Chobits Anime and Manga Review

Chobits… what to say about Chobits… well, it was written by CLAMP, an army of female mangaka who wrote Card Captor Sakura (which I watched and thought was a very good kiddie-shojo) and Angelic Layer (which I heve never seen, but it does seem like it was aimed at a younger audience). This, though, is not quite as kiddy. It has a message and theme for the reader, and though it uses a fairly large amount ecchi to make the majority of the story funny, the message stands out and will stay with you the rest of your life.

Just so you know, I am going to focus the review on the manga and not the anime, which had a few differences in the first episode (the only episode of the anime I watched) including a scene on the farm where the main character lived before the story began.

Anyway, in summary, Chobits is about a boy who is attending classes because he failed his college entrance exam, named Hideki. He orginally lived on a farm, but for the classes he moved to the unfamiliar city. He is amazed by all the things there, especially the very human like robots everyone owned, called persocoms. Hideki is poor though, and cannot afford one. But one day he finds a perfectly good, cute persocom in a dumpster. He turns it on and takes it home. The only problem is that the only thing it can say is chi! So that’s what he names it, Chi. Soon he realizes that Chi is learning from him; she copies his actions, starts to use words, and gains a personality of her own! But persocoms are supposed to only use pre-programed data, not learn for themselves! And Chi can’t even connect to the internet! What kind of persocom is she? As Hideki curiously searches for these answers, his relationship with the robot changes… but is that okay?

Yeah, I know, lots of questions for you to answer for yourself as you read this 8 manga series published in the US by Tokyopop. As for my final opinion, I say this series is very worth reading. As I have said before, I am a very large fan of shorter series, and this one qualifies. Very good quality all the way through, and lots of questions, twists, and turns. This book is certainly one of the most serious ecchi books I have ever read. Because of that, it would appeal to a very large audience. So, in other words, read it.

Oh, and I almost forgot, inside Chobits is a little picture book called “A City With No People”. It is amazing and theme-rich, as well as trippy and dark. That is one of main reasons I love this series!