Chobits

Warning: Spoilers follow

• Up to the end of the manga and series, so western fans take heed...

Manga (Books)

The story centres around the life of Hideki Motosuwa, a poor student (Ronin) attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school, and in particular his relationship with a persocom (a computer designed to look like a person) called Chii, who is a Chobit (a sort of super-persocom with abilities far in advance of normal Persocoms, most remarkably emotions).

It also deals with the possible future problem (if and when artificial companions become a reality) of people not having time for other people and preferring to spend it with their persocom, and what effect this has on those who want a relationship with another human.

As well as making several interesting points about relationships, the series and the manga also contain quite a bit of humour, mainly centred around Chii's attempts to learn about her environment and ignorance of the usual social norms.

An important pice of the Chobits Story is a series of books, which are written about the main character, called A City With No People.

The main characters are as follows:

Hideki Motosuwa

Hideki is a 19-year-old student 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 a Club Paradise, a bar, to make ends meet. He found Chii, and has taken her into his care and does his best to protect and teach her.

Chii (Elda)

Chii is a persocom and a Chobit (a super persocom that posesses emotions) which Hideki found tied up in a pile of trash on his way home from work one night. Once switched on Chii is unable to communicate properly (initially she can only say 'Chii', which causes Hideki to name her that) and remembers nothing.

Before Chii was found by Hideki and named Chii, her name was Elda. She was the second chobit produced by the Hibiya couple. After Mr. Hibiya's death, her memories were erased by Ms. Hibiya. Hideki soon found her and brought her home. Possibly, Elda's memories were also on the disk which was accidentally left in the garbage when Hideki salvaged her.

After she is activated, Chii proceeds to start learning about the environment around her, and make some hilarious mistakes in the process (for example imitating a pornographic pose from one of Hideki's magazines). Eventually, when Chii starts communicating properly and learns enough about her environment to be able to function in it, she gets at job at Hiroyasu Ueda's bakery.

Chii also houses the resident personality of her fellow Chobit, Freiya, who is also known as the Black-clad Chii. Freiya occasionally contacts Chii to inform her of something important.

Both Chobits possessed many remarkable abilities, and given the proper condition (find the Person Just For Me), would upload a program which allows all persocoms to have emotions.

Black-clad Chii (Freiya)

She was the first Chobit, who was made before Elda, by Mr. and Mrs. Hibiya. She looked exactly like Chii, apart from wearing black. She gave up her will to live and became catatonic when she found out that Mr. Hibiya still loved his wife, because she also loved him.

Elda took on her memories and salvaged her personality before Freiya "died". Thus, Freiya's perosnality retains the memories of what happened before Elda's memory was reset and she became Chii, and contacts Chii when it is important to do so.

Yumi Omura

Yumi works at Club Paradise alongside Hideki. Initially it is thought that Yumi was interested in a relationship with Hideki, but as the series progresses it is revealed that she initially approaches him because worked at Chiroru before Club Paradise, as she did, and that she thinks of him as a big brother.

Through most of the series Yumi has an inferiority complex about persocoms, and gets upset at any mention of a human-sized persocom (she is alright with smaller persocoms and even has a small hand-side persocom herself).

The reason for this is that while Yumi was at Chiroru she fell in love with Hiroyasu, the manager. She worked up the courage to tell him, and found out he loved her back. All would have been alright, except that Yumi found out that he was previously married to a persocom (see Hiroyasu's entry) and that he would compare the human Yumi to the persocom Yumi and find the human Yumi inferior.

However, Hideki eventually manages to persuade Yumi that Hiroyasu wouldn't have started anything if he didn't like Yumi for what she was, and Hiroyasu and Yumi start going out again.

Minoru Kokubunji

Minoru is a 12-year old genius, whose particular speciality is persocoms. Inparticular he has built a custom persocom (Yuzuki) designed to look like his late sister, and has given her self-teaching software, meaning she can learn things herself instead of having to have programs loaded into her like most persocoms.

Minoru provides Hideki with technological help (tracking things down or allowing Hideki to make video calls) and advice on persocoms. He is also known as "M" on the bulletin boards.

Chitose Hibiya

Ms. Hibiya is the landlady at the apartment where Hideki is staying - or at least that is her current job.

She was formerly the wife of the creator of the Chobits, and actually helped produce them. After her husband's death, she reset Elda's memories and left her for Motosuwa to find. She has also been writing "A City With No People" to help Chii realize who she was. She also sent Minoru the pictures of the Chobits Project, so Motosuwa and he would eventually find out the truth.

Takako Shimuzu

Ms. Shimuzu is Hideki and Shimbo's teacher at the Seki cram school. Like Yumi, Ms. Shimuzu has had a bad time with persocoms - her husband bought a persocom and eventually she become unimportant to him compared to the persocom. Ms. Shimuzu elopes with Shimbo. In the end, she returns to the cram school, married to Shimbo.

Shimbo

Shimbo is also studying at Seki cram school. He becomes involved with Ms. Shimuzu after finding her in a park late at night because she had been unwittingly locked out of her house by her husband, who was too busy with his persocom.

Shimbo is the original owner of Plum, a miniature mobile persocom.

Plum

Plum is a mobile persocom - which is just like a full-size persocom apart from being only 24cm tall.

Plum is originally owned by Shimbo, but through the course of the story Hideki borrows Plum and before he can return her Shimbo elopes with Ms. Shimuzu, so Shimbo transfers ownership to Hideki.

Hiroyasu Ueda

Hiroyasu is the owner of Chiroru, a local bakery which Hideki once worked in and which Chii ends up working at.

He too has had a trauma involving persocoms. When he was starting his bakery he bought a persocom to help with adding up and accounting (which he admits he is terrible at). He eventually fell in love with this persocom and eventually married her, but she developed a fault which resulted in her memory becoming gradually worse and worse until she remembered nothing at all. He couldn't bring himself to get her fixed as he felt she wouldn't be the persocom he fell in love with if he did, and the persocom ended up dying (i.e., being beyond repair) when she saved Hiroyasu from being run over.

Hiroyasu and Yumi were in love in the past, and still are. Through the help of Chii and Hideki, Yumi and he get back together.

Yoshiyuki Kojima

Yoshiyuki is another custom persocom-builder, like Minoru, but unlike Minoru he is more obsessed with persocoms and even kidnaps Chii at one point. Afterwards, he lends his help to solving the mystery of Chii and the Chobits.

Yoshiyuki is the original owner of Kotoko.

Kotoko

Kotoko is another laptop persocom, like Plum, but is custom-built by Yoshiyuki and has a far higher spec that Plum.

She originally belongs to Yoshiyuki, but following the kidnapping of Chii by Yoshiyuki he is forced to transfer her ownership to Hideki, so that her memories of him kidnapping Chii cannot be erased.

Kotoko is far more serious than Plum, and thinks that everyone in the Motosuwa household is mad, but especially Plum.

Zima

Zima is one of two persocoms who are looking for Chii. Their interest in her seems to be due to the destructive power Chii can call on if she needs to defend herself. They may also not want her to execute her final program, which would give persocom's emotions, but this is not made clear.

Zima is also the Japanese national data bank, and during the course of the series an attempt is made by Yuzuki to hack into him to gain information on Chii.

Dita

Dita is the other of the two persocoms looking for Chii. Her role is to act as protector of Zima, both physically and as an anti-cracker, hacking into any persocom who tries to hack into Zima and shutting them down (this is what happens to Yuzuki during her attempt to hack Zima).

Theme Songs Opening

• "Let me be With You" by ROUND TABLE and Nino

1. "Raison d'Etre" (Reason to Be) by Rie Tanaka (eps. 1-12)
2. "Ningyo Hime" (Mermaid Princess) by Rie Tanaka (eps. 13-25)
3. "Katakoto no Koi" (Awkward Love) by Rie Tanaka and Tomokazu Sugita[?] (ep 26)