Chobits characters
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This article about Chobits characters is part of the Chobits group of articles.
Names are in Western order, with the surname after the given name.
- The spoilers are up to the end of the anime and manga.
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Hideki Motosuwa
Japanese Seiyuu: Tomokazu Sugita
English Voice Actor: Crispin Freeman
Hideki Motosuwa (本須和秀樹 Motosuwa Hideki) is a 18-year-old repeat student (ronin) attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school, which his parents have sent him to. They have also severed his allowance, which means he has to work a Club Paradise (a bar) to make ends meet. He found Chi, and has taken her into his care and does his best to protect and teach her.
Chi (Elda, Erda)
Japanese Seiyuu: Rie Tanaka
English Voice Actor: Michelle Ruff
Chi (ちぃ Chii) is a persocom and a Chobit (a super persocom that possesses free will and genuine feelings and emotions) which Hideki found tied up in a pile of trash on his way home from work one night. Once switched on, Chi is unable to communicate properly (initially she can only say 'Chi', which causes Hideki to name her that) and remembers nothing.
Before Chi was found by Hideki and named Chi, her name was Elda. She was the second Chobit produced by the Hibiya couple. Elda was created after Ms. Hibiya noticed that Freya's attitude had been becoming increasingly melancholy as time went by. Elda was created to be Freya's little sister, in an effort to make her happy. After the death of her husband, Chitose Hibiya reset Elda's memories. Hideki soon found her and brought her home. Possibly, Elda's memories were also on the disk which was accidentally left in the garbage when Hideki salvaged her.
After she is activated, Chi proceeds to start learning about the environment around her, and makes some hilarious mistakes in the process (for example, imitating a pornographic pose from one of Hideki's magazines). Eventually, when Chi starts communicating properly and learns enough about her environment to be able to function in it, she gets at job at Hiroyasu Ueda's bakery.
Chi also houses the resident consciousness of her fellow Chobit, Freya, who is also known as the Dark Chi (or Black-clad Chi). Freya occasionally contacts Chi to inform her of something important.
Both Chobits possessed many remarkable abilities, including the ability to release an extremely powerful concussive blast from their bodies should the need arise for them to defend themselves, levitation, and some telekenetic ability, and, given the proper condition (find the Person Just For Me), they would upload a program which would allow all persocoms to have emotions. However, should they fail to find the person just for them, they would upload a program that would destroy the person-recognition abilities of all persocoms, forever.
(Note about the spelling "Elda": "Elda" is the official English spelling. However, "Erda" would have made more sense in this situation. The name is written in Japanese as "エルダ" which is also used to write the name of the Norse earth goddess Erda (or Jörd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%F6rd)), the mother of the Valkyries. Freya was another Norse goddess.)
Freya (Kuro-Chii, Dark-Chii)
Japanese Seiyuu: Rie Tanaka
English Voice Actor: Michelle Ruff
She was the first Chobit, who was created before Elda, by Ms. Hibiya's husband, Ichiro Mihara. Freya was created to be Ms. Hibiya's daughter, because she could not have children of her own. Freya lived happily with the Hibiya couple for a time, until Ms. Hibiya noticed that her attitude was becoming increasingly melancholy, with no explanation as to why. At this point, Elda was created in an attempt to cheer Freya up. Freya was incredibly happy to have a little sister, and for a time, she seemed to be acting normally, although, as Ms. Hibiya would later tell Hideki, "there were still these odd times when she looked as though she was thinking very deeply about something."
Some time after, Freya came upon Ms. Hibiya flirting with her husband. At seeing this, she lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. It was only then that Ms. Hibiya finally realized the source of Freya's sadness; she had fallen in love with her own father, Mr. Mihara. She knew that her father still loved his wife, so she pained her heart with efforts to stop her feelings. Eventually her pain became so great that she gave up her will to live and fell into a catatonic state. Freya's consciousness nearly disappeared completely, until her sister Elda offered to take her mind into her own, so that they would always be together, forever.
Now that Elda has become Chii, Freya does everything she can to ensure that Chii will find the person just for her. Freya exists as a separate entity within Chii, and is capable of monitoring Chii's sensory input, and will intervene if Chii is in danger. Freya occasionally contacts Chii to inform her of something important.
(Note about the spelling "Freya": "Freya" actually appears in the Japanese Chobits merchandise. In Norse mythology, Freya was a goddess of love, sex and attraction.)
Yumi Ohmura
Japanese Seiyuu: Megumi Toyoguchi
English Voice Actor: Julie Maddalena
Yumi Ohmura (大村裕美 Ōmura Yumi) works at Club Paradise alongside Hideki. Initially it is thought that Yumi was interested in a relationship with Hideki, but as the series progresses it is revealed that she initially approaches him because he worked at Chiroru before Club Paradise, as she did, and that she thinks of him as a big brother.
Through most of the series Yumi has an inferiority complex about persocoms, and gets upset at any mention of a human-sized persocom (she is alright, though, with smaller persocoms and even has a small hand-sized persocom herself).
The reason for this is that while Yumi was working at Chiroru she fell in love with Hiroyasu, the manager. She worked up the courage to tell him, and found out he loved her back. All would have been alright, except that Yumi found out that he was previously married to a persocom he had named Yumi, (see Hiroyasu's entry) and that he would compare the human Yumi to the persocom Yumi and find the human Yumi inferior.
However, Hideki eventually manages to persuade Yumi that Hiroyasu wouldn't have started anything if he didn't like Yumi for what she was, and Hiroyasu and Yumi start going out again.
Minoru Kokubunji
Japanese Seiyuu: Houko Kuwashima
English Voice Actor: Mona Marshall
Minoru (国分寺 稔 Kokubunji Minoru) is a 12-year old genius, whose particular speciality is persocoms. In particular, he has built a custom persocom (Yuzuki) designed to look like his late sister, and has given her self-teaching software, meaning she can learn things herself instead of having to have programs loaded into her like most persocoms.
Minoru provides Hideki with technological help (tracking things down or allowing Hideki to make video calls) and advice on persocoms. He is also known as "M" on the bulletin boards.
Minoru's late sister is Kaede Saitou, a crossover character from Angelic Layer.
Chitose Hibiya
Japanese Seiyuu: Kikuko Inoue
English Voice Actor: Ellen Wilkinson
Ms. Chitose Hibiya (日比谷 千歳 Hibiya Chitose) is the landlady at the apartment where Hideki is staying - or at least that is her current job.
She was formerly the wife of the creator of the Chobits, and actually helped produce them. After her husband's death, she reset Elda's memories and left her for Motosuwa to find. She has also been writing "A City With No People" to help Chi realize who she was. She also sent Minoru the pictures of the Chobits Project, so Motosuwa and he would eventually find out the truth.
Chitose's late husband is Ichiro "Icchan" Mihara, a crossover character from Angelic Layer
Takako Shimizu
Japanese Seiyuu: Ryoka Yuzuki
English Voice Actor: Wendee Lee
Takako Shimizu (清水多香子 Shimizu Takako) is Hideki and Shimbo's teacher at the Seki cram school. Like Yumi, Ms. Shimizu has had a bad time with persocoms - her husband bought a persocom and eventually she become unimportant to him compared to the persocom. Ms. Shimizu elopes with Shimbo. In the end, she returns to the cram school, married to Shimbo.
Hiromu Shimbo
Japanese Seiyuu: Tomokazu Seki
English Voice Actor: Tony Oliver
Hiromu Shimbo (新保弘 Shinbo Hiromu), also spelled "Shimbo", is also studying at Seki cram school. He becomes involved with Ms. Shimizu after finding her in a park late at night because she had been unwittingly locked out of her house by her husband, who was too busy with his persocom.
Shimbo is the original owner of Plum a.k.a. Sumomo, a miniature mobile persocom.
Plum
(Japanese: Sumomo, すもも)Japanese Seiyuu: Motoko Kumai
English Voice Actor: Sandy Fox
Plum, known as Sumomo in the English anime and the original Japanese versions, is a mobile persocom - which is just like a full-size persocom apart from being only 16 cm tall. She is programed to be "cute" and tends to be quite hyperactive.
Plum is originally owned by Shimbo, but through the course of the story Hideki borrows Plum and before he can return her Shimbo elopes with Ms. Shimizu, so Shimbo transfers ownership to Hideki.
Hiroyasu Ueda
Hiroyasu Ueda (植田 弘康 Ueda Hiroyasu) is the owner of Chiroru, a local barket which Yumi once worked in and which Chi ends up working at.
He too has had a trauma involving persocoms. When he was starting his bakery he bought a persocom to help with adding up and accounting (which he admits he is terrible at). He eventually fell in love with this persocom and then married her, but she developed a hard disk fault which resulted in her memory becoming gradually worse and worse until she remembered nothing at all. He couldn't bring himself to get her fixed because her memories might be lost completely in the process of transferring them to a new hard drive, and he felt she wouldn't be the same person if this happened. She ended up dying (i.e., being beyond repair) when she saved Hiroyasu from being run over by a truck.
Hiroyasu and Yumi were in love in the past, and still are. Through the help of Chi and Hideki, he and Yumi get back together.
Yoshiyuki Kojima
(a.k.a. Dragonfly)Japanese Seiyuu: Jun'ichi Suwabe
Yoshiyuki Kojima (小島 良由起 Kojima Yoshiyuki) is a man of few scruples and another custom persocom-builder, like Minoru, but unlike Minoru, he is more obsessed with persocoms and even kidnaps Chi at one point. He tries to hack into Chii, using all of his persocoms in a massive parallel processing network. During this time, he makes an ill-advised attempt to inappropriately touch Chii, and Freya takes over, using telekinesis to restrain him with all of the cords attatched to her. She then attacks him with a concussion blast, blowing out the windows in his house and knocking him unconscious. Afterwards, to make amends for his actions, he lends his help to solving the mystery of Chi and the Chobits.
Yoshiyuki is the original owner of Kotoko.
Kotoko
Japanese Seiyuu: Yukana Nogami
Kotoko (琴子) is another laptop persocom, like Plum, but is custom-built by Yoshiyuki and has a far higher spec than Plum.
She originally belongs to Yoshiyuki, but following the kidnapping of Chi by Yoshiyuki he is forced to transfer her ownership to Hideki so that her memories of him kidnapping Chi cannot be erased.
Kotoko is far more serious than Plum, and thinks that everyone in the Motosuwa household is mad, but especially Plum/Sumomo.
Jima
(a.k.a Zima)Jima, (ジーマ Jīma) also known as Zima is one of two persocoms who are looking for Chi. Their interest in her seems to be due to the destructive power Chi can call on if she needs to defend herself. They also may not want her to execute her final program, which would give persocom's emotions, but this is not made clear.
Jima is also the Japanese national data bank, and during the course of the series an attempt is made by Yuzuki to hack into him to gain information on Chi.
Dita
Dita (ディタ) is the other one of the two persocoms looking for Chi. Her role is to act as protector of Zima, both physically and as an anti-cracker, hacking into any persocom who tries to hack into Zima and shutting them down (this is what happens to Yuzuki during her attempt to hack Zima).