MATERIALS
What exists around the series beyond the episodes themselves. If you own any of these, scans and photos are the most useful thing the archive could receive. The ones already scanned can be read page by page in the reading room.
Art books, the script book, guides and the magazine serial.
ABe's hardcover Lain art collection, built around the illustrated text serial he did with Konaka for AX magazine plus pieces drawn just for the book. It also carries his short color comic 'The Nightmare of Fabrication'. It was reprinted in 2018 for the 20th anniversary.
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived · natalie.mu archived · konaka.com archived
A 20th anniversary reissue of the long out-of-print original artbook.
Sources: natalie.mu archived · tower.jp archived
A reworked edition of the first artbook with new art, extra notes from Konaka and a photo section by ABe. The US edition is a translated softcover.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived
An 80-page full-color companion that reads like a catalog of cyber subculture, with new Kishida illustrations, typography from Ueda, a transcript of the documentary part of Layer 09, and CG art by Nakamura. It is a different book from ABe's artbook.
Sources: konaka.com archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived
All thirteen TV scripts as Konaka wrote them, laid out in screenplay format with his own footnotes and sample storyboard and design material. Konaka himself advises reading it only after watching.
Sources: konaka.com archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived
A strategy and reference guide to the PlayStation game, issued the same month as the game.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived
Monthly illustration-and-text pieces by ABe and Konaka that ran alongside the anime and acted as a bridge to the game. Several layers were never in the magazine and appeared only in the artbook.
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · game.watch.impress.co.jp archived
Where the people who made Lain talked about it.
Konaka's unofficial page for the show, with book notes, the HK interview, a Lain font resource, custom doll photos and a link list. It is still online.
Sources: konaka.com archived · archived page
A long interview covering Konaka's approach to the series and the game, posted in Japanese and English on his site with permission.
Sources: konaka.com archived · konaka.com archived · archived page
A live talk with Nakamura, Ueda, Konaka, ABe, Kishida, Takemoto and others, transcribed by a fan in Japanese and English.
Sources: asahi-net.or.jp archived · archived page · lain.wiki archived
A producer interview once hosted on the studio's own website, now only on the Wayback Machine.
Sources: archived page · lain.wiki archived
A Japanese report on a talk with Ueda, ABe, Konaka and the restoration team, held for the Blu-ray launch.
Sources: gigazine.net · gigazine.net
Ueda, ABe and Konaka replay the PlayStation game and recall how it was made.
Sources: 4gamer.net archived
The original promotional sites on pldc.co.jp, which stayed up until about 2009. Only Wayback Machine copies remain.
Sources: pldc.co.jp archived · pldc.co.jp archived · lain.wiki archived
Items with limited availability: the full set of TV-only 'Weather Break' end cards (only on the first-press Blu-ray), the LPR-309 promo disc, Weather Break promo stickers, ABe's VHS four-panel comics, the lain_camera iPhone app from the Blu-ray campaign (released December 2010, no longer on the App Store), the original BOOTLEG Windows installer fix, and the cancelled 2023 ARG 'Layer 3301: De-Cipher'. TV broadcast openings and endings also differ slightly from home video.
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived · note.com archived
Every release of the series on tape and disc, in Japan and abroad, is on Discs.
Lain has no official novel, manga or drama CD. What exists is short: comics by ABe, the script book, and a few fan works of note.
Chiaki J. Konaka's complete TV scripts with footnotes and storyboard frames; the closest thing to an official text version of the story. Japanese Wikipedia also calls it 'scenario experiments lain the series'.
Sources: serial-experiments-lain.com archived · lain.wiki archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived
A two-page spread in each issue of AX from 1998-03-10 to 1998-11-10, ABe's art with Konaka's text, meant to bridge the anime and the game. Some LAYER entries were first published in the art book. Collected in 'an omnipresence in wired'.
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · archived page
ABe's 18-page colour comic that stands in for the game's missing video file Dc1029: an isolated Lain rebuilds her toy dog Bike-chan and is taunted by Masami Eiri. lain.wiki calls it a doujin manga and also says it ran in AX in March 1998; neither first-publication claim is confirmed (?). Now read in the art books.
Sources: lain.wiki archived · lain.wiki archived · lawmune.net archived · mangaupdates.com archived
Six silly 4-koma strips. Five shipped in the Japanese home video liners (strip #2 was dropped and joked about as a 'deleted scene'). All six are in the 1999 art book; the five plus two new colour strips are in the 2010 Blu-ray RESTORE booklet.
Sources: lain.wiki archived · lawmune.net archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived
Short ABe gag comic first printed in a doujinshi by the circle Mutekei Fire, later reprinted in the 1999 art book (cut from the 2006 rebuild).
Comic-form essay about Lain printed in Mechademia volume 3, pages 173 to 188.
Sources: lain.wiki archived · muse.jhu.edu archived
Fan-made 'occult RPG' visual novel released on Steam on 2025-05-19, endorsed by Konaka with a theme remix by Wasei 'JJ' Chikada; crowdfunding raised over 12 million yen. Mentioned here because it carries new story material.
Community attempt at a Lain visual novel, listed by lain.wiki. Completion status unknown (?).
Sources: lain.wiki archived · lain.wiki archived · lain.wiki archived
Online fan magazine on hacking, art and culture inspired by Lain (volumes from April 2015).
Sources: lain.wiki archived · lainzine.org archived
Things people often ask about. The archive searched for each and found no evidence it exists:
Checked: detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp archived · serial-experiments-lain.com archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · tachibana.blog archived
Checked: lain.wiki archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · serial-experiments-lain.com archived
Checked: serial-experiments-lain.com archived · nbcuni.co.jp archived · lain.wiki archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived
Checked: ja.wikipedia.org archived · animeanime.global archived
Checked: lain.wiki archived · zh.wikipedia.org archived · baike.baidu.com archived
Every Japanese disc release is on its own page, and the merchandise on another. Magazine coverage, ads and posters, with links to scans, are on Press. The music has its own page, and the fan projects are on Links.