Chobits

Chi

With my internet issues now behind me, I can focus on getting back down to business and the business at hand (or what was before I moved) was an Anime I had just finished watching called Chobits.

Before ever seeing anything, I'd have sworn this would be a show that my girlfriend would be interested in. She doesn't mind the high schooler types of Anime nor does she seem to mind the cutesy appearances of the characters. Hell, she was a fan of Card Captor Sakura, whom also is behind the Chobits series as I understand it. So interest on my part has been next to nil for many, many years and I didn't even bother to pick up the Manga either.

But fast forward to about a month or so back and Netflix has given us the chance to watch a ton of different movies and TV shows at will. My interests grew as the library of Anime on there expanded and considering I didn't have to buy anything, why not give some random shows a try? And before I knew it, I was 6 episodes in and loading up the 7th.

How in the heck did that happen?

I enjoyed the characters and their interactions probably the most as it reminded me of how the cast in Tenchi interacted with each other. Despite the differences between the characters, they all meshed together rather naturally and I never really felt any of the pairings were forced or wrong even before the explanations for the hows and whys ever took place.

The main character (Hideki) was ever a bumbling, kind hearted fool who was kind of a perv but was probably way too innocent to really be so. Still, I couldn't help but feel for the guy for trying even in the face of overwhelming odds. And the guy was such a country guy that he was absolutely clueless to nearly all forms of technology, which makes his relationship with Chi all the more odd and entertaining.

The other aspect that really won me over was all of these chances for this series to sink into something twisted and overly sexual were never touched on. Where other shows would have went with the easy perv out moments, Chobits keeps it clean and I think that actually helps the overall story of this show. Would I have cared about this as much if Hideki had tried to have sex with Chi or become overly obsessed with seeing her nude or something like that? Probably not.

Now that isn't to say that certain thoughts do pop up in Hideki's mind from time to time and in no thanks to Chi's innocent and naive manner, but he never crosses the line and as I said, things are always kept clean from the start and until the end.

One last little thought about this show is this: I rarely pick up entire shows as far as Anime is concerned. I usually don't like how a lot of these series ends, but Chobits is one of the exceptions. The start of the series does go a little slowly, but towards the midway point things pick up and the conclusion to the series was fitting though it gets a little strange in getting there. Still, this ended up being a purchase for me and I wish I could enjoy more shows like I did this.