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Review of: Chobits

Review by: ISOE
This is: Anime
Availability: R1 DVD from Pioneer

Judging from the explosion of frilly cosplayers with pink and white earpieces at this year's anime cons, Chobits has taken firm root in the collective otaku consciousness.

Chobits, from the renowned doujinshi circle-turned-superstar manga girl group CLAMP, is a unique take on the androids-among-us SF genre. What if, CLAMP posits, personal computers (known as "Persocons" in truncation-happy Japan) were not encapsulated in beige boxes, but in comely android bodies that walk and talk and do... er... other things? (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more)

The story takes place in the not too distant future and centers around Hideki Motosuwa, a country bumpkin who's recently arrived in Tokyo to attend cram school. (He failed his university entrance exams, and so he's determined to study harder for the next wave of exams.) He's initially awed by the Persocons he sees walking around Tokyo, but after learning about all they can do (from his new friend, next door neighbor Shinbo) he desperately wants one of his own. Lo and behold, Hideki comes upon a female Persocon wrapped in bandages and lying out in the trash. Convincing himself to do his bit for recycling, Hideki hauls the Persocon home. After fiddling with it for a bit, he finally finds its on-switch in an unexpected location. Hilarity ensues.

Much of the series deals with Hideki teaching the Persocon (which he names Chii, since it's initially all it can say) how to function in human society. Problem is, Chii has the face and intellect of a five-year-old, but she has the body of a full-grown woman; thus, many of her faux pas inevitably end up putting her in a compromising position. And Hideki is after all a normal young man with normal young male hormones. To his credit, he restrains himself admirably around Chii, and admittedly it's kind of cute how embarrassed he gets over such things as underpants and bathing.

As with most of CLAMP's stuff, Chobits starts out light and fluffy, but turns serious mid-series with the introduction of a Deep Dark Secret Conspiracy (involving the titular Chobits). Here's where things started to get problematic for me. Hidden histories and tragic secrets are revealed and hurriedly resolved as the series clomps down the home stretch to an awkwardly crowded ending.

I really wanted to like Chobits, and to be sure there are many things to admire about this series. The animation is bright and finely detailed, with distinct and charming character designs (Shinbo looks like a young Spike Spiegel^_^); the computer jargon is used accurately for the most part; and many of Chii's learning situations are often hilarious.

But this show veers a little too far for my comfort into the realm of male otaku wish fulfilment fantasy (stopping just short of the "harem" anime genre). Chii is maddeningly - and disturbingly - passive, like a talking Skipper doll. She starts out dumber than a box of hair, and ends the series not much smarter. She gets into all manner of trouble and is always saved at the last minute, either by Hideki or by the convenient triggering of some hitherto undiscovered component of her encrypted programming. The other (human) women are uniformly attractive and large-breasted, and Hideki fantasizes about all of them at some point in (PG-13-rated) graphic detail. Intellect-wise the human women fare slightly better than Chii - but ultimately, they are all helpless to resolve their problems without a man to step in and take care of things.

Now, I'm no radical man-hating feminist - I like an old-fashioned "and they lived happily ever after" ending as much as the next girly girl, and I don't buy into the whole "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" routine. And Chobits is not quite the most misogynistic anime I've ever seen - the over-the-top objectification of women was surely meant to be satirical - but all this greatly diminished my overall enjoyment of the series.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But clearly, I'm missing something. After all, 3,000 Persocon cosplayers can't be wrong.

Posted 2/16/2004

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