Chobits-Volume 1: Persocom (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio Credits-credit-free opening (1:31) Gallery-art Trailer-Madman Propaganda (6:13) DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	98:36 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Morio Asaka
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Rie Tanaka Tomokazu Sugita Crispin Freeman Tomokazu Seki Tony Oliver Motoko Kumai Sandy Fox Kikuko Inoue Ruby Marlowe Fumiko Orikasa Julie Maddalena
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Keitaro Takanami

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English Titling English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, next episode teaser after closing credits

    This is a new anime series, one produced only recently in Japan. It originates from CLAMP, who are a successful group of female authors/artists. I've been told that this is their first male-oriented title. That may explain a couple of things I found uncomfortable. Well, that and cultural differences.

    This series is set in roughly the present day, but in a different reality. There's only one big difference between our reality and this one. In ours, personal computers are generally beige (or cream, or black) rectangular prisms. In this, personal computers take the form of attractive girls/women with strange ears (their interface cables are kept in their ears — kind of symbolic, in that you could think of the interfaces as one way they "listen"). They come in a variety of sizes from keychain size, through Barbie doll size, up to the size of petite young women. Oh, and personal computer is abbreviated to "persocom", rather than PC.

    Hideki Motosuwa is an 18 year old who wants to get off the farm and into university (he says "college", but this was translated, subtitled, and dubbed, in the USA, so we have to reinterpret a few words...). His letter arrives, and he discovers that he's been rejected. He decides to go to Tokyo anyway, and to study at a prep school before taking the entrance exams again (just like Keitaro in Love Hina).

    When he arrives in Tokyo he is surprised to see persocoms all over the place. He really wants one, for a stack of reasons, including e-mail, and surfing the web, and internet porn (looks like CLAMP have stereotypical ideas of what interests young men...). But then he catches sight of the price tag on a persocom in a shop window, and is convinced he'll never be able to afford one (the price shown is 598 000 yen — roughly $7 500 Australian today). So he's both delighted and surprised to discover one in a pile of trash on his way back to his apartment one evening. He turns it/her on, and all it/she will say is "Chi". He decides to call her Chi (Note: the credits say Chii, but the subtitles and episode titles say Chi). He has no idea of how to use a persocom — he gets some help from his next door neighbour, Hiromu Shinbo, who has a small persocom called Sumomo. Shinbo can't help, so he sends them to Minoru Kokobunji, a boy who is an expert. Minoru can't help a lot, but he relates an urban legend about a series of custom-made ultra-powerful persocoms called Chobits — he seems to be implying that Chi may be a Chobits. He suggests that Hideki try teaching Chi about things, rather than simply loading software (the usual way to add functionality to a persocom). He also gives him an important piece of advice: "don't fall in love".

    The episodes on this disc are:

    Hideki is a bundle of hang-ups and rather strait-laced attitudes, courtesy of his upbringing in the country — think of him as a well-meaning country boy somewhat bewildered by the big city. One of the ways this shows is in his inability to enter a lingerie shop to buy underwear for Chi. Another is his embarrassment at her nakedness. He blushes easily, especially when he realises he's been talking to himself in public. He also over-reacts on occasion — one gets the feeling that he has been used to being on his own too much.

    This series seems to contain a number of comments about sexual prejudice. Initially I was somewhat put off by some of the events, but I am starting to see them as a sarcastic commentary on male attitudes. These are a bit subtle, though, and might easily be mistaken, as they were by me. For that matter, some males might see it as perfectly natural that all persocoms we see happen to be female in appearance... (Perhaps we're better off ignoring those people.)

    The characters are pleasant enough — the building manager (a lady called Chitose Hibiya) is a little colourless, but we've only seen a few seconds of her. Hideki's teacher at prep school (another lady, Takako Shimizu) gets a little tired of Hideki staring off into space. The one character I have yet to take a shine to is Hideki — he seems unappreciative of how nice people are being to him, but maybe I'm just jealous because I'd like to have a persocom like Chi.

    I've been told that this series gets really interesting soon. I hope so, because the first three episodes are mostly establishing the characters and situations. The fourth episode starts to get more interesting. Fingers crossed that this series fulfils its potential.

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced. I like it — I'm getting quite fond of widescreen anime, especially when it was clearly directed to use all of the wider frame.

    The image is very clear, and quite sharp. There's no film grain, and no low-level noise.

    Colour is quite attractive, in a variety of pastel shades. The disc seems to be a tiny bit too bright in a few spots, mostly in the form of slightly over-hot whites. Pastel coloured anime is a little prone to this problem — even so, it looks so pretty.

    There are no film artefacts.

    There is some aliasing, particularly on pans, and most especially on vertical pans — it's no worse than most other anime, and no especially distracting. There's no moire, and no MPEG artefacts, but there is a little bit of foreground haloing. I didn't notice any interlacing, which was good, but interlacing doesn't show very easily on this style of animation anyway. There are a couple of shots where the screen dissolves into large blocks, as though it were a major MPEG error, but it's a deliberate effect, part of the whole computer setting.

    All-in-all, this is a fairly attractive transfer — I just hope they control the over-brightness for the next disc.

    The only subtitles (two tracks) are the usual English ones — the first track subtitles signs and songs, while the second track is normal full English subtitles. I watched all of the full English subtitles. They are well-timed, seem accurate, and are easy to read — they are in the traditional yellow with black outlining. There's one odd moment, on one of the episode previews, where the black background to the title of the next episode is shown, but not the foreground yellow or white — it looks a bit odd, but only lasts a second or so.

    The disc is single-sided (with a nice picture label which is mostly white), and single layered. Single layered means no layer change. Everything seems to fit OK onto the one layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English and Japanese. The English is Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, at 224kbps. The Japanese is Dolby Digital 2.0, surround-encoded, at 192 kbps. Odd — you would think that the surround-encoded track would get the higher bit rate. I watched all the episodes with English sound and then again with the Japanese soundtrack.

    I found the English dialogue easy to understand, with very good sync between the animation and dialogue. The Japanese dialogue sounds clear enough, but is less well synchronised to the animated mouth movements — I think it's funny how common that is.

    The score is nice stuff — upbeat and cheerful, sometimes funky. It's credited to Keitaro Takanami. It's fairly light, and fits well with the animation and storyline.

    There is definite stereo separation, but nothing more, on the English soundtrack — there is nothing of any significance in the surrounds, even with Pro-Logic decoding. The Japanese soundtrack is not a lot different, with nothing much in the surrounds. The subwoofer gets nothing but redirected bass (if your system redirects bass into it).

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There's not much in the way of extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are animated with music. They are themed to look something like Mac menus, but they don't work that way.

Non-credits Opening (1:31)

    The opening sequence without credits over it. I like the theme.

Gallery — Art

    Fifteen images from the series, shown in a frame. Nothing very exciting.

Madman Propaganda (6:13)

    Four trailers that run one after another (not the usual Madman Propaganda format):

• Read or Die
• .hack // SIGN
• Full Metal Panic
• Arjuna

DVD Credits

    A single page that shows credits for the folks at Madman who worked on this disc.

    The Region 1 version of this disc is very similar, even down to having the same art on the front cover. The only extras it has are the opening sequence and an art gallery (albeit with different content). By reports, it has a very good transfer.

    Both the R1 and the R4 are available either as the disc alone, or as a special deal with the series box. The R4 box (I haven't seen the R1) is robust and nicely made, and they fill the space that will be occupied by volumes 2 to 6 with a T-shirt — it's an attractive image of Chi, and looks really nice on your lady-friend of choice (it's a bit too pink and a bit too small for me — your mileage may vary). I think it's a cute marketing gimmick to get you to buy the box with the first disc — I would rather they sold it with the last disc, so you can get it if you've enjoyed the series enough to want the box. Ah, well...

    It's really a draw between the two versions, but I'd suggest buying the R4 to support the locals (that's what I've done, after all).

    The opening volume of a new anime series that takes a decidedly different slant on things — it's hard to tell what it will be like yet, because we're still being introduced. It is presented well on DVD.

    The video quality is very good, but there's some aliasing that may annoy a few people.

    The audio quality is very good for a stereo soundtrack.

    The extras are meagre.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall