It was awarded an Excellence Prize at the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival. Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere and thematics its dark depiction of a world fraught with uncertainty, social alienation and reliance on the internet has been considered insightful into 21st century life.

The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk and conspiracy theory.

Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery, and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity and communication. The series follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet. The show's 13 episodes, animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi ABe, were broadcast on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998. Serial Experiments Lain (stylized as serial experiments lain) is a Japanese anime television series directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura, written by Chiaki J.