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Comment by jpdb | Hacker News Reader

Lain catches a lot of flak in anime circles for being "edgy" or "deep for the sake of being deep" in that it tries too hard to be something thought provoking, but lacks any real substance. People still assign what they think the show is trying to say, but because the show is so abstract anything sticks.

I tend to agree with the above point, but it has been quite some time since I watched it. I wonder if a new personal perspective and rapidly changing tech landscape would change how I feel about it today.

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As much as I liked the anime, I tend to put it into the "pseudo-profound bullshit" category. They drop in loads of philosophical concepts, fringe science, wild extrapolation, and a bit of conspiracies and paranormal. There is no way you can't make parallels with the real world.

If may sound harsh but it is not a bad thing. It creates an atmosphere, and it is thought provoking, as evidenced by the article. It is a work of fiction, and fiction is like magic, it is all fake, but we enjoy being tricked into it. And that is a perfectly good trick when well executed.

Maybe Lain overdid it a bit, but I enjoyed the show, and for me, it is the important part.

Yeah I remember the weird fringe science, using certain frequencies to get online without a Navi, etc, but if you Googled it, it was all investigated before and real fringe-y. But I tend to agree with you, it is trying to be deep in some ways.

Even if you if you think the show is lacking substance, however you define that, there's more to a show than just the story. The character designs (and art direction in general), music, sci-fi setting, Apple references, etc. are all other reasons for its critical success & popularity (or maybe cult following is the right term, I don't know). That the soundtracks and artbooks are still so sought after is a testament to that.

The atmosphere created by the sound design and music is a big reason I liked it.

The studio made a show called Boogiepop Phantom afterwards (based on some urban fantasy light novels) that reuses a lot of art assets, including the sounds. It is unfortunately not nearly as good and the animation quality is seriously low.

>"deep for the sake of being deep"

It is babies first philosophy: the anime. Nothing wrong with liking it, the problem comes when people think it is deeper than it actually is. It is quaint when viewed through current affairs, and much like the article, absolute thesaurus bait pretending to be something more.

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