki made a controversial statement saying that Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [Japan] adopted after World War II". He explained he created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures. Later, when he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain#cite_note-Animerica-9
So I feel like this intention to make the show generally confusing and complex so Americans cannot understand it, while it did not work at the time in which Lain was written and produced, may now be working, because shit, if you put a gun and asked me to explain this show, I couldn't.
i think i was more disappointed because i was expecting so much more, because on paper, lain is my type of anime since its philosophical and psychological, i liked soundtrack and art too, but the plot didn't really exist and characters didn't even have any dialogue or weren't relatable, and if the show simply did this it would have been much better
you dont know what its like to be falling, to be faded, to be drowning -
