Chobits is a wonderful anime series.  The manga version contains a total of 8 volumes.  I found out about this anime on e-Bay, when I saw an auction on "Chobits" ears.  I was curious to see what the heck that curious looking thing was so I did a search on the internet and discovered adorable pictures of this girl in a Japanese anime series called "Chobits".  Chobits is actually what got me all interested in anime and manga.

Chobits are the computers of legend and are very rare.  This story is about a high school boy, Hideki,  who finds a very cute chobit in a trash pile but he does not know that she's a chobit, but just a persocom.  Hideki has to learn and discover whether his feelings toward Chi is real or not, as Chi sees Hideki as the "someone just for [her]", and hopes that he would see her the same way.

Chi looks like a very cute girl with long ivory hair.  She is very innocent and just adores Hideki.  CLAMP dresses her up in so many different cute yet revealing outfits!  I love Plum because of her personality - she's just so adorable and upbeat that no one can resist her!  I thnk it's so funny when Kotoko is defenseless with Plum's hyper and naive personality.  They make an interesting and entertaining pair of laptop persocoms. 

Like I mentioned before, I love Chobits so much that I became interested in Japanese anime and manga.  Chobits is my favorite anime so far, but I am discovering other animes that are very good, too.  Chobits' creators are a group of four women called CLAMP: Satsuki  Igarashi, Nanase Ohkawa, Mick Nekoi, and Mokona Apapa.  CLAMP's other works are very good, too, with variety and creativity.

Cast of Characters:

Chi
Hideki Motosuwa
Sumomo (Plum)
Ms. Hibiya
Kotoko.
Shimbo
Minoru
Yuzuki
Hiroyasu Ueda
Yumi Oomura
Takako Shimizu

Hideki Motosuwa finds a very cute persocom in a pile of trash that people threw away.  He takes it home and tries to find out how to use her.  He turns her on and she becomes alive, but she can only say the word "Chi."  Because of that, Hideki names his persocom, Chi.  Being a technophobe, Hideki gets his friend, Shimbo to help him out with Chi.  Shimbo's laptop, Plum, gets fried when they tried to use Plum to connect to Chi.

Chitose Hibiya, Hideki's pretty landlord, sees that Chi doesn't have proper clothings, gives Chi some clothes that fit her perfectly.  Shimbo refers Hideki to Minoru Kokubunji, a 12-year-old computer genius for help.  Minoru  mentions that Chi may be a chobit from the computer legend Chobits series.  Even Yuzuki's Minoru's top persocom, couldn't get through Chi.  All is not lost, as they learn that Chi has self learning program installed and is able to learn things on her own.

While Hideki teaches Chi about everyday life, Minoru posts about Chi on a BBS and someone sends him a picture of what looks like Chi with lots of tubes connected to her back, and she has the writing "Chobits" on her body.  It is a mystery to be solved.  Chi finds a book called, "A City with No People", and is strangely drawn to it.  Hideki buys it for her and we'll learn to see its significance in the future volumes. 

Other chracters that we meet in this volume are Yumi, Hedeki's co-worker at the restaurant, and Ms. Shimizu, Hideki and Shiimbo's teacher at the cram school.  The volume ends with Ms. Shimizu staying over night at Hideki's apartment, drinking all night.

Chobits - Volume 2:

Ms. Shimizu and Hideki go to cram school together and Hideki notices that Shimbo looks miserable.  After class, Hideki tells Shimbo about what happened the night before Shimbo all of the sudden needed to go back to school.  Meanwhile, Chi visits Ms. Hibiya and she gives Chi a dress and tells Chi that the dress was made for her. 

Yumi asks Hideki out on a date and they talk about persocoms.  Whenever they do, Yumi seems sad.  While on their date, they run into Minoru and Yuzuki.  Minoru tells Hideki that Yuzuki was modeled after his sister who passed away.  Minoru reminds Hideki not to fall in love with Chi because she is, after all, only a computer.

Hideki mentions to Chi that he is broke and Chi wants to help make some money for Hideki to make him happy.  Not realizing what the job entails, Chi was coaxed into doing a live peep show for a job.  Minoru and Yuzuki happen to find Chi's feed on the internet.  When Hideki becomes worried that Chi is not home, yet, he runs out to find Chi and catches Ms. Shimizu and Shimbo intimately together. Minoru calls Plum to tell Hidek Chi's whereabout.  

At the peep show, when the pimp tries to touch Chi's private, she goes into a trance and flees out on top of a clock in the park.  All the persocoms were shut off.  When Hideki finds her and awakens her from her state, she falls into his arms.

Shimbo contacts Hideki to tell him that he and Ms. Shimizu are eloping.  Shocked, Hideki runs to Minoru's house to talk to Shimizu with video feed.  It turns out that even though Ms. Shimizu is married, she doesn't have a married life because her husband has forgotten about her over the persosom they bought after their wedding.  Shimbo pursues Ms. Shimizu, or should we call her Takako, and now they are at a hot spring and Shimo will not leave until Ms. Shimizu says yes to his proposal.

Being a hard worker, Chi is invited back by Ueda to return to work in his store on a regular basis.  When Chi gets her paycheck, Hideki wants her to keep it so she can buy something she wants.  Chi ends up buying a porn magazine for him and the next two volumes of the books she likes. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Hibiya is worried becaues two persocoms are getting closer to Chi.  The two persosoms are there to stop Chi from doing something.  Hideki learns more of the origin of Chi when Minoru receievd another picture of Chi from the same prior unknown source.  This time, it's the picture contains Chi and Ms. Hibiya.

Chobits - Volume 4:

Chi gets kidnapped from the bookstore on her way to work.  Hideki Motosuwa, needless today, is frantic and recruits help from everyone he knows.  Hideki finds out that Ueda's past marriage with a persocom and also sense that Yumi Oomura acts weird when Hideki mentions Ueda's bakery.  With Minoru and his persocom, Yuzuki's help, the group links Chi's appearance with Minoru's post about Chi on a custom persocom message board.  Meanwhile, Chi is kept at Yoshiyuki Kojima's house with his laptop persocom, Kotoko.  Kotoko is an intelligent all-business persocom who thinks Chi is rather clueless.  

The search for Chi continues and Minoru receives another image from the same unknown source.  This time, it's a map with the location of Chi.  Watching everything that is happening, Ms. Hibiya wonders who sent the map.  At Dragonfly's place, Dragonfly hooks Chi up with all his twenty-some persocoms.  When he tries to touch Chi's on/off switch, Chi ties him up with her hair and turns off all the persocoms once again like last time.  Hideki arrives to Chi just in time and Chi is able to return to normal, along with other persocoms. 

Hideki and Shimbo confiscate Dragonfly's persocom, Kotoko, because Kotoko has the recording of Dragonfly's kidnapping scheme.  It turns out that Zima is the one who sent the map, without Dita's knowing.  The mystery of the identify of the book that Chi likes unravels a little when Hideki and Chi find out that the author is a woman who lives in their neighborhood. 

Hideki and Chi visit Ueda and Chi wants to return to work.  When she changes into an uniform, Ueda tells her that the uniform belongs to someone else.  Yumi sees Chi wearing her uniform from outside of the bakery and runs away. Hideki notices and chases after her.  Hideki finds out that Yumi is Ueda's former worker at the bakery.

Hideki comforts Yumi at his apartment while she tells him her side of the story with Ueda.  Yumi tells Hideki the reason she left Ueda is because she feels inferior to persocoms and can't never compete with them, knowing that Ueda former wife was a persocom.  At Ueda's end, Chi talks to Ueda regarding Yumi, and helps Ueda find the courage to face Yumi.  The couple reunites after Chi finds out where Yumi was by tracing Yumi's phone, which was not even turned on.  

Kotoko notices how powerful Chi is and e-mails to inform her master, Dragonfly (Kojima).  Meanwhile, Chi spends her earned money on a pair of rings to give to Hideki and herself (I think these rings are Japanese beadwork!)  Minoru summons Hideki, Chi, and Kotoko to his house to discuss Chi's ability to access other computers even when they are not turned on.  

As Minoru and Dragonfly fails to find out more about Chi, Yuzuki takes the matter in her own hands and tries to hack into the National Data Bank (Zima, a male persocom), but only to be fried by his protector (Dita, Zima's female persocom companion).  

After discovering that Yuzuki lost some his sister's personality databy by trying to access the National Data Bank, Minoru decides that he wants Yuzuki the way she is, and doesn't intend to restore his sister's personality back in Yuzuki.  I think it's a little bit weird that Minoru alway have a sad look for a boy at such a young age.  It almost seems like he likes Yuzuki more than in sibling ways.  Minoru discloses a third picture that Yuzuki received during her break-in.  It's a picture of two Chi's and it seems to be sent from the Administrator of the National Data Bank.

Hideki visits Ms. Hibiya and finds out that Chi's old name was Elda, and she's the second of the Chobits, the first being Freya.  They are Ms. Hibiya and her husband's children, but when Freya chose her father as the "someone just for [her]", her CPU couldn't bear the burden and she broke down.  Before Freya completely "died", Chi connects herself to Freya and wants to take care of Freya's heart and memories, which means that in time, Chi will break down, also.  It was Chi's wish to be left outside so she will not know about her old life so she can find the "someone just for [her]".  

Before Hideki could sort out his feelings for Chi, he had to go check up on Chi because it seems like Chi is in trouble.  Zima and Dita are on their way to break Chi down because Chi tried to access them. 

Zima and Dita continues to seek Chi, and Zima wants Chi to be happy and stops Dita from reaching Chi.  As Chi's program continues to run, all the persocoms stopped walking and the city literally shuts down.  Zima, Dita, Chi, Ms. Hibiya, and Hideki meet on the roof and Chi voices that Hideki's her special someone, and asks Hideki who his special someone is.  Hideki agonizes how his answer will affect the world, but decides that it's between Chi and him, and answers that Chi is his special someone.   

Freya comes out of Chi to make sure that Hideki understand the implications of wanting Chi.  Regardless of the fact that he'll never have Chi completely, Hideki expresses that Chi is his someone special.  Chi finally finds happiness and Mr. Hibiya's wish came true.  Chi's happiness means that other persocoms, like Dita and Zima, might find their own happiness, also.  Chi and Hideki now have a happy ending and lives happily forever after...