Chobits (ちょびっツ) is a manga and anime series created by CLAMP. The original manga was published from 2001 to 2002 by Kodansha.
The English manga is published by TOKYOPOP, and the American translation is imported to Australia by Madman Entertainment. Also, the Traditional Chinese manga is published by COMICSWORLD.COM (天下出版有限公司) under official authorization for Hong Kong only. In Singapore, the Simplified Chinese version is published by Chuangyi. Unlike most CLAMP stories, Chobits is a seinen series, specifically of the magical girlfriend variety.
The story centers on the life of eighteen-year-old Hideki Motosuwa, a repeat student ("ronin") attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school. An honest and unassuming teenager raised on a farm, he has little experience with women, though his imagination and libido are both quite active. Besides a girlfriend, the other thing he dreams of having is a persocom (Personal computer), a computer designed to look and act like a human. In the city where he studies for university (Tokyo), Hideki discovers that persocoms are commonplace. They are preprogrammed with fairly subdued personalities; they assist their owners with chores (such as shopping, dictation, email, and accounting) and are easily identifiable by the large data ports on the sides of their heads. But persocoms are expensive and Hideki has no money, so he figures the only way he'll ever have one is if he were to find one lying on the curb.
No sooner has he thought this than it happens: on his way home from school one evening, he stumbles across a persocom in the form of a beautiful young girl with long hair, wrapped in cloth, turned off, lying against a pile of trash bags. He carries her home, and after a long and nervous search for her on/off button, he finally "turns her on". She comes instantly to life and regards Hideki with open adoration, hugging him often and watching him fascinated as she often mimics the things he does, but the only word she ever says (until later episodes) is "chi", so this is the name Hideki gives her.
Hideki recruits the help of his technically-minded friend Shinbo to try to figure out where Chi came from. All they are able to determine is that she does not have any operating system installed. Shinbo is perplexed as to how she's able to be active at all with a blank memory, and this is the beginning of the mystery of Chi's origins and purpose.
Meanwhile Hideki takes it upon himself to teach words, concepts and behavior to Chi while he attends school, looks for a job, and makes new friends (many of whom have strong opinions of persocoms). He finds himself putting aside his libido and protecting Chi against people who want her for themselves; he buys her a storybook in which she seems to take an unusual interest; she shows him unconditional love and cheers him on through his studies. Before long it's clear that Chi is developing feelings for Hideki to a depth that persocoms aren't supposed to be able to have, and Hideki seems to be falling in love with her despite friends' warnings against having feelings for an artificial person.
- From
Wikipedia