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The 30 days music meme got me thinking about Serial Experiments Lain again. I was reading through the Wikipedia article to brush up on the plot and while it wasn't especially helpful in that regard, (I still have no idea what the purpose of the K.I.D.S./Cyberia...stuff...was?) it did make me think about some other things.
First, the whole idea the creator had wrt American vs. Japanese audience interpretations...look, I admire his desire to create something with 'distinctly Japanese values' and reject American concepts that were imposed upon Japanese people after WWII. But...the philosophical concepts and technology theories presented in Lain are almost entirely Western in origin, and they aren't presented in a way that challenges their assertions on any level. When you invoke Western ideas without re-interpreting or challenging them, it seems rather naive to assume that an American audience will draw different conclusions from a Japanese audience.
I think Ghost in the Shell (the movies, in particular) is a series that generates different audience reactions more successfully than Lain, and that wasn't even a concern of the creators. (At least, I don't think it was a concern?) American audiences don't interpret the ending of the GiTS movie differently, per se, but the majority of the reviews and analysis miss the very obvious Buddhist underpinnings--I've only read one review that mentions how one of the last scenes with the Puppeteer and Motoko is supposed to be read as a Buddhist wedding/a symbol of Buddhist ideals of transcendence, for example. And I suspect the critical response to Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, which was fairly negative, was partially due to people being unfamiliar with Buddhist/Zen concepts and thus found the movie's philosophical musings as confusing. (Or worse, nonsensical--I do think Innocence was heavy-handed and clumsy in plotting and dialog, but the ideas it was trying to convey aren't nonsense, and I think it's really patronizing that some American critics have called it that.)
...wow, that was some tangent.
Secondly, even though I don't remember much about Lain's plot, I always enjoyed the initial hook, that Lain is just going through her lonely life until a dead person contacts her through theinternet Wired. The idea of people dying in the material world and manifesting in the internet is one I really enjoy, and I wish I knew of more books/shows/movies that explore the concept. I've seen Kairo and Pulse (Kairo was pretty good, Pulse was not) a little bit of the .hack series, and pretty much everything connected to Ghost in the Shell--is there any other stuff that people have seen, in any media, that's concerned with people living in the internet, or sentient creations trying to contact/become people in the material world? I'd be interested in seeing it.
First, the whole idea the creator had wrt American vs. Japanese audience interpretations...look, I admire his desire to create something with 'distinctly Japanese values' and reject American concepts that were imposed upon Japanese people after WWII. But...the philosophical concepts and technology theories presented in Lain are almost entirely Western in origin, and they aren't presented in a way that challenges their assertions on any level. When you invoke Western ideas without re-interpreting or challenging them, it seems rather naive to assume that an American audience will draw different conclusions from a Japanese audience.
I think Ghost in the Shell (the movies, in particular) is a series that generates different audience reactions more successfully than Lain, and that wasn't even a concern of the creators. (At least, I don't think it was a concern?) American audiences don't interpret the ending of the GiTS movie differently, per se, but the majority of the reviews and analysis miss the very obvious Buddhist underpinnings--I've only read one review that mentions how one of the last scenes with the Puppeteer and Motoko is supposed to be read as a Buddhist wedding/a symbol of Buddhist ideals of transcendence, for example. And I suspect the critical response to Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, which was fairly negative, was partially due to people being unfamiliar with Buddhist/Zen concepts and thus found the movie's philosophical musings as confusing. (Or worse, nonsensical--I do think Innocence was heavy-handed and clumsy in plotting and dialog, but the ideas it was trying to convey aren't nonsense, and I think it's really patronizing that some American critics have called it that.)
...wow, that was some tangent.
Secondly, even though I don't remember much about Lain's plot, I always enjoyed the initial hook, that Lain is just going through her lonely life until a dead person contacts her through the
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Date: 2012-11-30 04:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-01 09:56 pm (UTC)From: