Story (5/10):
The story of Chobits follows an eighteen year-old man named Hideki Motosuwa. Being from a farm, he has no real idea of what city life is like, including such things as persecoms, girls, and non-farm work. He quickly becomes fascinated by persecoms, but they're expensive enough that he can't afford one. Lucky for him, however, he finds a discarded persecom in the trash while going home one night. The story follows his journey to teach his new persecom, whom he had named 'Chi', about the world, but soon enough delves into other topics as well.
It's fairly clear after the first three or so episodes that the story isn't the major point for the first half of the series. While Chi's education remains a relevant plot point, the show otherwise goes down the episodic path, with each episode having very little to do with the last. The episodes also take a more comedic approach, usually involving Hideki's personality quirks or Chi's lack of knowledge about the world. In this case, it generally succeeds. This part of the show got a lot of laughs out of me and made the characters likable.
However, the second half of the story starts getting a little more serious. A few subplots show up and get resolved, however I never got the sense that they were truly important to the show. They are set up and resolved in a satisfying way, but that's the last time they are ever mentioned again. Except for a single sentence an episode later or something similar, none of these conflicts are ever mentioned again. The characters involved never seen to change either. These conflicts are just dropped like they never even happened.
The main plotline doesn't truly get going again until the last few episodes. While a lot of things were explained very well, the plot feels incomplete. There are a lot of details that are either never explained or just not explained very well.
Characters (4/10):
The cast of Chobits is fairly simple. There's Hideki and Chi as the main characters, but there's a healthy mix of side characters as well. Minori is a child genius with persecoms, Shinbo is Hideki's neighbor and best friend, Mr. Ueda is the owner of a bakery, Yumi is a girl around Hideki's age and a co-worker, Mrs. Shimizu is Hideki and Shinbo's caring prep school teacher, and Ms. Hibiya is Hideki's helpful landlady.
The problem I have with the cast is that they're all fairly difficult to describe. I would describe most of them as caring and considerate individuals. While these are generally good traits to have, it's a bit worrisome when a lot of the characters have close to the same personality.
However, I can say that the anime would not have been improved with taking any one of the supporting characters out. One of the biggest pluses about Chobits is that there is no character that feels like they don't belong. Even if their purpose is not made obvious right away, the way they are made purposeful is very well done.
There is one big problem with that, though. It does feel that the characters are there for the plot, and not for the characters themselves. Like I stated above, the subplots don't feel like they truly affect the characters that are involved in it. Almost every single character felt exactly the same at end of the anime as when they were first introduced. I feel that a lot of potential was missed here, as even Hideki didn't feel like he truly grew as a result of the story until the last few minutes. Even when something big happened, he always immediately went right back to his old self as soon as the problem was finished. Chi, however, underwent a huge noticeable change over the entire series that felt entirely realistic.
One last thing I can point out is that a few decisions were quite questionable and not really explained. The biggest one I never could figure out was Sumomo. Keep an eye on her and Shinbo if you end up watching this; it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what I'm talking about.
Art (7/10):
The art and animation were impressive. It was simple and animated pretty well; there were no real sections that I felt were low quality compared to the rest of the show. The character's expressions felt real, especially the persecoms. You could tell they were androids, but they still felt like they were human at times. The way they were portrayed was very well done. Their design and how their eyes move as they do various things within their programming in very intuitive and easy to understand.
As for the environments, they showed about what they needed to even though they were somewhat bland at times. It didn't truly take away from the experience, but I felt that there could have been more to make it seem lively.
Sound (8/10):
Note that I have only watched the Subbed version.
Chobits' sound was also pretty well done. Chi especially takes the crown for her voice acting. She became much more compelling as a character. The slight bits of emotion in her voice at various situations fits her personality splendidly, and the sound gets a high score just from that alone. For the other characters, almost all of them were done very well. The only one I didn't much care for was Sumomo, who I wish would have just stopped talking a few times.
As for the sound effects, none of them truly stood out. They all fit well enough and added to the experience. The opening song was fairly catchy and the ending song worked well enough.
Overall, the sound and music just worked. It wasn't perfect, but it was solid enough that nothing really detracted from the experience in any way.
Enjoyment (5/10):
Chobits was a mixed bag for me. The first half was a blast to watch with all the comedic elements and general interaction between the characters. The story elements, while some of them were fun to watch, overall didn't truly satisfy me. The subplots took away from the experience more than they added and the story felt mostly incomplete.
The premise also confused me a liittle as well, as I expected the setting to be a little more futuristic with the addition of advanced androids. However, it feels basically the same as usual with only one particular twist. It's a fairly minor point, but it confused me enough that the experience was altered.
Otherwise, I don't regret watching this. While the storyline and characters were enough of a flop that I wasn't particularly impressed, the interactions themselves and the overall style were enjoyable enough that I can't feel I wasted my time with Chobits.
Overall (6/10):
Chobits takes an interesting premise and develops it into an interesting storyline. While it makes a lot of small blunders, it's still enjoyable to see how persecoms and humans interact with each other on a day to day basis. The comedy elements prevalent in the first half and Chi's change as a persecom over the entire series are two fairly strong elements that I am comfortable using for a recommendation.
Overall, this should be a fun watch to anyone who is interested in seeing a show about how androids can change modern society, as well as modern society changing these androids in return. While the story is not quite on par and the characters aren't particularly strong, it's still an enjoyable watch.
