What the hell? I am nothing like him. Chobits Summary 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 blonde hair lying against a pile of trash bags. He first thinks this to be a murder but, realizing she was a Persocom, he carries her home. Upon turning it on, she instantly regards Hideki with adoration. The only word she seems capable of saying is "chi", and thus he names her Chi. Although Chi does not appear to have any programs installed in her, Hideki's friends friend Kokubunji Minoru surmises that she must have some sort of learning program installed, judging from her behavior. 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 Persocoms are not supposed to possess, and Hideki struggles with his feelings for her. Because persocoms aren't actually human, Kokubunji Minoru assumes that she is part of the legendary persocoms called "chobits" which how the name of the series was found. The series explores the nature of Persocoms, human interactions with them, and the nature of love. All sorts of characters and their Persocoms are introduced, some of them loving Persocoms, and some of them considering them only as tools, and some of them hating them altogether. In the later part of the story, the characters start to explore Chi's mysterious past. Chi discovers a series of picture books of mysterious origin, that seem to awaken something deep inside of her. The book inspires her to find the "person just for me", a euphemism used in the series to refer to one's true love. Chi is also a very special Persocom, and towards the end of the story, together with Hideki, discovers her true identity, as well as what lies within her. 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 relationships shared between humans and persocoms. "Watashi", or "Atashi" (Japanese for I or me), a character drawn by the character "Hibiya", is a comic book 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) and must therefore only entrust her body to someone who cares for her well-being. 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. Persocoms, like women before the women's liberation, are viewed as objects that meet needs rather than to be loved. This is shown in the series, particularly when several males attempt to "interfere" with Chi. 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, and 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. Chi She is so much like a little girl...a newborn trying to find her place. It's hard not to like her. and to keep on hoping she finds that "someone just for her" she keeps hearing about. She is 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. Freya Don't know much, except it's sad she fell in love with her...feather/creator and couldn't deal with the pain and died. Freya was the first Chobit, who was created before Elda by Hibiya's husband, Ichiro Mihara. Freya was created to be Hibiya's daughter, because she was unable to bear children of her own. Freya's development was kept secret from Hibiya; she did not know of Freya's existence until she was called down to the lab one day, without explanation. Upon awakening for the very first time, she was given the name Freya by Hibiya. Freya lived happily with the Mihara couple for a time, until Hibiya noticed that her attitude was becoming increasingly melancholy, with no explanation as to why. At this point, Hibiya asked her husband to build a little sister for Freya, in an attempt to make her happy again. From this request, Elda was created. Freya was happy to have a little sister, and for a time, seemed to be acting normally, although, as Hibiya would later tell Hideki in the anime, "there were still these odd times when she looked as though she was thinking very deeply about something." Some time after, Freya suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. In the anime, the impetus for this event was witnessing her mother and father flirting with each other in the compound's courtyard. It was only then that Hibiya finally realized the source of Freya's sadness; she had fallen in love with her own father, Mihara. Freya knew that her father still loved his wife, and did not want to disturb their happiness, so she pained her heart with efforts to suppress her feelings. Over time, her pain became so great that she began to malfunction under the strain of her emotional burden. Freya was no longer able to move, and was bedridden from that point on. Toward the end, she could not lift a finger or even shift her focus, and began to suffer from memory malfunctions. In the anime, Freya never found the courage to tell her father how she truly felt; in the manga, she resigns herself to the fact that because of the damage to her body, all hope is lost regardless of the outcome, and chooses to tell him her true feelings. Eventually Freya's pain became so unbearable, that she chose to self-terminate, rather than continue to exist. Before this could happen, Elda offered to take Freya's heart into her own, so that she would not disappear completely, and so that her memories would be preserved. In the anime, nobody knew that Elda had taken in Freya's heart; conversely, in the manga, both Hibiya and Mihara learned of this only moments after it occurred. Now that Elda has become Chi, Freya does everything she can to ensure that Chi will find the person just for her. Freya comforts Chi when she is in distress, guides her to understand her feelings for Hideki, and intervenes when she is in danger. (Note about the spelling "Freya": "Freya" actually appears in the Japanese Chobits merchandise. In Norse mythology, Freya was a goddess of love, sex and attraction.) Hideki Regular dude. Him and Chi's relationship is adorable and I'm glad he got that happy ending- now just stop getting fired all the time. Hideki Motosuwa (本須和秀樹 , Motosuwa Hideki?) is a 19-year-old (in the anime, 18) repeat student (ronin) 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. Hideki could best be described as "a fish out of water." Living in the country his entire life, Hideki has trouble adjusting to his new life in Tokyo. Due to this, he is prone to outbursts of confusion and frustration. Also, because of the time spent by himself on his family's farm (which in the anime is revealed to be in Hokkaidō), Hideki has a habit of thinking out loud and talking to himself. This leads to some very entertaining moments between himself and the women he meets. Like many young men, Hideki has an active libido, possessing many pornographic magazines which he refers to as "okazu" ("side dish"). (In the English manga translation, Chi refers to one of the magazines as a "tasty side dish"; in the anime's American translation, Chi refers to these magazines as "Hideki's yummies"). When he moves to Tokyo, Hideki desires a persocom so that he can finally surf the internet for pornography. It should be stated however that he isn't the only character who thinks this way. In fact Shinbo himself proudly admits that Sumomo is also equipped to perform these tasks when he first meets Hideki. 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. Minoru Kokubunji Minoru (国分寺 稔 , Kokubunji Minoru?) is a wealthy twelve-year old genius, whose specialty is persocoms. In particular, he has built a custom persocom named Yuzuki, designed to look like his late sister, and has given her self-teaching software, meaning that she can learn things on her own instead of having to have programs loaded into her as if the case with most persocoms. For the most part, Minoru is a very reserved and soft spoken individual who surrounds himself with persocoms. His curiosity over Chi's origins leads to him becoming one of Hideki Motosuwa's closest friends. Minoru does what he can to help his friends whether it be technological help, such as tracking things down or allowing Hideki to make video phone calls, or advice on relationships with persocoms. Although he is known for being calm and collected most of the time, Minoru's attitude completely changes when Yuzuki is present. Similar to Hideki's behavior toward Chi, Minoru is very protective of Yuzuki and is prone to outbursts whenever she is in trouble. He is also very forgiving, always comforting her on the fact that it is never her fault if something goes wrong. Minoru is also known as "M" on the bulletin boards, where he is considered one of the leading experts in the field of persocom development. Minoru's late sister is Kaede Saito, a character from Angelic Layer. Yuzuki Yuzuki is a persocom created by Minoru Kokubunji roughly two years before the start of the series. Yuzuki was created to resemble, physically and mentally, Minoru's late sister, Kaede, who had died from an illness two years earlier. Yuzuki is programmed with all of the data that Minoru could remember about his sister; what she liked, what she disliked, as well as her habits and behaviors. However, Minoru still realizes that no matter how realistic she may be, she is still only a persocom that is following her programming. Yuzuki also possess an awareness of her own limitations. Toward the end of the anime and manga, Yuzuki loses a large portion of Kaede's personality data as a result of trying to hack into Zima and being counter-hacked by Dita. However, Minoru declines to reenter this data, because he has grown to love Yuzuki for who she is; because she is Yuzuki, rather than because she is a replacement for his sister. Yumi Oumura Yumi Oumura (大村裕美, Ōmura Yumi?) is a seventeen year old girl who works at the Japanese pub [My Pleasure] alongside Hideki. In the anime, she is the daughter of the club's owner, but in the manga, she is only an employee. It is initially implied that Yumi is interested in a relationship with Hideki, but as the series progresses it is revealed that she initially approached him because he also worked at Club Pleasure, and that she thinks of him as an older brother. Throughout most of the series Yumi has an inferiority complex toward persocoms, and becomes upset at any mention of a human-sized persocom. The reason for this is that while Yumi was working at Chiroru she fell in love with the manager, Hiroyasu Ueda. She gathered the courage to tell him, and found out that he reciprocated her feelings. However, Yumi later discovered that Ueda had previously been married to a persocom that he had named Yumi (see Hiroyasu's entry) and she thought that he would compare her to the persocom Yumi and find her inferior. However, Hideki eventually manages to persuade Yumi that Hiroyasu wouldn't have started anything if he didn't love Yumi for who she was, and he and Yumi resume their relationship. Hiroyasu Ueda Hiroyasu Ueda (植田 弘康, Ueda Hiroyasu?) is the owner of Chiroru, a local bakery which Yumi (and in the manga, Hideki) once worked in and which Chi ends up working at. He is thirty-eight years old, although he looks as though he is only in his mid-20's, at one point noting jokingly that he has a "baby face". He too has suffered a trauma involving persocoms. When he first opened his bakery, he bought a persocom to help with math and accounting, which he admits he is terrible at. He eventually fell in love with this persocom and then married her, but she developed a hard disk fault which resulted in the gradual degradation of her memory, until she remembered almost nothing at all. Rarely, she would suddenly recall small fragments of memories from her life with Hiroyasu. He could not bring himself to have her repaired because her memories might be lost completely in the process of transferring them to a new hard drive, and he felt she would not be the same person if this happened. Soon, her memory degraded to the point that she could not remember anything for more than a few seconds at a time, and Hiroyasu had to keep a constant watch on her to prevent her from wandering away. One night while walking with his persocom, Hiroyasu, lost in thought, walked into the middle of the street, unaware of an oncoming car. In a final moment of clarity, his persocom pushed him out of the way and was herself run over. Her last word to Hiroyasu was "Konnichiwa"; the default greeting for a newly activated persocom with no memories. Hiroyasu and Yumi Oumura were in love in the past, but broke up when Yumi quit her job at the bakery after discovering that the persocom he was previously married to was named "Yumi" and feared she could never live up to the other Yumi. Through the help of Chi and Hideki, he and Yumi resume their relationship. |
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