Chobits!

[mamimi_kawaii]

Chobits is probably one of the most awesome mangas I've read.

But alot of my friend think it's a sexist story plot.

I see where they're coming from, but still.

What do you think?:confused:

[NausicaaBoy]

personally I love chobits haha if you could see my room you would understand... at any rate its a cute story.

Sexist? I think not - shes a robit so truly she is sexless....she takes a female form.

mmm...really your freinds are reading 2 much into it...its a cute love story with a really sexxy femaleoid lead lol...im sure thats not a word..

[Jayna]

I love Chobits. =D In my opinion the anime (Which my friends love for some reason) does NOT do it justice. Chobits can be a pretty deep story when it comes down to it and the anime seems to be all light and fluffy the whole time. >.< Not cool. But I digress.....

It's a good manga. ^^ I mean YEAH it's a bit perverted at times, come on! A 19 year old guy living with an innocent female robot is the main character, what did you expect? But it's a great love story when you think of it. I can't wait to read the ending in the manga (Money...need money T_T) I'm only on Volume 3.

[kyubichan]

Chobits is meant to be that way: a guy surrounded by pretty girls. If your friends call it sexist, then what do they call Love Hina? If you look at the anime/manga, it looks like a shallow love story about a guy and a robot w/c has been done a million times, but if you take the time to actually use your brain and understand what's going on, it can make you go "Hey, I feel I can relate to that... in a weird way." Personally, I loved the storybook character that represents Chii.

personally I love chobits haha if you could see my room you would understand...

I don't think we need to see your room, your sig and av are enough ^^

[Mana]

Chobits was a boring story dressed up in a "cute" submissive robot girl. I waited throughout all 6 (or was it 7?) volumes for something to happen, and all it did was vomit out a nonsense semi-love story.

But sexist? Hardly. Chii is no more representative of females than a doll torn up by the family dog. Anyone with brains has to realise that. Though I must admit, I feel sorry the boys who feel attracted to Chii, and therefore set themselves up for a life of trying to find the right woman, and by "the right woman" I mean "a girl with brainless looks who has the personality of a stalk of asparagus."

Then again, I think I've known stalks of asparagus that show more intelligence than Chii ever did.

[Roark]

I think that Chobits rather majorly ripped off Dr. Slump on numerous occasions.

[Sae]

I personally loved the story and thought that the anime was a cutsie way to liven things up a bit. Then again, this is all just my opinion. Oh course, the manga was my absolute favorite. I basically focused on Sumomo (Plum) and Minoru the whole time though......<.<......I'm a Minoru fangirl at heart....>.>........yet the Hideki + Chii thing was soooo cute along with Freya! ^-^ :heartrain

Sae-chan

[Jayna]

Chobits was a boring story dressed up in a "cute" submissive robot girl. I waited throughout all 6 (or was it 7?) volumes for something to happen, and all it did was vomit out a nonsense semi-love story.

But sexist? Hardly. Chii is no more representative of females than a doll torn up by the family dog. Anyone with brains has to realise that. Though I must admit, I feel sorry the boys who feel attracted to Chii, and therefore set themselves up for a life of trying to find the right woman, and by "the right woman" I mean "a girl with brainless looks who has the personality of a stalk of asparagus."

Then again, I think I've known stalks of asparagus that show more intelligence than Chii ever did.

Really? I always thought they did a great job advancing Chii's character, I mean all of her memories were erased, so she's basically like a baby in a robots body, she doesn't know how the world works. But at volume three (Where I am now) You can see she's progressed from where she started (Pointing at everything and thinking EVERYTHING is "Hideki")

I do need to read more, and you're entititled to your opinion. (You are entitled to my opinion, as I am entitled to yours)

:cheesess: <--Random

[mamimi_kawaii]

See? Not sexist. I keep telling them, it's not sexist because she isn't technically a "she", and anyways, as you learn in the 2nd book, nobody can even touch her "there" because for one her switch is there, and two, only her special someone she has to find can touch her there. So technically, even though my friends think she can be used as a sex slave, she can't. Take that, Lloyd!

[Sae]

How would it be sexist in the first place? How is against girls or boys? Sexist means it is against a gender so how is it at all sexist? It may be a bit on the border of "echi" in volume 2, but the series has no corolation at all to the word sexist. It does not make it sexist if it shows a peep show. It just shows that girls' (female persocoms) owners made the decision for them to be sex models. There is nothing wrong about putting your toy in a doll sex show. As wrong as I think I sound right now, considering the fact that I feel sorry for the poor persocoms, that is the truth. The cold, hard truth.

Sae-chan

[Jayna]

How would it be sexist in the first place? How is against girls or boys? Sexist means it is against a gender so how is it at all sexist? It may be a bit on the border of "echi" in volume 2, but the series has no corolation at all to the word sexist. It does not make it sexist if it shows a peep show. It just shows that girls' (female persocoms) owners made the decision for them to be sex models. There is nothing wrong about putting your toy in a doll sex show. As wrong as I think I sound right now, considering the fact that I feel sorry for the poor persocoms, that is the truth. The cold, hard truth.

Sae-chan

Exactly. I mean if you think about it, whether or not she has an actual gender (I personally think she does, being a special Chobit and all) it encourages females to stand up for themselves, no sex before marriage, that sort of thing. I mean she keeps going, "No, only my special someone just for my can touch me there..." well....if this were sexist I'd imagine she'd say something along the lines of, "Please do with me as you wish, for I am your slave." But she doesn't. She's waiting for someone who loves her and who she loves back.

[Roark]

The sexist argument comes from the way Chii is portrayed. She's helpless, earnest, loyal to a fault, quiet, petite, unopinionated, accepting of male will, submissive... pretty much the Platonic ideal of what a "Japanese woman" should be.

I'd say misogynistic more than sexist.

EDIT:
Oh, and for all the "It's an IT not a SHE" talk, Chii is most definately female.

[Jayna]

The sexist argument comes from the way Chii is portrayed. She's helpless, earnest, loyal to a fault, quiet, petite, unopinionated, accepting of male will, submissive... pretty much the Platonic ideal of what a "Japanese woman" should be.

I'd say misogynistic more than sexist.

EDIT:
Oh, and for all the "It's an IT not a SHE" talk, Chii is most definately female.

(First off if you think I'm just trying to start a fight, I'm not. Just a good ol' not really a debate but something like it chat)

I disagree. I don't see how that would make the manga 'sexist'. I mean like I said, she's like a big baby growing up at an alarming rate. Of course she would be all of those things. Until she 'grows up' and learns how the world functions, she will be quiet, helpless and unopinionated. As for being earnest and loyal well that just adds to that strange charm she seems to have on some people. And last being accepting of male will. Well, seeing as she has no memories of what happened to her before the 'male will' is pretty much all she knows. Hideki is her everything, he's her teacher and a sort of caregiver to her. He's also a semi-perverted 19 year old guy. Once again, it's all she knows at the present time (From what I've read), so of course she's accepting of it.

I'm enjoying this. ^^ You bring up excellant points.

:tup: <-- Until I've had my fill of these things, you will see a lot of them.

[Roark]

(First off if you think I'm just trying to start a fight, I'm not. Just a good ol' not really a debate but something like it chat)
What? I paid 5 quid for an argument! Five minutes, not the full half-hour.


I disagree. I don't see how that would make the manga 'sexist'. I mean like I said, she's like a big baby growing up at an alarming rate. Of course she would be all of those things. Until she 'grows up' and learns how the world functions, she will be quiet, helpless and unopinionated. As for being earnest and loyal well that just adds to that strange charm she seems to have on some people. And last being accepting of male will. Well, seeing as she has no memories of what happened to her before the 'male will' is pretty much all she knows. Hideki is her everything, he's her teacher and a sort of caregiver to her. He's also a semi-perverted 19 year old guy. Once again, it's all she knows at the present time (From what I've read), so of course she's accepting of it.

I think placing a "baby" in a barely-legal female persona and having the male lead desire her for those characteristics rather exemplifies the point. Typical Japanese guy going ga-go for what's more or less a child in a woman's body.

Oh, and she's good at "women's work" like cleaning and baking to boot.

[Mana]

Really? I always thought they did a great job advancing Chii's character, I mean all of her memories were erased, so she's basically like a baby in a robots body, she doesn't know how the world works. But at volume three (Where I am now) You can see she's progressed from where she started (Pointing at everything and thinking EVERYTHING is "Hideki")

A few things on this point:

1) I never mentioned anything about Chii's character advancement, so I have no idea where you came up with that in reagrds to my post.

2) Alright, I will say something about Chii's character advancement:
In responce to your example, a character learning things is not character development. In any story, characters will learn many things. Sometimes they things they learn are related to their advancement as a character, but the two things are not equal. As a character in a story, Chii gets shite in the way of character development. She learns things, yes; we learn more about her history. She does not advance, she does not grow. She is a robot, an AI, so of course, she's not "supposed" to. However, instead of using that as an interesting story board idea, we just get cute happy things about Chii learning to shop and wear panties.

3) Character development does NOT make a character a good character. You can have the best laid out character evolution, but if the character is dull in the first place, all the development in the world isn't going to make them interesting. Chii is boring and bland. She progresses along blindly in the story, and has absolutely no personality. Also, her being a robot is no excuse for her lack of personality. Sumomo had one of the best personalities in the entire story, and she was also an AI (Sumomo was also one of the general best characters in the story, which is kind of sad).
Characters with no personality can work in a story, but the story has to be well written enough and have a strong, driving plot in order to work. Chobits had neither, and it didn't have a lot of other interesting characters to keep the story running, either. Hideki was a carbon-copy ronin with absoutely nothing to distinguish himself from the ronin stereotype based on characters like Yusaku Godai of Maison Ikkoku. His friend was slightly more interesting, as was Minoru, but they were side characters and didn't get enough time in the manga, or in the anime for that matter. It's a sad thing when your side characters are more exciting than your main cast.

I liked the concept behind Chobits a lot. I managed to write a fanfiction that took place in the same universe that I really enjoyed, and I think I played of a lot of ideas rather well. However, Chobits' execution was incredibly lacking, and the whole story fell flat on it's face rather well.

It's a cute story, it's mindless and fun to read; it has pretty pictures. But from a reviewer's standpoint, Chobits utterly fails in so many ways.

[kyubichan]

I think placing a "baby" in a barely-legal female persona and having the male lead desire her for those characteristics rather exemplifies the point. Typical Japanese guy going ga-go for what's more or less a child in a woman's body.

Oh, and she's good at "women's work" like cleaning and baking to boot.

Actually, I think Hideki has "desires" for all women, not only particularly Chii, until later on.

Chii is good at 'women's work' because she's a robot trying to find her place in the world. And, well, she a FEMALE robot, so what is she supposed to learn? Do high kicks and blow up buildings? (I'm not being sarcastic) By the way, isn't it that Chii couldn't cook at first, but learned later on?

[Scoot]

This (http://www.animeacademy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23453) sums up my thoughts on the matter.

[Roark]

Actually, I think Hideki has "desires" for all women, not only particularly Chii, until later on.

Chii is good at 'women's work' because she's a robot trying to find her place in the world. And, well, she a FEMALE robot, so what is she supposed to learn? Do high kicks and blow up buildings? (I'm not being sarcastic) By the way, isn't it that Chii couldn't cook at first, but learned later on?

It's fairly obvious that he's mostly attracted to Chi from the get-go.

Also, this (http://www.mechapolis.com/images/kusanagi.jpg) robot woman certainly found her place in the world without becoming the Ford Model T of housewives.

[kyubichan]

Also, this robot woman certainly found her place in the world without becoming the Ford Model T of housewives.

No objection to that since she's muh fave evah! XD

But it's not fair to compare Chii to her since:
1. Clamp intentionally made Chobits/Persocoms that way.
2. Chobits is nowhere near GitS.
3. Chii was a robot from the beginning. Kusanagi was once fully human.

Anyway, Chobits is NOT one of my fave anime, but I do appreciate it because it's the only robot-loves-guy-and-vice-versa anime that made me "like" the genre. It has its flaws, but it also has a certain depth that I did not find in any of the other Clamp anime I watched.

[xxholic]

sugoi!
chobits my all time fav anime!
unfortunately I haven't bought the manga yet.. >,<

Chii is really amazing, but I like Freya more..
Freya has a more mystery type and has this
lone presence...