Customer Reviews

Chobits, Volume 6

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The nice thing about CLAMP is that they have a deft hand when it comes in interpersonal relationships. How "evolved" can machines get? Where will things go from here? Great lines, well thought-out plots, and a fair warning of what age this is suited for all make this a fine addition to your collection or (for you other Librarians out there) your public library. I have added this to our Graphic Novel collection, and will continue to buy.

This wonderful series raises some serious philosophical questions about what constitutes human, where technology will lead us, and how dependant we should be on machines. It is worthy of a second look even if you're not into "Graphic Novels" per se'

Innovative High School and College teachers could incorporate this into their curriculum, particularly if they are discussing Sociology or Psychology.

I find it a delight to read and a gem to own.

Having said that, I find it sad that the seriously negative feedback on this title stems from the sexual content....and yet the violence in any other series is accepted without any qualms. Not all graphic novels are for children. It clearly states the age this is geared for on the back of the book. I would not hand an 8 year old this book (they wouldn't get most if it anyway) nor would I hand a copy of "The Crow" to your average 11 year old. A little common sense goes a long way with this sort of book, and the public needs to be educated about Graphic Novels in general and Anime in particular.

This is one of the best mangas I've ever seen. Let me emphasize first, parents, this isn't for children under, say, sixteen or seventeen really. It contains nudity, adult language, and mature themes.

That aside, where do I begin? Hideki is a 19-year-old prep college student (in Japan, Cram School....) who is from the country. He now resides in Tokyo while attending school, and there he sees Persocoms left and right. Persocoms, humanoid computers who can function as household appliances, companions, friends....even lovers. People are obsessed with them to the point of excluding all other human interaction, soley to be with their persocoms.

Hideki wants one, badly. He wants his games, his email, and yes, his internet porn. So when he's walking down the street and discovers this pretty Persocom discarded in a trash pile, he figures he's got it made. He hauls her home and starts her up....

But she can only say "Chi", and her data has been lost. However, a computer expert reckons that, since she manages to move without programming, she must be a "Chobit", a powerful new computer rumored to be capeable of working of their own free will, without dependency on any program.

Is she? Is Chi capeable of funcitoning of her own will, her own feelings, including love? What is her mysterious history? Humans fall in love with persocoms...can a persocom fall genuinely in love with a human? There are also others we meet, others whose lives have been torn apart by persocoms, and their stories. Are persocoms really worth their effects on people? Read this intriguing Manga and find out!

this is my current manga/anime obsession. from day one, i have systematically been trying to figure this whole story out and have come up with a lot of hypotheses for what is gonna happen. now, i do agree with Sen from NY that there is so much repetition going on in this story, but it turns out that CLAMP is putting heavy emphasis on the ideas of suspense and surprise while maintaining the "fan service" aspects they are so callously noted for (which is not too bad in my book ^_^).

dita and zima finally make a move too. i was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to take some steps in this story. it left of course with another semi-cliffhanger, and now i am on the edge of my feet in seeing how this debacle shall end. no anime since noir has had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what the hell is going on. congrats, CLAMP

and finally, my hypothesis for the fans. if you feel this could very well be a spolier, than don't read on. i am basing this off of observation alone and if i am correct, this is PURELY coincidence. i did not, in anyway, look ahead on websites to see what happens. anyways, the land lady, i feel, created chii and her other side, dark chii, as children because she could not bear any of her own. if you note the sadness she has in her eyes and the pain she expresses throughout, and the way she treats chii, it seems almost as if she were a loving mother who had a crisis either than losing her husband.

now, bring on number 7! i'm ready!

The book came extremely fast and I was happy to get it! It had some damage on the corner that I ddn't know about though, so it shouldn't have been sold for regular price. Overall though, I am satisfied!

The biggest drawback of the Chobits series is that it shifts gears very early, and those of us who liked the first couple of volumes are put off by the last few volumes because of their large differences.

Chobits started out as a funny little story about a techno-dunce who just got a free persocom, a human like female computer, and has no idea how to use it. We laughed as the techno-dunce, Hideki, tried to understand his friends as they tried to help him get his persocom running. Hideki was awkward, confused, and often embarrased, and Chi, the computer, was cute and mysterious.

This stuff is put way off to the side at the beginning of volume three, to make room for more mystery, drama, romance, and suspense. Many people may be disappointed in how each volume contains less and less humor.

The thing is, what humor there is in the later volumes is the exact same humor we've seen in the earlier volumes.

But wait! Of course, Chobits is more than humor. There are some things to keep you going. Hideki is very easy to identify with for the average teen-aged boy, techno-savy and techno-idiot alike. And there is plenty of romance and mystery, although I do miss the comedy.

About Volume 6: The main purpose of this volume is to answer questions. We find out what Yumi's problem is with persocoms, and what her problem is with Ueda. We find out what one of the odd things about Chi's programming is, and we find out exactly who those mysterious people in black are, although their motives are still a bit fuzzy. All in all, Volume 6 moves the story along nicely.

Chobits is a good story full of mystery and romance, and contains trace amounts of humor.

This was another excellent Chobits volume. This addition isn't as interesting as some of the others, but I still reccomend it. We learn about what's been going on with Yumi and Chi's manager, and also find out some other interesting things. Can't wait for the seventh volume to come up. :)

I have a love-hate relationship with Chobits. Or, to be more accurate, I hate myself for being visually attracted to it. The drawings have a... linear purity that's always appealed to me. Check out Card Captor Sakura for a similar art-style of which I'm fond. Add the long-flowing hair and the ribbon-laced dresses, and I can't help but look.

I could, however, do without seeing blank-eyed Chii wearing nothing but underpants.

Hideki's professor walking around with her shirt half unbuttoned is fine. These are women (I'll consider miss. computer Freya as a woman because, programmed or not, emotionally and physically she's female) who understand their sexuality. Anime and manga don't have nearly enough of that kind of women-- at least without them not being some form or another of pure malice. So yay to Chobits for that!

It's the child-porn feeling that kills me. That and the other forms of uneven balance of power.

And Ohkawa *needs* to learn to build if not better, then at least *more* dialogue. The repetition must stop! Words and phrases are needlessly said time and time again, as are small variations of it. Yeah, we know Chii is wondering about her 'atashi dake no hito' (loosely, 'the only person for me.') We get the idea that the Big Computer in Black is sympathetic to Chii's happiness. Don't rub it in. Geez. Underestimating the reader much? I'd complain that Mokona's artistic talent is being wasted with Ohkawa-- oh, the beautiful things she could draw! But I get the feeling that over the years they've molded to each other's styles. Ohkawa writes things into the scripts that lets Mokona draw the characters in as many fluffy outfits as she likes, and Ohkawa gets a vehicle for her long-drawn out series.

Not to mention that Clamp needs to break out of the parody-yet-not-parody form of series that they so love. They've done it, amongst others, with Magic Knight Rayearth, 20 Mensou ni Onegai, Duklyon, Clamp Campus Detectives, Card Captor Sakura. And with Chobits. They take the stereotype of a particular manga genre (mahou shoujo, benevolent thief, etc) and poke a little fun at it. But then they're incapable of breaking *out* of the genre laws.

Oh, and the endings. Why are all your endings like this? (well, not all-- notable exceptions include Tokyo Babylon and slightly different version includes Magic Knights Rayearth.) Why must the Happy Couple embrace at the end? You construct these interesting characters and storylines, all of which get abandoned in the end in favor of the cloyingly lovey-dovey romantic pair. We know that either a) you believe that love is an ultimate and superior emotion, or b) you think it sells well. If it's A, get a creative theme already, or if it's B, I'm packing my figurative bags.

Because by suggesting that the solution to all of the character's is love-- or, just as bad, suggesting that their problems all stem from lack of love-- is downright demeaning. Chobits suffers particularly from this. Here you have Chii, computer extraordinaire. She runs on a self-learning program (like a human) instead of an OS, and she can stop all others computers from functioning. Her powers are not to be trifled with. If I were Chii, I'd be grappling with self-identity dilemmas (I'm a computer. Do I have feelings? Where do I stand in relation to humans? Why work for them) and try to understand my skills (neat! what can I do with this?).

Chii doesn't seem to even think these things over. Instead, she thinks of love in the most basic terms. She feels more like a child than an adult. Every thought has to be ponderously laid out. For all that Chii is meant to learn from experience, she's apparently incapable of figuring things out for herself. If it weren't for her ghost-sister Chii would probably be still trying to puzzle out why she feels so lonely.

[What's more this... slow process of revelation as far as love goes is a CLAMP staple. Witness Kohaku and Subaru go through the same process! With Subaru at least it makes sense. For a reserved, somewhat conservative boy it's only natural it'd take time and a major shock before he came to realize something he was in denial over. With Kohaku and Chii it seems to me that they don't have the emotional maturity for that kind of love.]

The other women, too, all they have on the brain is love. Once their issues with men is solved they drop out of the storyline because anybody who's happily paired up already is of no interest to the reader. We only want to know about the singles, damnit!

And that's why I laugh when people suggest Chobits is secretly a radical feminist work underlining the problems of an increasingly-computer based society. It may have started out that way. The themes of a computer's capability for human emotions and whether or not humans falling in love with computers was a psychological disease or only natural were interesting. But it all ends too easily, too cloyingly, and, let me harp on this again, there is so much more to life than finding your One True Love.

The mysterious two characters (the ones I've been thinking of as Team Rocket in my head -- sorry about that) have been more or less explained. I'm sure that their importance won't be revealed until later in the series (probably after Vol. 7). I'm getting tired of Chi's neurotic "will I find the one for me?" It reminds me of Zathras' constant: "No -- he is not the one. Zathras know." If you've watched Babylon 5, you know what I mean.

if i am not mistaken, this should be the last book to the chobists series, well, i read it in chiense and its a nice happy ending :D