Anime Jump interview with Yasuyuki Ueda
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
Sources: lawmune.net