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.
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.
▶ 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