Reviewed by: James Zhang
Ratings:
Genre(s): Comedy, Drama, Science-Fiction
Year: 2002
Series Length: 26 episodes

With the cutest theme and (some may claim) cutest girl of 2002, it's hard not to notice Chobits.

Once it has been noticed and watched, is it as good as it looks?

In the future, robots called 'persocons' are as common a companion to humans as dogs and cats, and the relationships between these robots and their masters are quite intimate at times. However, they are one step short of perfection for they cannot think and feel as we do. It is into such a world that the story begins…

Hideki is unsophisticated, perverted, and has spent much of his life on a farm. Little surprise then, that every university he applies for rejects him. The only solution appears to be cram school in Tokyo, where he is made envious of the rich kids who can afford the persocons – and it doesn't help temptation that all the persocons are cute females!

Luck has it that he finds a persocon in a rubbish heap – and since it's free, cute, and almost naked, he takes it home. It gets activated in the unlikeliest of places, she says: 'Chii', and the cuteness, romance, and perversion begins.

Chobits explores the pleasure and pains of intimacies between humans and robots, but where love and angst is concerned, there must be something there to make it worthwhile – the 2 P's don't mean a thing if the 3rd P is missing, and that is philosophy.

By philosophy, I mean some sort of rationale and deeper reason for any emotional attachment, and that is sorely lacking in Chobits. The formula appears to be: create characters that are easy to understand and sympathise with, stick cute females next to them, have them fall in love for the main reason they're good looking, and the audience gets swept away with the romanticism, where the poor deserving guy gets the cute but undeveloped girl.

With a main character having a squad of persocons in bondage uniforms, a teacher who looks and fulfils the role of a sex icon, and the female protagonist portrayed as a simplistic girl with sugary cuteness sprinkled all over her, Chobits does not appeal to the intellect.

This brings to mind the Greek myth of Pygmalion – a sculptor who falls in love with his own statue and asks the Gods to make her human so he can marry her. As with Chobits, this creates a feeling too artificial to be genuine.

All in all, Chobits is a reasonably funny show with its touching moments, but ultimately a case of beauty over brains. Satisfying if romanticised images are all that's important, disappointing if something more is searched for.

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