Chobits
|
|
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. Unlike most CLAMP stories, Chobits is a seinen series, specifically of the magical girlfriend variety.
| Contents |
Story
The story centers around the life of Hideki Motosuwa, a repeat student ("ronin") attempting to get into the university by studying at Seki cram school. One day he stumbles across a persocom (a computer designed to look and act like a person; in this case a beautiful young woman) lying out by the curb with a pile of trash bags. He takes her home and turns her on, to find out that she does not know how to talk, and also does not seem to have any operating system installed. All she can say is "chi", so Hideki names her that way.
Hideki attempts to teach words, concepts and behavior to Chi while he attends to school, looks for a job, and makes some new friends (many of whom have strong opinions of persocoms).
Meanwhile, Chi seems to have a mysterious background. There are people who want her for themselves. Chi seems to be developing feelings for Hideki while she looks for "The Person Just For Me."
The story questions whether there could truly be love between a human and an artificial person, and whether or not such emotions are healthy. The series and the manga also contain quite a bit of humor, mainly centered around Chi's attempts to learn about her environment and her ignorance of the usual social norms. A few moments have an ecchi flavor, but they are intended to be humoristic.
An important piece of the Chobits story is a series of in-story books titled "A City With No People" (in Japanese, Daremo inai machi), written about the main character.
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 required a mixture of hiragana, katakana and/or Latin alphanumeric characters for increased security. While Chi's password is never known, the password Hideki chooses for Plum was a kana approximation to the label "Chobits" he has seen in a photo of Chi before her memory loss.
Connection with other works
The manga of Chobits has a direct connection to the earlier CLAMP work Angelic Layer. In the manga, Chi's creator 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.
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.
Chi is sometimes featured in lolicon-style doujinshi despite being designed by CLAMP as a slender teenager. This may be due to the height size difference with the much taller Hideki or CLAMP's willowy art style in general.
External links
- AnimeLuvers (http://www.animeluvers.com/page11.htm) Chobits Reviews, Pictures, and more
- Chobits.eu.org (http://www.chobits.eu.org) (in French)
Chobits-related articles
es:Chobits fr:Chobits id:Chobits ja:ちょびっツ pl:Chobits sv:Chobits zh:人形电脑天使心