(just for the record, this is a slight alteration of my anime review)

Chobits is to its core a romantic comedy like so many others. It is about a rather typical teen male lead and his life with a girl that suddenly had to stay at his apartment. If you have seen or read enough harems and ecchi comedies you can see the cheese of the premise present from the very first episode. A guy with zero talent and zero experience with women all of a sudden gets swarmed by pretty gals who for one or another emotional reason need him.

But a few tips about the story are in need. It’s the near future, technology has reached a point where personal computers now look and act like people and many real humans turn to them in order to find happiness. Some are just assistants on various jobs, others are bought friends or pets, or even lovers. And in all this chaos our hero finds one such robot thrown in the garbage and decides to keep it for himself. Which of course ends up being a beautiful girl that knows nothing and learns like a child even the most basic things. Soon many others who are involved with this new breed of machines interact with him and a lot of things are revealed or proven not what they seem.

The premise of the show could very easily turn to some hentai, as it involves robots built to resemble beautiful people and who are programmed to obey their masters down to the last detail. And yes, there is a lot of focus given to the aspect of these robots being used as substitutes for romance, friendship or even sex partners. So yeah, in theory this is the stuff from which a mountain of ecchi and hentai recycle their ideas form through the decades.

Yet it is not really an average ecchi comedy and by no means a hentai, despite bordering it subtly at times. It also is in fact full of social criticism and metal awareness that actually leave some food to the mind amongst all the cheese of the erotic humor. Very few such shows bother to add something other than an excuse of a story and random situations where people bump on each other naked.

Although it never gets too deep or philosophical, it still has the guts to criticize the very tropes its genres are supposed to deify in order to appeal to the target audience. And by the end of the day that is what makes this anime to deserve a spot on the tops of romantic comedies. It aims to make you laugh with sex jokes on one hand and make you think if all this utopia of dreamy artificial people is that good to begin with. So it shows things from both sides of the spectrum, making propaganda and anti-propaganda at the same time. It is post-modern yet anti-post modern as well.

Most of course hardly notice such overtones and focus mainly on the cast or the quality of the humor. Which again I must say have far more interest than most casts in such shows. The social and mental overtones gave room for immersion to each ones mentality, allowing character coloring and development to come along. They even offered catharsis and a satisfying closure instead of just leaving it stale and open to a sequel; the bulk of what romantic comedies turn to almost every time. No sir, here we have a complete story with developed characters. By the end of the show you really feel sympathy for most of the characters, as each one has his or her own set of worries. None feels out of place as every issue involves the humanoid machines. There is uniformity and not random ideas thrown blindly here and there.

I must point out that this series is by no means Ghost in the Shell. Most episodes work fine as stand alones and their storylines are in fact quite common in ecchi comedies. It’s just that since the lead robot girl is steadily learning, you feel there is actual progress amongst all the cheese. Plus, the secondary cast also reacts differently based on previous events and thus you never get a filler episode in the strict sense of the word.

As much as I liked the characters and the story premise, I still don’t give a very high mark on the actual storyline. To the most part it builds a mystery and a global conspiracy that makes you feel the end of the world is near, yet by the end of the series nothing really terrifying even happens to the world. So all the mystery is basically a fake lure to keep you worried about the end of the show. It otherwise resolves matters in quite the anti-climactic way, but not necessary a sloppy one. It is good but not serious or rewarding enough to deserve more.

The artwork is very appealing to the eye, without needing to be extra detailed or filled with computer generated filters. The environments feel almost minimalistic and in comical moments the characters and the backgrounds simplify extremely. Yet, this does not ruin the overall feeling as the jokes still get through. The character figures, although rather simplistic in body and facial structure still maintain an air of cuteness and beauty, boosted further by the rather extravagant uniforms they usually wear. Plus, those touches with the fairy tale book and its weird symbolisms gave an artchy feeling that makes you think it’s a work of non-ecchi erotic art.

Overall, this is one of those rare cases where I fully enjoyed a romantic / ecchi comedy. It was not just random jokes, it had a story, it had development, it had an ending, it had some food for the mind. And above all, nothing felt completely retarded, like out of this world reactions to a situation or ass-pulled plot twists. Reread value is high, and so is enjoyment.