Product Details

• Actors: Animated
• Format: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Geneon [Pioneer]
• DVD Release Date: August 24, 1999
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305536813
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,453 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Serial Experiments - Lain: Knights (Layers 5-7)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

As Lain's story continues to unfold, she--and the viewer--becomes increasingly unsure of what is real and what exists in the cyber-realm of The Wired. The cyber-Lain grows bolder and more unpleasant, spying on her friends and spreading rumors, while her real-world counterpart seems to be fading out of existence. Does she need a body any longer? Does she still possess one? Her father departs, announcing that her family has never been anything but a group of actors. The Knights, who seemed omnipotent within The Wired, lose a critical power struggle: its members are executed by agents of Tachibana Laboratory. Lain greets these revelations and questions with her usual fixed stare and little indrawn breaths. Chiaki Konaka clutters his already fragmented screenplay with references to alien contacts and some odd theology. Lain debates the nature of God and free will with the Masami Eiri, who researched the idea that human minds are linked like electronic circuits on a subliminal level--before he was found murdered. Director Ryutaro Nakamura doggedly reuses the same close-ups of Lain's eyes, the shots of power wires, the simple computer graphics, etc. Viewers will love or hate Lain; no one will watch it with indifference. Rated 16 and up for violence, implied sexual situations, and an abstruse story line. --Charles Solomon

Product Description

Who are you really?" lain delves deeper into the Wired World, and is confronted by the men in dark suits. They know something about the Knights and the rash of kids who seem to be committing suicide, yet they ask lain "Are those people who you live with really your parents?" and "Are you lain of the Wired?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I see dead people..., September 9, 1999

By 

"illadvised" (Northern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Serial Experiments - Lain: Knights (Layers 5-7) (DVD)

Ok, wrong movie-- but regardless whether she is bothered by neck dwelling prickly things or not, after "Navi," Lain is begging to be unraveled. In "Knights," it's seems that we'll finally see Lain's ball of truths untwine. Instead we discover it's loops and knots, all through an unceasing collage of imagery and sound that leaves our senses bruised and us meandering with Lain and her world. Ever get a cut or bruise and wonder how they got there? The answers lie within the layers of the Serial Experiments: Lain series. Not for the attention-challenged.

Technically, there really isn't anything to add that hasn't already been said. Like volume 1, the quality of the transfer, both in video and sound (even if it's only 2.0 DD), once again hold up beautifully. This series is truly a reference piece for Anime on DVD. As before, there are Japanese and English audio tracks as well as English subtitles available. I don't know if it's just my copy, but I picked up two obvious errors (not a translation nit-picking) in the subs that seems to have slipped passed the editors. One is clearly a complete thought in dialogue left incomplete in the subs. The other is completely technical, where the english subtitle falls on top of a sub/caption thats there when sub is off. Oh well, I guess you've seen it all, no big deal.

As for supplements, it may seem lacking, but what _is_ there just makes the great, greater. It might not seem like a big deal but I really appreciate the option to watch the opening intro without the credit text! Also, I haven't watched much anime in a while, but I'm glad to see there are still people who preserve the original work when it makes it overseas. Specifically concerning the soundtrack, wherein some U.S. Anime distributors, who originally have nothing to do with the work itself, decide to take it upon themselves to change this and that, because "it's better this and that way." Since when did idiocy take precedence over the artists original work? 3!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Everything is a prophecy", April 17, 2003

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Serial Experiments - Lain: Knights (Layers 5-7) (DVD)

If you approach this series expecting the ordinary, or even a somewhat imaginative approach to the theme of where the line between real and virtual are you are in for a shock. There is little about this story that is comfortable, and much that is deeply disquieting. Ryutaro Nakamura is intent in placing the viewer in Lain's experiences, intentionally creating the same perceptual and intellectual confusion.

The question probed in this DVD continued to be who or what is the real Lain. These episodes fracture the appearance of waif-like innocence that Lain wore in the first DVD. Not completely, though. Only enough so that it is clear that a much brasher and more forward young woman exists in the same mind. Even this simplifies her personality boundaries, as her sister is also consumed by the changes within Lain.

Sharing the 'wired' with her are desperate geeks trying to gain admission to the 'Knights,' a closed hacker society that is driven by secret, and perhaps deadly purposes. And in the 'real' world men in dark suits follow her and question her very existence. While her Navi grows into a water-cooled monster that swallows her entire room. Time and again, we have to wonder whose perceptions are we following, as our vision fragments and then heals in kaleidoscopic patterns. Into this strangeness step parents, strangers and friends who seem to only stop by to pronounce philosophically and then vanish back into the surfaces.

The artwork continues to be remarkable. This isn't so much an animated series as it is a designed film. By which I mean that rather than a flow of action, we are presented with images and symbols that glue themselves like wallpaper on the inside of our minds, returning repeatedly to haunt us. This is creative, experimental work, which draws the viewer forward despite forebodings of a final bleak vision that will never leave. This is a demonstration of anime's real potential as an art form, rather than simple entertainment.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of the Four - Knights, March 17, 2000

By 

C.J.S. (Tampa, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Serial Experiments - Lain: Knights (Layers 5-7) (DVD)

If you buy only one tape of Serial Experiments Lain(Which is a really bad idea), make this the one. Not only does this raise the most interesting questions, but some of the best plot twists occur here, including what happens to Lain's sister, Mika.

If you want an anime to keep you up at night, either with thought or with chills, make this it.