This heavily cerebral anime series uses its quiet, young protagonist, Lain Iwakura, to explore traditional philosophical elements of the cyberpunk genre: God, the digital world, physicality, and the collective conscious. The story opens with the suicide of one of Lain's classmates, Chisa Yomoda. Lain is shy and childish, even for a girl of 14, and knows almost nothing of computers. It is very strange then, when Lain receives an e-mail from Chisa sent after her death. The message says that Chisa is not dead but simply abandoned her flesh and is still alive in the Wired, the limitless world inside all computers, portrayed similarly to the Internet. Lain then begins to explore the Wired, and as she does, a seemingly new person emerges from her. It appears that there are two Lains, the one in this world and the one in the Wired -- or even that Lain is omnipresent, a force greater than either of the two.
Serial Experiments Lain poses many questions, perhaps the most important of which is just how contained is the Wired? Does the Wired exist within this world or is this world just an image projected by the Wired? ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide