Layer Two: Trust

Mizuki Alice (or "Arisu", her english name romanticized) is one of the key characters to Serial Experiments Lain. First seen in episode one (Layer 1: Weird), she is consoling Julie because of the emails that were sent by Chisa. Alice is the person who befriends Lain, and becomes her first and only friend. And it is because of Alice that Lain sets out to change the world, and reset it to save Alice.

Alice is the most important person in Lain's life; she was the only one who truly cared about Lain, and reached out to her in her solitude. By nature, Alice is very warm-hearted and kind, and extremely loyal towards Lain -- whenever Julie and Reika poke fun at Lain, Alice is always defending Lain in a heartbeat. She feels a need to draw Lain out of her shell, and to expose the "fun" girl that she claimed was dying to get out. So when the girls invite Lain to Cyberia the first time, Alice is the one who initially suggests the idea and is always the one who wants to include Lain in their activities. To Lain, Alice becomes her sole link to humanity and almost a mother-like figure; when Lain had witnessed the man shoot himself in Cyberia, Alice stayed with Lain, holding her close and kept her company at the police station. And when Lain feels that she has lost everyone who meant anything to her, Alice comes to visit her and reminds her that she is human. She takes Lain's hand and places it over her own heart, softly chanting "beating... beating... beating.."

Unfortunately, out of everyone in SEL, Alice is the one who gets hurt the most. Because she had seen "Lain of the Wired" (Lain's doppelganger) when she was in her room, Alice believes that it was Lain who had spied on her and betrayed her secret about her crush on her school teacher. And when Lain tries to fix the mistake by deleting everyone's memories, Alice is even more confused and hurt than before -- because she was left alone to endure the agony of her secret. Alice is the reason why Lain ultimately deletes herself and resets the world; unable to bear Alice's sadness and anguish, Lain resets the world out of love for her best friend.

Once Lain resets the world, Alice realizes that she and everyone else has been given a second chance. Since Iwakura Lain no longer existed in the real world, Alice befriended Yomada Chisa, feeling much like she had felt about Lain; Alice wanted to include Chisa in her world, and to break Chisa out of her isolation. And in the future, Alice ends up marrying the teacher she secretly had a crush on....

(( back to external connections ))

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marionette is © 2000-2007 Rose Panzo. SEL is © Yoshitoshi Abe, Chiaki J. Konaka, and its respective creators. Please do not reproduce the contents found here without permission.