Chobits

Chobits
	File:Chobits manga.jpg The cover of volume 1 of the Chobits manga (English edition).
Manga
Written by	CLAMP
Published by	Kodansha; Tokyopop; Editora JBC ; Daiwon CI ; Bonnier Carlsen
Anime
Directed by	Morio Asaka
Studio	Pioneer, Chobits Production Committee
Specials
	Episode 9; Episode 18; Episode 27 (OVA);

Chobits (ちょびっツ) is a manga and anime series created by CLAMP. The original manga was published from 2001 to 2002 by Kodansha.

The English manga is published by TOKYOPOP, and the American translation is imported to Australia by Madman Entertainment. Also, the Traditional Chinese manga is published by COMICSWORLD.COM (天下出版有限公司) under official authorization for Hong Kong only. In Singapore, the Simplified Chinese version is published by Chuangyi. Unlike most CLAMP stories, Chobits is a seinen series, specifically of the magical girlfriend variety.

Plot

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The story centers on the life of eighteen-year-old Hideki Motosuwa, a repeat student ("ronin") attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school. An honest and unassuming teenager raised on a farm, he has little experience with women, though his imagination and libido are both quite active. Besides a girlfriend, the other thing he dreams of having is a persocom (Personal computer), a computer designed to look and act like a human. In the city where he studies for university (Tokyo), Hideki discovers that persocoms are commonplace. They are preprogrammed with fairly subdued personalities; they assist their owners with chores (such as shopping, dictation, email, and accounting) and are easily identifiable by the large data ports on the sides of their heads. But persocoms are expensive and Hideki has no money, so he figures the only way he'll ever have one is if he were to find one lying on the curb.

No sooner has he thought this than it happens: on his way home from school one evening, he stumbles across a persocom in the form of a beautiful young girl with long hair, wrapped in cloth, turned off, lying against a pile of trash bags. He carries her home, and after a long and nervous search for her on/off button, he finally "turns her on". She comes instantly to life and regards Hideki with open adoration, hugging him often and watching him fascinated as she often mimics the things he does, but the only word she ever says (until later episodes) is "chi", so this is the name Hideki gives her.

Hideki recruits the help of his technically-minded friend Shinbo to try to figure out where Chi came from. All they are able to determine is that she does not have any operating system installed. Shinbo is perplexed as to how she's able to be active at all with a blank memory, and this is the beginning of the mystery of Chi's origins and purpose.

Meanwhile Hideki takes it upon himself to teach words, concepts and behavior to Chi while he attends school, looks for a job, and makes new friends (many of whom have strong opinions of persocoms). He finds himself putting aside his libido and protecting Chi against people who want her for themselves; he buys her a storybook in which she seems to take an unusual interest; she shows him unconditional love and cheers him on through his studies. Before long it's clear that Chi is developing feelings for Hideki to a depth that persocoms aren't supposed to be able to have, and Hideki seems to be falling in love with her despite friends' warnings against having feelings for an artificial person.

Themes

Despite comic, or ecchi moments, Chobits itself deals with several dualities concerning subject matter it shows. The most explored issue throughout the series is relationships shared between humans and persocoms. "Atashi", a character drawn by the character "Hibiya", is a comic book used in the series to hint at the definition of reciprocated love to Chii, but is also used to highlight issues with human-persocom relationships; drawing upon the fact that because persocoms can be programmed to imitate desirable human behavior, many humans would opt-out of human relationships, as well as obvious problems, such as the inability to further produce offspring.

The series also seems to touch upon issues and ideals of virginity, and sexual intercourse; the "chobits" series being in line with the idea of only engaging in sexual intercourse with someone whom you are entirely in love with -- this is shown in the series, particularly when several males attempt to "interfere" with Chi. The idea of "love", as a concept is addressed for the denominator of the series also, in several installments of "A City With No People"; this deals with issues particularly relating to searching, and subesequently waiting for someone who is what would be referred to as a "soul mate". This is in parallel to the story of Freya, whom fell in love with her father and creator, and ultimately wished death due to heartache, and is used as a means of "aiding" Chi in her quest for "A Person Just For Me", or "My One and Only". Both Chii (Elda) and her sister, Freya; Atashii being linked to Chii, and the companion, linked to Freya.

The title ちょびっツ Chobittsu uses a mixture of hiragana ちょびっ Chobi(t) and katakana ツ tsu. Similarly, the password チょびっつ Chobittsu for Plum (a.k.a. "Sumomo"), set by Hideki in episode 19 titled "Chi Helps Out " of the TV series, also mixes katakana チ Ch(i) and hiragana ょびっつ (y)obittsu. The mixed letters were chosen because the persocom's password required a mixture of hiragana, katakana and/or Latin alphanumeric characters for increased security. At the very end of the manga, Hideki gives Chi the password "Chobittsu", all in hiragana, except for the last character, which is in katakana.

Chobits showcases the Gothic Lolita fashion style popular in Japan, with both Freya's and Chi's elaborate dresses.

Anime

The anime consists of 26 episodes. Episodes 9, 18, and an extra 27th OVA episode are used as "recap" episodes, looking back on the events that happened so far. The episodes were re-numbered for the DVD release; the original recap episodes were not included in sequence, instead being published together on the final DVD and re-numbered as 8.5, 16.5 and 24.5 making the series itself only 24 episodes.

Facts

Supervising Director:Morio Asaka
Character Designer, Animation Director: Hisashi Abe

Voice Acting Cast

Hideki Motosuwa: Tomokazu Sugita
Chi (Elda) / Freya (Dark Chi): Rie Tanaka
Hiromu Shinbo: Tomokazu Seki
Takako Shimizu: Ryoka Yuzuki
Sumomo: Motoko Kumai
Chitose Hibiya: Kikuko Inoue
Minoru Kokubunji: Houko Kuwashima
Yuzuki: Fumiko Orikasa
Yumi Oumura: Megumi Toyoguchi
Kotoko: Yukana Nogami
Hiroyasu Ueda: Yuji Ueda
Yoshiyuki Kojima: Jun'ichi Suwabe
Yumi's father: Masao Yasuhara

Manga

The original Chobits Manga was written by CLAMP, a famous group of four Japanese manga-ka (manga artists). CLAMP has also authored Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Clover, WISH, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Clamp School Detectives, XXXHolic, Angelic Layer and others. CLAMP often reuses (or parallel to) various characters among their manga (discussed below). Chobits is one of their first attempts at the Shōnen genre.

The manga is 88 chapters long and was collected into 8 volumes, which are published by TOKYOPOP.

The manga originally ran in Young Magazine, a Japanese magazine, from February 2001-November 2002.

Connections with other works

The manga of Chobits has a direct connection to the earlier CLAMP work Angelic Layer. In the manga, Chi's creator and Chitose's late husband was also the person responsible for Angelic Layer (referred to in Angelic Layer as Ichiro Mihara, or Icchan). The anime has removed the connection between the two stories.
Minoru's sister, Kaede Saitou, is one of the many characters in CLAMP's Angelic Layer. In the manga during Minoru's flashback of his sister's death, you see three other characters, who are Kaede's friends from Angelic Layer: Misaki Suzuhara, Sai Jounouchi, and Ohjiro Mihara.

There is also a connection to Cardcaptor Sakura. In the manga version, Tomoyo's mother, Sonomi Daidōji, makes a brief cameo appearance in Chiroru bakery, owned by Hiroyasu Ueda, in order to buy some sweets.

In Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE: another CLAMP manga, Chi makes a cameo appearance as the creation of Fye D. Flowright, a wizard from the country of Celes. Unlike in Chobits, Chi is presented as an artificial lifeform instead of a robot, and her ears have a more organic look similar to a fox. Sumomo and Kotoko also make an appearance in Ōto country, although they are much larger than normal.

Volume 3 of XXXHolic shows Watanuki and Yūko communicating with each other using a pair of headphones that look exactly like Chii's ears. Also present in Volume 3 is a shot of Maru and Moro reading "A City With No People", a book featured prominently in Chobits. One scene also has Mokona saying "Chii!".

In the chapters of Kobato that have been released so far, it is revealed that Kobato's landlady is Chitose Mihara (Chitose Hibiya), who lives with her husband (presumbly Ichiro Mihara, who has yet to appear in the manga) and her twin daughters, Chiho and Chise (Chi/Elda and Freya). Chiho and Chise are human girls and not artificial lifeforms of any sort.

In the manga, Suki, the character Tomo writes a childrens book that mirrors the lives of the two main characters, much like Ms. Hibiya does for Chii and Hideki. The class in Suki also visits a museum where there is a statue of three "Keychain Persocoms", much like the one Yumi has.

In 2002 Marvellous Entertainment Inc. released a Chobits game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. This game has not been released outside of Japan. The game was also available bundled with a clear blue Game Boy Advance with a decal of Chi above the A+B buttons and a Chobits logo above the D-pad.

The online forum Gaia Online features an item equipable to one's avatar called "Doll Ears" which are replica's of Chii's "ears". The item comes bearing the description: "A master dollmaker of Gaia once designed a small clockwork doll girl. He put all his heart into making her the most beautiful doll ever. He would wind her up and she would walk with him through town. Many say she was prettier than a real girl."

Trivia

Most of the seiyu who voiced characters here would go on to voice characters in the hit mecha anime series Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny.