Yay! My first outright ‘Introduce Chantelle to anime’ success!
She has now successfully completed her first full length anime series ever, and thoroughly enjoyed it in the process! (Hell, if you watch five or six episodes in a row then you must be liking it!) The hit anime in question was none other than Chobits, probably one of the most beloved and widely enjoyed anime series ever produced.
For those of you who have never heard of it, Chobits is the creation of the super popular CLAMP mangaka quartet, and tells the story of country bumpkin Hideki Motosuwa who moves to the big city in order to attend prep school so that he may join a college and one day realise his dreams of greatness. Of course, a country bumpkin like him doesn’t really fit straight into big city life right away, and his misadventures are many to behold. However, his country luck certainly doesn’t let him down and he stumbles upon an abandoned Persocom (humanoid computer) who he eventually dubs Chii. Of course, laying around in a dumpster is usually an indication of a problem and Chii is certainly no different – lacking some vital software including the OS, Chii is now basically nothing more than an intelligent child whom Hideki needs to teach right from scratch.
However, living with what is essentially an extremely cute girl is perhaps just a little too much to ask of the rather red-blooded but always nice guy Hideki and their blossoming relationship soon leads to a mountain of mishap outings and adventures!
Chobits straddles perfectly the line of being targeted at girls or boys and as such comes off as a very successful romantic comedy with a lot of ecchi-like humour that appeals both to male and female alike, but at the same time manages to explore some very complex and deep issues, the central theme of which is always the difficult to draw a line relationship between man and machine.
If you haven’t seen this classic series you really should make an effort to because it probably will be one of the funniest and simultaneously most serious of shows that you’ll come across in a long, long time.
(Oh, and it is particularly nicely animated to boot!)
Related link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobits
