Layers 01 to 13

Soon after schoolgirl Chisa Yomoda takes her own life, her classmates begin receiving messages that seem to be written by her. Lain Iwakura, a withdrawn fourteen-year-old who barely touches technology, answers and is told that God can be found in the Wired. From then on, Lain senses that the network and ordinary life are closer together than she thought.

The Japanese list has 高橋由利 here but 高崎由利 in Layer 05; the dub card reads 'Yuri Takasaki' both times, as does ANN (?).

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Cordwainer Smith, 'Think Blue, Count Two': Yasuo's password string 'Think Bule Count One Tow' is a garbled nod to the title of this Instrumentality of Mankind short story.

  source: lain.wiki archived · lawmune.net

• Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (Apple, 1997): Lain's old child-model NAVI is styled after this flat-panel Mac.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki archived

• NeXT / NEXTSTEP: NeXT-style icons sit on the desktop of Lain's father's computer.

  source: lain.wiki archived

• C programming language: The English text the teacher writes on the blackboard is C source code.

  source: lain.wiki archived

• WEIRD / WIRED anagram: The episode title is an anagram of 'Wired'.

  source: lain.wiki archived

Alice, Julie and Reika insist they met a loud, confident Lain at the nightclub Cyberia. Confused, Lain asks her father for a better Navi and then visits the club herself, where a man on a strange new drug causes a frightening scene. The cool way Lain handles him suggests a side of her nobody knew about.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Cyberia (club) and Douglas Rushkoff's book 'Cyberia' (1994): The girls drag Lain to the club Cyberia; the name matches Rushkoff's book about cyber-culture and the global brain.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• Accela: A stimulant pill that a boy takes at Cyberia before the shooting; Eng reads it as a drug that speeds the user up toward the pace of the Wired.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

Lain feels observed as dark cars wait near her house and voices seem to follow her on the train. An unmarked package delivers a Psyche processor, and Taro, a young regular at Cyberia, tells her the part is rare and not exactly legal. She throws herself into upgrading her Navi while her family grows colder around her.

Japanese storyboard credit is Nakamura alone; the dub card reads 'Continuity: Ryutaro Nakamura / Direction: Johei Matsuura'.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Psyche processor: An illegal add-on chip, said to come from Taiwan, arrives for Lain; Eng speculates it is a kind of analog Memex that lets thought drive the machine.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

Players of the online game Phantoma are dying after encountering a phantom child inside it. Lain follows the trail and finds the fingerprints of the Knights, an elusive group of hackers who operate in the Wired. Her growing talent online starts to attract attention of its own.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• PK (player killer): A boy playing the game Phantoma shouts about a 'PK'; Eng explains the online-game slang for players who kill other players, going back to MUDs.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• Phantoma: The network tag game whose 'hole' in the protocol, blamed on the Knights, blurs the Wired and the real world.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• HAL Power 5000: Hardware labelled 'HAL Power 5000' is part of Lain's computer rig.

  source: lain.wiki

Messages about a prophecy and a deity in the Wired surface across the city, and Lain's older sister Mika becomes the target of disturbing events she cannot explain. Lain herself experiences unsettling visions that cast doubt on her home life. It becomes harder to tell where the network ends and the world begins.

Key animation lists disagree: the dub card shows 'Tomoyuki Aoki' and omits Yuko Matsuo and Hayato Tejima, who appear in the Japanese list (and ANN). Unresolved (?).

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Deus, a god of the Wired: Lain's father muses that a godlike entity may have arisen in the network that grew out of the telephone and radio.

  source: lain.wiki

• Knights: Alice's friend blames the Knights, described as super-hackers, for the strange broadcasts.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

Across town, children gaze upward and reach toward an enormous image of Lain hovering in the clouds. Searching for the cause, Lain learns about an abandoned research project that tried to link the minds of children, and meets the scientist who still regrets it. She then turns to face the people who revived that work.

Dub romanizations of 高乗陽子 and 爲我井克美 ('Yoko Takagi', 'Katsumi Nagai') look like misreadings; ANN gives Yōko Kōjō and Katsumi Tamegai.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• KIDS (Kensington Experiment): Professor Hodgson explains his old experiment that pooled children's psychic power through a device; the children did not come back.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat: A floating mouth in the Wired teases Lain, who calls it a Cheshire Cat.

  source: lain.wiki

• Mebious / Moebius branding: Parts of Lain's rig carry a 'Mebious' brand, which fans tie to the real site mebious.co.uk.

  source: lain.wiki

Lain spends more and more time inside the Wired, and Alice fears her friend is retreating from everyone. Two men in suits and sunglasses escort Lain to a meeting with someone from Tachibana General Laboratories, who presses her about her ties to the Knights. Lain is left asking herself a question she cannot yet answer.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Lisp and the Knights of the Lambda Calculus: Lain codes in Lisp on her HandyNAVI in class; the real Knights of the Lambda Calculus were a Lisp hacker in-joke, echoed by the Knights of the Eastern Calculus.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Apple HotSauce (Project X): Nezumi's visor browser view resembles Apple's 3D HotSauce web interface.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Tachibana Lab, Shinbashi Office: The Men in Black take Lain to an office signed 'Tachibana Lab'; Eng reads Tachibana (a Japanese citrus) as a pun on Apple/McIntosh.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net · lawmune.net

• Men in Black: Two men in black who watch Lain, a nod to UFO folklore's MIBs.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

An embarrassing story about Alice circulates in the Wired, and word gets around that Lain was its source. Shaken, Lain comes to suspect that another version of her is acting online on its own. She reaches into reality to repair the damage, though the fix leaves her more uncertain than before.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Knights as an internet hoax: A voice in the Wired claims the Knights do not exist and are a joke started by an American student.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• PK (player killing): Taro, shown as a sword-fighting avatar, shrugs off Lain's question about why he likes killing other players.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

Short documentary-like segments connect real figures and theories from the history of computing, consciousness research and UFO lore. Alongside them, Lain looks into the network protocol at the heart of the Wired and the person who designed it. Meanwhile her household grows even less normal.

The Japanese list notes document-part footage by Chiaki J. Konaka and Hiroyuki Kakudo for this episode.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Roswell incident and grey aliens: A big-eyed grey alien in a striped sweater appears at Lain's door, and the newsreel ties Roswell to a supposed pact with extraterrestrials.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• MJ-12 / Majestic 12 documents: The newsreel shows the 'MJ-12 document' with photos of its alleged members and says TV producer Jaime Shandera got the film anonymously in 1984.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Vannevar Bush and the Memex: The narrator credits Bush with the 1945 Memex idea, a microfilm desk for extending memory, and links him to the Manhattan Project.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• John C. Lilly, isolation tanks and E.C.C.O.: The newsreel describes Lilly's sensory-deprivation and drug experiments, his 'Earth Coincidence Control Office', and his later dolphin research.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu: Nelson is presented as heir to Bush and Lilly, with Xanadu pictured as a satellite-borne hypertext library reachable from anywhere.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Schumann resonance: The narration explains the roughly 8 Hz ELF resonance between ground and ionosphere and calls it the Earth's brain wave.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Douglas Rushkoff and the global brain: The newsreel says Rushkoff (rendered 'Douglas Rachov' in one fan transcript) predicts that networking people will wake the Earth's own consciousness.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Protocol 7 (and IPv6/IPv7?): Eiri Masami secretly wrote Schumann-resonance support into the seventh protocol before being fired from Tachibana. Eng notes that any link to real Internet Protocol numbering is unclear (?).

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Knights of the Eastern Calculus and 'one truth': Taro admits he is only a junior Knight and repeats their slogan that truth is strong and just because it is true.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

A man claiming to be the god of the Wired reveals himself to Lain and explains what he built into the network. At home, the people Lain thought of as family begin to step away. Lain decides to deal with the Knights in a way the whole world will notice.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Homunculus (alchemy): Eiri calls Lain a homunculus made with an artificial ribosome, implying he built her.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• Knights of the Eastern Calculus member list: Taro's NAVI shows net news exposing the Knights' membership, after which the members are killed.

  source: lain.wiki

Lain lies tangled in wires as fragments of everything she has lived through flash past in a rapid collage. Alice tries to reach her, and the would-be god of the Wired offers his own account of what Lain is. The episode both looks back over the series and marks a sharp turn.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Apple 'Think different' campaign: The slogan flashes by briefly in this episode.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• iMac G3: Alice's home computer looks like the 1998 iMac.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

• Human genome analysis: A line in the montage says Tachibana Lab decoded the molecular structure of the human genome.

  source: lawmune.net

• Grey alien imagery: Lain appears at Alice's door with grey limbs in the alien's striped sweater from Layer 09.

  source: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

The separation between the network and the physical world starts to give way across the city. The two men who have been watching Lain receive their last instructions, and Alice makes her way into Lain's eerie home to find her. Lain tells Alice what she now believes about herself and about the Wired.

Sources: seesaawiki.jp · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived

• Carl Jung's collective unconscious: Lain describes Protocol 7 as a program tuned to the Earth's resonance that turns the collective unconscious into consciousness, which Eng ties to Jung.

  source: lain.wiki · lawmune.net

• Leary and Wilson's seventh circuit (interpretation): Eng reads Protocol 7 as an echo of the Leary/Wilson 'seventh circuit' of consciousness; this is his reading, not a stated quote (?).

  source: lawmune.net