Chobits Anime Review

CHOBITS SCORE: 8.75

INTRODUCTION & SYNOPSIS

Chobits is an anime which I may be partially biased too, but I will try to review it as critically as possible. It is one of the first animes I saw a few years ago and it’s what really got me interested in the anime community. Prior too, I had never seen anything like it, and I think it still holds true that this is a really unique anime. Anyway enough with the set-up, let’s get to the review shall we…

The main protagonist for Chobits is a slightly dim-witted, but truly kind-hearted young man by the name of Hedeki. Being a farmer from the Japanese countryside, his world is turned upside down when he moves to Tokyo to enter prep-school for University and tries to get by in this new technologically advanced world. While this world doesn’t have flying cars or anything, it does have “Persa-coms.” Persacoms are walking, talking, and living computers that are indistinguishable from real-life humans (if it weren’t for their cute persacom ears). It’s with this major plot-point that this anime tackles the Sci-Fi phenomenon known as “technological singularity,” in which artificial intelligence becomes on par with that of human intelligence and if in the shape/form of a human body is virtually indistinguishable from humans. Despite this, the anime is surprisingly not all too Sci-Fi focused, and centers more on the fluffy romantic comedy/ slice-of-life elements. However, it is this point of the plot that makes the anime most interesting. Hedeki (being a poor farmer) can’t afford a persacom, although he expresses his want for one abundantly when he is first introduced. Luckily for him, he so happens to stumble upon an adorable looking persacom that was discarded in an alley way, so he thanks his lucky stars and takes her home. This persacom however, is different and special. Her name is “Chi” as this is the only word she can say, and because of this Hedeki thinks she must be broken and takes her to the child persacom genius to be examined. Thus, it is discovered that Chi may be one of the mysterious Chobits series one of the most intricate and powerful persacoms of all time. The mystery unfolds slowly at first then rapidly at the end when we discover the truth behind the Chobits series persacoms.

PROS

Throughout the series we get to see how the existence of persacoms effect human relationships in the world, and both the positives and negatives that come from that. I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the anime and the side stories that went with it. In particular the side story about the prep-school teacher and her husband with the decay of their relationship due to persacoms, and the story of the bakery owner who married a persacom who lost her memory. Both were very emotional and ensued great character development for these side-characters. Which brings me to my next pro, the characters. Near all of the characters were really like-able and very well-developed with great backstories that made me resonate with all of their dilemmas.

Another great factor about Chobits is its mystery surrounding the main character Chi. Chi is so darn cute and like-able as a character, and the power she has to emote with saying so little really helps her character develop. The mystery of where she came from and whether or not she is from this “Chobits” series of super powerful persacoms really kept me sucked in the whole way through. I wanted to figure out what was going on and the way all of the characters tie in to the ending was perfect. I think the ending was really nailed.

Lastly, I think the animation and music was really cute and serene and ahead of it’s time for when it was originally released. The opening theme is probably one of my favorite opening themes of all time for an anime.

CONS

I don’t have too many negative points for this anime, but there are a few. Firstly, our main protagonist kind of bothered me. While the fact that he was dumb and from the country made for some funny situations, I think the story would have been more interesting if they had made the genius character older and have him have been the one to find Chi and figure her out; this would have made things more interesting in my personal opinion. Some of the things he didn’t understand would kind of irk me and it prevented us from learning more about persacoms since he knew so little himself. I can get past this though, what bothered me more about his character was his weakness for hot girls and the over-done caught with dirty magazines joke. I feel like the whole pervert act is better thrown in as a side-character trait or not at all. They could have gone there once, but it felt like it was brought up every other episode. Another character that bothered me was the shop owner’s daughter who always flirted with Hedeki calling him “senpaiiii.” I just didn’t feel her dilemma and it’s probably a personal gripe, but she just irritated me a little. This last one is definitely a personal gripe, but I wish they added a male persacom as one of the more prominent side-characters or something. It would have been interesting to at least have a side-story dealing with this.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I really enjoyed Chobits. I think it is a unique series with thoroughly interesting concepts. None of the cons I mentioned took away from the story or ruined it in any way for me, so that’s why I give this series an 8.75 out of 10. It is definitely worth watching and probably even owning. I have watched it through more than once and would definitely recommend it. If you have seen Chobits and are looking for something similar in the persacom element I would recommend Plastic Memories.


WATCHED ON: Dubs2go.net (free source)