Chobits

Chobits is a light-hearted yet spiritual story that deals with a multitude of issues from relationships to feeling alone. With many sexual issues and references this series is definitely a 16+, such a funny amazing series it is definitely a must read for anyone. The reason why I said that it was a spiritual story was because whenever I read it I felt internally happy.

The characters are uplifting and very hilarious, Chi with her naivety which causes her to get into many different situations some of which are embarrassing, then there is her ‘owner’ Hideki who is a typical young adult who lives a basic life he goes to school and has a job, but is unfortunately poor.

The story is amazing it has a beautiful likeness to life trying to find the ‘one’ who will always care and trying to learn about life and that is what this series does it shows us about getting the basic things in life in a hilarious way.

The art is just brilliant it is light and cute and manages to show us the story in a charming way. The art can be a little strange at times with funny spastic expressions by Hideki.

In short this series is brilliant it is something I can connect with (to a point) and it’s extremely uplifting and makes you happy all the time you are reading it and me wish it lasted a little longer.

Chobits was one of those things I heard about as a kid, but never thought to get into until recently. For as high of recommendations as I had heard for this series, I was more or less underwhelmed. Though the art is very well done and there are very good messages about loving others for who they are, not what they are, the plot itself felt fairly narrow. I wasn't surprised by anyone's actions and I wasn't pulled emotionally at very many points. Everything about Hideki and Chii's actions felt predictable to me. It was an okay read, but I don't think I'd go back to it in the future.

Slight spoilers of the ending are beyond this point!

The thing that disappointed me the most was the ending. I'm not upset by Hideki's decision to not know the secret about Chii, but I would've like to know. Without having the mystery of Chii and what calamity she could cause being answered clearly, it felt like an empty threat. Overall, it was pretty unfulfilling for me.

What better way to kick off my manga reviews than with the first series I ever read? That’s right, at the cusp of my teenagehood, I was introduced to Chobits, a series about basically a boy and his robot. I can still remember how I was introduced to it. It was after watching Cardcaptor Sakura being rebroadcast on TV that I wondered if there were other interesting anime out there that I was unaware of. Through the power of the internet, I figured out about Chobits!

The art was beautiful, the story was pretty interesting AND most importantly, the manga featured coloured pull-outs. I read the first book and was subsequently hooked.


Chobits opens with Chii being found in the trash. Chii is a persocom, something of a robot who looks human and can do all the things a computer does. The one thing special about Chii is that she has been programmed to love. As we find out through the series, it wasn’t because Chii was deemed useless, but because there were other circumstances tearing her away from her original creators despite their deep love for her. The exploration of whether a robot can be sentient and eventually develop feelings for humans and whether it’s creepy or whether a human can reciprocate those feelings is central to the manga.

All these exploration of emotions are done in the backdrop, as Chii learn to integrate into human life under the tutelage of Hideki, the main protagonist student who can’t afford a real persocom and felt super lucky at picking Chii up. Chii eventually makes a lot of friends, gets a job and then falls in love with Hideki just like he has for her.

What CLAMP, the manga creators, excel at, is artwork and side characters, in my opinion. Their artwork is intricate with a Shoujo asthetic, and yet for this comic you can see the action shots and comedic facial expressions bleeding through to cater to the Seinen demographic. For me, this was the first story I had read which had such a science fiction theme, where robots could think and love just like humans. This manga (and another one which I’ll review soon) ignited a love for science fiction in me which caused me to devour other science fiction books, you might read this and think “What a load of crap. What’s all this airy human and robots falling in love stuff? There’s no science at all. There’s no logic.” But to me that was one of the manga’s strengths as well. I’m sure that if the manga had gone into hardcore explanations of neurotransmitters my brain wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

Instead, we have a compelling story with an over arcing plot, with side characters that support the narrative question: Can robots love?

The only weak side of the story is… the fucking ending. That ending that starts in chapter 87 and makes me want to bash my head on a wall, It left me with a really unsatisfied feeling I was when I first read it, even though I couldn’t really explain why until now. Everything else about the story, from the premise, to the plot, to the art, to the detailed side characters was perfect. ALL PERFECT. And then the ending… felt like a rug was pulled out from under mebut that's fine, it doesn't change my love for Chobits whatsoever.

Chobits talks about one poor guy called Hideki that finds an expensive ''machine'' called persocons that have an appearance of a human, in the middle of the trash, he starts to use her and discover that she is an special persocon which cant be controlled and used by any system and coincides with a possible legend called ''Chobits'', and when he begins to discover more about her, he starts falling in love with her. This is the main plot of the story, really interesting at my viewpoint.

The story follows more a casual rotine of the both characters, and Chii wich is the machine that is found by Hideki, discovering the world in a sensible way, and explores a little bit of the relationship of humans and machines, and we have to consider that in the time that the story was written the technology and the point of view of the people was completely different than the time that we live right now so its kind of amazing if you think about how since the beggining of the age of the computers and technology people have already thought about human's relationships with machines and how some people would replace humans for machines. Anyway, the time was another and i had to consider that before thinking on it.

The story at all was ok, i expected a deepful meaning in the general, and that didnt really happened but i had to consider that the story was made back there in 2000, and the point of view about machines and humans was completly diffrent than nowdays, also it was kind of rushed, but if was a bit longer, it was going to be pretty boring and exhausting, The characters was pretty mediocre, it didnt progressed much, but the enjoyment overall was good and peacefull, not a hardcore and deep story at all, but it makes you thinks a little bit about love and technology.

One last thing that i wanted to say is that the fanservice of this mangas was pretty pretty bad, and i kind of understand it, they needed to make a light sexual content toward Chii to make people read and buy it, thats pretty sad.

Story: This manga was pretty good. It was told in a nice steady pace. It didn't feel rushed and/or episodic. There were some fillers but they were nice and not annoying in any way. The flashbacks of some minor character’s storylines in the manga were absolutely amazing. I think the story was very complex and the fact they held on to the mystery of Chii and Persecoms overall was great. The ending was a nice wrap-up. I definitely thought it was going to be predictable but it absolutely wasn't at all. With that being said, I was a little sad for Hideki but I guess love is the most important thing.

Art: I'm not really an art critic lol. I did enjoy it however. It was perfectly detailed. The animation from the show was great. It didn’t feel dated even 15 years later.

Character: I loved Hideki and Chi. But compared to the secondary characters, their story didn't become complex until the very end. You see the different points of view when it comes to the effect of humans interacting with Persocoms and how it effects their own relationships with other humans in the whole series. However, the main character’s effect of this interaction isn't shown until the very end of the series. But overall, I think everyone was great.

Enjoyment: I really enjoyed the anime and I still had some questions I wanted answered so that's what made me read the manga. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I thought it was better than the anime. I used to own volumes of this manga and I know I would've enjoyed it had I completed it then instead of now. I would recommend this anime for a more mature audience only because I felt like the ending might leave our less mature readers a little more disappointed LOL

This is the first manga I ever read; a true masterpiece that hooked me immediately and created my manga addiction. The art is beautiful, as is to be expected from anything by CLAMP. The characters are likable, believable, and surprisingly deep. There is a delightful blend of comedy, romance, fanservice, and thought-provoking story. You will laugh, cry, get excited, and think. There truly is something for everyone here.
Chobits has a wonderful story about diversity in relationships- you love who you love, and the happiness you share is what counts, not other people's ideas of what a couple should look like. This is a manga one can read over and over again without ever tiring of it. If you haven't read it yet, get to it right away.

(PS: Originally posted on December 15, 2010)

Well after finally reading the acclaimed manga known as Chobits, I came to the conclusion that this manga, just like Akira (I plan to get to that one eventually), was completely overrated and does not deserve the praise it gets. Of course I have my reasons and that is why I have decided to write this review (warning: this review contains spoilers).

Before I get to my complaints I would like to point out the positive aspects. The first thing I loved about Chobits would definitely have to be the characters. They were well developed and the story made me care about them because despite their faults, they are still very likeable people. Some of the different themes introduced were pretty good too. Unfortunately the story kind of breaks a part when looked at more closely and even the themes get ruined in hind site.

The first major complaint in the story would have to be the love relationship between Yumi and the bakery boss dude (forgot his name). When Yumi is first introduced it is made completely clear that she has a crush on Hideki because of the various dialogues exchanged between the both of them. An example of this would be literally the first conversation Hideki and Yumi have which is filled with sexual tension and flirtation on her part. However this obvious crush is completely removed when we find out that she was really in love with the bakery boss dude and she only viewed Hideki as a kind of brother…BULLSHIT!!! She was so obviously all over him, how the hell did this happen or even begin to make sense? Was she teasing him the entire time? If that’s true then, wow, what a b****!

The next complaint I have is the story about the bakery boss dude falling in love with his Persocom. In his flash back he tells the story about how he fell in love with his Persocom and then married her. That is all very nice but how did this happen? Did he buy her and then when he got to know her and spend time with her, finally realize that he loved the Persocom since she made him happy? Do Persocom actually have feelings and it was those feelings that made him fall in love with her? Well it was actually none of that. The real way it went was that he bought the Persocom because it was love at first sight. So let me get this straight, the guy fell in love with a non activated robot that was sitting on a shelf…that has the exact same emotional effect of me falling in love with my toaster because I thought it looked more beautiful than all the other toasters at Wal-Mart. I think the bakery boss dude has problems and should seek help before he marries his fridge.

The third complaint I have is the repetitive dialogue that this manga seems to spew out all the time. Chii is in love with Hideki but she’s scared that she will be rejected and Hideki is not sure if he loves Chii or not. Now mix that in with tons of dialogue about the nature of love and how it works. Then repeat everything I just said again. It gets so tedious and boring at times. Yes Chobits, I understood the first time you told me, I do not need to hear your lectures on love a million times more! The worst part is that after we hear all about Chii’s inner struggles, they have the nerve to repeat everything that was going on in her mind and in the story in the form of this picture book that Chii keeps reading. So after we finish reading the character development in the actual story, it is the characters themselves that read their own character development. I’m reading a story in the story that’s explaining the same story that is in the story…damn :P

The fourth complaint I have is probably the most obvious one, WHY THE HELL IS CHII’S ACTIVATION SWITCH IN HER VAGINA!!! Seriously what the hell! I understand that you could say that this plot point was implemented so that it shows that Hideki could fall in love with Chii without having the need to have sex with her, but still this simply makes no sense. First off what the hell was the creator of Chobits (the creator inside the manga, not the author) thinking when he came up with this brilliant idea? Second, if he did program them to be different and able to fall in love, then would it not have been better if they had the ability to have sex because even though sex is not the most important part about love, it is still "an" important aspect and depriving them of sex is kind of removing part of what makes love so beautiful and great. There may be a metaphor about the idea of having the switch down there but the problem with that metaphor is that it ruins part of the plots logic. I know some people don't look too far into manga logic, but that to me is just an excuse.

Believe it or not, even after all my complaints, I still recommend Chobits. It's quite interesting and worth checking out in order to at least see what the hype is about. Its heart is in the right place and that's why I couldn't get myself to rate it anything lower than 7/10. Despite its sometimes boring moments, I still had a fun time.

Chobits - The Manga Under The Eye of RGaspar And His First Review Ever -

Story:

In terms of story I think Chobits starts with a really good punch to gradually become more typical.
The initial setting is thrilling: In the near future the world is populated by people and Persocoms alike, these Persocoms are humanoid robots that people can get in love with. The protagonist, Hideki, is your regular young loser, without girls, without any interesting stuff to do and not enough money to buy a precious Persocom. Until he finds Chi on the way home... From then on, lots of things will happen in this eight-volume story.

Chobits definitely gives you some food for thought: Can robots really feel and think by their own? Is it ok to be more in love with robots than with humans? Will you cry if your robot gets destroyed? Will the robot cry for you if it happened the other way around? Rest assured the series won't give you an ultimately answer to all this, giving you the freedom to think what you want.

That's very good and unusual for a manga series. Now, what's not very good is the way erotics is handled. There are a bunch of ecchi situations that are not recommended for kids (including a glory-hole scene, no less) , and while the general tone of Chobits is pretty mature and serious I was expecting the same treatment for the erotic content. Now, I don't mean I wanted to see actual sex, but you can't be given the kind of ending you get, when early volumes teased more realistic behaviours (I can't spoil exactly what I'm talking about, you'll have to read Chobits to find out).

And another thing that takes some points away from the story is that the original premise slowly becomes a background setting, and all that matters at the end of the day is the relationship between the many couples presented in the manga. That would be ok for another manga with a less interesting universe, but for Chobits I'd have liked to see Clamp moving beyond genre conventions there.


Art:

I find the style to be just perfect for this. It's not as simplistic as some other shojo mangas you'd see around but not too complex either (that wouldn't fit the series). Every Persocom is beautifully detailed and their distinct traits are very well done, without any mayor changes during the whole manga, and that's a plus. You won't forget Chi's ears or Sumomo's dress in quite a while.
Also, the pages are generous with the space given to each frame, so reading them is easy.

Characters:

They are the best of Chobits, in my opinion, with the Persocoms in the stellar role. For every couple in the manga there's a background story to follow, and their feelings don't look like a forced plot device to advance the story. Almost all the characters on paper are interesting, with a few exception consisting of short lived characters used for very specific situations.
My two favorite ones are the comic duo of portable Persocoms Sumomo and Kotoko, who I find very cute and fun.


Overall:

Chobits is a recommended read for anyone looking for sweet love stories without many dark moments. It could be a letdown if you are expecting something more beyond that point. Even then, the possitive points surpasses the bad ones: Good characterization supported by above average drawings easily compensate a somewhat unballanced storyline.

While Chobits is not as good as CardCaptor Sakura,still stands as a enjoyable manga to read.

when i first found this manga i still have a little bit of hesitation whether i should read it or not and since i'm already out of manga to read, i decided to read this and guess what i enjoy it.

it has a little bit of spoiler read at your own risk
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so the story is all about hideki who decided to live in modern society to study in order to prepare for his entrance exam. born from a province where technology are rare sight specially computer/persocoms. so when the first time he saw a lot of persocoms around he wasn't able to contain he's excitement making him shout "i want a persocom too", sadly our protagonist can't afford these persocoms since it is so expensive, one night while walking on the road he saw a abandoned persocom which is extremely cute and decided to take it with him thinking that it was his lucky day for meeting he's fated persocom.

The art is great and it's very enjoyable.

Not everyone will empathize with Hideki, and I pretty much understand why.

He's not a very complicated character, in my opinion he was just supposed to represent the Everyman in this case and that's why he was so milktoast, but there's certainly room to argue that. The story didn't suffer from his inclusion but I think it could have benefited from a more realistic characterization instead of a broad, general one.

Chii is a very obviously easy person to empathize with and love instantly, given the nature of her personality, though I'll agree with some who say she was used as eyecandy and ended up being a bit of a Dibby at times, even though there's legitimate character under her very naked body.

It's not a remarkable story, nothing you don't really see coming, but it's so astronomically better than its off-brand, template anime adaptation. If you like the characters or you like the anime, you'll love the manga.