I could I say about this series is that when I had heard the name; it sounded like "Hobbits" with a "C". Actually this anime is about Persocoms (personal computers in human form).Persocoms are generally attractive female type robots who often look younger than they ought to, and who tend to be unquestioningly devoted to their owners(usually men). And one man, Hideki found a cute persocom in the trash, and decided to take her for himself.Upon turning it on, she instantly regards Hideki with adoration. The only word she seems capable of saying is "chi, " and thus he names her Chi.

When my twin sister let me borrow her box-set of the series to watch (my sister both love anime); I did watch ALL episodes, and the next thing I know I love the series, and I also love CLAMP (they do very beautiful manga art). I personally love Chii, she is just to ?!#* CUTE!

I wouldn't really advice anyone to check out this series unless you are some animé freak. But then again, if you are an otaku, you probably know "Chobits" like the palm of your hand.
The series is full of animés' stereotypes and has the "hot chick falls from out of the sky to Mr. Nobody cliché" (think "Oh My Goddess").
I watched the entire series years ago and I got a bad impression from it. In my opinion, the show is too shallow (although that's kind of expectable from a CLAMP production).
Again: If you are an otaku, or really like CLAMP's works, you might want to give it a try, if not, stay away from this.
One thing I almost forgot to say is that the episodes get denser and stranger and lamer as the series progresses.

Hmmm . . . Chobits.

Such a great series (so far). I haven't seen much of it (only the first two discs), but I have read the manga in which the series is based.

I think this is a beautifully animated show (created by the amazing team, CLAMP) about . . . well, lots of things. Love, life, and yeah, all that good stuff.

This is not a show for kids! Trust me on this one. But it's well dubbed and just as good in its original Japanese. The characters are very interesting and some are quite mysterious, like the strange persocom Chii.

If you're new to the series, I might suggest that you start with the manga (which isn't for young kids either!), but you don't have to.

Beautiful, but not exactly perfect. Still it's worth a watch!

Chobits was, at first, a difficult series for me to watch. It's basically a romantic comedy with SF elements, but early on it was hard not to view it as sexist, exploitive and borderline... er, wrong, for want of a better word. Why? Well, the persocoms (personal computers in human form) are generally attractive female type robots who often look younger than they ought to, and who tend to be unquestioningly devoted to their (usually male) owners. I can imagine someone watching this and totally frothing at the mouth over it. It reached a peak of uncomfortableness in one of the early episodes when Hideki figures out where Chii's 'on switch' is. Err.. nevermind.

Now, to be fair, I have also sat through plenty of anime where the male protagonist is a spotty, socially inept twit who spends half the show literally being beaten up by the female characters (who probably secretly have a crush on him), so perhaps I'm being a bit unfair on 'Chobits' - especially since it's from the all-female writing group 'Clamp' who anime fans often revile for being too gooey and romantic. However, as another reviewer pointed out somewhere, it's kind of ridiculous that people in the series freak out at the prospect of humans getting emotionally involved with or marrying persocoms, when half of them are wandering about dressed in lingerie. Are they supposed not to be attracted by them? Gah.

Well anyway, I eventually decided that I would put this down to cultural differences and try and roll along with it. I should perhaps point out that there is no nudity, sex or even bad language that I can remember in the series. About the worst it gets is some of the characters talking about internet porn or being embarressed by some sexual concept in some way or another (anime is full of male leads who can't seem to even contemplate the idea of seeing underwear without freaking out, blushing or getting nosebleeds.)

Anyway I did sit through this early, uncomfortable phase, because the storyline was actually interesting and fairly intelligent, with its SF and mystery about who the hell Chii really was. This mystery wasn't easily revealed, as for about the first 6 episodes all she does is say 'Chii' in an annoying high pitched voice. But once the thing got rolling, it actually sucked me in and turned out to be a lot more interesting that I'd expected. Chii's quest for self-identity, portrayed through a series of symbolic, stylised animations based on a book she is reading, are very affecting and artfully done. Hideki turns out to be a likeable character, even if he's chronically clueless about just about everything (George Costanza from 'Seinfeld' should have this kid around, to make him look good)

The basic question seems to be, is Chii capable of emotion, and is it acceptable for Hideki to reciprocate if she does. A question given extra poignancy when one of the other characters turns out to be someone whose partner left them and married a persocom. The SF substory about Chii's true nature is interesting too - is she really a super-advanced computer with a soul, and if so, why was she left lying on a rubbish pile?

It really depends how generous or unkind you want to be to this series. It's quite possible to say that it's aimed at teenage boys who are socially inept and can only relate to computers. Turn that on its head however, and it becomes a social commentary on that very phenomenon - one which is perhaps even more pertinent in Japan, where a growing number of kids simply live in their rooms and spend literally years without interacting even with their parents.

Or you can read it as a more lightweight romantic comedy/mystery. It has SF elements, but it doesn't beat you over the head with them the way 'Serial Experiments: lain' does. This time around the protagonist is a complete klutz about computers, in a similar way to the girl in 'Perfect Blue'.

Anyway the long and the short of it is, that Chobits turns out to be a well written, well paced and very watchable show, once you get over the initially embarressing nature of the thing (and trust me, this is nothing. I mean, what about 'Please Teacher', where the 15 year old male lead gets frozen in time for 3 years, and wakes up legally 18, but physically 15, and marries his teacher, who is an alien? Geez, give me a break.)

But then again, maybe this is a show which is simply being up-front about the sort of feelings that kids have when they're 16, or however old Hideki is supposed to be, instead of pretending that nobody has any untoward thoughts until they're old enough for it to be ok for you to acknowledge it.

Anyway, for a more impartial reference point, this series is unrated in the US, but in Australia the censors gave it an M rating, which is the highest unrestricted classification. In other words they think it's ok for kids under 15 to watch without an adult present. Maybe they should invent a new category for anime, that it's not ok for adults to watch without a kid present. Sometimes I feel like Hideki, as uncomfortable with the story as he is with being in it. But of course he's ridiculously inhibited.

I'm going away. This is messing with my head too much. 3 out of 4, but don't blame me if this makes you blush, scream, bleed from the nose or whatever.