CLAMP is a great shoujo group with famous works like Card Captor Sakura, xxxHolic, Wish etc. It's a group of women who make cute stories and handsome male characters for girls to read and look at. Because all the stories are made by the same group, they have this privilege of incorporating older stories into their newer ones, eg. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Kobato does this too with Chobits and Wish incorporated into the anime/manga. There are also references to other anime. I think that this incorporation really made Kobato fun for me. I was soo excited whenever I saw Kohaku as I love her character soo much.
ANYWAYS. The story was quite interesting, just only in the last 3 episodes. It's a slow paced anime and does not rush through the story at all. Each episode is a new day of what silly/helpful things Kobato will do. It's similar to TRC how each episode is a story in itself that doesn't really continue with the actually plot. You move through Kobato's day to day life with the same ongoing jokes. I personally did not find it very entertaining. I skipped about 3-4 episodes because I didn't want to know what Kobato was doing. I wanted to know why the things were the way they were and how it would turn out. I believe there was one episode which particularly touched me, episode 17 I think. You could probably watch episode one then skip all the way to about 19-21 without missing a lot. For me, it was boring, but then again, I prefer fast paced anime.
Besides, the slow paced middleness, the ending really did touch me. I will admit to crying at the end and maybe in episode 17. Where CLAMP really tried, all the feels did come through. Being a made by girls, made for girls thing, they really do know how to bring out the tears. The ending was well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The characters. You see quite a few recurring characters from other CLAMP works which made me really happy. The main character is your typical dumb klutz who everyone hates. I hated her character so much. It was so typical, like CLAMP didn't even bother trying to bring out an original character. I didn't feel that there was a lot of character development. Each episode was basically Kobato trying to awkwardly help someone out with Ioryogi and/or Kiyokazu yelling at her with Chitose and/or Sayaka being supportive of her really clueless actions. You do see some character development towards the end of the series but I don't feel it was really justified.
CLAMP's artwork is generally incredibly beautiful. As I said before, CLAMP knows what girls want. The designs are typical designs with the scarily lanky and tall characters but they are still sooo pleasing to the eye. I just love the character designs. I've always loved CLAMP art. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of dresses Kobato wore. There were only about four? One for each season I think. I was really looking forward to new dresses because Kobato is just soo cute and it perfect to play around with dresses. The manga art is even more beautiful with such detail. I know you do get to see it in the last ED (I'm not sure if there's more than one) and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.
Sound, I'm never really too sure on sound. Nothing stood out to me though. None of the OPs/EDs, no really fitting BGM or anything. I'd just say average.
Overall, I could've spent my time better but as a CLAMP fan, I would've regret not watching Kobato. I'm not saying that it's bad, just shoujo isn't my genre anymore. It's a kind of typical shoujo with the sweet bits of fantasy that CLAMP does so well. Nothing really happens but when it does, it really hits home. I would say if you like shoujo, you would like this anime. For those who don't like this anime, stay away from it. It will most likely be a waste of your time. With those who want to watch it but aren't a fan of shoujo, you are very welcome to skip episodes. Like I said, the only real important bits are at the very start where everything is introduced and the end where the feels are. If you already know the premise, you could pretty much just skip to the end coz nothing happens. A few background info is given in around episode 7 (not sure at all) so watch out for those. They can make the ending make a bit more sense, though not all of it is clearly explained. Some things were still left unanswered. Kobato is a good shoujo, but nothing much else. That's really all there it :)
