Watchcast Schedule for August 2023: Serial Experiments Lain!

Hey everyone! Chances are if you've been following along with us for the last couple of weeks, you've already heard what we've got coming up on the Watchcast, but just in case you haven't, this month marks our first expedition into the world of anime! As the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes go on, they've advised folks who do rewatch podcasts that they'd like us to avoid doing anything that qualifies as struck work, and that more or less includes and current and past Hollywood productions. So we're venturing elsewhere, and dipping our toe into Japanese animation for the first time on the show!

For our first series, we're checking out the 1998 series Serial Experiments Lain! This is one I saw for the very first time just a couple of years ago, and absolutely loved. Brad and Vinny will be coming to it for the first time themselves, and I can't wait to see what they think of it.

The schedule for the month and the series' 13 episodes will be as follows:

Monday, August 7th: Episodes 1-3, Weird, Girls, and Psyche

Monday, August 14th: Episodes 4-6, Religion, Distortion, and Kids

Monday, August 21st: Episodes 7-9: Society, Rumors, and Protocol

Monday, August 28th: Episodes 10-13, Love, Infornography, Landscape, and Ego

I'm skipping out on episode descriptions here because it's difficult to include them without spoilers, so I'm just gonna let you find out what's going on here for yourselves. As for where to watch, the entire series is up on Funimation for streaming right now, and available for purchase on both Apple TV and Microsoft's digital storefront. Regrettably, the blu-ray release is out of print and expensive, so the digital options are probably your best bet. The dub is also up on YouTube, if you're into that sort of thing.

That's all for this month. We'll announce what our plans are going forward at the end of the month, and we hope you enjoy watching along with us.

--A