 Hideki and his intellectually-challenged persocom are back. Faced with
a lack of money & common sense, can Hideki teach Chii anything
useful, or figure out where she came from?
9 - Chii Buys
Chii goes shopping with her first paycheck & makes Hideki a very
happy boy by adding to his porn collection. Shinbo, meanwhile, reminds
Hideki that persocoms need cleaning too - giving Hideki a bit of a
dilemma as to how to give Chii a bath. Seems he'll need to teach her
personally... Finally, Minoru has been digging for information on
Chii's origins and has uncovered a rather disturbing photograph...
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.
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