IN THEIR WORDS

Interviews

What Yasuyuki Ueda, Chiaki J. Konaka, Yoshitoshi ABe and the others said about Lain, from a fashion magazine in the summer of 1998 to retrospectives twenty years on. Each is summed up in the archive's own words, with its main points; the originals are linked, many in Japanese.

FRUiTS magazine interview with Yasuyuki Ueda

Yasuyuki Ueda (producer, then 29), interviewed by FRUiTS; English translation by 'Equator' · Recorded late July or early August 1998, right after Layer 04 aired; printed in the October 1998 issue (No. 15) · FRUiTS (Japanese street-fashion monthly); translation hosted on Lawrence Eng's misceLAINeous pages

One of the earliest interviews, given to a youth fashion magazine rather than an anime one while the show was still airing. Ueda explains that he worked in Pioneer LDC's original-projects section and that, after several years of what he calls ordinary titles, he wanted to make something closer to his own sensibility. He picked staff himself instead of going through a studio: he found ABe, then an art student in Japanese painting, through ABe's homepage and met him at Nakamurabashi station, and he asked Konaka, whom he already admired, to write the scripts. 'production 2nd' in the credits is simply Ueda, named after his department and chosen to suggest a label outside the mainstream. He says his first draft began with Lain's mother and the question of why Lain was born, and that the writers and the director turned it into a warmer drama than he would have made alone. He describes the Layer 01 suicide as something he had to negotiate with TV Tokyo, arguing it was essential to how the thirteen episodes talk about the value of life. He credits Konaka with Accela and the nanotech ideas. On design, he says Lain's single long left lock was his own request, meant to break symmetry and to act as a charm that keeps voices out of her left ear, while the bear pajamas came from Nakamura and Kishida as her armor when facing her family.

Ueda found ABe through his personal homepage and recruited him before his professional debut
'production 2nd' is Ueda himself, named after his Pioneer LDC section
The original plan opened with Lain's mother and why Lain was born
The Layer 01 suicide needed advance approval from TV Tokyo
Accela and the nanotech ideas were Konaka's
The asymmetric left forelock was Ueda's request; the bear suit came from Nakamura and Kishida
Ueda had worked on the Noel game about two years earlier with Junji Nakahara

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net

lain talk live (staff talk event)

Yasuyuki Ueda, Chiaki J. Konaka, host Mizutama; later Ryutaro Nakamura, Takahiro Kishida, Hiroyuki Kakudo (角銅博之; the report gives only the surname), Akira Takemoto, Yoshitoshi ABe, Okuda (LD cover design), Ide (assistant producer), Junji Nakahara (interface programmer) and fan-site manager Wakana Aono · 1999-02-27, 14:00, about three hours · Loft Plus One, Shinjuku, Tokyo; fan reports by 'Yas' in Japanese and English

The only known live staff event held during the show's first life, reported by a fan who attended. The venue was so crowded that entry had to be limited, and signed copies of the scenario book were sold at the door; Konaka's custom Lain dolls stood on the stage table. Ueda and Konaka opened by tracing the project's history and confirmed that the game had been planned first and was originally meant to come out before the TV series. Staff then rotated onto the stage about every thirty minutes. The talk split the credits roughly like this: the game plan centred on Ueda and Konaka, the anime brought in Nakamura and Kishida, ABe was recruited by Ueda after he liked ABe's art online, and the digital effects were run as a separate unit around Ueda while Nakamura and Kishida concentrated on the cel animation. Speakers said Nakamura at first did not count on the digital side but came to trust it in the second half. A detail the reporter found striking was that the team did not use high-end Henry or Flame edit suites at all and did the effects in After Effects. The music was said to have been written after the storyboards were fixed. Pre-effects footage of Layer 01 and a promotional clip from a Pioneer DVD player were screened, and BOOTLEG, a mook and an artbook were announced as coming.

The game was planned first and was meant to be released before the anime
Digital effects were a separate unit led by Ueda, cel work by Nakamura and Kishida
Effects were made in After Effects, not on expensive Henry or Flame suites
Nakamura came to trust the digital work only in the later episodes
Music was composed after storyboards were finished
Undigitized Layer 01 footage was screened
BOOTLEG, a mook (visual experiments lain) and the artbook were previewed

read the original

Sources: asahi-net.or.jp archived · lain.wiki archived

HK magazine interview with Chiaki J. Konaka

Chiaki J. Konaka, interviewed by Shinsuke Nakajima for HK · Recorded early winter 1999; published in HK (France) in 2000 (No. 14, April 2000) · HK, a French Asian-film magazine; full Japanese text and an English translation on Konaka's own site

Konaka's longest statement on the series. He says the producer first imagined a multimedia plan centred on a PlayStation title, with TV anime only a hope. The core team was ABe, Junji Nakahara (game director, and CG on the anime) and Ueda; Konaka set the game's background and wrote its animated parts, and the team called the result 'psycho-stretch-ware' rather than a game. When the anime was green-lit he chose to tell a different story, about the relation between inside and outside the network, and introduced the word Wired. As a horror writer, he began with a ghost story, an email from a dead girl, with the starting idea that heaven might connect to the network. He wrote the first four scripts without knowing the ending, paused, then found his direction from Nakamura's storyboards, and never wrote a full plot; the series composition credit was only contractual. He praises Kishida for retouching other animators' drawings through the night and says he and Nakamura were at odds over whether Lain should want to go to Cyberia. He denies Evangelion and Rei Ayanami as models and traces his on-screen text to Godard. The power lines came from Ueda's roughly 4,000 photographs. Kishida invented the bear pajamas, ABe the X hairclip, and Ueda the asymmetric hair. The Layer 12 ghost was shot on 8mm with Ueda and Nakahara under a blanket. Layer 09 is his favorite episode, and he notes that ABe drew Lain's final face to camera at his suggestion.

The game came first; Konaka wrote its animated parts and its basic setting
Konaka coined 'Wired' for the anime; the game never used it
He wrote with no overall plot, finding the direction through Nakamura's storyboards
Kishida made the bear pajamas, ABe the X clip, Ueda the asymmetric hair
Rejects Evangelion as an influence; cites Godard and his horror-video work
COS was named after Apple's cancelled Copland OS
The Layer 12 ghost was filmed on 8mm with a blanket over Ueda and Nakahara
Layer 09 is his favorite; ABe drew the final shot of Lain

read the original archived

Sources: konaka.com archived · konaka.com archived

Producer interview on the Triangle Staff website ('lain stories I can tell now')

Yasuyuki Ueda, interviewed by the Triangle Staff site team · Mid-1999 to mid-2000, roughly a year after broadcast; online by 19 June 2000 (earliest capture); marked 'to be continued' · Triangle Staff official site (t-staff.co.jp), now only on the Wayback Machine

A relaxed, Japanese-only interview on the studio's own site. Ueda says the project ran like an indie production: most of the staff already knew each other and were heavy network users, so stories and notes were shared openly by CC email. Asked about censorship after recent youth crimes, he argues that simply banning images of guns or knives is shallow, that ratings and child locks have a place, and that adults should take responsibility for guiding what children watch. He says TV Tokyo's standards staff were understanding, which let both sides argue in good faith, and he presents the Agency for Cultural Affairs prize as proof the risk was worth it. On the game, he stresses that Konaka was asked to write only the movie parts, so most of the game is his own responsibility. He calls the game script hopelessly dark and says he and ABe are far darker people than Konaka and Nakamura. He describes the game as a mass of data blocks with almost no scenario, a toy for sensing a girl named Lain, and admits critics could call that a cop-out. His favorite episode is Layer 01, because Nakamura's storyboard convinced him to step back and leave the TV series to Konaka and Nakamura. He credits Nakahara and Sugiura of Leatrick with much of the CG, and praises Nakamura for welcoming game people into an anime production.

Staff shared scripts openly by CC email, like an indie project
Ueda rejects crude rules such as banning glinting knives on screen
TV Tokyo's standards office argued with the team constructively
Konaka wrote only the game's movie parts; the rest is Ueda's responsibility
The game is 'data blocks' with almost no scenario, built to evoke Lain's presence
Ueda's favorite is Layer 01, after which he left the series to Konaka and Nakamura
CG mainly by Nakahara and Sugiura of Leatrick

read the original

Sources: lain.wiki archived

Otakon 2000 lain panel

Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe, with an interpreter; translator Dave Fleming spoke from the audience · 2000-08-05 · Otakon 2000, Baltimore, Maryland; transcribed by Lawrence Eng, also reported by A Fan's View

The pair's first big US panel, answered through an interpreter. Ueda says he had the idea about four years earlier and found ABe by surfing the web. ABe names his university training in Japanese painting with crushed-mineral pigments and the painters Chinai and Tabuchi as influences. Ueda confirms that the end-credit image of Lain wrapped in cables is a womb, not a trap. He explains that TV sound is usually built from a fixed palette, but that Takemoto and Kasamatsu reworked sound episode by episode as an exception. He addresses his much-quoted Animerica line about a cultural war with America: he means a frank exchange of values, and mentions that his grandparents died in the atomic bombing without that leaving hatred in him. He says the red spots in shadows were the director's idea, meant to show the Wired underneath the real world, and that nobody on staff had read Snow Crash until after the series. He reads the smoke from Lain's fingers as a private reality, explains Mika as a victim of the Wired who is left like a puppet or fax, says Lain's family were placed to gather information for someone, and states that after the reset Lain is simply gone. He credits Konaka with the real people in Layer 09, and explains Alice, Julie and Reika as names carried over from Konaka's earlier game Alice in Cyberland.

The cable-wrapped Lain in the credits is a womb, not a trap
Sound was reworked per episode by Takemoto and Kasamatsu, unusual for TV
Red spots in shadows were Nakamura's way of showing the Wired beneath reality
No one on staff had read Snow Crash before making the series
Mika is a victim stuck between worlds, acting like a fax
Lain's family were watchers reporting to an unnamed party
After the reset, Lain is gone
Ueda reframes his 'cultural war' quote as a wish for honest cultural exchange

read the original

Sources: archived page · lawmune.net

Anime Jump interview with Yasuyuki Ueda

Yasuyuki Ueda; interpreter Robert John (Otakon staff); arranged with Pioneer's Chad Kime and Hiroe Tsukamoto · August 2000 (during Otakon 2000) · Anime Jump (archived on the Wayback Machine)

A short sit-down interview that covers the ideas behind the show more than its production. Ueda says the Wired was not a prediction or a reaction to the internet but simply the medium the characters use to communicate, with real-world details added for texture. Lain is fourteen because that is the age when people absorb the most and are hardest for adults to understand, and he wanted to show a younger generation with different values. He is relaxed about children using phones and computers, comparing it to his own mother scolding him for playing video games. He says the internet is how he found ABe, through the large amateur art community online. On Vannevar Bush, he says Bush is linked to the people who built the Wired rather than to Lain directly, since the Wired itself gave birth to Lain. He thinks media-inspired killings happen but are a tiny fraction and that blaming games avoids the real problem. He explains his earlier Animerica remark: he hoped American viewers would argue with Lain from their own culture rather than read it the Japanese way, and he was a little disappointed that the fans he met in Los Angeles seemed so Japanese in outlook. He mentions NieA_7 as a deliberately light follow-up and hopes viewers will use cheap tools like Flash to make their own work.

The Wired is a communication medium, not a prediction
Lain is fourteen because that age absorbs the most and is hardest to read
Vannevar Bush relates to the Wired's makers, not to Lain herself
Ueda wanted American fans to clash with the show, not mirror Japanese readings
Copycat violence is real but blaming games misses the person
NieA_7 was planned as a light counterweight to Lain

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net

Anime Jump interview with Yoshitoshi ABe

Yoshitoshi ABe; interpreter Robert John · August 2000 (during Otakon 2000) · Anime Jump (archived on the Wayback Machine)

ABe explains that Ueda contacted him through his homepage while he was still a student, a couple of months before his graduate school entrance exam, so it was agreed he would start once the exam was over. He brought sketches to the production team; Lain's look settled early, while the other characters stayed more open. Asked about his realistic style, he says he was not allowed to read manga as a child, failed to get into college at first, drifted for a while and ended up as an assistant to a manga-artist friend, so he built his own style without preconceptions. He has been online since early 1996 and started posting art because a friend was into the new Japanese internet and because he was experimenting with digital effects in 2D illustration. He thinks digital art is still leaping forward: in Japan analog and CG work still clash visibly. He partly sympathizes with Harlan Ellison's refusal of new technology, but feels that the feeling a creator puts in still passes through the hand even in digital work. His own method is a quick pencil sketch, cleanup, scanning and digital painting, and he does not expect that to change. He ends by saying he is glad his unusual art is accepted in America when it is considered odd even in Japan.

Ueda contacted ABe via his homepage just before his graduate exams
Lain's look was fixed early; other characters were more fluid
ABe was barred from manga as a child and learned as an assistant
He has had a web presence since early 1996
His workflow: pencil sketch, cleanup, scan, digital color
He sees analog and CG imagery as still clashing in Japanese anime

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net

The Anime Colony online chat with Ueda and ABe

Yasuyuki Ueda (as 'Geronimo-U') and Yoshitoshi ABe ('ABe-SAN'), moderated by Ben Trumble, typed through a translator · 2000-08-07 · The Anime Colony chat; full log including the unmoderated part kept by Lawrence Eng

A typed chat held two days after the Otakon panel. Ueda says the bear pajamas were animator Kishida's idea: at first he thought them childish against the serious tone, but accepted Nakamura's explanation that the bear works as a wall when Lain talks to her family. ABe says Ueda asked for a design that was not symmetrical, which led to the hair, and Ueda adds the unexplained reason: the long lock is meant to stop evil spirits and bad luck from entering through her ear. ABe names Kenji Tsuruta and Yukinobu Hoshino as line influences. Ueda again declines to explain the cultural-war remark in a few lines, saying there is no warfare in the work itself, only a wish to go against normal rules. He says the plan took two years and production about eight months. Ueda chose Duvet simply because the music was good and the translated lyrics felt right, and later learned Jasmine Rodgers is half Japanese; ABe was moved hearing Boa live at Otakon. Both describe themselves as 'hetare', a kind of shared imperfection. ABe says he designed the NAVIs and Lain's computers himself, as machines he wanted to use, and owned seven computers. In the loose part afterwards Ueda rules out a Lain movie without saying never, and ABe says he has never seen the English dub.

Kishida proposed the bear suit; Nakamura explained it as Lain's wall
Ueda asked for asymmetry; the hair lock wards off spirits through the ear
ABe cites Kenji Tsuruta and Yukinobu Hoshino
Planning took about two years, production about eight months
Duvet was picked for its sound and lyrics; Jasmine Rodgers is half Japanese
ABe designed the NAVIs as computers he himself wanted
No Lain movie planned, though not ruled out forever

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net

Boa at Otakon 2000 ('Boa Speaks' and concert)

Boa: Jasmine Rodgers (vocals), Steve Rodgers (guitar), Paul Turrell (keyboards), Alex Caird (bass), Lee Sullivan (drums) · 2000-08-04 (Friday of Otakon 2000) · Otakon 2000, Baltimore; reported by A Fan's View

A brief convention report from Boa's rare North American appearance, where they spoke to fans and played a concert. Jasmine Rodgers explained that Duvet became the Lain theme through friendship and artistry: someone connected to the band's producer was a friend of Lain's producer and made the introduction, and the lyrics also helped the decision. She recalled that the show was described to her as an image of a child falling through the air. She felt the series, about a child forced to grow up too fast in a computerized world, matched the humane focus of the band's songs and brought teenage troubles to the foreground, and that the computer angle Lain's creator added applies to everyone living with technology and the internet. Keyboardist Paul Turrell said the band liked animation and would happily work with other animators, but that they were still strictly a band. The same Fan's View coverage includes the Saturday lain panel and a separate report on the Boa concert. Two days later, in an online chat, Ueda said Duvet was chosen because the music and the translated lyrics felt right, and ABe said hearing the band live at Otakon moved him. For a later account in Jasmine Rodgers's own words, see the 2018 Beneath the Tangles interview listed separately.

Rare North American appearance including a concert
Duvet reached Lain through a friend linking the band's and the show's producers
The lyrics helped seal the choice
Lain was pitched to the band as a child falling through the air
Band members said they liked animation but were 'strictly a band'

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net · lawmune.net

Yoshitoshi ABe interviews and appearances, 2000 to 2002 (Otakon panel, Zigzag Asia, Anime Central, Mangaes)

Yoshitoshi ABe · Otakon character designers panel 2000-08-05; Zigzag Asia interview online by 12 October 2001 (earliest archived capture; the pages carry no date); Anime Central 2001 (May 2001); Mangaes interview March 2002 · A Fan's View; Zigzag Asia Anime; Manga.es (Spanish)

A group of shorter ABe interviews that together sketch his early career and how he talks about Lain. To Zigzag Asia he says he barely drew until after high school, handed in a blank exam paper, and got pulled into art when a friend who won a newcomer prize from Spirits asked for help; after a year of cram school he entered the Japanese painting department of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in spring 1994, and won a Shiki Award from Afternoon. He drew strategy-guide art for games to pay fees. He says Lain's producer emailed him in the winter of his senior year, and that he joined officially the next spring after his graduate exams. NieA_7 grew from a one-panel cartoon he drew in a literary magazine. At Otakon's character designers panel, beside Utena's Shinya Hasegawa, he described designing Lain as bringing many sketches to meetings, and said the creators wanted Lain asymmetric to show her drifting between worlds; he found cosplay a little embarrassing because the backs of the characters were never published. At Anime Central 2001 he refused to give an official reading of the show. To Mangaes he names Yukinobu Hoshino's 2001 Nights and Masayuki Kaneda as influences, says the red spots in shadows were the director's stylistic choice, that he designed every NAVI including the phones, and that the name NAVI was Konaka's.

ABe entered Tokyo Geidai's Japanese painting department in 1994
Ueda emailed him in the winter of his senior year; he joined the next spring
NieA_7 began as a one-panel magazine cartoon
The creators wanted Lain asymmetric to show her between two worlds
He will not give an official interpretation of the show
He designed all NAVIs; Konaka named them

read the original

Sources: archived page · archived page · archived page · lawmune.net

Konaka e-mail interview for the Anime Expo 2001 fan panel

Chiaki J. Konaka, questions by Lawrence Eng · Conducted June 2001; read publicly 2001-07-07 · serial experiments lain fan discussion panel, Anime Expo 2001 (about 100 attendees); posted on misceLAINeous

A short written exchange in English, lightly edited for grammar at Konaka's request. Konaka says he sometimes borrows from H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu writers, but that Lain did not need those elements because he wrote it as a story of the 'present day, present time'. He calls Lovecraft and Lewis Carroll close in spirit, each having built a world of their own, and says he is a story maker who does not need to invent a new world every time. His influences are mostly films, especially 1970s titles such as Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, The Legend of Hell House, Obsession and Videodrome, though he grew up on Astro Boy and anime in general. He calls working with Ryutaro Nakamura very exciting. He sees little difference between Japanese and foreign fans, since each found their own point in the theme, which is what he wanted. He was then writing Digimon Tamers, where he reused the names Juri and Reika; he explains that Alice, Reika and Juri first appeared in a 1994 live-action episode he wrote for a school ghost-story TV series, and that he keeps them because he likes the characters even as their faces and ages change. He says he loves and hates computers, and turns a question back to American fans: was Eiri's dogma totally insane? The panel's answer is included.

Lain uses no Lovecraft elements; it is a 'present day' story
1970s films are his main influence, plus Astro Boy
Alice, Reika and Juri first appeared in a 1994 live-action ghost-story episode
He reused Juri and Reika in Digimon Tamers
He 'loves and hates' computers
He asked fans whether Eiri's thinking was truly insane

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net

Blu-ray BOX | RESTORE launch event (GIGAZINE report, parts 1 and 2)

Part 1: Yasuyuki Ueda, Tetsuro Satomi (Burnum Studio, moderator), Akihisa Okuda (package design), Hiroshi Saito, Yoichi Senzui and Hirofumi Araki (restoration). Part 2: Ueda, Satomi, Chiaki J. Konaka, Yoshitoshi ABe, Seiji 'Burger' Suzuki, surprise guest Kaori Shimizu · Event 2010-11-22; reports published 2010-11-23 and 2010-11-26 · Cine Libre Ikebukuro, Tokyo (sold out in about ten minutes; also streamed on Ustream)

A screening of Layers 01 and 12 with two talks. In the first, Ueda apologizes that the box slipped a year from its planned December 2009 release because of his retakes and the camera director's perfectionism. The team widened the image beyond 4:3 using spare film area, spent huge effort removing frame jitter and dust, and sometimes could not tell which of several near-identical takes was the approved one, so Ueda emailed the director. Nakahara upconverted the opening and ending from surviving material, and old After Effects 3.x files had to be opened on an OS 9 machine running version 5.5. Episodes ran about 250 to 280 cuts. In the second talk, Shimizu says she was fifteen and in her last year of junior high, chosen from roughly 120 auditionees because Ueda wanted an unsettled, untrained voice for Lain, and that she fell ill from nerves after about three episodes. She recalls the script writing the name three ways, as kanji, katakana and Latin letters. Ueda and Konaka recall a shouting match over what a protocol is in Triangle Staff's small studio, and Ueda's angry three-page fax that arrived blank because he loaded it upside down. Konaka sees traces of Osamu Dezaki in Nakamura's first episode. Ueda closes by reading an email from Nakamura, too ill to attend, remembering Shimizu turning on the subway stairs on the last recording day as if she were Lain.

The BD was planned for December 2009 and slipped a year over retakes
Restoration widened the frame and removed jitter cut by cut
Old After Effects 3.x files needed an OS 9 machine to open
Kaori Shimizu was 15, chosen from about 120 auditionees
The script spells Lain three ways: kanji, katakana and Latin letters
Ueda and Konaka fought over the meaning of 'protocol'
Nakamura, too ill to attend, sent a message read aloud
Real leftover cels were given away to attendees

read the original

Sources: gigazine.net · gigazine.net

Konaka's 'welcome back to wired' retrospective blog

Chiaki J. Konaka (writing) · From 2018-04-28 (first entry 'The meaning of serial experiments') · welcome back to wired (Hatena blog by Konaka); summarized in English by Anime News Network

Not an interview but a first-person memoir Konaka started for the 20th anniversary, and a key primary source. In the first entry he stresses that the title began as a PlayStation project and that most of its large body of text was written by Ueda; Konaka only wrote scenarios for about thirty minutes of animated parts, and the basic plot was Ueda's, with Konaka acting as a go-between until director Tetsuya Endo turned those parts into film. The game's network was only a route for gathering information; its real genre was psycho-thriller. He describes ABe as a student whom Ueda found online and who offered ideas and writing as well as art; the game version of Lain's father came straight from a rough ABe drew without being asked. The game was built by a handful of people at a team called SR-12W, growing out of their previous title Noel, and the late-night anime was approved as promotion for the game. For TV, he was told he could use a completely different setting, and assumed the ending would match the game, with Lain shooting herself. Given total freedom, he was at a loss, so he wrote a very rough twelve-episode outline and planned to work the rest out while writing, which he later realized was the only way the series could have been made. A later entry relayed a correction from Nakahara about the 1998 ATR visit described in the 4Gamer interview.

Ueda wrote most of the game's text and its basic plot
Konaka wrote only about thirty minutes of animated parts for the game
Tetsuya Endo directed the game's animated segments
The game was made by a tiny team, SR-12W, after Noel
The anime was approved partly to promote the game
Konaka first assumed the anime would end with Lain shooting herself
He wrote a rough twelve-episode outline, then improvised

read the original

Sources: animenewsnetwork.com

Jasmine Rodgers reflects on 'Duvet' 20 years on

Jasmine Rodgers (Boa), interviewed by Twwk · 2018-09-05 · Beneath the Tangles

Rodgers explains that Duvet was not written for Lain. The band had signed with the Japanese label Polystar, and that link brought the existing song to the show, unlike her later work on Armitage: Dual-Matrix, where she wrote songs to order for the production. She says the lyrics came out of things she was turning over at the time, written almost as poetry, and that their core is expectation and hope, and perhaps relying on other people. She avoids fixing one meaning but sees an overlap with Lain's interest in communication and connection. The song took off quickly, remixes followed, and she was surprised to find copies had travelled as far as Colombia; the band started receiving convention invitations as a result. At the time of the interview the band had not made new music for years and she had studied zoology and pursued other art, yet messages from fans about what the song meant to them kept it part of her life. (Konaka wrote in 2018 that Ueda handed him bôa's first album, The Race of a Thousand Camels, to choose from, and that director Ryutaro Nakamura and Ueda picked Duvet, which Konaka at first thought too plain. This matches Ueda's 2000 chat answer; the uncited lain.wiki note that Konaka chose it is wrong.) Three years later the song went viral on TikTok, which led the band to re-form.

Duvet existed before Lain and reached it through Polystar
Rodgers wrote songs to order for Armitage: Dual-Matrix, unlike Duvet
The lyrics are about expectation, hope and relying on others
Fan letters kept the song alive for her during the band's hiatus
Who at the production picked the song is unclear?

read the original

Sources: lawmune.net · lain.wiki

4Gamer 20th anniversary game playthrough interview

Yasuyuki Ueda, Yoshitoshi ABe and Chiaki J. Konaka; interviewer Hamburg Tabeo (4Gamer editorial) · Published 2018-09-29 (two pages) · 4Gamer.net; held in an NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan meeting room, played on an early PS3

The three replay the PlayStation game and treat it as an ordeal. Ueda recalls that game director Junji Nakahara switched the main 'persona' from a bust shot to a full figure with less than six months to master, arguing that Lain as keeper of a database should not look like a video-phone partner. Ueda typed every keyword-to-data link into Excel by hand over three days, and spent New Year's holidays inputting text before flying to Poland for a recording. He says the CESA ratings body refused to certify the game over its gore, so it shipped without CESA, and a famous game magazine declined to score it after he called it 'psycho-stretch-ware'. The power lines and the 'small i' style date from the game and the earlier Noel, and the 'to Be continued' card honors BeOS. The music box theme used real music boxes ordered from a maker in Nagano because Takemoto's synth version sounded thin. The team was about four people in a rented apartment for roughly a year and a half, overlapping the anime; Ueda and Nakahara filmed the Layer 12 ghost with a blanket in a parking lot. ABe drew about 46 of the 200 pictures first requested. Ueda turned down a Hamster PS Archives release because he thought the game too stressful, and invites fans to make a good unofficial 'lain 2' that he would stamp as official.

Nakahara changed the persona to a full-body figure months before master
Ueda hand-linked keywords to data blocks in Excel over three days
CESA refused to certify the game; it shipped without CESA
Real music boxes from a Nagano maker were sampled for the theme
About four developers worked roughly a year and a half, overlapping the anime
ABe drew about 46 illustrations against 200 originally requested
Ueda declined a PS Archives release offered by Hamster
Ueda would approve a good fan-made sequel as official

read the original archived

Sources: 4gamer.net

25th anniversary (2023): Ueda's Layer 3301 statement and AI lain launch

Yasuyuki Ueda (supervisor, NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan); Anique Inc. · Statement 2023-06-08; AI lain opened 2023-09-05; ARG cancelled 2023-10-18 · Anique press release reprinted by 4Gamer and others; Mynavi News; AI lain note page

No full-length 25th anniversary interview with the original staff was found online; the anniversary mostly produced press statements. In the June 2023 release announcing the alternate reality game Layer 3301: De-Cipher, made by Anique with the digital-collectibles studio Kasagi, Ueda wrote that he could not yet tell how much fans would enjoy puzzle solving and treasure hunting, but hoped it would build a connection with long-time fans that does not stay inside the virtual space of the internet. He hoped it would also be a new challenge for anime culture as a whole, and said his wish as creator is for serial experiments lain to stand for an experimental spirit not bound by fixed values or economic agendas. Access was to be through a digital item called a 'protocol key'. In September Anique opened AI lain, a video-call style chatbot supervised by Ueda that was trained on Lain's personality in the anime and on Kaori Shimizu's 1998 recording tapes, framed as a six-month continuous experiment in which users would help raise a newborn Lain. In October the ARG was cancelled, with Anique saying it would focus on AI lain. A 50-page lain special in the magazine CONTINUE Vol. 85 (Ohta Publishing, 18 December 2024, cover by ABe) includes a dialogue interview between Ueda and ABe; the publisher lists the issue at 120 pages, on sale 18 December 2024, with the special starting on page 4; the dialogue is not in the free online preview, and no excerpt was found online.

No long 2023 staff interview was found online
Ueda supervised both the ARG and AI lain
He framed lain as an experiment free of fixed values and money motives
AI lain used Shimizu's 1998 recordings for Lain's voice
Layer 3301 was announced in June and cancelled in October 2023
CONTINUE Vol. 85 (2024) has a 50-page special, contents unverified?

read the original archived

Sources: news.mynavi.jp · note.com archived · cinra.net