Review of Chobits: Vol. 5

Introduction

Chobits takes place in a not too distant future, where computers and similar gadgets have evolved into Persocoms. Designed to be companions for people, they are technological devices in robot bodies that look completely human except for the ears, with a degree of intelligence and personality, and tailored to the needs of their owners.

Hideki Motosuwa is a Ronin, that is he has failed his entrance exams for university, and is playing catch up by enrolling in a prep school to get his grades up to scratch. He`s left his home in the country and moved to the city for this, finding lodgings as well as a job in a bar to pay the bills. He`s shy around the opposite sex, though he has a healthy interest in girlie magazines, or Yummies as he calls them. He`s surprised to see the number of Persocoms in the city; it looks as if everyone has got one of the expensive items. He knows he`ll never be able to afford one, so it seems serendipitous when he finds one discarded. He`s not exactly savvy about technology, but fellow student and neighbour Hiromu Shinbo along with Minoru Kokubunji help him reactivate Chi. But Chi is a blank slate, one that miraculously appears to be operating without an OS. Hideki is soon spending his spare time teaching Chi, but Chi manifests some odd traits. Just where did she come from, and what was she before her memory was wiped?

This is the fifth volume in Chobits, and contains 4 more episodes.

18. Chi Disappears
Chi`s education is coming on in leaps and bounds, she`s excelling at her job, and her ability to empathise with Hideki is practically human. But Hideki is more confused than ever. All around him are people who neglect human relationships in favour of the attraction of persocoms, but he can`t deny his own feelings for Chi. Before he can come to terms with this, Chi vanishes.

19. Chi Waits
Hideki and Sumomo search the streets while Kokubunji searches the net, but Chi appears to have vanished without a trace. Hideki is frantic with worry, but he meets Ueda, the owner of the bakery wear Chi works. Ueda tells him that he isn`t the first guy to fall for a persocom, and relates his own story.

20. Chi Wants
Chi`s in trouble, as her captor is intent on `analysing her`, and all that Hideki has to go on is an e-mailed image from a mysterious source. Fortunately Shinbo returns in time to help decipher the strange image. Time is running out for Chi, and soon her dark hidden personality surfaces.

21. Chi Answers
Shinbo`s moved out, but everything else seems to be getting back to normal. Only Hideki is worried about Chi`s vulnerability. He`s not the only one, as Minoru Kokubunji is regretting his indiscretion on the BBS leading to Chi`s kidnapping. He offers to help by finding out more about Chi and the mysterious Chobits series. When he works himself to exhaustion, his own persocom Yuzuki puts herself at risk.

Video

Chobits gets a clear and sharp 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. The stylised animation has a simple pastel palette, avoiding bright primary colours for a more muted gentle colour scheme that complements the story ideally. The character designs are simple but effective. All in all, it is a more than acceptable transfer, with only the occasional compression artefact to worry about.

Audio

You get a choice of DD 2.0 Stereo English or Japanese. The subtitles are translated from the Japanese, and there is also an option to have just the signs translated. As always, I listened to the Japanese track, and it is accomplished well enough, with noticeable stereo separation. The English dub is serviceable, but not astounding, the biggest drawback of which has to be the voice chosen for Chi, which sounds monotonous and out of character. In a more and more common occurrence with anime, the music is excellent. I loved the opening theme, "Let Me Be With You" and my toes were most definitely tapping.

Features

Apple Mac style menus, the Japanese ending (with the new tune), trailers for Gunslinger Girl and Ikki Tousen as well as an art gallery containing 15 stills, and that`s your lot. There is also a simple jacket picture that displays when the disc isn`t spinning.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this penultimate volume of Chobits, as the threads and mysteries hinted at in earlier volumes begin to pay off. The show retains that light, gentle feel, but there is just a hint of darkness creeping in as the story begins to head in a serious direction. Chi is once again abducted, but this time she doesn`t end up in an exploitative peep show, rather she falls into the hands of someone who is more knowledgeable about the Chobits urban legend. It gives more hints as to Chi`s background and the reasons for her memory loss. We also learn just why The Empty City picture books have such a resonance with Chi and Hideki. The two mysterious figures introduced at the end of Volume 4 also return, yet the mystery of who they are merely deepens.

What is most impressive about this volume is the extent to which the characters of Hideki and Chi have developed. The almost paternal affection that Hideki had towards Chi has vanished to be replaced by something much deeper, yet he has difficulty coming to terms with that. He`s seen how the ubiquity of persocoms is making human relationships a thing of the past, and understands intellectually that a relationship between a human and machine is a dead end. But reconciling that with the way he feels about Chi is difficult, especially when Chi`s feelings for Hideki are now so much more than just a desire by a machine to please her owner. To add to the confusion, Hideki also gets to see that relationships between people and persocoms can be just as meaningful as relationships between people, where before he had been faced with only the negative aspects of such. Ueda tells of his relationship with his persocom, and we also see Minoru`s relationship with Yuzuki, the persocom he created in his dead sister`s image, finally move onto a healthy footing.

Chobits began with a deceptively gentle pace and light feel, but the way that the relationships have developed and the characters matured have drawn me right into the story. The mystery and plot twists that are revealed in this volume merely serve to tantalise, but the way that it is so easy to care about the characters is what makes Chobits accessible. Everything thus far points to an unhappy ending for Chi and Hideki, they are fighting the odds and their own natures to come together, but you`re compelled to cheer them on and hope that they succeed regardless. I`ll be on tenterhooks until the next volume.