AnimeVision

10 - Chii Meets
It's Hideki's lucky day when Yumi invites him to go to the cinema with her. It's his first date - awww, sweet - so he needs some advice to make sure it goes well & turns to Shinbo for help. While Hideki's out on his date (with munchies by the lake afterwards) Chii's stuck at home reading her picturebook - which brings out a strange response in her...

11 - Chii Confirms
Hideki's been listening to one too many ghost stories and becomes convinced that one of the downstairs apartments in his complex is haunted. Once he's finished hiding in the closet, it's time for him to figure out what is going on downstairs. Shinbo's convinced he's just being a coward & won't play along, but all the evidence points to something unusual going on...

12 - Chii Plays
Yumi's dad loans Hideki his DVD player - for the express purpose of watching porn. He even has a few tips on where to get some good titles... It's a top of the line model, though, and can also play network games, so it's a good opportunity to have some quality recreational time with Shinbo, Sumomo & Chii. After taking a looong time to figure out how to use the thing, it's time to play - except once they've all logged on, they can't seem to find Chii...

13 - Chii Goes to the Ocean!
Summer vacation - and despite Hideki's terrible grades, it's time for everyone to head to Minoru's summer house for a bit of a break. In other words, it's time to give the animators a chance to draw all the women in suitably revealing swimsuits, and time for Hideki to realise that although persocoms may be waterproof, they don't float too well...

There's some ongoing plot in there somewhere, but you have to look hard to find it. Nice to see that Yumi's charms have so far prevented Hideki from becoming completely obessed with Chii, and there are the first hints of Chii's true origins being dropped - from both Minoru's photograph, and Chii's visions of her 'other self'.

Is it worth watching, though? I'll admit that Chobits is pretty far down my 'must watch' list - having seen this portion of the series back when it was fansubbed I can honestly say the replay value isn't great, either. I'm hoping that after setting up the mystery of Chii's origins early in the series, the current run of more-or-less standalone episodes is a mid-season glitch and not the pattern for the rest of the series as that would be an opportunity wasted. Maybe getting to the episodes I haven't already seen will improve the experience for me.

Volume 4 is already on my backlog shelf so I'll at least be watching that far, but so far Chobits isn't living up to its earlier promise.