Layer One: Beginnings

Yomoda Chisa is the character who draws Lain into the wired. A shy, introverted girl (much like Lain) Chisa was a loner and was often seen walking home alone. She even remembers walking home from school with Lain; apparently this memory meant a lot to Chisa, as it appears in her email to Lain in episode one (Layer 1: Weird). But who is Yomoda Chisa, and how exactly does she expose Lain to the Wired?

Chisa is a girl in the first episode who commits suicide, on the claim that people don't really need bodies. Like most people, Chisa had been on the Wired, and as a result comitted suicide so that she could enter the Wired fully. She was a believer of Masami Eiri's belief that to come into the Wired fully, you had to abandon the flesh. Chisa was like Lain in many ways; she was extremely passive and soft spoken like Lain, and walked with her eyes downcast, with a melancholy expression on her face. But when Chisa dies, she tries to draw everyone else into the Wired with her. She sends her classmates emails, saying that she is not dead -- Chisa has simply abandoned her body. Among those who received the emails was Julie; the first words we hear Alice say to Lain are "did you get one too?". Chisa's email was then dismissed as a prank, but Lain couldn't help but be curious. Had she gotten an email too?

And that is how Lain is drawn into the Wired. Her curiousity was piqued by the thought of Chisa's email -- how could a dead person write emails? It is because of this sparked curiousity that Lain begins to use her Navi, which up until that point had been sitting on her desk, unused. When Lain is more accustomed to the wired, we hear echoes of Chisa's voice in various episodes, pleading with Lain, and asking her "why aren't you here yet?". And in the end, when Lain resets the world, it is Yomoda Chisa that Alice befriends instead of Lain; and Chisa gets a second chance at living a normal life.

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