It's got ephebophilia with tones of pedophilia! Your complexes aren't just Oedipal but Electral, too! Age gaps so huge half the characters could be their coupling's parent! Oh, the romance!

I'm sure there's already a dissertation out there about the creepy aspects of Chobits, because CLAMP never had the scruples to avoid the taboo topics. They paired together a teacher and elementary school student together in Cardcaptor Sakura, for God's sake! These women don't know when to stop, and for that, I almost... admire them? Like, damn, CLAMP never got told "no" in the making of any of their stories, if the content is anything to go by.

Chobits creeped me out. The blurring the line between Chi being like a baby to being like a toddler to looking, at most, like a "15- to 16-year old", to Hideki's both paternal and romantic feelings toward his robot slave-daughter-girlfriend, to Freya's whole "romance" arc, to the pair with the twenty-year age gap (and one still in high school), to the adultery and the constant reminder that people in this world are fucking their robots... All of it is disconcerting, even when it's meant to be titillating (such as in the uncomfortable cases of Chi) or thought-provoking.

It's almost sexist in its portrayal of men, especially during the hilarious finale and its staggering implications:



A lot of the writing in this manga made my head hurt. Not with complexity, but the inverse -- the meandering simplicity and the unremitting repetition wore me down as I binged the story. An allegorical children's book parallels and alludes to the concurrent story of Hideki and Chi with the plain language one would expect in a book aimed at toddlers. But its scenes go on for so long, rehashing the same lines with insipid language over and over again, in a way that I can only call boggling.

I think silencer was hit the nail on the head with their 2009 review of Chobits here on Baka-Updates: "Overall, a mediocre manga, and i can't see how it is categorized as Seinen. Practically, aside from the ecchi part, the story is suitable for readers under 13." Chobits is wish fulfillment for men that want to fuck inexperienced, virginal young women. If you're outside that demographic or over the age of, say, 12, this won't be for you. Younger audiences shouldn't read it because of its adult content, either.

If its "philosophy" is anything to go by, there is nothing adult or profound about Chobits, unless this is literally your first time reading any sort of "can robots Feel and can we love them back?" story. Art's gorgeous, though. That's CLAMP for ya.

... Last updated on March 24th, 2024, 4:27pm

I suppose it's on me for expecting something that stimulates the brain out of a CLAMP work, but xxxHolic was engaging enough for what it was, so I figured what the hey. But this is simply dull. There's just not enough to keep your mind tethered to the ongoings of this predictable cheesefest. There's absolutely zero exploration of the greater implications of the setting beyond "can you love a robutt?" To which the answer is a thundering "DUUUUU-UH!" I'm not asking for hard sci-fi here, but even the slightest effort spent in being anything more than a dime-a-dozen romance would be better.

I've never been a fan of Clamp's work. I watched episodes of Cardcaptors as a kid because I was waiting for Pokemon to come on, and what I had read of Xxxholic made me bored. I had heard favorable things about Chobits, so I wanted to give it a fair chance. While it's good in some places, there are places where it really falters.

One of the better parts, I believe, of the story is Hideki. Since he's from the countryside and hardly ever goes to the inner city, he knows very little about technology. This way he acts as a proxy for the reader, who also may not know the specifics about the technology of this story's universe. He also adds a humanizing aspect to the story and is a very relatable character, even if he has his stupid moments like when he can't recognize what a map is.

One of the problems that I had is that the story doesn't go far enough. Some parts of the plot skim the relationships people have with persocoms, usually of the romantic kind. However, we see very little else of the kinds of people that would have persocoms. The beginning of the story has Hideki find Chi in the trash, so maybe this is how people would treat theirs if they didn't work right or just didn't want them anymore. I don't like when a series gets too negative, but I think this series could have used a little more pessimism to even out how saccharine it feels at times, and not in the "charming kids cartoon" kind of way. We only see the positives but rarely, if never, see the negatives.

It also felt really heavy handed at times. The story is interspersed with this children's book talking about how "one of them" tries to find "the one for them and only them" among the humans; it's pretty obvious what the story's talking about. It was charming at first, but then it happened so often it just became vapid. Yes, we get what the story's talking about, now stop reiterating what you told us five chapters ago, which also reiterated what was said five chapters ago. That's to say nothing of when people start to go into a diatribe of their inner thoughts. What they say in a few pages could have been summarized into a few panels. It just makes the story drag, and I read the manga as an omnibus so it felt like it was taking forever. It becomes especially bad near the end of the story.

I'm kind of glad I got to read this. Now I don't have to worry about when I'm going to read it and can focus on stories I want to read. Though I didn't like it in particular, that doesn't mean someone else won't either. It's not a bad series, I just think it's kind of directionless. It tries to be profound but comes across as shallow. It tries to be a romance when the romance is far less interesting than everything else. As an addendum, the two government persicoms Dita and Zima could have been removed from the story entirely and nothing of value would have been lost.

... Last updated on August 29th, 2017, 6:33pm

「(°ヘ°)
to be very honest this was a bit of a confusing manga for me. i'm not really sure if i even understand the whole story line.


... Last updated on April 5th, 2014, 1:54am

This manga had the cutest costumes for Chi---which kept me reading until the end. There were some adorable interactions as well, but overall this manga just had a hint of ecchi that didn't suit my taste. The love the guy had for Chi moved me to tears, I'll admit that.

... Last updated on March 7th, 2014, 7:31pm

Chobits Was my Very First Manga Series and I Absolutely Love it! I am super glad that I choose this as my First!! The Only thing I didn't like was the ending manly because I really didn't want it to end haha <3 <3 if I could I would give a 15 I love the artwork as well!

Overall, I enjoyed reading this series. One thing, though, that constantly annoyed me was Hideki's complete lack of knowledge concerning technology, and it made it difficult to identify with his character. Otherwise, I would recommend it to someone else.

And i'm so Happy~! ♥
The story is really GREAT!!! Clamp's manga is always the Best! It's good that i let myself to dare to read this manga. Because this manga has genre Ecchi, that kinda make me feel afraid. But because i let myself think that this one is One of great manga made by CLAMP and their story always good. So i read it. And i'm glad! I read in in 3 days. That so long for someone who can read 10 manga in one day(Me).
This one is DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED!!! The love story about the main characters and the others is felt so Great! I cry! Definitely my Favorite! WORTH! ♥

I found this manga very "Clamp".
The ending was really beautiful, and it was really a surprise to me when I found out about Chi's "power"; I had thought that if Hideki realized that he loved only her, then all persocoms could truly love. Sure, there are some loose ends, but you can NEVER have a story with everything neat and happy. The ecchi parts were really weird, but Clamp managed to save the series with the beautiful ending. Oh, and I personally think that the reason why we make robots etc in our image (that is, the human image) is because we want to play God. We want to create and control. I honestly expected Clamp to mention this in Chobits, but then again, it's my opinion.

... Last updated on April 27th, 2012, 9:10am

It was an okay manga. I didn't love it, but it was interesting. The main character was really stupid, though. You think that if you lived in the future, you'd at least know more about computers that he did.
Also, the idea of a computer being in the shape of a human seems very inconvenient, doesn't it? Computers (the ones we have) are easy to store if you don't need them, and don't take up lots of space. Human computers, however, would take up quite a bit of space and aren't exactly easy to just store away. To me, this seems like an inconvenience.
Overall, it had good art, the ideas were interesting, and the story line was okay.

... Last updated on June 8th, 2011, 11:50am