Are You the Person Just For Me?

When I was first getting into manga, my grandmother took me to the local Barnes & Nobles to browse the store for potential Christmas gift ideas for that holiday season. Of course, had I voiced a desire for any object in the store, my grandmother would have bought it right then and there, Christmas be damned. Her generous spirit is the stuff legends are made on, and as a material girl living in a material world, sometimes she catches me in a good shopping mood and we can both be happy blowing cash together. But on that particular day, I just wanted a few more things to scribble down on my list, so I scampered away for some alone time so she wouldn't catch me eyeing anything with greed. First stop was the manga department. After scaring off all the younger boys with my high-heeled boots and trademark houndstooth getup which gives fellow otaku the impression that I am lost on my way to the cappuccino machine, I made a bee-line for the CLAMP section and grabbed the first volumes I saw that I hadn't read yet. Which at that point was pretty much everything but xxxHolic and Cardcaptor Sakura. I hadn't developed fully into a CLAMP addict yet, but that's another story for another time.

What I ended up with was the first omnibus of Chobits, which would later become one of my favorite and most often reread manga. After approving of the adorable picture of Chii on the front and breezing through the engaging description on the back (or the front, since I was still getting used to the reversed layout of manga at the time), I started reading the first few pages. And reading. And reading and reading. It wasn't until one of the boys I had scared off earlier came back and was nervously waiting for me to leave so he could browse the aisle I was hogging that I realized I should probably find my grandma again before she discovered and bought the whole row of manga on my behalf.

Who can resist such an adorable leading lady?

I didn't end up asking for Chobits that year because I wanted to finish it as soon as possible without waiting for Christmas to roll around. I instead started borrowing it from my local library, which surprisingly had the whole series rather than just volume one and then missing everything up to volume six like they usually do. I did later end up getting it for my birthday after polishing off the whole collection, but that was long after I had decided it was perhaps one of my favorite manga series out there, second only to other CLAMP series such as xxxHolic and Tsubasa.

Chobits follows prep student Hideki Motosuwa and his life in Tokyo after coming from the country to pursue his higher education. Hideki is dirt poor and a bit of an oddball with his over-the-top reactions (very much like fellow CLAMPer Watanukui), habit of talking to himself (Watanuki?), and obsession with accumulating as much porn as possible (Watanuki, you're exempt from this, to my knowledge). Though he dreams of owning a Persocom, a humanoid computer with diverse functions and life-like programming and responses, he realizes he's a bit out of his element in that department, especially given his lack of money. It's no great loss, anyways; all he really wants it for is to expand his access to porn.

Hideki, in the midst of one of his "moments"

But as hitsuzen would have it, on his way home from work one night, he encounters a bound woman lying in trash. After panicking over the possibility of murder, he recognizes that the body isn't a human woman, but rather a Persocom, which are identifiable by their animal-like ears where their connector cables and inputs are stored. Thinking that he's hit the jack-pot, Hideki drags the Persocom to his apartment and tries to start her up.

The lovely and adorable Chii

Unfortunately, he can't seem to find her on switch, and tries every place he can think of until there's only one option left: her hoo-hah (for lack of a better word, haha). Brave boy that he is, Hideki gives it a try and is able her to get her functioning again. Seems like an odd plot point, but it matters later.

Sumomo, the little Persocom edition

Bad news for Hideki! Though his Persocom is wide-eyed and adorable, it seems she has lost her memory and isn't running on any particular programming Hideki can alter or toy with. All she can say is 'chii' over and over again and mimic Hideki's actions. Hideki asks his buddy Shinbo and Shinbo's cute mini-Persocom Sumomo for help, and they direct him to local Persocom expert, grade school aged Minoru Kokubunji.

Kokubunji examines Chii (Hideki's inspired choice for her name) and discovers that she is not running on any recognizable operating system, though she is wired to learn and update her information as Hideki teaches her language and societal skills. He also makes a shocking proposal: Chii may be one of the legendary members of the Chobits series, a group of Persocoms designed to replicate human emotions. Kokubunji is quick to suggest to Hideki that this is probably a myth and not to get his hopes up, but it does provide an interesting look at how Chii has been able to function without an OS, if the rumors are true.

Hideki takes Chii back to her place and begins to teach her basic functions, such as speaking Japanese, identifying people and objects, and common courtesy. Chii is an extraordinarily fast learner, and immediately becomes attached to Hideki, much to his embarrassment (given the fact that she is unaware of her own attractiveness to humans). He also begins to buy her a series of picture books called “The City With no People.” These books, probably the most poignant aspect of Chobits, begin with a veiled philosophical discussion of the place Persocoms have in a society of humans. Do they truly make humans happy, or are humans forgetting humanity by surrounding themselves with computers? Are Persocoms overstepping a moral line by appearing exactly like humans? Tough questions for a Persocom as naïve and innocent as Chii to contend with, but she seems to enjoy the books nonetheless.

And excerpt from "A City With No People"

Early on in their relationship, Chii recognizes Hideki's shortage of money and decides she wants to have a job to support him (a very human desire, no?). Though Hideki tries to steer away from anything “shady,” she ends up falling for the lines of a peep show owner and doing a strip tease for local perverts. Not that she understands anything wrong with it, given that all the constructs we have in regards to our perceptions of physical bodies are entirely human. In any case, the peep show dude goes a little too far in encouraging Chii to give a sexy performance, and ends up getting a little too touchy with her hoo-hah (location of her on switch!) and Chii goes nuts, telling him only “the person just for me” has access to that place. But it isn't really Chii... it's the other Chii, a persona she goes into when she is threatened, a darker and more self-aware side of her being. The other Chii seems to remember something about Chii's past that the normal Chii is missing, and steers her away from a fate that seems to have happened once before.

In any case, when Chii loses it, something odd happens: all of the Persocom in the area shut down as Chii destroys the peep show and stands atop a clock in the center of the city, overlooking the frozen Persocom. Only when Hideki returns does Chii come to and return the other Persocoms to normal, but there is definitely something up with her that leaves you wondering.

Chii and the other Chii: two beings or one?

Ueda and Yumi

At this time, many occurrences are also muddying the waters of human/persocom relations. First of all, Kokubunji is receiving pictures of a Persocom resembling Chii from a mysterious source, with one of the pictures featuring Hideki's landlady, Chitose Hibiya. Someone is also clearly basing the “City With No People” books off of the lives of Chii and Hideki, with the Chii character agonizing over the struggle to find someone who will love her because she is her and the Hideki character taking her in and helping her feel warmth and acceptance. Secondly, Hideki is learning the complex stories of those around him and their mixed relationships with Persocom. Shinbo's love interest and cram school teacher Ms. Shimizu was married to a man who abandoned her for a Persocom, Kokubunji made his closest Persocom as a model of his deceased sister but ended up falling in love with the Persocom's unique traits (because you can't replace humans!), Chii's new boss at reoccurring CLAMP location Tirol Patisserie, Ueda, married a Persocom only to have her lose her memory and then die while protecting him, and Hideki's co-worker Yumi fell in love with Ueda only to fear she would never be able to live up to the memory of his deceased wife. On top of all of this, Chii is beginning to display affection for Hideki, and he is beginning to wonder if he returns her feelings.

During an arc where Chii is kidnapped by a Persocom enthusiast, Hideki comes to his most important realization: even if he can erase Chii's memory of suffering pain, he will never be able to erase it from himself. What is most important is how he reacts to their time together, not how much of that time is programmed into her and the result of technology.

SPOILERS. As it turns out, Chii is the creation of Chitose Hibiya's husband Ichiro (looks at my Angelic Layer posting for more on him). He invented Persocoms in general, but developed Chii (originally known as Elda) and her twin sister in particular for Chitose, who could not have children of her own. They wanted their daughters to have human emotions, but trouble came to the family when Freya fell in love with Ichiro and began to waste away from unreciprocated love, a pain so great it can stop Persocoms-- or anyone, really-- from working.

Before Freya passed away, Elda decided to live her sister's dreams of falling in reciprocated love for her. She asked Chitose to meld Freya consciousness to hers, wipe her memory, and leave her where someone would find her in order to begin a new and find someone who will love her truly. Cue Hideki finding her and Chii falling in love with him, but one question remains: will Hideki be able to love Chii for all the things she can and cannot do?

Elda and Freya, nearly identical but with very different desires

Hideki decides to finally confront Chii, but when he declares himself as the person just for her, Chii goes into Freya mode. Is he really the person just for her? Sure Chii is cute and bright and a loving companion, but there are several things she cannot do. Is she really in love with Hideki? Will he be able to treat her specially like a person even though she is not a human? And most of all, will he still be able to love her even though sex is a no-no (her reset switch is in her hoo-hah!)?

Brownie points to Hideki: he doesn't love her because he wants to make love to her. He wants to make love to her because he loves her. And even if he can't, he'll still love her regardless. (By the way, Hideki, there are WAYS to get around no hoo-hah sex. I'm sure you can think of a few alternate routes).

Luckily, Freya believes him and returns Chii to Hideki. But if she didn't believe him, she was programmed to shut down all the Persocoms permanently. If they are repeatedly unable to find happiness with humans, both Chitose and Ichiro didn't want them to exist and continually be hurt. But Chii and Hideki represent beautiful evidence that even created beings can find satisfaction and be loved by someone who treasures them for who they are. SPOILER END.

Are Persocoms like Chii in our future?

Chobits is one of my top manga (and anime) picks for several reasons. For one, the “City With No People” books are deep material. Not only do they shed light on what human happiness is (“The glow inside is bright when that person is near, the pain inside hurts more when he is away. I am happiest when I think of the person. I am saddest when I think about that person. That person makes all my feelings more intense; that must be what love is”), what we look for in others (“I hope he will find them: the things I can do because I am. The things I can't do because I am me. That person will find them, and I hope he will love me because I am me”), and how it feels to interact between technology such as Persocoms and human individuals, but they also provide a clear outlook as to how humans react to their myriad of desires and are able to grow and change because of their need to keep on wishing and improving (themes echoed in xxxHolic and Tsubasa). I also appreciate CLAMP's heartfelt exploration of the subject. As computer technology progresses, creations like Persocoms are something we all need to be aware of. If they do ever come to existence as they are in the story, would be able to treat them with the dignity we try to afford to humans? Or would we dismiss them as emotionless machines, or grow to fear and resent them for the things they can do and we cannot?

Chobits is also a brilliant love story. Though Hideki is a bit of an oaf and pretty much crushes on every woman in a 5 mile radius, his feelings for Chii end up being quite genuine and mature. He realizes her needs and experience are different from those of humans, and he treats her with an extraordinary amount of individualization, especially when he gets infuriated when people refer to her as a Persocom rather than by the name he gave her. The side-story with Ueda and Yumi is also incredibly moving, and they make additional appearances in the CLAMP universe with Kobato, where they occasionally hire Kobato as an assistant at Tirol.

One of my favorite anime couples. Chii and Hideki are a silly, yet very poignant pairing.

The anime is also fairly true to the manga, though there are a few filler episodes (all of them are pretty cute). No CLAMP canon truths disturbed this time, so no complaints from me, although there are way too many recap segments for such a short series. I'd recommend skipping them, since they don't contribute all that much other than moeness from Sumomo. Many of Chobits characters alongside Ueda and Yumi make additional CLAMP appearances: Sumomo and fellow Persocom Kotoko entertain Syaoran and Kurogane in Tsubasa, Chitose is the inventor of Outo in Tsubasa and returns for Kobato along with new Chii-like Persocoms, Ichiro is a main character of Angelic Layer as is Kokubunji's sister, and Chii is reincarnated as Fai's creation in Tsubasa, though she never comes across a reincarnated Hideki in her brief role in the plot.

Next up will be... something new! I'll decide after the holidays. Enjoy yourselves, everyone!