Ranked #555

Chobits

Falling in love is a complicated thing. Falling in love with the world's most dangerous supercomputer is possibly even more complicating.

Chobits is an anime that conceptually was a brilliant idea, but its execution resulted in what is a shallow look at some incredibly important ideologies. It manages to be a philosophical, sociological anime that is marred by fanservice for both male and female audiences.

Simply, the story follows farm boy Hideki as he moves to the big city. In this world, computers are shaped like human beings. They look, sound, act human (depending on the model you want, of course). Hideki ends up finding one of these Persocoms (these humanoid computers) in the trash not too far from his new apartment. It is from the moment he picks up Chii that the anime starts to go downhill fast.

First of all, why is Chii's on button located in between her legs? Does that even make any sense? It could have easily been located anywhere else on the body, but fanservice indicates that it must be where her metal vagina is located. It makes you wonder why she even HAS a vagina. Isn't she a computer? I have yet to see a PC with boobs myself, but perhaps we need to wait a few more years for that. So then, doesn't her having human body parts therefore not make her some object for sexual interaction? Persocoms of Chobits seems to cater for guys whose idea of a perfect girl is that she is hot, doesn't say much and can Google.

Anyway, Hideki has to use his fingers inside of Chii to literally "turn her on" (oh ho, very funny CLAMP). The rest of the series basically is torn between having a deep storyline and having an ecchi comedy. Not exactly the best mix. Fingerbanging a robot girl and then falling in love with her? Next!

Chobits initially manages to raise some extremely important questions about society's dependence on computers for example. It seemed that Hideki falling in love with his Persocom thematically shows how much we have become dependent on computers and the internet that we in turn have "fallen in love" with it. Also, the anime just seems to be one gigantic metaphor for one's virginity, as there are many scenes where Chii is searching for her one and only. Of course, any deepness is ruined with shallow service. How do you compare something like the episode involving the a storybook about a depressing tale of loneliness (A City With No People) along with the episode about Chii trying to buy a pair of panties?

The art for Chobits is exceedingly cute. The designs look really well (except for some characters, their eyes are a little too far apart) especially with Chii and the other Persecoms. It is really vibrant, colourful and easy to look at.

However, it is the musical aspect of Chobits that is utterly astounding. It opens with the extremely catchy, wonderful mellow pop song 'Let Me Be With You' by ROUND TABLE feat. Nino. The voice acting is superb as well, and the cast has two very strong leads (despite Chii's dialogue consisting mostly of her own name, she does sound rather adorable). The background music is exceptionally well done. The BGM has a wide range, being playful or melancholy depending on the scenes and situation, and there is also the inclusion of vocals within the music, such as melodic humming. The score for this anime is absolutely wonderful.

What is less than wonderful is the cast. Hideki is the unimpressive lead character. The sort of guy you'd find in a two-bit harem: unexceptional, brown haired, obsessed with pornography. He is possibly easy to relate to, with his averageness though he is so forgettable. Chii is extremely cute but there's nothing more to her than that. Being walking, talking moe does not make someone a good character. The supporting cast comprises of friends of Hideki who are also mostly forgettable, though they all seem to have severe emotional issues to deal with. The Persocoms of some of the characters actually have more personality than the humans, which is pretty sad.

Chobits is a clear example of good idea, badly executed. It is undoubtedly a fan favourite, seeing as it caters to every sort of fan imaginable, but it is a severe disappointment since it prioritised servicing the audience rather than developing a deep story. read more

As you might have noticed already, almost all the reviewers give this series a 10 on everything. This is offcourse not without reason. It performs top notch in every aspect. Chobits kept me entertained from the first milisecond to the last.

Story:

The story is simply amazing. It has a bit of everything going from romance to suspense. Although the story is quite slow it doesnt feel like it. Every episode shows the devolopment of the characters in a serious but also a funny way. The first episodes will give you a big laugh, but the mood swings over to a more romantic view the more it develops.

This show is probably something you haven't seen before, the characters evolution is something quite special. To prevent spoilers you'll have to find that out for yourself.
The fact remains that the evolution of Chii is the most funny thing in the whole show. It's like she starts off like a 3 year old child knowing hardly anything about the world and needs to learn everything. And without commen sense she does alot of things a normal person would reconsider.

Art:

The style of the picture in this anime is great, they don't overdo it with drawing to much details but it is simply amazing. Everything you see will draw out the correct emotion that goes with it. The characters are made really well.

Sound:

Same as the art it is great, going from the intro to the story. The music fits the parts in the story really well.

Character:

As I said in the story, the characters develop really good. Sometimes you do feel how something is going to develop but you're not really sure. The show really does show a few unexpected things but after you see them they are explained thouroughly with a background of "how". This really adds a + to the show.

Enjoyment:

This show kept me entertained from the start till the end. I finished the show in 1 day because I just couldn't stop watching it.

Overall:

If you like a romance with lots of humour but also serious parts, then this is the anime for you. Its a 10+ in every part and will keep you entertained.
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This was my first review so i apoligize if there are some parts wrongly explained. Main reason for this is to prevent spoilers ;-) read more

The typical perverted boy meets beautiful innocent girl but with a twist the girl is a robot! As much as I loved this anime the story really wasn't too original or inspiring. Many places where is is just a fan service but the detailed gothic lolita styled dresses give it an up in the art category.

As for the characters they are typical and not liable to change much throughout the series. The robot twist does add a little points in this category though.

The theme song and the two ending songs were wonderfully chosen and the voices where well done as well.

Watching it was pleasant because it was just a funny uplifting with some dark plot behind it. It was a nice little anime that really just kinda made your day and just asked you to keep watching it.

Overall I would have to give it an 8 because even though it is very good it really isn't near the best animes I have watched but still deserves to be mentioned because it is still really well done. n_n read more

Please Message me on your comments if you can, so I can learn from my mistakes. Then write even better reviews =3 (any sort of criticism is okay, harsh, useless, or constructive I accept it all!)

Story: Well, it seems cliche when you first look at it, but thinking back at that time, that might have been the way it would have been. It has it's own unique twists and such but it's really a pretty "straight-forward" storyline. It has it's own paced established and you'll get used it in no time. Not bad, but pretty good

Art: Clamp this I have to say, is really the starting point of which I started watching your other shows. The animation is smooth and the drawing style is somewhat unique. Though there are just some times where I think the animation and the colouring just don't suit the mood. Wherever Chii is the mood for me changes way too much. A dark atmosphere adding Chii in is just bad I have to say. Overall the Art is very hard to comment, it's good but not absolutely excellent. It's also hard to criticize.

Sound: This is one of the few animes where the background music and opening really suit the current scenes. The opening is the typical casual J-Pop with a bit of a twist with Chii in the animation it really suits the main mood of the anime. The background music is really where I appreciate the work put in. It's very light, with very few parts being dark, a perfect match for Chobits! Every scene felt like it was carefully worked out to match the animation, a silly animation with silly mood and music. A happy one with happy music and so on. There was really only one problem. The opening didn't change as most twenty episode animes I have seem, but the ending did, so overall I was pretty happy about the music and sound.

Character: This is like the reason I watch it basically, the character development is simply amazing. Well besides Chii learning words. The characters are also VERY interesting to watch. All their actions really explains a lot of their personal feelings and attributes. Hideki is very shy going despite being a "perverted" boy. It's as almost he's trying to avoid contact with Chii as much as possible. Always the shy one he is. Chii is somewhat annoying to watch. Even sometimes painful. That never lasts too long because the scene and the music perk you right back up for more. Chii's development throughout the story is very crucial (though I can't say too much).

Enjoyment: The enjoyment level for Chobits is good but not perfect. Since most of the enjoyment comes from comedy It might get boring sometimes. The roller-coaster of a storyline and music really make you very emotional at some points. It also leaves a very big impression on you. It's a hell of a ride that you'll enjoy very much.

Overall: Chobits is very good. The story line is unique, characters interesting, sound very good, and just for the hell of it it's plain great! I highly suggest it. The main thing you should really think about is, how society sees relationships and judges them. That is the main theme I THINK you should look upon and reflect. Though the previous one I said before would also make sense, this is the more "general theme". Hope you enjoyed reading my point of view. :P read more

I have mixed feelings about this series. Everybody seems to LOVE IT, and I feel like I missed the bus, so to speak.

In the first place, I'm a CLAMP fan. I love their old stuff--Tokyo Babylon, X, Rayearth, even Cardcaptor Sakura and Angelic Layer--but Chobits feels like the beginning of an era of relative mediocrity to me, especially compared to their earlier works. I know that Chii is supposed to be a perpetually-confused Robot Girl Who Needs to Learn To Love (R), but after a while her doe-eyed moe persona starts to get annoying.

In the second place, I'm also a cyberpunk fan. The question of what makes us 'human' and whether or not androids dream of electric sheep is not new to me. Robot sentience and 'emotions', or lack thereof, is old ground. This does not mean it cannot still be explored and is not still a legitimate question. Chobits does not do this question the justice I have seen done to it. I know the anime is trying to steer away from hardened cyberpunk-philosophy and speculation and keep to the cutsy-moe vein, and Hideki is not much of a philosopher, but this aspect could have been better-handled. The slice-of-life aspect that glosses over the cyberpunk lacks the charm it needs.

That being said, it's the side-details and side-characters that steal the show. The book series "A City With No People" is beautiful and charming in much the same vein as "The Little Prince". Sumomo and Shinbo are a hoot. Minoru and Yuzuki are adorable. Ueda is fascinating. Hideki and Chii--yeah, whatever.

And foregoing any spoilers, my favorite character is already DEAD, so there goes that angle.

If you're a sucker for moe or anything sickeningly cute, you would probably like this. If you want an intelligent, compassionate anime about cyborg sentience and the ethics of cyberization, watch "Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex" instead. read more

Ok, I’ll admit it, I like romance anime, especially with drama and comedy. So I should love Chobits, right? Let me step back for a moment and say above all else I like anime with good stories and interesting characters. Chobits fails for me due to weak characters, in particular Hideki and Chii.

Hideki is way too flat and lack sufficient depth. In addition, he is a joke character, we don’t laugh with him, we laugh at him. Because of this it makes it hard to empathize/engage with a character like Hideki. This is why we have token male side characters who take the joke character role. Shinbo, Hideki’s male friend clearly doesn’t take this role, in fact they should have made him the main character as his story is far more interesting than Hideki and Chii’s. In addition, to Hideki, Chii’s character is no better. There is nothing to her, memory erased and the mentality of a child. She is the default love interest for Hideki and its beyond me as to how Hideki falls in love with Chii. Maybe because she cute? maybe for most, but I dislike the character design for Chii. The blank eyes are what killed it for me. Male designs were fine as well as the rest of the cast.

Much of the praise for Chobits is in the comedy, well at least that’s what I hear. For me the jokes were way too repetitive, in particular the jokes at the expense at Hideki. For example, Hideki is a pervert with too much porn/gravure that Chii finds. Hideki thinks perverted thoughts again and is an idiot that over reacts to everything. This extreme lightheartedness and extremely repetitive comedy was made it hard for me to finish the first half of the series.

As for the story itself, I didn’t think there was sufficient foreshadowing. So when the story starts going in the second half it feels a bit tacked on. In addition, they failed to keep up the momentum by jumping from thread to thread. Simply put the plot structure was a bit messy and Hideki and Chii aren’t strong enough characters. I guess if Chobits were to be considered a slice-of-life anime the structures would had worked, however that would require more complex characters.

There were parts I did like, in particular, Shinbo/Shimizu’s and Ueda’s stories. Both showed the sadder side of the theme of the show “love for a robot.” The relationship between Yuzuki and Minoru was touching, albeit not as interesting as the above characters. However, there is something seriously wrong when the side character are far more interesting that the main characters.

Chobits had quite a bit of potential, dealing with interesting and complex themes. Sadly they didn’t use these ideas enough and the Hideki and Chii characters were too weak to carry the show. Its quite hard to get engaged in an anime when you can’t empathize with the characters.
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CLAMP has outdone themselves yet again and given us a crappy anime.

This time, spazes get theirs as loser farm boy Hideki gets to have some robot lovin'.

The story follows an utter creepy wanker who gets a human-shaped computer, he does all sorts of adult things with it, but AH HA HA HA, she's not a real person--molestation is all right!! Then it learns to talk to him, so he can tell it all sorts of loser things and perv out on it because real girls won't touch his shorts with a ten-foot pole. The End.

What a load of crock this was.

The characters were DUMB. SERIOUSLY! Hideki has to be the most unexceptional guy ever to be animated. His one talent is being disgusting and bland but so stupid that everyone goes, 'Aw, he's so sweet.' He reminds me of a dog that keeps running into the door--aw, it's so cute. And Chii had NO PERSONALITY. I am sure moe fans loved her because all she did was stay half-naked and go 'Chii~' Right. I can't understand why any girl would like this. What lesson is this teaching? Girls, the only way a guy would like you is you stay in your underwear and say only one word to him! Preferably that one word will be 'Panty'.

The only fabulous thing about this was the music. The OP rocks. Other than that, this was an unfabulous trash pile of an anime.
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Chobits is a pretty great anime but it starts out as a regular and normal anime. Something that should be noted though is that this anime is a seinen. The romance on this anime sometimes borders on shoujo. You have this boy from a farm that goes to Tokyo I order to attend cram school. He wants to pass his entrance exams so that he can go to college. On his first day he finds a persocom ling in the trash. Pesocoms are computers made out to look like people but they just look like people. He decides to name her chi and he later finds out that chi has been formatted and because of this she has lost her memories. From this point on a special bond starts to develop between Hideki and Chi.

I gave this story an 8/10. This is because the story starts out without much of a plot. The idea of chi being a Chobits is implanted in the view but it’s not explained for a while. The first 8 episodes or so are about chi learning about the world. But later on in the story the plot gets really good. You have several stories developing at the same time. You have Shinbo and Kokubunji dealing with their own lives and problems while Hideki tries to figure his feeling for Chi. The story also gives us a chance to see what would happen on persocom/human relationships. How we could react both in a positive and negative way. This was well portrayed on the books chi read called “A town with no people.”

I gave art an 8/10. The art itself was nothing really special. The main difference from other anime is the eye style. Unlike most mangas and anime the eyes are drawn different but it goes really well with everything else. This includes the story.

I gave the sound a 7/ 10. Again nothing special. The sound really fit in with the whole anime. I especially love the intro to the anime.

The characters get a 9/10. The main character Hideki himself is an ordinary guy. He is a nice guy who has an active imagination and because for this has no girlfriend (his friend point out this fact a lot). The rest of the cast is also pretty interesting. Whether is Yumi with her dislike of persocoms or Kokubunji with his infatuation of persocoms. All the characters pull together a great story. The author did a good use of his characters to get his point across which is human/persocom relations.

Enjoyment was an 8. Whether it’s in the beginning when you get to see Chi doing ecchi things or the romance later on between the many characters.

Overall I think this story was great. During no point while I was watching did I think this is a waste of time. This should be a must for the romance reader who wants a change from the usual boy girl relationships
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I absolutely loved this anime. I had been hearing about it for a very long time and out of curiosity decided to try it out, and I’m glad that I did.

The story was very original. I have never heard of or seen anything like it. I liked the fact that it was romantic but not too over the top. The episodes themselves were very interesting. At times, I had to forcefully pull myself from the screen to stop watching. It had been a while since that last happened. The characters were designed beautifully. Chii, especially Chii, was made into a totally cutie. She had the right mix of innocence and sensuality. I’m glad that she wasn’t made into the typical over the top sexy protagonist. Personality wise, I loved the character development. The characters were well rounded and relatable.

I first began watching Chobits in Japanese. I think the voices fit every character perfectly. About 10 episodes into the series, I began watching it in English and I was amazed. The voices sounded so familiar to the Japanese ones. I was really impressed.

Overall, I recommend this to anybody. I’ve heard of some people that refuse to watch it because they think its all ecchi. But that’s really not the point of the series. Sure, it has its moments done in good taste for humor, more toward the beginning, but it eventually steps away from that. It’s a heartwarming, romantic, funny, and interesting anime. I give it a 9/10.
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I started into the world of Chobits with the manga. I read about two volumes of it and thought it was pretty intriguing so I thought well why not watch the anime?

Let me say this, I am generally fairly easy to please. I'm one of those people that has learned that what is a good anime/manga is not necessarily the same as what anime/manga you enjoying watching/reading. That being said, I though Chobits failed on both accounts.

Hideki made me want to run my head through a cheese grater. He was incredibly dull and annoying as a character. He is completely and entirely forgettable. Chii was cute, but there wasn't much depth to her. She is slow at learning the human ways and while sometimes her antics are funny, most of the time it comes off as irritating.

I did like some of the art, particularly Chii's outfit designs. But there is nothing to distinguish Hideki from the next guy.

I will say that Sumomo was probably my favorite character. Her "wakey wakey" exercises had me cracking up! And Shinbo was interesting as well. I'm pretty much certain they're the only reason I actually managed to watch all 26 episodes. They keep my rating from being even lower, but are not enough to save the show.

It was slow, most of the characters were boring, and it was repetitive. I have no desire to watch it again. People that are interested in the storyline are better off reading the manga instead. read more