Chobits is the story about 19 year old Motosuwa Hideki. Hideki is extremely poor, lives in a cramped apartment, and is a bit of a pervert (well, as much as any collage boy is). Now, in the world he lives in there are things called persocons. Persocons are personal computers in the shape of human beings. See, What’s a persocon? for a more detailed explanation. Hideki wants a persocon so he can send e-mail and look at porn sites and such... But, he’s much too poor to afford one.
So one day, after coming home from a hard day at work, Hideki is walking down an alley, complaining about not being able to get a persocon. He is walking by a dumpster when he spots what he believes to be a human being. After scaring himself silly because he think's she's been murdered, he realizes it’s a persocon. Well, what does he do when he sees an abandoned persocon? Why, he takes it home of course! However, Hideki fails to notice a CD slip out of the persocon's binding as he drags her away. After 4 hours of trying to find the on button, he, er, finds the right spot and the persocon comes to life. All she can say is Chii, so that is what her name becomes.
So now Hideki wants to try hooking her up to the Internet. He pulls out a manual, and hooks her up to his TV. The screen reads, “No Data.” After whining some more Hideki asks his friend Shinbo to come over and see what he can do. Shinbo hooks up his mini persocon, Sumomo, to Chii, which causes Sumomo to crash. Hideki is still stuck with a useless persocon, so Shinbo recommends Kokubunji Minoru, a child genius who has created his own persocons by the age of 11. When Hideki goes to visit him, his 4 maid persocons try to find Chii’s Operating System, but they all crash. Yuzuki, Minoru’s custom-made persocon, decides to try to find Chii’s OS as well but no luck.
As they are having lunch, Minoru tells Hideki about Chobits. Chobits are supposedly legendary persocons with the ability to operate without an OS and they can have feelings. A few days later, Minoru asks Hideki to meet with him and he shows Hideki a picture of what looks like a clone of Chii with a whole bunch of wires sticking out of her spinal cord...and on her leg there is the word Chobits. Could Chii be one of these “Chobits”? And what are they really? Chobits follows Hideki, and the rest of the cast as they try to unravel Chii's past and the mystery behind Chobits.