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lunelis 's review for:
Chobits, Vol. 1
by CLAMP
As with all my manga/comic reviews, this is an overview of all 8 volumes of the series. Due to it being a collective review, it'll have spoilers because I feel it is important to speak about the plot points, characters, and subjects at length.
Chobits is one of my favorite manga series. In fact, I own several figures and keychains and pins and what not of Chii and Yuzuki because I love the aesthetic so much.
There is, however, a LOT to unpack about this series and its major shortcomings. To begin....
I hate Hideki and the creepy vibes that the choices the authors made for this series produce. I hate them with all my heart and soul and they are a horrific mistake in my opinion that lay like a black grime on this tale that had the potential to be so much more amazing.
Oh my god, do I have criticisms. Like, I just want everyone to know that my 4 stars revolves around the lovely art, Chii as a character, and the complex themes presented that exist underneath the muck that's responsible for literally everything wrong with this manga.
If you're unfamiliar with manga, generally it's split by age and gender demographic to target a specific audience and isn't usually intended to appeal outside of one of these major demographics. Shoujo is for young girls, josei is for women, shounen is for young boys, seinen is for men. This means there are certain themes and tropes that appear in nearly all series, depending on which of these four categories they fall in.
Chobits is a seinen despite its feminine, cute aesthetic and THIS, in my opinion, is the exact crux, the zenith, of its flaws, because the majority of the elements that I dislike and find problematic stem from the authors wanting to appeal very hard to this demographic over others.
CLAMP made a story targeted at a reader audience comprised of men who are, at the very least, 18 or older, if not well into their 20s and beyond.
This means that there's a decidedly sexual and fan-service vibe to a lot of what happens, regardless of the context of the story, purely for the sake of engaging older male readers on the assumption that sex sells.
To preface, I'm not against "ecchi" themes at all and do in fact enjoy erotica when it's used to compliment love stories, but the problem with Chobits is that it lets these elements overshadow the story and create situations for the singular purpose of adding in another sexualized scene, often with the side effect of being creepy and problematic.
To be blunt, Chobits tends to appeal to men who prefer child-like women who are naive with a cute face and sexy body (so lolicons and other gross creeps that are attracted to underage girls tend to be drawn to this manga) and it appeals to men who like the idea of sex robots: a hot, responsive female body thatdoes as told, cannot react negatively, exists purely to serve and satisfy a person's desires and who, being a robot, requires little thoughtfulness or effort from their human lover to maintain the illusion of unconditional love and loyalty.
So, uh, *vomits*. That's gross. Very gross.
Which is sad because there's some great things in this series underneath the author's going, "Okay, we want men to buy this so, have Chii be sexy and child-like all at once and put that in as many scenes as possible."
This manga isn't trying to encourage or depict these sorts of things, Hideki himself is only 18 and Chii is modeled after like a 16-18 year old girl herself, so there's not an odd age-gap thing with them, but because it has that sort of scenario, those sorts of vibes, and is meant to appeal to older men, it attracts those sorts of people all the same, much like how any media will attract some pervert to it even if there's nothing sexual about it (like basically all children's TV shows or media; I've seen things while googling Neopets characters that will haunt me until death).
Chii is a robot who we learn isn't merely a persacom (a computer built to resemble a human), but an extremely technologically complex one capable of things that no other persacom can do: a type that' dubbed a "chobit." The main focus of the story is on her and her journey through life after she's found in the trash by a college student named Hideki (the technical main character, despite how little he's showcased in art) and turned on (by means of a switch located between her legs) to reveal she has no prior memory or software. She's a blank slate to the world, which means she has a naive, innocent, child-like way of being and she relies heavily on Hideki, the boy who found her (we'll get to this trashcan of a man later) as well as the friends she makes along the way and the guiding forces that aid her quietly from the sidelines in this new beginning to finding happiness and acceptance.
We are given some rather philosophical themes about the nature of humans, robots, emotions, and relationships. Chii's desire is to find a sense of belonging and understanding as she interacts with the world and with Hideki. She wishes to understand herself, understand Hideki, understand people, and Hideki, as the human and proxy through which the reader experiences the story, is faced with the same quandaries as the reader: his relationship with Chii, people's relationships with machines and other humans, what emotions truly are and whether it's possible for a robot to be an autonomous, thinking, feeling thing or if people are merely fooled by a human face and seduced by the ease of being able to program away human flaw.
The journey these two embark on together, seeking understanding, is superb.
This is what truly makes Chobits worthwhile in my opinion and, as an adult, I find it a huge mistake for CLAMP to have opted to make this an ecchi seinen trying to cash in on male adult readers interested in having sex with cute robots over a philosophical shoujo or josei whose readers would have related to Chii's journey of growth and acceptance, as well as her search for love and belonging amidst a cutely drawn style in a universe with wonderful world-building, and been interested in the complex arguments around the difficulties of relationships with other humans, what it means to have emotions and love, and the unique questions presented by having technology that is human-like and seemingly perfect, but lacking in so much of what makes humans human, as well as the unique problem of Chii, who is unlike other persacoms, but who cannot be considered quite human herself either, despite her advancements.
When the story isn't trying to say something and have purpose, it's actually focused way more on Hideki than Chii, which I don't like. He's framed as the main character and most of the story revolves around things from his perspective.
I hate Hideki with my entire soul. He's completely worthless and completely unworthy of Chii, who is just trying her best to understand the world and find a sense of belonging and happiness within it. Don't talk to me or my beautiful daughter, Chii, ever again, you worthless scrub pervert :)
If you read any seinen, you'll definitely see this archetype and dynamic a lot: the plain, generic loser who thinks about sex a lot (yet is so overwhelmed by it that he can barely look at a lingerie store without panicking and struggles to touch women despite how often he objectifies and sexualizes them), can't get a girlfriend, tends to have poor luck, isn't super handsome or socially graceful, but is generally a nice, polite person, and who, because they are plain and nice, suddenly end up surrounded by beautiful, wonderful women.
In other words, a type of plain character with a basic life that anyone can see themselves inserted into to reap the benefits of this character's sudden life changes regarding women and excitement. The idea of this character is to appeal largely to those meek nerd types who feel cast out by society and they tend to be surrounded by female characters who are purposefully crafted to be these highly naive, sweet, attractive women who fulfill the lead's every desire and ask little in return.
To me, this sort of thing screams "I may be a loser, but I'm still entitled to beautiful women and sex with them because I act nice" and is sort of a response to male characters who are attractive and successful and get girls despite being "jerks." Like, the other side of the misogyny coin.
Hideki is, at best, a plain bumpkin who sucks at school and has 0 idea how to interact with people, and at worst is a pathetic, worthless, uninteresting loser who is so overwhelmed by his perverted thoughts and lust coupled with his overwhelming awkwardness that he can't even act on the desire to be intimate with a girl, often screaming or panicking or running away before things progress.
While Chii isn't framed as the sweet house-wife type to compliment his plain loser nature (which is common, like in the manga [b:Oh My Goddess!, Volume 1|226556|Oh My Goddess!, Volume 1|Kosuke Fujishima|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403206703l/226556._SX50_.jpg|2257392]) she is a sweet and naive girl who ultimately is put into a position where she's not allowed to see Hideki in the same light as other girls. His behaviors and awkwardness are all equally foreign to Chii, who often blankly watches his reactions and even tries to mimic them. She depends on his guidance and experience to exist--he teaches her, charges her battery, keeps her in his house, and is her closest relationship with whom she spends the most time--so Chii's purposefully placed in a situation that better enables someone "as cute as Chii" to like and later love Hideki, who, outside of generally being nice and polite and not actively malicious, doesn't have a whole lot to offer and often proves that he has serious issues, namely that he seems to have a porn addiction, wants to have sex with every woman he meets, and really can't get his mind out of the gutter.
The dynamic he has with Chii is an issue I have. If Hideki's role is like that of a teacher or guardian and Chii is framed as this innocent, child-like figure, then that has some seriously creepy vibes because Hideki could groom Chii like a pedophile does his victims--he has that sort of influence and power over Chii.
Despite her being drawn to at least resemble an older teen/young woman (developed breasts and hips) she's often made to be quite child-like, so Hideki constantly getting an erection and nosebleed from watching her innocently do things in her ignorance, like let a towel slip or get frosting all over herself or look at a lingerie catalogue, is decidedly really off putting.
I can say that Hideki doesn't immediately see Chii as a romantic partner and outside of getting a nosebleed when she does something he thinks of as sexy, he tends to treat her like a child and doesn't try to get physical with her, but even though he's not doing something like fondling her breasts or making her perform oral sex, the fact that he's treating Chii like a child to teach one moment then getting hard because he can feel her breasts when she hugs him in joy the next just registers as gross and says something about Hideki, especially since Chii's behaviors are not sexually motivated on her part. Hideki is supposed to be like 18 years old and is enrolled in a college prep course to prepare him for entrance exams, but even though he's not a 35 year old office worker being weird, the fact that Chii is this naive, child-like being constantly in the presence of a hormonal man who gets sexually excited by everything she does just has bad vibes.
Now, Chii does get more experienced and worldly as the series progresses and she becomes less naive and childlike.
For example, after she is lured into a peep show and is nearly touched between the legs by the man who lured her in, Chii is told by Freya (who exists within her programming to act as a guide) not to let anyone touch her if she doesn't want them to and that Chii has every right to protect her body and that she alone decides who gets to touch her, which encourages Chii to take control of her body and better protect herself.
She also comes to get a better understanding her herself, people, emotions, relationships, etc. which gives her greater autonomy in the world and allows her the be capable of making choices, rather than being led around by others.
I personally wish that Chii had been made more mature from the start; not that she ever behaves like a brat, but there's always an innate child-like nature to her. I don't know if that's just a result of her generally sweet and innocent way of being and part of how she interacts with the deeper philosophy of things from this innocent, questing standpoint, but Chii being a sexualized female robot with child-like qualities just sounds like it was made to appeal to men who want sexually available women they exert a great degree of control over and who provide them unconditional love and loyalty in exchange for behavior that can be described as nice and non-aggressive, even if it's not exactly respectful or without strings.
I suppose the one small grace of Hideki is that, in the end, when he's is faced with the choice of "If you decide to be with Chii and love her, you cannot have sex with her. Doing so will flip her switch and erase her memory and she will be little more than an empty sex doll." he ultimately decides that Chii herself is more valuable than his desire to physically be with her.
Though, I suppose you can argue that even if he can't penetrate her between the legs there are other means of them having sex and that him deciding to be with her isn't necessarily simply because he loves her for what she is but because he realizes he can get off with her in other ways.
But I just want to BELIEVE at least one decent thing about Hideki so that Chii can have her happy ending with "the one for me and only me" and I try to believe that things will be okay and they'll figure them out.
With that, I will say that I'd steer clear if sexualizing naive, child-like women gives you bad vibes or is potentially triggering, but if you can get passed these things and look to the story for its more intelligent and philosophical themes and Chii's journey, I do recommend reading it!
This is an example of how trying to appeal to a demographic can really tarnish a wonderful idea and how sex doesn't make everything better; it's a spice to accent something with in certain instances, not something to toss into anything in excess with reckless abandon just to try to capitalize on the old adage that sex sells. I can't say if CLAMP themselves made this call because they realized there were weirdos eyeing their other words like Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa or if they felt forced to do it by their publisher or if they felt it was the trendy thing to do in the early 2000s, but I will go down saying that I believe it was a HORRIFIC error on their part to make this a fan-service filled seinen full of so much sexualized material.
Chobits is one of my favorite manga series. In fact, I own several figures and keychains and pins and what not of Chii and Yuzuki because I love the aesthetic so much.
There is, however, a LOT to unpack about this series and its major shortcomings. To begin....
I hate Hideki and the creepy vibes that the choices the authors made for this series produce. I hate them with all my heart and soul and they are a horrific mistake in my opinion that lay like a black grime on this tale that had the potential to be so much more amazing.
Oh my god, do I have criticisms. Like, I just want everyone to know that my 4 stars revolves around the lovely art, Chii as a character, and the complex themes presented that exist underneath the muck that's responsible for literally everything wrong with this manga.
If you're unfamiliar with manga, generally it's split by age and gender demographic to target a specific audience and isn't usually intended to appeal outside of one of these major demographics. Shoujo is for young girls, josei is for women, shounen is for young boys, seinen is for men. This means there are certain themes and tropes that appear in nearly all series, depending on which of these four categories they fall in.
Chobits is a seinen despite its feminine, cute aesthetic and THIS, in my opinion, is the exact crux, the zenith, of its flaws, because the majority of the elements that I dislike and find problematic stem from the authors wanting to appeal very hard to this demographic over others.
CLAMP made a story targeted at a reader audience comprised of men who are, at the very least, 18 or older, if not well into their 20s and beyond.
This means that there's a decidedly sexual and fan-service vibe to a lot of what happens, regardless of the context of the story, purely for the sake of engaging older male readers on the assumption that sex sells.
To preface, I'm not against "ecchi" themes at all and do in fact enjoy erotica when it's used to compliment love stories, but the problem with Chobits is that it lets these elements overshadow the story and create situations for the singular purpose of adding in another sexualized scene, often with the side effect of being creepy and problematic.
To be blunt, Chobits tends to appeal to men who prefer child-like women who are naive with a cute face and sexy body (so lolicons and other gross creeps that are attracted to underage girls tend to be drawn to this manga) and it appeals to men who like the idea of sex robots: a hot, responsive female body thatdoes as told, cannot react negatively, exists purely to serve and satisfy a person's desires and who, being a robot, requires little thoughtfulness or effort from their human lover to maintain the illusion of unconditional love and loyalty.
So, uh, *vomits*. That's gross. Very gross.
Which is sad because there's some great things in this series underneath the author's going, "Okay, we want men to buy this so, have Chii be sexy and child-like all at once and put that in as many scenes as possible."
This manga isn't trying to encourage or depict these sorts of things, Hideki himself is only 18 and Chii is modeled after like a 16-18 year old girl herself, so there's not an odd age-gap thing with them, but because it has that sort of scenario, those sorts of vibes, and is meant to appeal to older men, it attracts those sorts of people all the same, much like how any media will attract some pervert to it even if there's nothing sexual about it (like basically all children's TV shows or media; I've seen things while googling Neopets characters that will haunt me until death).
Chii is a robot who we learn isn't merely a persacom (a computer built to resemble a human), but an extremely technologically complex one capable of things that no other persacom can do: a type that' dubbed a "chobit." The main focus of the story is on her and her journey through life after she's found in the trash by a college student named Hideki (the technical main character, despite how little he's showcased in art) and turned on (by means of a switch located between her legs) to reveal she has no prior memory or software. She's a blank slate to the world, which means she has a naive, innocent, child-like way of being and she relies heavily on Hideki, the boy who found her (we'll get to this trashcan of a man later) as well as the friends she makes along the way and the guiding forces that aid her quietly from the sidelines in this new beginning to finding happiness and acceptance.
We are given some rather philosophical themes about the nature of humans, robots, emotions, and relationships. Chii's desire is to find a sense of belonging and understanding as she interacts with the world and with Hideki. She wishes to understand herself, understand Hideki, understand people, and Hideki, as the human and proxy through which the reader experiences the story, is faced with the same quandaries as the reader: his relationship with Chii, people's relationships with machines and other humans, what emotions truly are and whether it's possible for a robot to be an autonomous, thinking, feeling thing or if people are merely fooled by a human face and seduced by the ease of being able to program away human flaw.
The journey these two embark on together, seeking understanding, is superb.
This is what truly makes Chobits worthwhile in my opinion and, as an adult, I find it a huge mistake for CLAMP to have opted to make this an ecchi seinen trying to cash in on male adult readers interested in having sex with cute robots over a philosophical shoujo or josei whose readers would have related to Chii's journey of growth and acceptance, as well as her search for love and belonging amidst a cutely drawn style in a universe with wonderful world-building, and been interested in the complex arguments around the difficulties of relationships with other humans, what it means to have emotions and love, and the unique questions presented by having technology that is human-like and seemingly perfect, but lacking in so much of what makes humans human, as well as the unique problem of Chii, who is unlike other persacoms, but who cannot be considered quite human herself either, despite her advancements.
When the story isn't trying to say something and have purpose, it's actually focused way more on Hideki than Chii, which I don't like. He's framed as the main character and most of the story revolves around things from his perspective.
I hate Hideki with my entire soul. He's completely worthless and completely unworthy of Chii, who is just trying her best to understand the world and find a sense of belonging and happiness within it. Don't talk to me or my beautiful daughter, Chii, ever again, you worthless scrub pervert :)
If you read any seinen, you'll definitely see this archetype and dynamic a lot: the plain, generic loser who thinks about sex a lot (yet is so overwhelmed by it that he can barely look at a lingerie store without panicking and struggles to touch women despite how often he objectifies and sexualizes them), can't get a girlfriend, tends to have poor luck, isn't super handsome or socially graceful, but is generally a nice, polite person, and who, because they are plain and nice, suddenly end up surrounded by beautiful, wonderful women.
In other words, a type of plain character with a basic life that anyone can see themselves inserted into to reap the benefits of this character's sudden life changes regarding women and excitement. The idea of this character is to appeal largely to those meek nerd types who feel cast out by society and they tend to be surrounded by female characters who are purposefully crafted to be these highly naive, sweet, attractive women who fulfill the lead's every desire and ask little in return.
To me, this sort of thing screams "I may be a loser, but I'm still entitled to beautiful women and sex with them because I act nice" and is sort of a response to male characters who are attractive and successful and get girls despite being "jerks." Like, the other side of the misogyny coin.
Hideki is, at best, a plain bumpkin who sucks at school and has 0 idea how to interact with people, and at worst is a pathetic, worthless, uninteresting loser who is so overwhelmed by his perverted thoughts and lust coupled with his overwhelming awkwardness that he can't even act on the desire to be intimate with a girl, often screaming or panicking or running away before things progress.
While Chii isn't framed as the sweet house-wife type to compliment his plain loser nature (which is common, like in the manga [b:Oh My Goddess!, Volume 1|226556|Oh My Goddess!, Volume 1|Kosuke Fujishima|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403206703l/226556._SX50_.jpg|2257392]) she is a sweet and naive girl who ultimately is put into a position where she's not allowed to see Hideki in the same light as other girls. His behaviors and awkwardness are all equally foreign to Chii, who often blankly watches his reactions and even tries to mimic them. She depends on his guidance and experience to exist--he teaches her, charges her battery, keeps her in his house, and is her closest relationship with whom she spends the most time--so Chii's purposefully placed in a situation that better enables someone "as cute as Chii" to like and later love Hideki, who, outside of generally being nice and polite and not actively malicious, doesn't have a whole lot to offer and often proves that he has serious issues, namely that he seems to have a porn addiction, wants to have sex with every woman he meets, and really can't get his mind out of the gutter.
The dynamic he has with Chii is an issue I have. If Hideki's role is like that of a teacher or guardian and Chii is framed as this innocent, child-like figure, then that has some seriously creepy vibes because Hideki could groom Chii like a pedophile does his victims--he has that sort of influence and power over Chii.
Despite her being drawn to at least resemble an older teen/young woman (developed breasts and hips) she's often made to be quite child-like, so Hideki constantly getting an erection and nosebleed from watching her innocently do things in her ignorance, like let a towel slip or get frosting all over herself or look at a lingerie catalogue, is decidedly really off putting.
I can say that Hideki doesn't immediately see Chii as a romantic partner and outside of getting a nosebleed when she does something he thinks of as sexy, he tends to treat her like a child and doesn't try to get physical with her, but even though he's not doing something like fondling her breasts or making her perform oral sex, the fact that he's treating Chii like a child to teach one moment then getting hard because he can feel her breasts when she hugs him in joy the next just registers as gross and says something about Hideki, especially since Chii's behaviors are not sexually motivated on her part. Hideki is supposed to be like 18 years old and is enrolled in a college prep course to prepare him for entrance exams, but even though he's not a 35 year old office worker being weird, the fact that Chii is this naive, child-like being constantly in the presence of a hormonal man who gets sexually excited by everything she does just has bad vibes.
Now, Chii does get more experienced and worldly as the series progresses and she becomes less naive and childlike.
For example, after she is lured into a peep show and is nearly touched between the legs by the man who lured her in, Chii is told by Freya (who exists within her programming to act as a guide) not to let anyone touch her if she doesn't want them to and that Chii has every right to protect her body and that she alone decides who gets to touch her, which encourages Chii to take control of her body and better protect herself.
She also comes to get a better understanding her herself, people, emotions, relationships, etc. which gives her greater autonomy in the world and allows her the be capable of making choices, rather than being led around by others.
I personally wish that Chii had been made more mature from the start; not that she ever behaves like a brat, but there's always an innate child-like nature to her. I don't know if that's just a result of her generally sweet and innocent way of being and part of how she interacts with the deeper philosophy of things from this innocent, questing standpoint, but Chii being a sexualized female robot with child-like qualities just sounds like it was made to appeal to men who want sexually available women they exert a great degree of control over and who provide them unconditional love and loyalty in exchange for behavior that can be described as nice and non-aggressive, even if it's not exactly respectful or without strings.
I suppose the one small grace of Hideki is that, in the end, when he's is faced with the choice of "If you decide to be with Chii and love her, you cannot have sex with her. Doing so will flip her switch and erase her memory and she will be little more than an empty sex doll." he ultimately decides that Chii herself is more valuable than his desire to physically be with her.
Though, I suppose you can argue that even if he can't penetrate her between the legs there are other means of them having sex and that him deciding to be with her isn't necessarily simply because he loves her for what she is but because he realizes he can get off with her in other ways.
But I just want to BELIEVE at least one decent thing about Hideki so that Chii can have her happy ending with "the one for me and only me" and I try to believe that things will be okay and they'll figure them out.
With that, I will say that I'd steer clear if sexualizing naive, child-like women gives you bad vibes or is potentially triggering, but if you can get passed these things and look to the story for its more intelligent and philosophical themes and Chii's journey, I do recommend reading it!
This is an example of how trying to appeal to a demographic can really tarnish a wonderful idea and how sex doesn't make everything better; it's a spice to accent something with in certain instances, not something to toss into anything in excess with reckless abandon just to try to capitalize on the old adage that sex sells. I can't say if CLAMP themselves made this call because they realized there were weirdos eyeing their other words like Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa or if they felt forced to do it by their publisher or if they felt it was the trendy thing to do in the early 2000s, but I will go down saying that I believe it was a HORRIFIC error on their part to make this a fan-service filled seinen full of so much sexualized material.