I’ve probably gushed over Yoshitoshi ABe many times before. I can’t help it. He’s a huge influence for me. He’s able to combine offbeat and far-out ideas and keep the humanity and emotion. Instead of going the obvious route, he chooses to focus in on characters and their personal strife. Haibane takes the big idea concept of “angels” with no memory of their past lives living in a mysterious walled city, but focuses on their group and struggle for redemption. NieA_7 takes a big sci-fi concept of aliens coming into contact with humanity, and chooses to focus on a poor student and her low-class alien friend just trying to make a living. ABe’s characters are very emotive, and he’s brilliant at using color to aid in this and set a mood. A lot of Lain’s art makes use of colors to set a creepy, melancholy, or offsetting mood.
Serial Experiments: Lain was what really got me into anime. Princess Mononoke on the big screen at the former McClurg theater first tuned me into it and really amazed me, but it was the heart-wrenching, realty-warping Lain that helped cement my love for the artform. It was such a great mix of intelligent science-fiction and high quality writing, that it blew me away. To crudely simplify it, Lain was almost like a hi-tech Twin Peaks. Blurring the world of the high-tech Internet (called “The Wired”) and the real world, as reality, identities, and fantasy become entwined. The creators even did their homework, slipping in references to computer history with things like referencing Vannevar Bush’s work. Lain was such a memorable and sympathetic character, you couldn’t help but love her as she struggled with her existential issues. thought experiments: lain is a wonderful, comprehensive resource into everything Lain, from all the references to what it all means.
DMP’s re-issue of Omniprescense in Wired is something I highly recommend, full of amazing color illustrations. I think everyone should have it, it’s so great. 
It includes a short Lain comic, The Nightmare of Fabrication, which shows ABe’s talent of combining sci-fi/weird concepts and heavy personal moments. It’s also a nice summary of how the series really screws with reality.
NieA_7 is one of ABe’s more underrated series. If there’s a criticism of ABe’s work and influenced series, it’s that it’s way too short; the concepts and worlds that he provides are so rich. The loopy, offbeat world cries out for another series to explore it, as do the adventures of a poor student trying to work her way through a sci-fi future world, and her mischievous alien frien (who lacks an antennae other aliens have). Haibane Renmei is a really heart-wrenching and poignant series that really hit close to me, and I wish it was only longer so it could deal more with the other Haibane and their mysteries (Kana was my favorite, because I always like tomboy characters 
).
Since fullscans_daily was closed down, the links going to to the ABe doujinshi I posted there are now broke. So here are most of his scanlated doujinshi:
NieA_7
Charcoal Feather Federation (precursor to Haibane)
Haibane Renmei
Haibane of Old Home
Haibane of Old Home 2
Haibane Renmei Old Home extra
Haibane Lifestyle Diary
His newest doujinshi is Pochiyama at the Pharmacy.
[...] Speaking of scanlations, John G. offers an appreciation of one of my favorite animator/cartoonists — Yoshitoshi ABe, creator [...]
ABe’s probably my favorite artist in terms of character designs and how his drawings seems to evoke more raw emotion than other artists do. Other than probably Range Murata, in my opinion Abe’s drawings probably have the most lifelike feature to them, and that somehow resonates with me.
Yeah, Range and ABe seem to be very close in style. Something in the eyes and rendition of the faces, that I can’t quite put my finger on.
I agree with you about ABe’s strengths. I was neutral about Lain and wasn’t able to see NieA_7, but I loved, loved Haibane Renmei. A wonderful work.
To me, Murata’s drawings look more polished, more… shiny. And so more artificial. With ABe, not everything is perfect, and that’s what works for me.
Where is Serial Experiment lain?
Why it dont to be download?
Where is?
I’m not sure how old this entry is, but I want to thank you so much for posting it. I’ve been trying for forever to find scanlations of Haibane Renmei and NieA.
I used to have Nightmare of Fabrication, but it was lost in one of my many computer crashes.