Anime Cliche: Beach Episode
Type: Seinen (青年), Ecchi (エッチ), Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction
Author: CLAMP
Studio: MADHOUSE Ltd. (株式会社 マッドハウス, Kabushiki-gaisha Maddohausu)
Director: Morio Asaka (浅香 守生 Asaka Morio)
Format Rating: 3 stars (5 stars is 16:9, DTS japanese audio, 4 stars is pro-logic and 16:9, 3 stars is 16:9 and stero sound, 2 stars is 4:3 with stereo sound, 1 star is improper format flag and less than stereo sound)
It was 16:9 and decent stereo sound. The soundtrack was fitting for the story but not outstanding. 24 episodes across 6 DVDs, avoid the 7th DVD as it has no new content.
Art Rating: 3 stars (5 stars is completely smooth with no rough transition between any CG limited use of money saving techniques, 1 is extremely shoddy)
After recently watching some of Naruto I was very pleased with the lack of obvious story rehash you get when you stretch stories over 150 episodes. There was some repeat animation and lots of money saving techniques but they were stylized and not distracting.
Story Rating: 3 stars (5 stars is reading material, no plot holes, 1 star is unintelligible)
Chobits is the story of Hideki Motosuwa, a poor, rural, young man who is attending a college prep school and the persocom Chi, an android personal computer hybrid. There are other characters surrounding them who help them along. Hideki tends to be a bit manic and his habit of thinking outlound provides ample opportunity for comedy. He is also somewhat of a luddite and though I was initially irritated by this, it makes sense and is important for their relationship to evolve as it does. Few stories I can think of have approached the subject of "love with androids" as well as this series has done. Most stories confound the subject with flirtations with individuality or procreation but Chobits is satisfied with "humans are good at some things and persocoms are good at others".
Commendation: ma ma まぁまぁ
Overall Rating: 3 stars (rounded to the nearest star)
As you know the star rating system is an attempt at qualitative analysis and the commendation is gut feel. I would have loved to bump this one to a Highly Recommended but alas there were a few items that kept me from doing so. First of is the extent to which Chobits earns it's place as Ecchi. Most of the perversion is somewhat relevant to the story as the persocom is unable to have sex resulting in some moe 萌え pandering. On the other hand they ignore other big issues of androids like how they affect economics, whether they are sentient. Also the science fiction is light on science with Chi bordering on moho shojo 魔法少女. You have to suspend your disbelief generously, don't think about why they have androids while other technology lags behind.
Notes:
Same universe as Angelic Layer.