Characters in Chobits
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- This article about Chobits characters is part of the Chobits group of articles. Names are in Western order, with the surname after the given name.
The spoilers are up to the end of the anime and manga.
Contents |
[edit] Hideki Motosuwa
- Japanese Seiyū
- Tomokazu Sugita
- English Voice Actor
- Crispin Freeman
Hideki Motosuwa (本須和秀樹 Motosuwa Hideki?) is a 19-year-old (in the anime, 18) repeat student (ronin) attempting to get into university by studying at Seki cram school, which his parents have sent him to. They have also severed his allowance, which means he has to work at My Pleasure, an izakaya, to make ends meet. One night, while walking home from work, he found a persocom lying in a pile of garbage. He took her home, and upon activating her, found that the only word she could utter was "Chi". Because of this, he gave her the name "Chi" (in the anime, "Chii") and took her into his care, doing his best to protect and teach her.
Hideki could best be described as "a fish out of water." Living in the country his entire life, Hideki has trouble adjusting to his new life in Tokyo. Because of this, he is prone to outbursts of confusion and frustration. Also, because of all the time spent by himself on his family's farm, Hideki has a habit of thinking out loud and talking to himself. This leads to some very entertaining moments between himself and the women he meets. Much like many young men, Hideki is also quite perverted, possessing a very large number of pornographic magazines, which he refers to as "okazu" which means "side dish". (In the English manga translation, Chi refers to one of the magazines as a "tasty side dish"; in the anime's American translation, Chi refers to these magazines as "Hideki's yummies"). When he moved to Tokyo, Hideki wanted a persocom so that he could finally surf the internet for porn. It should be stated however that he isn't the only character who thinks this way. In fact Shinbo himself proudly admitted that Sumomo was also equiped to perform these tasks when he first met Hideki.
Despite his shortcomings and occasional moments of awkwardness with the bustling environment of Tokyo, Hideki is a genuinely kind and honest person, whose habit of thinking of others' well-being before his own can cause many problems. When a friend is in trouble, especially Chi, he is always there to help. Because of this, many characters in the series turn to him for advice with their problems, knowing he will always hear them out and do his best to assist them.
[edit] Chitose Hibiya
- Japanese Seiyū
- Kikuko Inoue
- English Voice Actor
- Bridget Hoffman
Chitose Hibiya (日比谷 千歳 Hibiya Chitose?) is the landlady at the apartment where Hideki is staying - or at least that is her current job. She was formerly the wife of the creator of the Chobits. In the manga, her husband, Ichiro "Icchan" Mihara, used the technology from the Angelic Layer project to create the Chobits to be her children, because she was unable to have children of her own. She also authored "A City With No People" to help Chi find the Person Just for Her.
[edit] Hiromu Shinbo
- Japanese Seiyū
- Tomokazu Seki
- English Voice Actor
- Tony Oliver
Hiromu Shinbo (新保弘 Shinbo Hiromu?), also spelled "Shimbo", is Hideki's best friend and is also studying at Seki cram school. In the anime, Shinbo lives in the same apartment complex as Hideki and is his next-door neighbor. Shinbo is usually the first person Hideki turns to for help with persocoms. Shortly after beginning school he becomes involved with his teacher Takako Shimizu after finding her in a park late at night because she had been unwittingly locked out of her house by her husband, who was too busy with his persocom. He later elopes with her and convinces her to marry him.
[edit] Sumomo (Plum)
- Japanese Seiyū
- Motoko Kumai
- English Voice Actor
- Sandy Fox
Sumomo (すもも?) is a mobile persocom - which is the persocom equivalent of a laptop computer. She is programmed to be cute and tends to be quite hyperactive, for example her morning 'wakie wakie exercises'. Shinbo was the original owner of Sumomo, but left her with Hideki after leaving with Takako. He later transfers Sumomo's registration to Hideki, giving him permanent ownership. At the beginning of the series, Shinbo uses Sumomo in an attempt to analyze Chi, and Sumomo is nearly broken in the process, requiring new main memory, and in the manga, a new video card as well. Once Kotoko joined Hideki, she quickly came to the conclusion that Sumomo was mad, with her nonsensical ways.
In the original Japanese version, her seiyuu (Kumai) once worked together with Kotoko's seiyu (Nogami) in Cardcaptor Sakura (another anime adapted from CLAMP's works, as Li Syaoran and Li Meiling respectively). Ironically, in CCS, Syaoran was the more "mature" one of the pair.
[edit] Chi (Elda)
- Japanese Seiyū
- Rie Tanaka
- English Voice Actor
- Michelle Ruff
Chi (ちぃ Chii?) is a Chobit (an extremely advanced persocom that possesses a very powerful processor and highly developed programming) that Hideki found in a pile of trash on his way home one night. When she was first activated, Chi was unable to communicate properly, only being able to say "Chi", which causes Hideki to name her that. Chi remembers nothing of her past life or how to do the simplest of things, so Hideki takes it upon himself to teach her and take care of her.
Before she was found by Hideki and named Chi, her name was Elda. She was the second Chobit produced by Ichiro Mihara. Elda was created after Hibiya noticed that Freya, the first Chobit, was becoming increasingly depressed as time went by. Elda was created to be Freya's little sister, in an effort to make her happy. In the anime, it is explained that Hibiya reset Elda's memories after her husband's death. However, in the manga, Elda lost her memories as a consequence of taking in her ailing sister's heart. Some time after, Hideki found her and brought her home. Elda's memories were on the disc which was accidentally left in the garbage when Hideki salvaged her.
After she is activated, Chi proceeds to start learning about the environment around her, and makes some hilarious mistakes in the process, such as imitating a pornographic pose from one of Hideki's magazines. Eventually, when Chi starts communicating properly and learns enough about her environment to be able to function in it, she gets a job at Hiroyasu Ueda's bakery.
Chi also houses the resident consciousness of her fellow Chobit, Freya, who is Chi's Sister (there are not two Chi's just two Chobits). Freya occasionally contacts Chi to inform her of something important, or to comfort her in a time of need. Both Chobits possess many remarkable abilities, including the ability to release an extremely powerful concussive blast from their bodies should the need arise for them to defend themselves, levitation, and some telekenetic ability.
In the manga, after Elda took on Freya's heart, her last request before losing consciousness was to be left alone outside, away from her family, so that there would be no possibility the same fate that befell her sister could befall her. Before doing this, however, her father gave her a "gift"; this gift was a program, designed to do one thing: If, in her new life, Chi failed to find the Person Just for Her, she would connect to every persocom on the planet, and execute a program that would delete the individual-recognition abilities of every single persocom, so that they would never be able to distinguish one person from another, ever again. If Chi failed to find the Person just for Her, it stood to reason that other persocoms would suffer the same fate as well. The purpose of this program was to spare the persocoms of the world the pain of unrequited love. In the anime, this program appears to have an alternate effect: If Chi found the Person just for her, all persocoms would be granted the ability to either love or feel emotion. The reason for this is since Ichiro Mihara, Chitose Hibiya late husband, helped create the persocoms, he viewed them as his children. His dying wish was that if Chi were to find some who loved her in return, all his children would be able to share in this happiness by being able to feel emotions the way humans do.
It should be noted that in the manga the Chobits series persocoms do not possess emotions, at least in the human sense. This issue is touched upon in the final pages of the manga series during a conversation Hideki has with Freya, where she specifically states "We do not have emotions.", and again where Zima states "In my mind, my adorable Dita comes first. Even if this isn't the same love that a human feels, so what!" This statement appears to be an assertion that even though a persocom's subjective experience of love may not be the same as a human's, that does not make the love they do feel any less real or legitimate. Something within Chi's programming chose Hideki as being special, marked him as being different from others, and worthy of her greatest affections. To her, this is love; even if it is not the same love that a human feels.
Despite this, there are still things that Chi cannot do. Depending on the source (manga or anime), these range from simple set backs like the inability to produce offspring (which all persocoms are subject to) to the inability to have intercourse. Most regular persocons have their power switch in or behind their ears, but Chi's is located in a most unusual place, her crotch. Due to this fact, in the manga, even if Chi is in love with Hideki, she cannot have a sexual relationship with him because that will cause her to restart, reformat, and lose all of her memories with him. However, Hideki says that this will not stop him from loving Chi. In the anime this is does not appear to be the case. In episode seven, during Chi's time at the peep show, it is stated by her sister that "regardless of what happens, until someone who truly loves you appears, never let anyone touch you here." This warning is repeated in episode twenty when Yoshiyuki tries to take advantage of Chi. Just as before, a defense mechanism is activated, and Yoshiyuki is subdued. Chi then states that since he isn't the one for her, he isn't allowed to come inside. Finally when Hideki does arrives on the scene, Chi explains that only the one for her is ever allowed to come inside, which she demonstrates by taking him by the hand. It is possible that Chi's virginity alone is protected by a series of programs and protocols which prevent anyone, but the one she loves, from having intercourse with her.
The name "Chobits" comes from the fact that their father, Ichiro Mihara, used the word "Chobi" to describe anything he thought was "small and hopelessly adorable". Two Chobi become "Chobits".
(Note about the spelling "Elda": "Elda" is the official English spelling. "Erda" would have made more sense in this situation. The name is written in Japanese as "エルダ" which is also used to write the name of the Norse earth goddess Erda (or Jörd), the mother of the Valkyries.)
[edit] Minoru Kokubunji
- Japanese Seiyū
- Houko Kuwashima
- English Voice Actor
- Mona Marshall
Minoru (国分寺 稔 Kokubunji Minoru?) is a wealthy twelve-year old genius, whose speciality is persocoms. In particular, he has built a custom persocom named Yuzuki, designed to look like his late sister, and has given her self-teaching software, meaning that she can learn things on her own instead of having to have programs loaded into her like most persocoms.
For the most part, Minoru is very reserved and soft spoken individual who surrounds himself with persocoms. His curiosity over Chi's origins leads to him becoming one of Hideki Motosuwa's closest friends. Minoru does what he can to help his friends whether it be technological help, such as tracking things down or allowing Hideki to make video phone calls, or advice on relationships with persocoms. Although he is known for being calm and collected most of the time, Minoru's attitude completely changes when Yuzuki is around. Much like Hideki is to Chi, Minoru very protective of Yuzuki and is prone to outbursts whenever she is in trouble. He is also very forgiving, always comforting her on the fact that it is never her fault if something goes wrong.
Minoru is also known as "M" on the bulletin boards, where he is considered one of the leading experts in the field of persocom development. Minoru's late sister is Kaede Saito, a character from Angelic Layer.
[edit] Yuzuki
- Japanese Seiyū
- Fumiko Orikasa
- English Voice Actor
- Karen Strassman
Yuzuki is a persocom created by Minoru Kokubunji roughly two years before the start of the series. Yuzuki was created to resemble, physically and mentally, Minoru's late sister, Kaede, who had died from an illness two years earlier. Yuzuki was programmed with all of the data that Minoru could remember about his sister; what she liked, what she disliked, her habits and behaviors—everything. However, Minoru still realizes that no matter how realistic she may be, she is still only a persocom that is following her programming. Yuzuki, despite not having the same processing capacity as a persocom like Chi, also seems to possess an awareness of her own limitations.
Toward the end of the anime and manga, Yuzuki loses a large portion of Kaede's personality data as a result of trying to hack into Zima and being counter-hacked by Dita. However, Minoru declines to reenter this data, because he has grown to love Yuzuki for who she is; because she is Yuzuki, rather than because she is a replacement for his sister.
[edit] Takako Shimizu
- Japanese Seiyū
- Ryoka Yuzuki
- English Voice Actor
- Wendee Lee
Takako Shimizu (清水多香子 Shimizu Takako?) is Hideki and Shinbo's teacher at the Seki cram school. Like Yumi, Shimizu has had a negative experience with persocoms: her husband bought a persocom and eventually she became unimportant to him compared to the persocom. He spent more and more time with his persocom until he forgot about his wife completely, locking her out of the house one night because he was so enamored with it. Because of this, Shimizu was no longer able to trust human men. Later, Shimizu elopes with Shinbo. In the end, she returns to the cram school, married to Shinbo.
[edit] Yumi Omura
- Japanese Seiyū
- Megumi Toyoguchi
- English Voice Actor
- Julie Maddalena
Yumi Omura (大村裕美 Ōmura Yumi?) is a 17 year old girl who works at the Japanese pub [My Pleasure] alongside Hideki. In the anime, she is the daughter of the club's owner, but in the manga, she is just an employee. It is initially implied that Yumi was interested in a relationship with Hideki, but as the series progresses it is revealed that she initially approached him because he also worked at Club Pleasure, and that she thinks of him as a big brother. Throughout most of the series Yumi has an inferiority complex toward persocoms, and becomes upset at any mention of a human-sized persocom.
The reason for this is that while Yumi was working at Chiroru she fell in love with the manager, Hiroyasu Ueda. She gathered the courage to tell him, and found out that he reciprocated her feelings. All would have been well, except that Yumi discovered that Ueda had previously been married to a persocom that he had named Yumi, (See Hiroyasu's entry) and she thought that he would compare the human Yumi to the persocom Yumi and find the human Yumi inferior.
However, Hideki eventually manages to persuade Yumi that Hiroyasu wouldn't have started anything if he didn't love Yumi for who she was, and he and Yumi start going out again.
[edit] Freya
- Japanese Seiyū
- Rie Tanaka
- English Voice Actor
- Michelle Ruff
Freya was the first Chobit, who was created before Elda by Hibiya's husband, Ichiro Mihara. Freya was created to be Hibiya's daughter, because she was unable to bear children of her own. Freya's development was kept secret from Hibiya; she did not know of Freya's existence until she was called down to the lab one day, without explanation. In front of her, suspended from a number of wires and cables, was a persocom. Upon awakening for the very first time, she was given the name Freya by Hibiya. Freya's first word was "Mama".
Freya lived happily with the Mihara couple for a time, until Hibiya noticed that her attitude was becoming increasingly melancholy, with no explanation as to why. At this point, Hibiya asked her husband to build a little sister for Freya, in an attempt to make her happy again. From this request, Elda was created. Freya was incredibly happy to have a little sister, and for a time, she seemed to be acting normally, although, as Hibiya would later tell Hideki in the anime, "there were still these odd times when she looked as though she was thinking very deeply about something."
Some time after, Freya suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. In the anime, the impetus for this event was witnessing her mother and father flirting with each other in the compound's courtyard. It was only then that Hibiya finally realized the source of Freya's sadness; she had fallen in love with her own father, Mihara. Freya knew that her father still loved his wife, and did not want to disturb their happiness, so she pained her heart with efforts to suppress her feelings. Over time, her pain became so great that her she began to malfunction under the strain of her emotional burden. Freya was no longer able to move, and was confined to a bed from that point on. Toward the end, she could not lift a finger or even shift her focus, and began to have problems with her memory.
In the anime, Freya never found the courage to tell her father how she truly felt; in the manga, she resigns herself to the fact that because of the damage to her body, all hope is lost regardless of the outcome, and chooses to tell him her true feelings. Eventually, Freya's pain became so unbearable, that she chose to self-terminate, rather than continue to exist (in the manga's English translation, it seems as though Freya wishes to commit suicide). Before she could do this, however, her sister Elda offered to take her heart into her own, so that she would not disappear completely, and so that her memories would be preserved.
Now that Elda has become Chi, Freya does everything she can to ensure that Chi will find the person just for her. Freya exists as a separate entity within Chi, and is capable of monitoring Chi's sensory input, and will intervene if Chi is in danger. It should be noted that in the anime, nobody knew that Elda had taken in Freya's heart; conversely, in the manga, both Hibiya and Mihara learned of this only moments after it occurred.
(Note about the spelling "Freya": "Freya" actually appears in the Japanese Chobits merchandise. In Norse mythology, Freya was a goddess of love, sex and attraction.)
[edit] Hiroyasu Ueda
- Japanese Seiyū
- Yuji Ueda
- English Voice Actor
- Steven Blum
Hiroyasu Ueda (植田 弘康 Ueda Hiroyasu?) is the owner of Chiroru, a local bakery which Yumi (and in the manga, Hideki) once worked in and which Chi ends up working at. He is 38 years old, although he looks like he is only in his mid-20's, jokingly noting that he has a "baby face" at one point.
He, too, has suffered a trauma involving persocoms. When he first opened his bakery, he bought a persocom to help with math and accounting, which he admits he is terrible at. He eventually fell in love with this persocom and then married her, but she developed a hard disk fault which resulted in the gradual degradation of her memory, until she remembered almost nothing at all.
Rarely, she would suddenly recall small fragments of memories from her life with Hiroyasu. He could not bring himself to have her repaired because her memories might be lost completely in the process of transferring them to a new hard drive, and he felt she would not be the same person if this happened. Soon, her memory degraded to the point that she could not remember anything for more than a few seconds at a time, and Hiroyasu had keep a constant watch on her to prevent her from wandering away. One night while walking with his persocom, Hiroyasu, lost in thought, walked into the middle of the street, unaware of an oncoming car. In one final moment of clarity, his persocom pushed him out of the way, and was herself run over. Her last words to Hiroyasu were, "Hello, who are you?".
Hiroyasu and Yumi Omura were in love in the past, but broke up when Yumi quit her job at the bakery when she discovered that the persocom he married was named "Yumi" and feared she would never live up to the other Yumi. Through the help of Chii and Hideki, he and Yumi resume their relationship.
[edit] Yoshiyuki Kojima (Dragonfly)
- Japanese Seiyū
- Jun'ichi Suwabe
- English Voice Actor
- Terrence Stone
Known in online circles as "Dragonfly", Yoshiyuki Kojima (小島 良由起 Kojima Yoshiyuki?) is a man of few scruples and another custom persocom-builder. Unlike Minoru Kokubunji, he is more obsessed with persocoms and even kidnaps Chi at one point. He tries to hack into Chi, using all of his persocoms in a massive parallel processing network. During this time, he makes an ill-advised attempt to inappropriately touch Chi, and Freya takes over, restraining him with all of the cords attached to her. She then attacks him with a concussion blast, blowing out the windows in his house and knocking him unconscious. Afterwards, to make amends for his actions, he lends his help to solving the mystery of Chi and the Chobits.
Yoshiyuki is the original owner of Kotoko.
[edit] Kotoko
- Japanese Seiyū
- Yukana Nogami
- English Voice Actor
- Kari Wahlgren
Kotoko (琴子?) is another laptop persocom, like Sumomo, but was custom-built by Yoshiyuki and has much higher specifications than Sumomo. Kotoko originally belonged to Yoshiyuki, but following the kidnapping of Chi, he is forced by Hideki and Shinbo to transfer ownership of Kotoko to Hideki so that her memories of Yoshiyuki kidnapping Chi cannot be erased.
Kotoko is far more serious than Sumomo, and thinks that everyone in the Motosuwa household is mad, especially Sumomo, although she herself occasionally exhibits a sarcastic wit. Kotoko is programmed to always tell the truth, no matter what.
In the original Japanese version, her seiyuu (Nogami) once worked together with Sumomo's seiyu (Kumai) in Cardcaptor Sakura (another anime adapted from CLAMP's works, as Li Meiling and Li Syaoran respectively). Ironically, in CCS, Syaoran was the more "mature" one of the pair.
[edit] Zima
- Japanese Seiyū
- Isshin Chiba
- English Voice Actor
- Kirk Thornton
Zima (ジーマ Jima?) is one of two government persocoms who are looking for Chi. They do not want her to execute her final program, which they believe would destroy the person-recognition abilities of every persocom on the planet. It is believed that the program will execute when Chi finds the Person Just for Her. Zima, however, believes that this may not necessarily be true, and genuinely wants Chi to find happiness. He lies to Dita about Chi's whereabouts and stalls as long as possible before finally going to stop her. In the manga, Zima physically restrains Dita from attacking Chi. Zima is also the Japanese government's national data bank, and during the course of the series an attempt is made by Yuzuki to hack into him to gain information on Chi.
In both the anime and the manga, Zima is referred to as "The King of Persocoms".
[edit] Dita
- Japanese Seiyū
- Yuka Tokumitsu
- English Voice Actor
- Dorothy Elias-Fahn
Dita (ディタ?) is the second of the two persocoms looking for Chi. Her role is to protect Zima both physically and as an anti-cracker, hacking into any persocom who tries to hack into Zima and shutting it down (which happens to Yuzuki during her attempt to hack Zima). Dita appears to love Zima, but tries to deny it, believing the persocoms cannot or should not experience such feelings. In the manga, when Zima asked, "Do you love me?", she replied, "We're persocoms! Be serious!"
