Chobits is to its core a romantic comedy like so many others. It is about a rather typical teen male lead and his life with girls that suddenly have to stay in his apartment. If you’ve seen or read enough harems and ecchi comedies you can see the done to death premise from the very first episode.
A guy with zero talents and zero experience with women all of a sudden gets swarmed by pretty gals who need him for emotional support.But that’s the thing; the story bothers to give legit reasons for why that happens. It’s the near future, where technology reached the point where computers look and act like people. Many real humans turn to them for comfort and neglect each other. It’s basically an extreme version of what is happening already with
virtual reality and 2D waifus replacing physical human relationships.This is just the premise of course, and as we have discovered countless times,
it means nothing if the script is sh*t.Chobits is not doing that much in terms of plot but it definitely bothers to flesh out its characters to the point they are memorable and not restricted to archetypes. Unlike countless series where what is going on in the setting does not affect the cast, over here the conflict is all about the state of the setting and how it messes with the mind of every individual.
Of course the story still uses cheap tricks in order to explore the setting. Hideki is an average and oblivious country boy, who doesn’t know much about the city and the technology of the persocoms, so he needs everything explained to him, while also staying largely unaffected by the conflict. It’s what I call a
lobotomized askman, someone existing as a self-insert and an excuse for infodumps.He does eventually become part of the setting and its issues through his interactions with others, but he always comes off as an ideal boy scout everyone can trust and seek aid from.
And then, there is Chii, the titular robot waifu who works as the focal point from which everything begins to unravel. She is found naked in the garbage with her memory wiped, Hideki takes care of her in his apartment, and the doujins are practically writing themselves. She was written with a lot of done to death tropes, that individually mean nothing but in this case bounce off each other all the time and
don’t allow her to be just another generic moe chick.She is still used in a similar cheap way like Hideki. Also oblivious, needs to be taught everything, with infinite potential to mentally mature into anything you want her to be, like a Furby with a super computer. Being an empty vessel that can be filled with anything you want, makes her the ideal pet or waifu.
But that’s the thing; the script could have stopped there, not bothering to go any further, yet it didn’t. There is a tragic backdrop story from before she lost her memory, which sums up everything that can go wrong with putting too much emphasis on loving machines instead of people. It’s also good food for thought regarding memories defining who you are, and how losing them makes you a completely different person thereafter. I am not a fan of the amnesia trope but when it’s
used as character growth instead of regression,meaning not going in circles trying the get back what you had already, thus not getting any development, then count me in.
It’s not all peachy though, since it has a lot of the
mystery box syndromegoing around, which, just like in any other show that abuses it, only ends up disappointing you. There’s something about a second dark personality inside Chii, which occasionally comes out and causes persocoms to freeze, and there is the military sending two other machines to spy on her, there is something about the creator of the sentient machines using a program that can completely change the world. And none of these mean much or led anywhere. They were just baiting you into keep watching for a big twist to come, which never came.
It’s the trademark of all CLAMP stories.
They keep promising something big to happen down the line, and it never does.They are trolling your expectations and keep you watching with queerbait relationships. These themes and ideas I’ve been hyping up for you all this time are found only in about a fifth of the duration of Chobits.
The rest of it is an almost generic school comedy about Hideki and his ever growing harem. There isn’t much nudity as there are pervert jokes and the chosen girl is set in stone from the very beginning, but it still counts as an erotic comedy. More subtle and elaborate than the average of its kind yet still not deconstructed enough to be anything more than that. And this is the biggest issue with Chobits.
It’s way better than any harem yet very undermined as social commentary or psychological.Nonetheless, there is closure and the characters get developed, which is something I can’t say for most harems and comedies.
It would definitely be better if it removed the disappointing mystery bait and had more theme exploration regarding the society and its technologybut even as it stands, it is an above average anime and it’s highly memorable.
