Chobits

Bree · Trimis: 16/05/2010 10:38 Titlul subiectului: Chobits

Chobits (ちょびっツ Chobittsu?) is a Japanese manga created by the Japanese manga collective Clamp. It was published by Kodansha in Young Magazine from February 2001 to November 2002 and collected in eight bound volumes. Unlike most stories by Clamp, Chobits is a seinen series 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 series tells the story of Hideki Motosuwa, who finds an abandoned persocom (パソコン?), or personal computer with human form, that he names Chi after the only word it initially can speak. As the series progresses, they explore the mysteries of Chi's origin together and questions about the relationship between human beings and persocoms. The manga is set in the same universe as Perfect Layer, taking place a few years after the events of that story, and like Angelic Layer, it explores the relationship between human beings and electronic devices shaped like human beings. Chobits branches off as a crossover into many other stories in different ways, such as Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic and Kobato.
Story

The series centers on the life of Hideki Motosuwa, a held-back student attempting to qualify for university by studying at Seki prep school in Tokyo. Besides a girlfriend, he dreams of having a persocom (パソコン?): an android used as a personal computer, which is expensive. On his way home one evening, he stumbles across a persocom in the form of a beautiful girl with long hair lying against a pile of trash bags, and he carries her home. Upon turning her on, she instantly regards Hideki with adoration. The only word the persocom seems capable of saying is "chi" (ちぃ Chii?), thus he names her that. Hideki assumes that there must be something wrong with her, and so the following morning he has his neighbor Hiromu Shinbo analyze her with his mobile persocom Sumomo. After Sumomo crashes during the attempt they conclude that she must be custom-built.

Shinbo introduces Hideki to Minoru Kokubunji, a twelve-year-old prodigy who specializes in the field of custom-built persocoms. Minoru's persocoms, including Yuzuki, a fairly exceptional custom-built 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 rumoured to have free will and emotions. Although this is a possibility, Minoru is confident that it is only rumour. Yuzuki also adds that she does not resemble any persocom tip 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 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 pull for the characters in the series.

Hideki's feelings intensify for Chi whether she is a persocom or not, despite horrible experiences of his friends involving persocoms. 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 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 incapable 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 human beings and persocoms, as well as their friends' and their own
Etymology

In the series, the derivation of the name "chobits" comes 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",[1] and is also the password given to Elda, Freya, Sumomo, 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?) for Sumomo, 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 pasokon?) is a Japanese contraction of personal computer (パーソナルコンピュータ pāsonaru konpyūta?). 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 persocoms were not named "robots" because Ichiro Mihara did not include Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics in them.
Themes

Despite the comedic and ecchi moments, Chobits itself deals in dualities. 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, human beings would opt-out of human relationships, resulting in obvious problems, such as the inability to further cauzează offspring.

The series deals with issues and ideals of virginity and sex in that Chi is effectively incapable of carnal intercourse (in the manga at least, in the anime this is never actually stated), 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 someone interested in a purely trupesc relationship. Freya explicitly tells this to Hideki in the final scene of the manga, that to have Chi, pointing between her legs, means that Chi would lose all her memory.

Earlier in the story, Freya makes elliptic statements suggesting that it could be possible to touch Chi there, as seen in Episode 20 of the anime when Chi was abducted. Chi mentioned that her "One and Only" can enter there, pointing Hideki to that location. While Freya does not expressly suggest that Hideki and Chi can be intimate, she does seem to hint at Chi's capacity of being so if she so chooses. Hideki continues to loves Chi purely however, thus promoting the ideals of "loving someone for who they are" throughout the story. It is also hinted in the story 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 find 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 to have sex.

The idea of love as a concept is addressed for the denominator of the story, in several installments of A City with No People; this deals with issues particularly relating to searching, and subsequently waiting for someone who is a "soul mate." This parallels 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 helping 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.
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