WHO IS WHO
Characters
The people of the anime, and of the PlayStation game, which tells its own story
with some of the same names. Descriptions stay light on spoilers. A ?
marks a credit the sources disagree on.
The anime
#
Lain Iwakura 岩倉 玲音 (Iwakura Rein)
Lain is a withdrawn fourteen-year-old junior high school student who barely uses her old children's NAVI until she receives an email from a classmate who has just killed herself. Curious, she asks her father for a new machine and turns out to have an uncanny talent for it, rebuilding her room into a humming tower of hardware. At the same time people start seeing 'another Lain' at the Cyberia club, bold and mocking, and her sense of who she is begins to slip. Her look grew out of a group process: ABe drew many sketches until the team agreed on her, Ueda asked for the single long left lock to break symmetry (in his words, to keep voices out of her left ear), ABe added the X-shaped clip, and Kishida gave her the bear pajamas that work as armor at home. Konaka's scripts split her into a shy Lain, a confident Lain in the Wired and a cruel prankster Lain, and Kaori Shimizu, then fifteen, says the scripts marked each with a different spelling. Ueda deliberately cast an untrained, uncertain voice for her.
notable scenes: Layer 01: smoke rising from her fingertips in class, a layout Kishida reportedly worked on for a month and a half · Layer 03: installing the Psyche chip in her underwear to avoid static · Layer 07: interrogated about her identity by the Tachibana executive · Layer 13: tea at a floating table with her father, who promises madeleines next time
More (spoilers)
Lain learns that she was not born to the Iwakuras: she is a being that took shape in the Wired, and her family were placed to watch her. Masami Eiri claims he made her and wants to be her god, but she rejects him. Seeing the Wired and the real world bleed together and hurt the people she loves, she resets everything and erases herself from everyone's memory. Ueda put it plainly at Otakon 2000: after the reset she is simply gone. In the last scene she meets a grown-up Alice, who half recognizes her, then speaks to the viewer; ABe drew that final close-up at Konaka's suggestion.
voice: Kaori Shimizu (清水香里) · English dub: Bridget Hoffman (credited as Ruby Marlowe on the Pioneer release)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · gigazine.net · lain.wiki
#
Alice Mizuki 瑞城 ありす (Mizuki Arisu)
Alice is the classmate who actually cares about Lain. She drags her to Cyberia, checks on her and keeps treating her as a friend while the others find her strange. Konaka says Alice and her friends were meant as minor supporting players borrowed from his earlier game Alice in Cyberland, and that he did not add her until late in the writing. Her part kept growing until, to his own surprise, she played a role close to Carroll's Alice, and he says he deliberately shifted the audience's sympathy toward her in the second half while keeping the camera on Lain. In an AX 2001 email interview he traced Alice, Reika and Juri back further, to a 1994 live-action school ghost-story episode he wrote. Her voice actress, Yoko Asada, also voiced Alice in Alice in Cyberland. Lain treats Alice as the one person who knew her before the Wired connected her to everyone.
notable scenes: Layer 01: first invites Lain out · Layer 08: the teacher rumor and the visit from the mocking Lain · Layer 13: the heartbeat scene in Lain's room · Layer 13: grown-up Alice greets Lain on the street
More (spoilers)
In Layer 08 a rumor spreads through the Wired that Alice is in love with a teacher, and a cruel version of Lain taunts her in her own room. Lain erases the rumor from everyone's memory except Alice's. In Layers 12 and 13 Alice comes to Lain's ruined house and presses Lain's hand to her chest so she can feel a heartbeat, a case for the body that Eiri dismisses. Lain resets the world partly to spare her. Years later an adult Alice, now a student teacher with a partner, meets Lain in the street and feels they have met.
voice: Yōko Asada (浅田葉子) · English dub: Emily Brown
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · lawmune.net · 4gamer.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Yasuo Iwakura 岩倉 康雄 (Iwakura Yasuo)
Lain's father is a computer enthusiast with a room full of monitors, and he is delighted when his quiet daughter finally asks for a proper NAVI. He orders a powerful model, sets it up for her and lectures her that the Wired is a communication tool that should not be confused with the real world. His warmth always carries a faint distance, as if he were taking notes on her progress, and he reacts coldly when she shows him the Psyche chip. Konaka has said Yasuo's character was not fixed at the start and took shape strangely, day by day, as the scripts were written. In a 2018 4Gamer talk Konaka said the many monitors in Yasuo's room were his own wish. Ryusuke Obayashi (credited as Ryunosuke Obayashi) voices him; his laugh is famously odd.
notable scenes: Layer 02: sets up Lain's new NAVI · Layer 04: the conversation about the border between the Wired and reality · Layer 10: the farewell to 'Miss Lain' · Layer 13: tea at the floating table
More (spoilers)
In Layer 10 Lain comes home to an empty house. Yasuo appears only to say goodbye: their 'job' is over, he was never really her father, he did not enjoy pretending to be a family but envied a being like her, and he still loved her. Ueda said at Otakon 2000 that the family were placed to collect information and report to someone, left for viewers to decide. After the reset Yasuo is the one who seems to sense Lain, and in Layer 13 he sits with her and offers tea and madeleines.
voice: Ryūsuke Ōbayashi (credited 大林隆之介) · English dub: Barry Stigler (credited as Gil Starberry)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · 4gamer.net archived · lawmune.net · lain.wiki
#
Miho Iwakura 岩倉 美穂 (Iwakura Miho)
Lain's mother says almost nothing and looks at her daughters with a flat, unreadable face. She cooks, eats rice and sits at the table, and her rare lines are curt. Where Yasuo at least pretends to be interested in Lain, Miho does not even pretend, which makes the house feel colder than any of the Wired scenes. The Japanese Wikipedia character notes describe the couple's relationship as unexpectedly good despite her not understanding his hobby. Ueda's original concept, as he told FRUiTS in 1998, started with Lain's mother and the question of why Lain was born, but that strand was dropped in the TV version, leaving Miho as a near-silent presence. Rei Igarashi voices her. The game has its own version of Lain's mother with a more ordinary home life.
notable scenes: Layer 01: the silent family dinner · Layer 08: sitting motionless at the kitchen table · Layer 13: the restored breakfast scene
More (spoilers)
Miho, like Yasuo, is not Lain's real mother. In Layer 10 she disappears with the rest of the family, leaving an abandoned house with an open fridge and dead plants. Ueda described the family at Otakon 2000 as watchers sent to gather information. After Lain's reset, Miho is back at the breakfast table as if nothing happened, teasing Mika about her diet.
voice: Rei Igarashi (五十嵐麗) · English dub: Petrea Burchard (credited as Celeste Burch on Layers 01 to 04; likely uncredited after that)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · lain.wiki
#
Mika Iwakura 岩倉 美香 (Iwakura Mika)
Lain's older sister, sixteen, is the most normal person in the house: a little flashy, out late with friends and mildly fed up with her odd younger sister. She mocks Lain for talking to her NAVI, spies on their father setting it up and is the first to meet the Men in Black at the door, threatening to call the police. Ayako Kawasumi voices her. Mika exists only in the anime; the game's Lain has no sister. Layer 05, 'Distortion', is largely her episode, and Konaka told HK he wrote it in bad heat and now thinks it came out too theoretical, wishing he had written it more by feel.
notable scenes: Layer 03: confronting the Men in Black at the gate · Layer 05: meeting another Mika at home · Layer 09: making machine noises in the hallway
More (spoilers)
In Layer 05 Mika is hounded by messages telling her to 'fulfill the prophecy', sees her own double at home and breaks down. For the rest of the series she sits slumped and makes noises, later sounding like a modem or fax. Ueda explained at Otakon 2000 that she became a victim of the Wired: her self got stuck in between, so her body behaves like a puppet. She vanishes with the family in Layer 10 and returns to normal after the reset.
voice: Ayako Kawasumi (川澄綾子) · English dub: Patricia Ja Lee
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · lawmune.net · lain.wiki
#
Masami Eiri 英利 政美 (Eiri Masami)
Eiri was a researcher at Tachibana General Laboratories and the main designer of Protocol 7, the next version of the Wired's underlying protocol. He believed that the flesh is only an engine and that humanity can evolve only by leaving it behind. In secret he wrote into the protocol code that would let the collective unconscious become conscious, with himself at its center. He appears late in the series as the voice and face of 'God' in the Wired, speaking to Lain with total confidence that he understands her better than she does. Konaka asked American fans in 2001 whether Eiri's dogma was totally insane; the Anime Expo panel answered that his ideas were not the problem so much as forcing them on others. In Layer 10 Konaka staged a scene where Eiri and Lain trade each other's thoughts and lines, borrowed from a technique used in therapy. Sho Hayami voices him.
notable scenes: Layer 09: the documentary-style history that sets up Protocol 7 · Layer 10: first meeting with Lain as 'God' · Layer 12: flashback of his body found on Track 13 · Layer 13: his failed attempt at a body
More (spoilers)
Eiri was fired and found dead on the tracks, apparently a suicide, before the story begins. He tells Lain her family and friends were false and that he sent her into the world, and he claims the Knights as his believers until Lain exposes them. When Lain rejects him he tries to force himself into a body, a grotesque mass that Lain crushes. After the reset he is alive and ordinary, grumbling on his way to work at Tachibana.
voice: Shō Hayami (速水奨) · English dub: Kirk Thornton (credited as Sparky Thornton)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · lawmune.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Chisa Yomoda 四方田 千砂 (Yomoda Chisa)
Chisa is a girl from another class whose suicide opens the series: she jumps from the roof of a building in a Shibuya entertainment district. She was socially awkward and more comfortable in the Wired; Alice and her friends once took her to Cyberia, which she did not enjoy, and she once walked home with Lain. After her death, students receive emails from her saying she has only abandoned her body, that she is still in the Wired and that God is there. Konaka built the opening as a straight horror premise, a message from a dead girl, before turning it into something else. Ueda told FRUiTS that the suicide scene was not central to the plot but was meant to make viewers feel the value of life, and that TV Tokyo had to approve it in advance. Sumi Muto voices her in Japanese.
notable scenes: Layer 01: the rooftop jump that opens the series · Layer 01: her email arriving on Lain's children's NAVI · Layer 01: meeting Lain silently at the end of the episode
More (spoilers)
Chisa keeps appearing to Lain, at a railway crossing and elsewhere, smiling but never explaining where she really is. Ueda said at Otakon 2000 that when Chisa's lips move without sound, she is already dead and only the idea of her words comes through, shown as on-screen text. Eiri later implies that her death is tied to his promise that the flesh is unnecessary.
voice: Sumi Mutoh (武藤寿美) · English dub: Lia Sargent
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · konaka.com archived · lain.wiki
#
Reika Yamamoto 山本 麗華 (Yamamoto Reika)
Reika is one of Alice's two constant companions. The official site describes her as a classmate who is always with Alice and Juri, steady and cool in manner, who likes to have things made clear and often presses Lain. Konaka explained that Reika, Juri and Alice were names he reused from his earlier cyber fiction: they go back to a 1994 live-action school ghost-story episode and to the game Alice in Cyberland, and he reused Reika and Juri again in Digimon Tamers because, as he put it, he likes these characters even as their faces and ages change. Chiharu Tezuka voices her in Japanese; the English credit is often given as Lenore Zann, whom ANN lists only as "Lain's friend 1" (credited Lenore Zann on Layers 01 to 04 and, per ANN's alias list, Zan on 05 to 13), so the match to Reika is unconfirmed?.
notable scenes: Layer 02: the outing to Cyberia · Layer 08: the morning confrontation over the rumor · Layer 13: walking to school with Alice after the reset
More (spoilers)
When the rumor about Alice spreads in Layer 08, Reika and Juri stare at Lain as if she might be to blame. By Layer 12 they are chatting with a strangely cheerful Lain while Alice watches uneasily. After the reset, Reika and Juri are walking to school with Alice as before, planning a night at Cyberia, with no memory of Lain at all.
voice: Chiharu Tezuka (手塚ちはる) · English dub: Lenore Zann (credited as "Zan" on Layers 05 to 13)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Julie Kato 加藤 樹莉 (Katō Juri)
Juri, written Julie in some English releases, is the third of Alice's circle. Japanese character notes contrast her with Reika: she is more childish, with girlish clothes and tastes, and she tends to say what she thinks without much thought for how it lands on Lain. The official site says it was Juri who suggested taking Lain to Cyberia, and that she falls over in panic during the shooting there. Like Alice and Reika, her name comes from Konaka's earlier work; he explained at Anime Expo 2001 that he first created Alice, Reika and Juri for a 1994 live-action TV episode and then carried them into Alice in Cyberland, Lain and later Digimon Tamers, where Juri Kato reappears as a different character. Ueda told the Otakon 2000 audience that the writer liked the names so much that he asked permission to use them again. Manabi Mizuno voices her in Japanese; the English credit is most likely Alexis A. Edwards, whom ANN lists as Julie (credited "Alexis A. Edward" on Layers 01 to 07 and "Alexis A. Edwards" on 08 to 13), though the dub credits name no characters?.
notable scenes: Layer 01: the classroom gossip after Chisa's death · Layer 08: the morning confrontation · Layer 13: asking who Alice is writing to
More (spoilers)
Juri has no arc of her own; she mirrors the class's mood toward Lain, turning wary in Layer 08 and friendly again once Lain has deleted the rumor. In Layer 13, after the reset, she tugs Alice's arm asking to go to Cyberia and wonders who Alice is emailing, a quiet hint that some trace of Lain remains with Alice alone.
voice: Manabi Mizuno (水野愛日) · English dub: Alexis A. Edwards (likely; also credited as "Alexis A. Edward"; real name Dari Lallou MacKenzie)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lawmune.net · lawmune.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Taro タロウ (Tarō)
Taro is an eleven-year-old who hangs out at Cyberia with a bowl cut, custom gear and a gun-shaped NAVI. He is cocky, acts older than he is and knows a lot about NAVIs, so Lain goes to him to learn what the Psyche chip in her shoe locker is. He is a hanger-on of the Knights rather than a full member, and part of his interest in Lain is an assignment from them to pull her in. He is also a player-killer in the online game PhantomA. Japanese notes say he likes strong, rebellious girls and that he likes Lain but is afraid of the bolder 'Lain'. The gun grip on his handheld NAVI was ABe's idea, which ABe said in 2018 came from trying to make an odd-looking device. Keito Takimoto voices him.
notable scenes: Layer 03: recognizing the Psyche chip at Cyberia · Layer 09: the 'date' with Lain and his confession about the Knights · Layer 12: telling his friends he kissed an angel
More (spoilers)
When Taro visits Lain's room, the confident Lain sees through him and makes him confess his link to the Knights, threatening to rewrite his memory; afterwards he admits he was just a kid acting grown-up. Later he wears goggles to talk to Lain in the Wired and says he kissed an angel. After the reset he plays with Myu-Myu and Masayuki and does not recognize Lain.
voice: Keito Takimoto (滝本啓人) · English dub: Brianne Siddall (credited as Ian Hawk)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · 4gamer.net archived · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Myu-Myu ミューミュー (Myūmyū)
Myu-Myu is a ten-year-old girl in Taro's trio. She is drawn to Taro because he seems grown-up and looks down on Masayuki as a kid. Japanese sources and the original booklet notes describe her as far more vain and catty than Lain, and quick to sulk when Taro pays attention to anyone else. She is jealous when Taro asks Lain out, though Taro mistakenly thinks she is jealous of Lain the other way round. The PlayStation game's start screen carries a line thanking 'myu-myu', a small in-joke between the two halves of the project. Yuki Yamamoto voices her in Japanese and Sandy Fox in English.
notable scenes: Layer 03: watching Taro flirt with Lain · Layer 10: trying to lure Taro out of the empty club · Layer 13: playing with Taro and Masayuki after the reset
More (spoilers)
As Taro grows obsessed with Lain, Myu-Myu turns cold on him and tries to get him away from Cyberia. After the reset, the three children are friends again, crossing the street playing rock-paper-scissors, and she bosses Masayuki around as usual. Taro's NAVI then receives a mail about KIDS technology, a small hint that the experiments that used children like her have not entirely vanished from the new world.
voice: Yuki Yamamoto (山本有紀) · English dub: Sandy Fox
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Masayuki マサユキ
Masayuki is Taro's eleven-year-old best friend and the tallest of the three children. He knows NAVIs well but less than Taro, and he usually lets Taro lead. He is the one who explains to Lain how to install the Psyche processor. Japanese notes describe him as tolerant and steady: he shrugs off Myu-Myu calling him a kid, notices how Taro really feels, and even wakes a sleepy Taro when Lain walks in. He once suggests buying the Psyche from Lain, which Taro vetoes. Sora Fujima voices him in Japanese and Dorothy Elias-Fahn (as Dorothy Melendrez) in English. He is the quiet straight man of the trio and rarely gets a scene to himself.
notable scenes: Layer 03: advice on installing the Psyche · Layer 10: in the nearly empty Cyberia with Taro and Myu-Myu · Layer 13: losing again at rock-paper-scissors
More (spoilers)
Masayuki has no big turn; he quietly watches the trio fall apart as Taro fixates on Lain and Myu-Myu loses patience. After the reset he is back with the other two, losing at rock-paper-scissors and, as Japanese notes point out, stuck carrying the bags. In the same scene the boy who died at Cyberia under Accela walks past with his little sister, alive again, and admires Taro's modified machine.
voice: Sora Fujima (藤間宇宙) · English dub: Dorothy Elias-Fahn (credited as Dorothy Melendrez)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Karl Haushofer カール・ハウスホッフ / カール・ハウスホッファ
The two Men in Black watch Lain from lamp posts and the Iwakura gate, wearing odd goggle-like eyepieces. Karl is a tall blond foreigner who smokes; Lin is shorter and more impatient. They work for an executive at Tachibana General Laboratories and are tasked with hunting down the Knights, but they are only partly told the plan. They tell Mika she never saw them, flee when an angry Lain damages Lin's eyepiece, and warn Lain that the Knights planted a bomb in her cooling system. Karl tells Lain that she herself is what is dangerous, and in Japanese notes he admits he feels something like love toward her without knowing what she is. Joji Nakata voices Karl and Takumi Yamazaki voices Lin; ANN lists the English actors under the pseudonyms James Lyon and Robert Wicks.
notable scenes: Layer 03: Mika meets them at the gate · Layer 06: the coolant bomb in Lain's room · Layer 10: the assassination of Masuoka · Layer 12: the parking-garage ghost
More (spoilers)
After Lain leaks the Knights' membership list, the pair assassinate members such as Masuoka. In Layer 12 their boss reveals he has sided with Eiri and tells them to flee somewhere without wires or satellite signals. A ghostly figure then appears; Lin dies in terror and Karl is left broken. Konaka says the ghost was shot on 8mm with Ueda and Nakahara under a blanket. After the reset they are construction workers.
voice: Jōji Nakata (中田譲治) · English dub: Jamieson Price (credited as James Lyon)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · konaka.com archived · 4gamer.net · lain.wiki
#
Lin Sui-Xi 林 随錫 (Rin Suishī)
Karl's partner among the Men in Black, equally guarded and goggled. The pair act as enforcers for an agenda they are only partly told about.
voice: Takumi Yamazaki (山崎たくみ) · English dub: Bob Buchholz (credited as Robert Wicks)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived
#
Office Worker オフィスの男 (the man in the office)
A Tachibana General Laboratories executive who directs the Men in Black. He has his own hopes for what the Wired might bring and keeps them close.
voice: Shigeru Shibuya (渋谷茂), as credited in the official cast lists for Layers 07 and 10 · English dub: Waylon Akers (inferred from the credits of Layers 07 and 10; credited as "Luaylon" and "Wayon" Akers)
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived
#
The Knights ナイツ (Knights of the Eastern Calculus)
The Knights are an anonymous group of elite hackers in the Wired whose members do not know one another. They are behind the Psyche processor that turns Lain's NAVI into something far beyond a consumer machine, and they are linked to Accela and to the KIDS experiment. Their name plays on the 'Knights of the Lambda Calculus', an MIT hacker in-joke. Taro runs errands for them in exchange for gear. Ueda, asked at Otakon 2000 about a monitoring program called Knights, said the name only meant knights in the traditional sense, and that the real-world technical detail throughout the show was all the scenario writer's research. Konaka filled the script book with footnotes on the technology the Knights use.
notable scenes: Layer 03: the Psyche chip appears in Lain's shoe locker · Layer 09: Taro admits his link to them · Layer 10: the members' names on the news and their deaths
More (spoilers)
Eiri uses the Knights as his believers, the faithful who make him a god. Lain finds and publishes their membership list on the Wired; the Men in Black kill some members and others die by suicide, reported worldwide as a wave of network-related deaths. With his believers gone, Eiri's hold weakens.
voice: various · English dub: various, among them Rachel Harris
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived · ja.wikipedia.org archived · animenewsnetwork.com archived · lawmune.net · konaka.com archived · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Narrator (narrator)
The voice heard at the start of episodes and in documentary-style passages.
voice: Takashi Taniguchi · English dub: Paul St. Peter
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived
#Kurosawa, the Tachibana executive ('Office Worker') 黒沢 (Kurosawa), named in the script and on the official site; his self-introduction was cut, so he is unnamed on screen
A middle-aged executive at Tachibana General Laboratories who gives the Men in Black their orders. In Layer 07 Lain is brought to him; she fixes his outdated NAVI, and he questions her about who her family really are and what she thinks reality is, pushing until her bolder self takes over. He tells his agents that something interesting is happening and that they should simply observe. According to lain.wiki, both visual experiments lain and Konaka's scenario book give his name as Kurosawa, and a footnote says the line where he introduced himself was cut. He has his own hopes for what will happen when the Wired and the real world merge, which he keeps to himself. Shigeru Shibuya voices him in Layer 07 (credited as the man in the office, also in Layer 10); in Layer 12 he is voiced by Eiichiro Suzuki, which Konaka notes was a different actor from his earlier appearance.
notable scenes: Layer 07: the interview in his office · Layer 12: betraying the Men in Black
More (spoilers)
In Layer 12 he admits to Karl and Lin that he has been in contact with Eiri and has abandoned them. Asked what will happen when the real world and the Wired join without devices, he answers only that it will be something wonderful and that he is looking forward to it.
Sources: lain.wiki · lain.wiki · en.wikipedia.org archived
#The PhantomA girl ('Gotcha' girl) (unnamed; credited as 幼女 "little girl" in the official Layer 04 cast, with an adult voice by Miki Itō (伊藤美紀) and a child voice by Haruka Tokoizumi (常泉遥佳))
A small girl carrying a stuffed animal who, in Layer 04, seems to chase a frightened high school senior through his apartment building at night. When she catches him she says 'Gotcha' in an oddly adult voice. He is a player of PhantomA, a popular online game, and the chase is a version of the children's game of tag bleeding into his perception of the game. Later in the episode she bumps into Alice in Shibuya and drops her toy, now sounding like an ordinary child. Ueda explained at Otakon 2000 that she is a normal girl: the chase and the 'gotcha' happen in the man's head, showing the barrier between the net and the real world breaking down, with fear used to make that visible.
notable scenes: Layer 04: the apartment-building chase · Layer 04: the girl bumping into Alice in Shibuya
More (spoilers)
The man, convinced she is a game monster, shoots her with what he believes is an in-game weapon, killing a real child. The episode connects PhantomA to KIDS, a project to harvest children's latent psychic power, which later lets Lain's face appear across the sky. In Layer 06 Lain learns that Professor Hodgeson's original KIDS research had been revived through such games, and she condemns him for it.
Sources: lawmune.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
The game
#
Lain Iwakura (game) 岩倉 玲音
The PlayStation game's Lain is a different girl in a parallel version of the story. She is followed from about eleven to fourteen through counseling recordings, diaries and videos that the player unlocks out of order from a fake operating system. She lives with both parents, has no sister and starts out in a fairly ordinary home, troubled by colds and bad dreams. Ueda told 4Gamer in 2018 that he gave her very sharp eyesight (3.0, per the strategy guide) to make her feel physically unusual, and that her hair lock is a 'radio wave canceller' because she can see and hear signals; the anime never explains this. Ueda had Kaori Shimizu read her lines flat on purpose. Konaka says the game's ending, with Lain shooting herself, was the point he first assumed the anime would also reach.
notable scenes: Counseling logs in which Lain says she dislikes P.E. but loves the horizontal bar · Diary entries about a cold that will not go away · Random ominous movies that play when the player is idle
More (spoilers)
Lain's sessions with counselor Touko Yonera gradually invert: the patient begins to read and unsettle her therapist. Ueda summed up Touko's arc as the hunter becoming the hunted. The game ends in violence, and Konaka recalls its last image as Lain shooting herself with a pistol. The game never fully explains itself: Ueda said players are meant to assemble the story inside their own heads from scattered data, much like the later game Her Story.
voice: Kaori Shimizu (清水香里) · English dub: n/a (Japan-only release)
▶ hear Lain in the game: 435 files
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived · 4gamer.net archived · 4gamer.net · yamaki-nyx.hatenablog.com · psx.lain.pl archived
#
Touko Yonera 米良 柊子 (Yonera Tōko)
Touko is a 27-year-old doctor in the psychopathology lab at Tachibana General Laboratories, born in Setagaya, Tokyo, and recently back from graduate study in the United States. Lain is her first patient. Her own voice diaries and notes make up a large share of what the player unlocks, so the game is as much her story as Lain's: her stress at work, her longing for her boyfriend Takeshi, who also works at Tachibana, and her slide into instability when she learns he is marrying someone else. Ueda told 4Gamer that Konaka probably created her setup, and both remembered Tachibana Labs as Konaka's invention. Maya Okamoto voices her.
notable scenes: Her self-introduction log giving age, birthplace and lab · Counseling sessions where she promises to stop Lain's bad dreams · Diary entries about Takeshi
More (spoilers)
As Touko comes apart, Lain turns her growing knowledge of psychology on her therapist. Ueda describes the arc as the hunter becoming the hunted and wondered whether horror had done that before; Konaka thought it might be original. Touko's collapse feeds directly into the game's violent end. Her failed relationship with Takeshi, which she records in growing despair, is the thread the player follows alongside Lain's own.
voice: Maya Okamoto (岡本麻弥) · English dub: n/a
▶ hear Touko in the game: 269 files
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived · en.wikipedia.org archived · 4gamer.net archived · 4gamer.net · lain.wiki · lain.wiki
#
Shinichiro Makino 牧野 慎一郎 (Makino Shin'ichirō)
An ordinary office worker who knows Lain only through the network. He meets her in person later in the story, with consequences for him.
voice: Shigeru Shibuya (渋谷茂) · English dub: n/a
Sources: ja.wikipedia.org archived
#
Minor game figures (Kyoko, Misato, Yoshida, Lain's parents) 今日子 (Kyōko), 美里 (Misato), 吉田 (Yoshida), 玲音の両親 (Lain's parents)
Classmates, a friend and other adults who appear through Lain's and Touko's records. Their voice casting was not found in the sources checked.
voice: Kyoko: Manabi Mizuno (水野愛日); Misato, Yoshida and Lain's parents have no spoken lines in the game, so they have no voice actors · English dub: n/a
▶ hear Kyoko in the game: 12 files
Sources: en.wikipedia.org archived
