Story: Take Hideki. A poor, 19 year old ronin student who can't get a job, a girlfriend and who has no life. On top of that he talks to himself when his imagination gets overly excited. And one day his luck just happens to hit him square in the forehead. Meet Chii. A very naked, very curvaceous...persocom? Oh yes. I forgot the OTHER part of this story. Now meet the persocom. The humanoid computer. Complete with moe eyes, big boobs and a vagina. Where Chii's ON button just happens to be.
The thing with Chobits is that you can't seem to escape the constant back and forth between Ecchi moments and the Seinen/Romance moments. One minute Chii is searching for her one and only and then next she needs panties? Or we're reading the story about The City with No People and how loneliness is never escapable and the next Chii is wearing only a shirt and Hideki wants her to download porn.
There's a serious attempt at a social movement within the story. Our lives are ruled by computers and the web and there's a fine line between love and lust and when we make that leap. And robots being capable of love? CLAMP really, really ALMOST had it with this one. Chobits really does try to succeed. And it would have if there wouldn't have been so much Ecchi in contrast to the Seinen/Romance. It just didn't fit right. I wanted it to work but it didn't for me. In the end, the final conflict really would have had more meaning to me, if there hadn't been so much Ecchi paired with the Seinen/Romance.
Art: The only outstanding part of this work. CLAMP will always succeed as long as they stay together I believe. I loved the beauty of Chobits and really this is what kept me reading page after page. If you like CLAMP already, then I don't believe this will disappoint you. Though there's nothing special about Chii and Hideki.
Character: Oh the characters. Oh how insignificant you all really ended up being. Hideki and Chii prove to be the two most insignificant and pointless main characters I have ever encountered. Hideki may be easy to relate to but it doesn't make him very special. Hell, it doesn't even make him slightly remarkable. Hideki is simple.Chii ends up being his solution, in a not-so-easy solution. I ended up liking the side characters better than them. My rating of a 5 stands because there were only 2 that made any kind of impression on me. Zima and Dita.
My overall enjoyment of Chobits is an average 7 and I was hard-pressed to give it a 6 because with the amount of Ecchi this manga should be given a minor warning to anyone under the age of 14. And really CLAMP, if I wanted Ecchi, I would read Ecchi. But I don't want Ecchi. I want Romance, and I want to see Robots be able to fall in love, and I want to see how one robot could destroy everything that they have all worked for. I want to see CLAMPs one and only work out again. I wanted CLAMP.
But this one fell just a little short.
