Is there any thing better than Serial Experiments Lain?

Is there any thing better than Serial Experiments Lain?

Other urls found in this thread:

animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-01-10/yoshitoshi-abe-despera-project-is-moving-forward-with-new-director/.83127
mebious.co.uk/
mebio.us
twitter.com/AnonBabble

If there's an anime better than Lain, I haven't found it, but Evangelion comes close.

Haibane Renmei.

Funny fucker. Imagine if ABe designed those freak horses.

Literally any other anime

I always thought Evangelion was the superior of the two.

Because Evafags are hopelessly brainwashed.

user, you don't seem to understand..

Eva is arguably the more sentimentally impactful of the two, but Lain is more properly cerebral. Where it really excels, however, is in the fact that it has EoE-level or better directing/production throughout its run, where NGE was a mess, and it manages to basically avoid anime cliches where Eva "merely" subverts them.

Haibane Renmei is way too meta and poetic, sometimes really fucking slow, it is VERY interesting though and worth a watch, but if Lain isn't for everyone, the public for Haibane Renmi is even more niche.

Wait, how is Haibane Renmei meta?

I wouldn't call either of them that niche, really. Lain is pretty damn mainstream, and Haibane Renmei's not as big with the casual crowd but still quite widely beloved.

Texhnolyze

Hm, is there any truly obscure anime that is actually great (not merely good)?

Tanoshii Moomin Ikka.

see maybe

Even more meta than the other two.

Lain is great. I'm used to rewatch it every 2-3 months.

Either explain what you mean by meta or stop posting, please.

Widely known/accepted.

I don't know what language you're speaking, but I think it may not be English. That's not what meta means.

Not him, but that's not what meta means, and Lain is by far the most famous of the ABe shows. Texhnolyze sure as fuck isn't obscure, though.

Are you retarded?Are you a crossboarder from Sup Forums or what?
Kill yourself

>meta
>Widely known/accepted.

>better
EVA is better in that it has better visual direction and very good animation in more than two or three episodes
EVA also has a comprehensible story on top of the meta stuff, while Lain is deep but not as much meta
Lain is more meaningful in my opinion, and that plus the aesthetic make me like it better, but it's a matter of preferences

This far in the thread, and we only have three challengers, huh?

>meta
What the fuck is it with this thread?

This far into the rec thread and we only have three people dumb enough to bite, yes.

Honestly, if someone wants to ask for recs to outdo Lain, then I'm fine with it. I'm looking for those myself.

>if someone wants to ask for recs that I also want, that's okay
Are you retarded? It still goes to the fucking recommendation board.

you guys really write the dumbest shit sometimes. might as well be a meme that everything is
>meta
>cerebral
i like lain, and it's my favorite (so far) but people who call it a mindfuck are the worst. it's not a complicated show. it's not even really vague when it comes to the plot. just because it's not a run of the mill predictable plot that we've all seen before doesn't mean it's particularly deep or hard to understand (and there are some things that you are meant to not understand that you should form your _own_ interpretation about). i cringe every time i hear shit like this and it's probably people who say dumb shit to sound intelligent (yet vague), that give the fanbase of this show such a bad reputation and why it's easy to hate on the show itself.

polite sage

>meta
No one's called Lain meta, though. They've called Haibane, Texhnolyze, and NGE meta (and one of them at least has no idea what the word means), but not Lain.

that's good then. it's more about the rest of it. yeah there's an user up there who didn't know what it meant, but i guess that includes the ones you listed in there too. a lot of people that talk about these shows sound really pseudo-intellectual. i guess that's my main point, but i'm certainly owed no explanations. that doesn't stop it from bothering me though.

Haibane Renmei because it's the only ABe anime that has characters that can express more than 1 emotion.

>criticizing the use of the word "cerebral"

Would you prefer that I say "smart," "witty," "intelligent," "thoughtful," or "intellectually satisfying"? Admittedly, I've picked up some of the "hype-lingo," but if the description is appropriate, I don't see what the problem is.

Serial Experiments Lain

>Haibane Renmei

Why is this popular? Sure, it's "comfy," but it doesn't have much else going for it.

Is he dead?

No, but the director is.

...

Because it's an actual good anime? The "comfy" part is only 1 part of the show that's mainly here to emphasize the MC's innocence that will be lost later one.

It's vague and abstract (like pretty much everythin ABe related), but the vagueness makes sense thematically speaking and the drama directly stems from it causing the drama to actually work this time around. Good 2 MCs that complement each other extremely well on multiple level with a great relationship that is enough to engage and explore the themes of the show.

Its poetic, internal, personal and deceptively simple approach is refreshing for a "2deep4u" anime. There is a lot to grab on a symbolic level in Haibane Renmei, people who criticize it usually do it for the wrong reasons which is quite a feat considering that HR's thematic content is very accessible. So if you think that anime is just "comfy", then I'm afraid you're gonna have to rewatch it and not take everything at face value this time around.

...

He's still with Geneon/Pioneer (now NBCUniversal Japan).

If you check his credits page on ANN he's been active as a more "conventional" producer in a lot of recent shows, the most recent being Drifters if I'm not wrong.

That being said he should find some new collaborators, or continue to harry ABe for free work, because he's really at his best when he's working on passion projects.

Is Despera still a thing? I really wanted to see that more than anything.

>tfw no more translated novels ever
I am so fucking mad. But its not fair to compare Phantom to Lain.
Just found out about Drifters, shit is surprisingly rad. Maybe they'll hook up with him for Despera or something...

No one knows, but I still have faith

I thought that the show was just based on a dream and didn't actually mean much. I mean, sure, I got the whole "life is hard and people die and suicide" thing, but I must have missed a lot if it's really particularly deep.

ABe said in 2015 that they're looking for the new director.

>animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-01-10/yoshitoshi-abe-despera-project-is-moving-forward-with-new-director/.83127
To my knowledge this is the latest news we've gotten. There's still hope.

So, what is Despera? It looks like it's just tinker!Lain with a palette swap.

Gotta admit, you got me with that one. I was mad for a minute there.

You'd have to ask the people who have actually read the LN

>It looks like it's just tinker!Lain with a palette swap.
Every ABe girl looks like Lain.

Oh, it's not an original work, then? My hype just deflated considerably. Then again, look at what Tarkovsky did with Roadside Picnic...

You need to kill yourself.

>Come into thread to make an ebin xD "Despera" joke
>The second I type it out I start feeling like shit and desperately want to see at least some of it

It is an original work. The anime and LN were being created around the same time. It's just that the anime got put an indefinite hold while the LN was released.

So since ABe is looking for a new director who do you think he'll pick, and who would you most like to see? I wish he would get Mamoru Oshii somehow, but I think he'll end up just using Tomokazu Tokoro

mebious

Well, I was referring to the series, but that too.

I really hope you're not shitting at the OG Roadside Picnic nigger - because it is one of the best Strugatsky stories out there. Tarkovsky's Stalker is good in its own - albeit different - right.

Ikuhara

He already chose a new director. I don't remember who it was though, and I don't feel like googling to find out right now.

I just hope he'll collaborate with Ueda again. Producers impact is underappreciated most of the time. As for director - maybe Himasaki Hiroshi?

Oh, I'm not saying anything about it. I haven't read it. I'm just saying that creators can take something that already exists, rework it, and come up with something individually amazing that works in its medium.

Well in that case go read it. I checked the English translation, most of them seem to be okay - the Strugatsky is not well known in Russian for the quality of their prose anyway (although it is quite good).

>it's the only ABe anime that has characters that can express more than 1 emotion.
>I haven't watched Texhnolyze
Faggot

Roadside Picnic is kinda overrated desu.
Doomed City is a masterpiece tho.

Mushishi is also great.

I remember the first time I watched texhnolyze I was a junior in high school and I fucking hated it and only watched like five episodes because all the characters were so unlikable and I was just coming off finished Yu Yu Hakusho, I watched all of it last month and I finally realized all the characters are supposed to be kind of assholes, and I enjoyed it a lot more.

Hamasaki would be a good fit too if he really brought his A-game.

I recall that Ain (not the Despera character but the translator of a lot of the other lain media and the Despera chapters, she's shown up on Sup Forums a few times, though she doesn't seem to be around anymore) indicated that the story--specifically the relationship between Ain and Takeshita--was quite similar to Texhnolyze.

I don't know what Hamasaki's up to at the moment apart from doing some key animation for 3gatsu and Gundam IBO's OP/EDs, but he's teased some storyboarding on his Twitter.

Well, maybe if Despera has tentacles in it or something.

Inderesding.

Doomed City is eh. I like it, but not love it.

My personal favourite is Monday Starts on Saturday (shame there will never be a good translation, one of the very few reasons I am glad I know the suka language), the Inhabited Island quadrology (Inhabited Island, Baby, Beetle in the Anthill, Waves Soothe the Wind) and One Billion Years Before the End of the World. But I also have a soft spot for their space exploration books, Hard to Be God and the "Dead Alpinist" Hotel

>Hard to Be God
>tfw you'll never be able to erase the memory about movie adaptation
Goddamn.

Local girl in bear pajamas becomes god.

Add fucking robots.

Ok, this is actually a good jumping-off point. Does Lain have any actually theological points to make, or is God just being used as a metaphor? I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

>уедемте

Also, there was a movie adaptation? Should I be worried and if so, how much?

I don't know, I'm only on Layer : 03

I always took it to mean that existence is proved through continuous non-volatile memory and so because the wired, while not having a geographical location, has a mnemonic location that is constant for the people that visit it, then whomever can control the memory of said location in effect becomes god, or something that takes on the qualities of god

So, the line between the metaphor and the reality breaks down...that's rather appropriate.

From what I've seen Haibane Renmei is the lesser watched of the two but has a better reception by those who have watched it than Lain.

>Should I be worried and if so, how much?
Its full кино. Literally starts with the scene of some kid poking half-dead body in the anus with a stick. Not even kidding. Also half of the shooting crew died before release, including director himself, which is kinda hilarious. All degenerates in the picture were actual degenerates IRL, they picked them up for shootings from the psychowards across all the Russia. How good do you think the movie full of actual cretins can be?
Watch The Green Elephant again instead, I swear to fucking God...

It has interesting to say and says it well. How often do we get a story of forgiveness that isn't cringey drama or requires one person being a doormat?

Yeah, if you aren't interested in humanity it's going to be hard to enjoy a story about people coping with their humanity.

I guess I know what I am watching tonight. Have to kill a few hours before my assessment centre commences.

>Remember Green Elephant
>Remember that they actually used real blood and shit and one of the actors almost hanged himself
fuck you I am never touching that again.

I always thought the whole show was about purgatory (like the actually catholic version of purgatory where you go to atone for sin before heaven, unless you bought an indulgence then you get to skip to the front of the line)

Haibane Renmei is first and foremost a good character drama. The Murakami allusions, symbolism and underlying themes of death and rebirth are only there to complement it. I swear nothing tilts me more than Sup Forumsutists who treat every piece of medium at the shallowest face value like a fucking battle shonen.

It's not as deep as people make it out to be. Haibane Renmei is stuck in a weird position that involves being both subdued and making it clear for the viewers that it is a layered work. It has things to say, for sure, and shows you how to access that thematic content. And while it is still very pleasant to think about the show, I think the main attraction of this anime is how organic everything plays out despite not knowing a whole lot about the setting and the characters. Weirdly enough, that same vagueness is what pleased me since I was able to embark on a spiritual journey and see things differently regarding many topics that ultimately concern us all.

It's a rather unique beast that is able to offer powerful drama with the depth itself, with an overall drab and quiet presentation that serves the purpose of brewing the state of pensive sadness. You can clearly feel that this is a personal work with a lot of passion put into it, while it does suffer from it with its subpar production values, it gets everything back thanks to its touching sincerity. A personal work that seeks to be personal for the viewer, that's how I see Haibane Renmei. Many people will be completely hermetic to that, which is fine, but if it works it has the ability to be one of the most fulfilling experiences in the anime medium.

I would maybe agree with you, except:
1.) The forgiveness thing occupied only a few episodes, and the ending kind of felt like it came from nowhere.
2.) Rakka was always (apparently) unrealistically sweet and innocent. Of course she would forgive her, and it's not like she agonized over the decision.

What is this?
mebious.co.uk/

the wired

mebio.us

>implying battle shonen can't be deceptively deep

>Vgvthv is Lame

Despera is NEVER EVER status.

However, the dream alone gives me hope.

Is there a link to the raw LN anywhere?

Hm, maybe this is actually part of why it didn't work for me. I see myself in Lain more than I see myself in Haibane Renmei, you see.

Do you think with more episodes it could have fixed the pacing issue, or do you think it was more a problem of the script in general?

1. Texhnolyze
2. Haibane Renmei
3. SEL
4. Ergo Proxy

Who is the one with the tie?