By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Young Magazine. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

Well, I have to admit, they got me thinking about the concept of sexbots. Which I presume was one of the things CLAMP wanted to do with this title. There’s a whole lot of philosophizing in this 2nd volume of Chobits, and it would be interminable (it verges on it already) were it not for the fact that the quartet do make me succeed in pondering whatever it is the characters talk about, at length, in the 2nd half of this series, be it the nature of humanity, what love really means, or simply how much of this is a metaphor about otaku and their love for toys.

As I noted in the review of the first omnibus, this was an experiment for CLAMP, their first seinen series geared towards young men, and as such it’s a bit of a flawed success. I think they realized their strengths and weaknesses, as their 2nd, far more successful seinen series was xxxHOLIC, a series that may appear in Young Magazine but is clearly meant to have lots of female crossover readership (notably in the relationship between Watanuki and Doumeki). Chobits really doesn’t invite female readers as much, and even though the fanservice lessens in the 2nd half, it’s still there. (This is especially true of Dark Horse’s version, which has about 30 color pictures at the end, mostly featuring Chi in various innocent-yet-provocative poses.)

The buildup to the climax of the book is pretty good, balancing out between long-winded explanations and trying to figure Chi out. You get a bit frustrated with Hideki for not realizing what he feels for Chi sooner, but honestly he’s much quicker about this over the course of 8 volumes than most harem leads would be. And I do wish that while Chi is evolving by leaps and bound, that we’d see a little more of her moving beyond the childlike baby-talk Chi we got for most of the book. But then, having her talk like an adult would likely make the ending even more uncomfortable than it is.

Looking at the internet, I see I am not alone in finding the ending of the Chobits manga somewhat annoying. The anime chose to alter the ending as well. I suspect CLAMP were deliberately going for these feelings of irritation and discomfort, forcing the typical Young Magazine reader to think of what the relationship he has with his otaku fantasy is. But in the context of the story, I don’t think it works. First, though the placement of Chi’s ‘reset switch’ and subsequent need to avoid sex make sense before she finds Hideki, as her parents and sister want to avoid having her going down the road of anyone wanting a quick lay, there’s no sense whatsoever that Hideki is like this. What’s more, everyone agrees this is the case. And yet Hideki is explicitly told, “You win, you two are in love – but you have to stay chaste forever, as if you have sex Chi will ‘die’.”

I think this makes me MORE uncomfortable with them as a couple. It gives their love that unreal feeling, making her seem more like an object than we otherwise would. Which is not what you want to see from a series that’s been showing Persocoms having real, human feelings the last 8 volumes. Secondly, I think sex is a natural part of a loving relationship, and that denying it is denying part of what does make people human… or indeed a Persocom. Chi may never reproduce, but that’s not the only reason people have sex. And honestly, once Freya and Chitose have determined that Hideki is indeed Chi’s one true love, there’s no real reason they can’t do a quick redesign and move her reset button elsewhere. Chi may be more special than the Persocoms used for some as sexbots, but she doesn’t have to be the Virgin Mary.

So Chobits certainly made me think, and in that CLAMP succeeded. But I don’t think it’s a series I’ll go back to over and over again the way I do Card Captor Sakura or Reyearth… or heck, even X. CLAMP try to have their cake and eat it too here, presenting Chi as a fetishistic fantasy object (just look at every color insert, not to mention the numerous nude pics), but one that’s look but don’t touch. Which unfortunately reminds me of today’s modern-day otaku, decrying any cute anime female who is shown to have had a boyfriend before. Chobits is a cute love story with a dash of creepy. Sadly, the creepy is what stays with me.

By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Young Magazine. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

This was CLAMP’s first attempt at a comic for young men. They’d done shoujo for years, of course, and had made their first attempt at shonen, Angelic Layer, two years before this. So this was another attempt to stretch themselves. And I’ll say this for CLAMP, they know their market. This volume goes right to the heart of young otaku guys everywhere with its tale of a loser guy and the robot he falls for.

It’s actually surprising how little seinen romance gets licensed over here, considering. Most of the time when you see in North America what has become termed ‘harem manga’ – a wide variety of females fighting over one nebbish reader-stand-in – it’s the younger shonen variety, which tends to stick to things like school locker confessions and falling over and seeing panties, and has little in the way of actual consequence. We’ve occasionally seen a seinen harem manga – Ai Yori Aoshi, though this title subverted the genre by having the outcome never be in doubt, and Sundome, which is darker but otherwise more typical – but North American publishers have decided that the market for authors like Taku Kitazaki is slim. They’re likely correct.

Chobits hits everything you’d want in a magazine with ‘Young’ in its title. The lead is a nice guy, everyone says so, yet still a virgin and JUST LIKE US. He finds a pliant, submissive, vaguely lolita-looking ‘Persocom’ in the trash – this being an alternate future where computers evolved to look and act as much like humans as possible – and takes her home. She’s cute, and loves to learn. Oh, he has a sexy teacher! And a sexy landlady! And a sexy co-worker with huge breasts! In any other title, by Chapter 8 he would have come home to find Yumi (the co-worker) lying naked in his futon looking at him with big doe-eyes.

But this is CLAMP, so we aren’t going that way. Instead, we get a long examination of internet addiction, what it means to be human, and how ‘real something can be. The gist of the plot is that people are replacing intimate human contact with love for their human-like computers. This disturbs Hideki, who finds himself falling for Chi, even though he knows that she’s ‘just a machine’. Of course, Chi is *different*… (I’ll get into Hideki and Chi’s relationship, and the way it resolves, when I get around to ranting about – um, sorry, reviewing – Volume 2).

The other big problem with this title is that it takes the rule ‘show, don’t tell’ and beats it to death with a bat. This was a 740-page tome, and almost every one of those pages was a character telling another character bits of the plot. Yumi and Takako’s feelings of inadequacy when they compare themselves to the ‘perfect’ Persocoms are rolled out for us in long dialogues – usually between Hideki and someone else. And this is compounded by the ‘storybook’ sequences, which are meant to mirror Hideki and Chi’s relationship. The author seems to be able to release a book to bookstores every single day, sometimes literally 5 minutes after the conversation Hideki and Chi have to inspire the next volume. There’s magic realism, and then there’s just hand-waving.

Despite all this, CLAMP’s ideas are worth reading, and they manage to make the characters enjoyable and not annoying – even Hideki, and trust me, making a dorky harem lead not be annoying is a feat – and of course 4 volumes in one gives you good bang for your buck. For those who have the old Tokyopop releases, I’d stick with them. The translator seems to be the same. I don’t have the old volumes in front of me, but I’d guess they likely simply took the old translations and did ‘touch-up’ work. The art is clearer, though (they were working from CLAMP’s originals) and all the color pages look lovely. Though, note to Dark Horse – black text on dark blue background = mostly unreadable.

Like Angelic Layer, their first shonen, I’d regard this as an interesting but flawed work. However, they learn fast, and their second seinen manga, xxxHOLIC, is a far different animal. Still, Chobits is a good look at the type of stories you get in Young Magazine/Jump/Sunday, and manages to subvert it without being mean-spirited.