Chobits

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Chobits
Chobits volume 1 manga cover.
ちょびっツ (Chobittsu)
Genre	Romantic comedy, Science Fiction, Graphic Novel
Manga
Author	Clamp
Publisher	Kodansha
English publisher	Madman Entertainment Tokyopop
Other publishers: Editora JBC Pika Éditions EMA Star Comics Editorial Vid JPF Daiwon C.I. Norma Editorial Bonnier Carlsen
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Young Magazine
Original run	February 14, 2001 – November 29, 2002
Volumes	8
TV anime
Director	Morio Asaka
Studio	Madhouse
Network	Animax, TBS, BS-I
English network	Anime Network
Other networks: Virgin 17 Animax Hyper Anione
Original run	2 April 2002 – 24 September 2002
Episodes	26

Chobits (ちょびっツ, Chobittsu^?) is a Japanese manga created by Clamp. It was published by Kodansha in Young Magazine from February 2001 and November 2002 and collected in eight bound volumes. Unlike most stories by Clamp, Chobits is a seinen series, specifically of the magical girlfriend variety, and is commonly mistaken for shōjo because of its strong romantic themes and flowery art style.^{citation needed} Chobits was adapted as a 26-episode-long anime television series broadcast on TBS and Animax from April to September 2002. In addition, it has spawned a video game as well as various merchandise such as figurines, collectable cards, calendars, and artbooks.

The manga is set in the same universe as Angelic Layer, taking place a few years after the events of that story, and like Angelic Layer, it explores the relationship between humans and electronic devices shaped like humans. Chobits branches off as a crossover to many other stories in different ways, such as Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic.

Plot

The story centers on the life of Hideki Motosuwa, a repeat student (浪人, Rōnin^?) attempting to qualify for university by studying at the Seki prep school in Tokyo. Besides a girlfriend, the other thing he dreams of having is a Persocom. A Persocom is an android used as a personal computer; however, they are expensive, and Hideki has no money.

On his way home one evening, he stumbles across a persocom in the form of a beautiful girl with long hair, the color of ivory lying against a pile of trash bags. He first thinks this to be a murder but, realizing she is a persocom, he carries her home. Upon turning it on, she instantly regards Hideki with adoration. The only word the persocom seems capable of saying is "chi", thus he names her Chi. Hideki assumes that there must be something wrong with her, and so Hideki's neighbor Hiromu Shinbo tries to analyze her with his mobile persocom Sumomo the following morning, and concludes that after Sumomo crashes that she must be custom made. Shinbo introduces him to Minoru Kokobunji, a twelve year old genius who specializes in the field of custom made persocoms. Minoru's persocoms, including Yuzuki, a fairly exceptional custom made persocom, are not able to analyze Chi either, and thus they conclude that she may be one of the Chobits, a legendary series of persocoms which are rumoured to have free will and emotions. Although this could be a possibility, Minoru is confident that it is only a rumour. Yuzuki also adds that she does not resemble any persocom model in any available database and so she must be custom made after all.

A major part of the plot involves Hideki attempting to teach Chi words, concepts, and appropriate behaviours, in between his crammed schedule of school and work. At the same time, Chi seems to be developing feelings for Hideki, at an emotional depth, which she is not supposed to possess, and Hideki struggles with his feelings for her. The need to figure out more about Chi and her mysterious functions and past becomes a stressing pull for the characters in the series.

Hideki discovers that his feelings intesify for Chi whether she is a persocom or not, despite other horrible experiences involving persocoms that happened to his friends. Chi becomes aware of her purpose through a picture book series called "A City with No People" which she finds in a bookstore. The books speak about many different things involving human and persocom relationships: Persocoms and their convenience towards people as friends and lovers, how there are things that they cannot do and questioning whether a relationship between a persocom and a human is really one sided. It also speaks about the Chobits series; that they are different from other persocoms, and what they are not capable of doing unlike other persocoms. These picture books awaken Chi's other self, her sibling Freya who is aware of their past and helps Chi realize what she must do when she decides who her "person just for me" is. Together, Chi and Hideki explore the relationship between humans and their new technological advantage, the persocom, as well as their friends' and their own.

Main characters

Main article: List of Chobits characters

Hideki Motosuwa (本須和秀樹, Motosuwa Hideki^?)

A 19-year-old (in the anime, 18) repeat student 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 at Yorokonde (My Pleasure), an izakaya, to make ends meet. One night, while walking home from work, he finds a persocom lying in a pile of garbage. He takes her home, and upon activating her, finds that the only word she can utter is "Chi". Because of this, he gives her the name "Chi" (in the anime, "Chii") and takes her into his care, doing his best to protect and teach her. Despite his shortcomings and occasional moments of awkwardness with the bustling environment of Tokyo, Hideki is a genuinely kind and honest person, whose habit of thinking of others' well-being before his own can cause many problems. When a friend is in trouble, especially Chi, he is always there to help. Although many characters in the series often tease him for being a "nice guy", they turn to him for advice with their problems, knowing he will always hear them out and do his best to assist them. Voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (Japanese), Crispin Freeman (English)

Chi (ちぃ, Chii^?)

A Chobit, a type of persocom that is far more technologically advanced than regular persocoms, and who are said to possess true machine intelligence rather than relying on the execution of pre-loaded software programs like other persocoms.^[1] Voiced by: Rie Tanaka (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English)

Themes

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Despite the comedic and ecchi moments, Chobits itself deals with several dualities concerning subject matter it shows. The most explored issue throughout the series is human-persocom relationships. Although the series stresses the ideas of persocoms being loved, the lesson that the series attempts to pass along (being loved for who you are) can be represented in many different ways.

"Watashi" (a first person pronoun in Japanese), a character drawn by Chitose Hibiya in a children's picture book A City with No People, is used in the series to hint at the definition of reciprocated love to Chi, and is used to highlight issues with human-persocom relationships; drawing upon the fact that because persocoms can be programmed to imitate desirable human behavior, humans would opt-out of human relationships, resulting in obvious problems, such as the inability to further produce offspring.

The series deals with issues and ideals of virginity, and sexual intercourse in that Chi is effectively incapable of sexual intercourse (in the manga and in the series), as attempting to do so would "reset" her, so she must therefore only entrust her body to someone who cares for her well-being as opposed to a purely sexual relationship. The series also hints that Chi's particular placement of her On switch is added after Freya's death, since her father gave her "special abilities". Along with his goal to ensure all persocoms found happiness, the placement of Chi's on switch ensures that her personality will thrive only in a relationship in which she is loved without the pressure of sex.

The idea of "love", as a concept is addressed for the denominator of the series, in several installments of A City with No People; this deals with issues particularly relating to searching, and subsequently waiting for someone who is what would be referred to as a "soul mate". This is in parallel to the story of Freya, who fell in love with her father and creator, and ultimately wished death due to heartache. This idea is used as a means of "aiding" Chi in her quest for "A Person Just For Me", or "My One and Only". Both Chi and her sister, Freya; Atashi being linked to Chi, and the companion, linked to Freya.

Etymology

In the series, the derivation of the name "chobits" is given as coming from their father, Ichiro Mihara, who used the word "chobi" to describe anything he thought was "small and hopelessly adorable". Two chobi become "chobits". The word "chobits" is an anagram of "Chitose Hibiya",^[2] and is also the password given to Elda, Freya, Plum, and eventually Chi. The spelling of the title uses a mixture of hiragana (ちょびっ, Chobi[t]^?) and katakana (ツ, tsu^?). The mixed letters were chosen because a persocom's password requires a mixture of hiragana, katakana and/or Latin alphanumeric characters for increased security. Similarly, the password Chobittsu (チょびっつ, Chobittsu^?) for Plum, set by Hideki in episode 19 of the TV series, mixes katakana (チ, Ch[i]^?) and hiragana (ょびっつ, [y]obittsu^?), although in Tokyopop's English translation of the manga, the password is "Chobits" (with a capital "C").

The word persocom (パソコン, pasocon^?) is a Japanese contraction of personal computer (パーソナルコンピュータ, pāsonaru conpyūta^?). In Japan, it is used to refer to personal computers in the same way as the initials PC are in English. In Chobits, it is used with no distinction between modern and humanoid computers. In the final chapter of the manga, Chitose Hibiya explains that humanoid computers are not named "robots" because Ichiro Mihara did not include the Three Laws of Robotics in them.

Development

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Adaptation

There were several changes made to the story when it was adapted as an anime series. The more important ones include:

• In the manga, when Hideki introduced himself, he was already employed, whereas in the anime, he was unemployed when he found Chi.

• In the manga, Yumi Oumura is not the daughter of Manager Nekoi at Club Pleasure.

• In the anime, Hideki moves to Tokyo and meets Chitose Hibiya, his apartment manager. In the manga, Hideki is already living there upon the time of his introduction.

• Several major events in the anime (such as the trip to Minoru's beach house, Chi and Hideki playing volleyball, Hideki becoming afraid of an online urban legend regarding his apartment being haunted, Chi and Hideki helping Ms. Hibiya clean up the apartment complex, Chi buying underwear, Chi needing to be charged up and Chi cooking for Hideki) do not happen in the manga.

• Shinbo Hiromu lives in the same apartment complex as Hideki in the anime, however, in the manga, he does not.

• In the manga, Hideki finds out about Ms. Shimizu and Shinbo having an affair when he attempts to search for Chi, who went looking for a job. In the anime, he found out much later.

• In the anime, Yoshiyuki Kojima suggested to Minoru that in order to find out more about Chi, they hack the syndicate's main computer using Yuzuki. In the manga, there is no evidence that Minoru knew that it would be the most effective way to get information. Yuzuki does this act in the manga based on her programming.

• In the anime, Chi gets an outfit from Chitose Hibiya that was from her past life after she and Hideki helped her with cleaning the apartment building. In the manga, Chi got the outfit the night after Takako Shimizu stayed at Hideki's apartment.

• In the anime, Chitose Hibiya does not go to the publishing office, whereas in the manga, she does. However, we can assume that she must have in the anime as well, because in the episode in which Chi and Hideki fall off a ledge on their way to My Pleasure, Ms. Hibiya is in a taxi wearing the same outfit that she does in the manga when she is in the publishing office.

• In the anime, Chitose Hibiya's late husband Ichiro is not mentioned by name, nor is his affiliation with the creation of Angelic Layer, however he is mentioned by name in the manga.

• The ending to the anime series is different from the manga on many levels; perhaps the most notable being removal of all true allusion to Hideki never having Chi because of her switch location, and of Freya taking over Chi's body and asking her mother Chitose to shut them down, saying the Chobits series is a failure, and the activation of the program after all, although the effect on Persocoms is not the same as described in the manga.

Reception

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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

Media

It has been suggested that Chobits media information be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Main article: Chobits media information

Manga

Main article: List of Chobits chapters

The original Chobits manga was written by Clamp, a collective of four Japanese manga artists. It was serialized in Japan by Kodansha in Young Magazine from February 2001 until November 2002. The 88 chapters were collected in eight bound volumes.

The manga is published in English in North America by Tokyopop.^[3] Tokyopop's translation is imported to Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment.^[4] It is published in Hong Kong in Traditional Chinese by Jonesky, in Signapore in Simplified Chinese by Chuang Yi, in South Korea by Daiwon C.I., in France by Pika Édition, in Spain by Norma Editorial, in Mexico by Grupo Editorial Vid, in Italy by Star Comics (which serialized it in Express), in Germany by Egmont Manga & Anime (which serialized it in Manga Power), in Poland by Japonica Polonica Fantastica, in Brazil by JBC, and in Sweden by Carlsen Verlag.^[5]

Clamp often reuses (or parallels) various characters among their manga. Chobits is one of their first attempts at the seinen genre.

Anime

Main article: List of Chobits episodes

The anime consists of 26 episodes and was broadcast across Japan, East Asia and Southeast Asia by the anime satellite television network, Animax and the terrestrial Tokyo Broadcasting System network. Episodes 9, 18, and an extra 27th OVA episode are used as "recap" episodes, looking back on the events that happened previously. 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.

The opening theme is "Let Me Be With You" by ROUND TABLE featuring Nino.

There is a 6-minute special episode: "Sumomo and Kotoko on a Quest", or "Chibits", concerning Sumomo and Kotoko.

The series was directed by Morio Asaka and animated by Madhouse while Hisashi Abe acted as character designer and chief animation director.

Games

In 2002 Marvellous Entertainment released in Japan only a Chobits game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The game was 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.^[6] Marvellous Entertainment also released Chobits: Crystal Kingdom as a PlayStation 2 game, also available only in Japan.

Another PC-version game was also released in 2002, using Macromedia and Quicktime as the background support. This game is called Communication Game, in which the player can "talk" with Chi and teach her to speak. It also contained some small games inside such as a keyboard typing game.

Notes and References

External links

• Tokyopop official Chobits manga site
• TSB official site Chobits anime site (Japanese)