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Serial Experiments Lain Anime Celebrates 25th Anniversary With New Alternate Reality Game
posted on by Joanna Cayanan, Crystalyn Hodgkins
Digital collectible anime studio Kasagi and Tokyo-based company Anique announced on Thursday that they will launch an alternate reality game (ARG) titled Layer 3301: De-Cipher, based on the Serial Experiments Lain anime, in celebration of its 25th anniversary.
The companies did not announce the game's launch date. Players will gain access to the game by purchasing a digital collectible called a Protocol Key. Early access to the Protocol Keys will launch this month on the Serial Experiments Lain anime's 25th anniversary website.
Players can unlock new aspects of the anime's storyline by using their Protocol Key to interact with digital elements, and players will get rewards for clearing the game. Rewards include limited digital, physical, and "phygital" memorabilia, and never-before-seen cel art (hand drawn or painted stills from the animation) that were used to produce the anime.
The original anime's producer Yasuyuki Ueda is supervising the immersive ARG. The anime's original character designer Yoshitoshi ABe provided a comment regarding the game:
[E]arly in production, one of our team members remarked that we should design lain's world so that whenever someone watches it, it'll feel like a near future that's just three years away. Our hope is that Serial Experiments Lain and the 25th anniversary's Layer 3301 event invokes the Japanese “zashiki-warashi” spirit - the idea that something is lurking or quietly hiding in the small hollow spaces of the Internet. Sometimes, you might find a sign or symbol that could mean something, only to realize that it has disappeared before you know it.
The 13-episode anime aired in Japan from July to September 1998. Ryutaro Nakamura directed the anime, Chiaki J. Konaka wrote the script, and Yoshitoshi ABe designed the characters.
The franchise's video game from Pioneer LDC released on the PlayStation console in November 1998.
Funimation announced in 2010 that it licensed the psychological cyberpunk series previously held by Geneon, and it has since released the series on home video in 2012 and 2014.
Crunchyroll began streaming the series in 2017. The company describes the series:
Acclaimed artist Yoshitoshi ABe (Haibane Renmei, Texhnolyze) brings to life the existential classic that paved the way for blockbuster films such as The Matrix. Follow along as fourteen year old Lain—driven by the abrupt suicide of a classmate—logs on to the Wired and promptly looses herself in a twisted mass of hallucinations, memories, and interconnected-psyches.
Crunchyroll removed the series in 2018.
Source: Press release
