1. Chi awakens

The first episode, and the true starting point of the entire series: on a rainy night, Hideki Motosuwa, a young man newly arrived in Tokyo from the provinces to prepare for university entrance exams, discovers an abandoned Persocom on a pile of trash. Unable to afford such a humanoid computer brand new — a device so widespread in this version of Japan that nearly every household owns one — he brings it home anyway, more out of a reflex of compassion than any calculation. The episode takes its time setting up Hideki's precarious daily life, his odd jobs, his modest apartment, before tipping over into mystery: the Persocom he has just taken in reacts to nothing, until she suddenly opens her eyes and utters a single word, "Chi," which becomes her name. This awakening scene, filmed with an almost solemn slowness by Madhouse, deliberately contrasts with the light tone of the rest of the episode and immediately raises the question that will haunt the entire series: where does this Persocom, so unlike any other, really come from? We also meet the characters who will make up Hideki's circle — curious neighbors, classmates from his prep school — in an efficient setup that favors emotion and curiosity over heavy-handed exposition. Morio Asaka's direction, renowned for its delicacy, establishes from this very first episode the distinctive balance Chobits strikes between gentle comedy about student life and an underlying gravity around loneliness and attachment.