Chobits

The cover of volume 1 of the Chobits manga (English edition). Chobits (ちょびっツ) is a manga and anime series created by CLAMP. The original manga was published from 2001 to 2002 by Kodansha. The English manga is published by TOKYOPOP, and the American translation is imported to Australia by Madman Entertainment. Also, the Traditional Chinese manga is published by COMICSWORLD.COM (天下出版有限公司) under official authorization for Hong Kong only. Unlike most CLAMP stories, Chobits is a seinen series, specifically of the magical girlfriend variety. Contents 1 Plot 2 Themes 3 Anime 3.1 Facts 3.2 Voice Acting Cast 3.3 Episode Listing 4 Manga 5 Connections with other works 6 See also 7 External links Plot Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. The story centers around the life of nineteen-year-old Hideki Motosuwa, a repeat student ("ronin") attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school. An honest and unassuming teenager raised on a farm, he has little experience with women, though his imagination and libido are both quite active. Besides a girlfriend, the other thing he dreams of having is a persocom (Personal computer), a computer designed to look and act like a human. In the city where he studies for university, Hideki discovers that persocoms are commonplace. They are preprogrammed with fairly subdued personalities; they assist their owners with chores (such as shopping, dictation, email, and accounting) and are easily identifiable by the large data ports on the sides of their heads. But persocoms are expensive and Hideki has no money, so he figures the only way he'll ever have one is if he were to find one lying on the curb. No sooner has he thought this than it happens: on his way home from school one evening, he stumbles across a persocom in the form of a beautiful young woman with long hair, wrapped in cloth, turned off, lying against a pile of trash bags. He carries her home and, after a long and nervous search for her on/off button (he finally discovers it between her legs, but it's a while before he can bring himself to press there), turns her on. She comes instantly to life and regards Hideki with open adoration, hugging him often and watching him fascinatedly as she often mimics the things he does, but the only word she ever says is "chi", so this is the name Hideki gives her. Hideki recruits the help of his technically-minded friend Shinbo to try to figure out where Chi came from. All they are able to determine is that she does not have any operating system installed. Shinbo is perplexed as to how she's able to be active at all with a blank memory, and this is the beginning of the mystery of Chi's origins and purpose. Meanwhile Hideki takes it upon himself to teach words, concepts and behavior to Chi while he attends school, looks for a job, and makes new friends (many of whom have strong opinions of persocoms). He finds himself putting aside his libido and protecting Chi against people who want her for themselves; he buys her a storybook in which she seems to take an unusual interest; she shows him unconditional love and cheers him on through his studies. Before long it's clear that Chi is developing feelings for Hideki to a depth that persocoms aren't supposed to be able to have, and Hideki seems to be falling in love with her despite friends' warnings against having feelings for an artificial person. Themes Several storylines in Chobits explore relationships (successful or failed) between humans, and relationships between humans and persocoms, and what it means to love and be loved. Despite occasional light ecchi moments, the series is written in a generally mature way. It also contains quite a bit of humor, mainly centered around Chi's attempts to learn about her environment and her ignorance of social norms. An important piece of the Chobits story is a series of in-story books titled "A City With No People" (in Japanese, Daremo inai machi), written about the main character. The title ちょびっツ Chobittsu uses a mixture of hiragana ちょびっ Chobi(t) and katakana ツ tsu. Similarly, the password チょびっつ Chobittsu for Plum (a.k.a. "Sumomo"), set by Hideki in episode 19 titled "Chi Helps Out " of the TV series, also mixes katakana チ Ch(i) and hiragana ょびっつ (y)obittsu. The mixed letters were chosen because the persocom's password required a mixture of hiragana, katakana and/or Latin alphanumeric characters for increased security. While Chi's password is never known, the password Hideki chooses for Plum was a kana approximation to the label "Chobits" he has seen in a photo of Chi before her memory loss. Chi is sometimes drawn in lolicon-style doujinshi despite being designed by CLAMP as a slender teenager. This may be due to the height size difference with the much taller Hideki or CLAMP's willowy art style in general. Anime The anime consists of 26 episodes. Episodes 9, 18, and an extra 27th OVA episode are used as "recap" episodes, looking back on the events that happened so far. The episodes were re-numbered for the DVD release; the original recap episodes were not included in sequence, instead being published together on the final DVD and re-numbered as 9.5 and 18.5 making the series itself only 24 episodes. Facts Started: April 2nd, 2002 Ended: September 24th, 2002 Production Company: BS-I Station:TBS Supervising Director:Morio Asaka Character Designer, Animation Director: Hisashi Abe Voice Acting Cast Hideki Motosuwa: Tomokazu Sugita Chi / Dark Chi: Rie Tanaka Hiromu Shinbo: Tomokazu Seki Takako Shimizu: Ryoka Yuzuki Sumomo: Motoko Kumai Chitose Hibiya: Kikuko Inoue Minoru Kokubunji: Houko Kuwashima Yuzuki: Fumiko Orikasa Yumi Omura: Megumi Toyoguchi Kotoko: Yukana Nogami Hiroyasu Ueda: Yuji Ueda Yoshiyuki Kojima: Jun'ichi Suwabe Yumi's father: Masao Yasuhara Episode Listing Episode 01: Chi Awakens Episode 02: Chi Goes Out Episode 03: Chi Learns Episode 04: Chi Goes on Errands Episode 05: Chi Finds Episode 06: Chi Weakens Episode 07: Chi Works Episode 08: Chi Bewildered Episode 09: Shinbo and Sumomo Talk Episode 10: Chi Buys Episode 11: Chi Meets Episode 12: Chi Confirms Episode 13: Chi Plays Episode 14: Chi Goes to the Ocean Episode 15: Chi Entertains Episode 16: Chi Doesn't Do Anything Episode 17: Chi Provides Episode 18: Minoru and Yuzuki Chat Episode 19: Chi Assists Episode 20: Chi Disappears Episode 21: Chi Waits Episode 22: Chi Seeks Episode 23: Chi Answers Episode 24: Chi Puts on and Takes off Episode 25: Chi Decides Episode 26: Chi's One and Only Episode 27: Hibiya and Kotoko Chat Bonus: Chibits Featurette Manga The original Chobits Manga was written by CLAMP, a famous group of 4 Japanese manga-ka (manga artists). CLAMP have also authored Card Captor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Clover, WISH, Tsubasa Chronicle, Clamp School Detectives, XXXHolic, Angelic Layer and others. CLAMP often re-use (or parallel to) various characters between their manga (discussed below). The manga is 88 chapters long and was collected into 8 volumes, which are published by TOKYOPOP. The manga originally ran in YOUNG JUMP, a Japanese magazine, from February 2001-November 2002. Connections with other works The manga of Chobits has a direct connection to the earlier CLAMP work Angelic Layer. In the manga, Chi's creator and Chitose's late husband was also the person responsible for Angelic Layer (referred to in Angelic Layer as Ichiro Mihara, or Icchan). The anime has removed the connection between the two stories. Minoru's sister, Kaede Saitou, is one of the many characters in CLAMP's Angelic Layer. In the manga during Minoru's flashback of his sister's death you see three other characters, Kaede's friends, from Angelic Layer; Misaki Suzuhara, Sai Jounouchi, and Ohjiro Mihara. There is also a connection to Cardcaptor Sakura. In the manga version, Tomoyo's mother, Sonomi Daidōji, makes a brief cameo appearance in Chiroru bakery, owned by Hiroyasu Ueda, in order to buy some sweets. In Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE: another CLAMP manga, Chi makes a cameo appearance as the creation of Fye D. Flowright, a wizard from the country of Celes. Unlike in Chobits, Chi is presented as an artificial lifeform instead of a robot, and her ears have a more organic look similar to a fox. Volume 3 of XXXHolic shows Watanuki and Yūko communicating with each other using a pair of headphones that look exactly like Chii's ears. Also present in Volume 3 is a shot of Maru and Moro reading "A City With No People", a book featured prominently in Chobits. One scene also has Mokona saying "Chii!". In the chapters of Kobato that have been released so far, it is revealed that Kobato's landlady is Chitose Mihara (Chitose Hibiya), who lives with her husband (presumbly Ichiro Mihara, who has yet to appear in the manga) and her twin daughters, Chiho and Chise (Chi/Elda and Freya). Chiho and Chise are human girls and not artificial lifeforms of any sort. In 2002 Marvelous Entertainment Inc. released a Chobits game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. This game has not been released outside of Japan. The game was also available bundled with a clear blue Game Boy Advance with a decal of Chi above the A+B buttons and a Chobits logo above the D-pad. See also Chobits characters Chobits media information External links Chobits - The Anime v2.0 Dedicated specifically to the anime TOKYOPOP The TOKYOPOP official site for the manga Official Site The official site for the anime (Japanese) INNOCENCE An excellent Chobits site Chobits.eu.org (in French) Chobits UK (fansite by Lai/Strawberry) Chibits.co.uk A new Chobits (and Chobits RPG) site still under development.[[zh[] Search Term: "Chobits" Categories: Chobits | Anime | Manga

Teen manga discussion group at the Weaver Library