Iwakura Lain

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The protagonist of Serial Experiments: Lain, Lain is a twelve-thirteen year-old girl living in the not-to-distant future. When we first meet here is shy and not very social, which her friends Alice, Juri, and Reika try to change this by taking her to Cyberia. After reading the post-suicide email from Yomoda Chisa, she asks her father for a new Navi and from there falls deeper and deeper into the Wired. As she becomes more involved in the Wired, she begins to slowly pull away from her friends. This worries Mizuki Alice, who tries to bring Lain back to reality...

Besides the shy girl in the real world, there are two other Lains present in the Wired. They are:

Digital Lain: Lain's alter-ego online, she is vastly more confident, alert, and sassy than real Lain, with a commanding attitude to match. By the end of the series Digital Lain has taken over as a dominant part of Lain's personality.

Lain in the Wired: The "fake" Lain created by Knights of Eastern Calculus, this one looks like she's stoned ^-^. She always has an appearance that gives you the impression she's "not all there.". Lain in the Wired in sneaky and uncaring towards Lain's firend Alice, telling all the Wired world about Alice's relationship with a teacher.

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Spoiler Alert!
Knights created Lain in the Wired as a way of manipulating those trying to seek the real Lain, who is the true goddess of the Wired and the enbodyment of the human collective unconsciousness. Through "Lain in the Wired" we are alienated from each other by technology, through the true Lain we are all connected, both on- and offline.

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BTW, that ASCII-art Lain rocks. ^-^

Iwakura Lain looks something like this:

 
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/............................\          /..........;;||..:........".

      Close the world,                                m1a9366b
            tx3n eht neqO.

According to Ashitaka of the Lain mailing list, the Kanji sound for 'Rein' means 'the sound of jewels. 'Iwakura' is the name of a samurai group serving under Iwakura Tomomi. The Meji emperor sent the samurai to Europe to study European culture in 1872-73. Gn0sis informs me that Iwakura literally means: 'Stone Warehouse'.

These are the names of Iwakura Lain in Japanese:

Romaji: Iwakura Rein

Kanji:岩倉玲音

Hiragana: ぃわくられぃん

Katakana:ィヮクラレィン

Thanks to Ashitaka of the Lain mailinglist.