After enduring four years of high school, Hideki Motosuwa strives to get into the university of his choice by attending cram school in Tokyo. Concurrently, he works daily shifts at a bar to make ends meet, thus missing out on the world's latest invention—human-like computers called Persocoms. Longing for a persocom of his own, Hideki is met with a stroke of luck when he stumbles upon a cute abandoned persocom in a garbage pile.
Upon finding the power button, Hideki finds his newfound robot to be faulty and only capable of uttering the word "Chii"—which Hideki decides to name her after. Chii, however, is no ordinary persocom: capable of thinking and learning on her own, she is a legendary type of robot known as a Chobit. Now, it is up to Hideki to teach Chii how to live an ordinary life and to uncover the truth behind the elusive chobits series.
Chobits was published in English by Tokyopop from April 23, 2002, to October 7, 2003. Dark Horse later republished the series in two omnibus volumes. Kodansha USA republished the series digitally in four omnibus volumes titledChobits 20th Anniversary Edition from June 9, 2020, to June 15, 2021. It was also released in Brazilian Portuguese by Editora JBC in 16 volumes from August 2003 to April 2004.
Story 10/10 Characters (main) 9/10 Charaters (sup) 9/10 Art 10/10 Read 9/10 ------------------------- Overall 9/10
...Story: was pretty exclusive and exciting Main Charaters: chii was a good charater but hideki was for me just dumb and a pervert, in general i don't have anythig against perverted charaters but Hideki was too much for me. Sup Charaters: some were funny and made me laugh a lot in particular Hirumo Art: look and the cover do i need to say anythig Read: THe start was boring but then the story kicked in it was so fun to read. I read five vol. in a day.
Chobits is quite the ride, 7/10 is a generous rating. The first 30 chapters are frankly, awful. The characters are boring, it's stuffed to the brim with unecessary sexualized humour (lit seems the publishers were convinced no one would read this unless Chii was initally marketed to the reader as a sex bot? It was so hard to take seriously), and the plot goes absolutely no where for some time.
It takes nearly half the series for Chobits to reveal its value and explore the heart of the manga. I think Chobits had some interesting ideas: the theme of loving people (or persocoms) for what...they are, that people and persocoms are capable of different things in different ways, and that there is no person or persocom that can replace the other. It's a shame that it takes so long to explore these themes, because I think the manga would have been much better getting to this earlier and exploring some of its side concepts more, or developing their characters, rather than spend 30 chapters on repetitive humour and fan service. I would have liked to see some more on the danger of technology and human error, which was briefly explored in some sideplots. While many of the characters are bland, I did sympthatize with Chii and Yumi in particular, though I wish there was more to the characters in this series than their relationships (to either persocoms or people). Lastly, I did find the art gorgerous, and that was a huge factor in giving this manga a chance.
If you are interested in the idea of love, challenging societal ideas of relationships, and technology, this might be worth finishing, though I blame no one for dropping this prematurely (I almost did). I found the last 50 chapters far better than the beginning (thankfully the pace picks up, and much of sexual tones are left behind), but Chobits is not without its flaws, and it does take patience for it to show its colours.
Story - Poor guy finds a sexbot. That just about sums it up. There's something about the sexbot being some kind of weapon but I couldn't figure it out. Along the way people tell Hideki that a sexbot is not an alternative for a real human being, which I agree with, but Hideki apparently doesn't get it. The pacing is so slow it's not even funny. After about 8 hours of reading I finally gave up. I didn't find anything particularly funny. Maybe Hideki's virginity was supposed to be a joke? I didn't find it funny. Everyone makes fun of Hideki's virginity as if it's...bad, whilst I couldn't care less whether if he was a virgin or not. Oh and also I found the entire concept of "persocoms" deranged and moronic. The purpose of computers is not to be cute, we have figurines and dolls for that. Why would people use persocoms instead of cell phones? Cell phones are so much more convenient. It's so stupid.
Art - Very mediocre. Too minimalist for my liking.
Character - Dreadful characters. Everyone being obsessed with "persocoms" as if they're stereotypical lonely pathetic sex-obsessed otakus. It's not funny when it's being parodied for the billionth time. Chi acting like a retard got boring really fast. I thought she was supposed to be smart? Am I supposed to find retards cute? The female characters seem to do little other than to tease Hideki, our resident virgin, with vague hints of sex.
Enjoyment - Barely any. I really tried to finish it, but I just couldn't stand reading this nonsense and finally gave up.
Overall - Boring nonsense. If you're one of those stereotypical lonely pathetic sex-obsessed otakus that I presume this manga was targeted towards then you might find it arousing. But only if you have a lot of patience, as this manga moves extremely slowly.
Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for June Week 1: June 1 - 7 Anime Releases Appare-Ranman! Blu-ray Black Clover Season 3 Part 4 Blu...read more
Here are the North American anime & manga releases for February Week 1: February 2 - 8 Anime Releases Black Clover Season 3 Part 2 Blu-ray & DVD [incl. episo...read more
