Anime Review: Chobits

Chobits was a japanese manga created by the manga writers CLAMP. It was published by Kodansha and ran from the 14th of February 2001 and ended the 29th of November 2002 spanning 8 volumes in total. Then not long after the Animation Studio Madhouse decided to adapt Chobits into a 26 episode long TV Anime series that ran from the 2nd of April 2002 and ended 24th of September 2002. It should be noted that CLAMP had created this manga as a seinen even though it has many shojo elements intertwined in the manga.

Story is set in japan about a guy named Hideki who is studying in Tokyo to get into university, however he fails alot. So one day when walking back to his lonely and depressing home he founds a chobits abandoned in the garbage. He decides to take it home and activates her to which she comes alive and calls herself "chi" from then on their relationship of man and machine were born, however chi is not your average chobits as Hideki will soon find out the hard way after a series of unfortunate events.

So I watched Chobits many years ago as one of my first animes, and I can still kinda remember the plot becaue it was a nice simple beggining which developed slowly. Relationships between man and machine ussually dont end really well, nor does it flow very well in the story. However very surprisingly the story can teach us that love can indeed bloom, it is simply just in different ways. Though besides the character development the story's focus is on chi who becomes accustomed to every day life and simply seeing her carrying out her daily activities can prove humorous. However if the anime only focused on that then it would not score very highly. That is why we have a deep dark plot that the characters are fated for tragedy, which makes the anime intense.

Hideki Motosuwa: This guy is simply your average loser to put it bluntly. He lives alone, is struggling on his steady job and is trying hard to get into the university he wants but is failing to. Everytime he returns home a bit more depressed and a bit more suicidal. That is why it is good that Chi has appeared into his life because it gives his life a sense of purpose a drive to try and make his life better and with Chi in hand he can make his dreams come true.

Chi: Chi is very easily one of the most iconic female anime characters of all times, and she only has a few short pieces of dialogue within the entire course of the anime that is besides "chi". However it is this innocent and pure personality of hers that attracts and draws people towards her. Her cute and kind expressions and smiles is a warmth that is almost identical to a humans. So we are constantly reminded that chi is a chobits, a machine but unlike most machines we think of like the terminator she has feelings. These feelings start out very bland and obvious at the beginning of the anime, but as the plot develops and more of her mysterious past is uncovered we can start to understand that there is indeed another side to chi, a much darker side that likes to wear black.

Lets all be honest here, the animation of chobits was not the show's strong point, and if it did then it did quite a bad job at that. However that is not the shows strong point and it is only suppose to serve out it's purpose of presenting the anime clearer to the viewers, and not try to become part of the story itself. The colours seem really drab and you do not get many colourful scenes, I mean it would not kill the animators to throw in some bright colours hear and there. Though once again we have to remind ourselves that this anime is a seinen and most seinen's do not have lots of colourful backgrounds and such because that would take away from the storys momentum.

Chobits has a legacy that stretches deep into the fabrics of the anime society of the world today. The reason chobits was one of my very first animes I watched, after I knew exactly what anime was that is, because it was one of those "must see" anime's if you were starting out. You would see a whole variety of animes to get a good feel for the anime culture in general. And chobits represented a sort of romance outside of a man and women, which was teaching us different perspectives on relationships. Plus we can never forget about the entire episode where chi had to buy some underwear for herself so she said "pantsu" hundreds and hundreds of times throughout the episode until it would be jammed into our skulls never to see the light of day again, but we love it.

Indeed as I have already mentioned before, chobits is a great example of a classic anime that came out after the year 2000. It is an anime that should be on everybodys watch list regardless if you do not like the theme and genre of romance at all, because do remember it is a seinen just try and ignore all the cutesy stuff. However I am not too sure some serious watches of readers could get into this quite easily, it is always much easier when you are a child. However still when I think back to this anime it was a good watch, and it should not be taken for granted because there is more then meets the eye when it comes our sweet chi.