My Dear Marie

Some parallels between Chobits and Boku no Marie are easy to spot ("Yeah, they're, like, both about beautiful robot girls and hapless guys, right? And neither one of the guys is secure enough to buy underwear for his bot, huh?"). Yet there are aspects of each that are under the surface, too. Unlike Boku no Marie, which is set in a Japan that is otherwise pretty normal for the 1990s, Chobits is set in a near-future Japan where attachments between "persocoms" (think bijin/bishonen with cords that extend from elven ears) and their human owners are, if not actually encouraged by society, at least understood as a cultural phenomenon. In both stories, though, the android protagonist (Marie-chan/Chii-chan) is unique -- unlike anything the people around her has ever seen. How each android reacts to her creation and goes through her individual learning process is fascinating. Although Marie-chan does emerge from Karigari's workshop fully programmed to be an ideal girl, and spends lots of time helping Karigari's relationships with two human girls, she has enough of a will of her own to want to be more human herself by the end of the series. Chii-chan starts out knowing only how to say her name, but evolves into a being who actively seeks the company of her owner Hideki. One wonders after seeing both series whether Chii-chan will want to experience dreams like Marie-chan does, or whether Marie-chan will ever act on the aspects of her self that appear in her dreams and nag her about her being a mere carbon copy of Karigari's classmate Marie. I liked both, and have cross-recommended, but I can't help but picture Marie-chan and Chii-chan in a parallel universe both attending an Androids Anonymous meeting to come to terms with being "the one and only" in their respective worlds.

Very lucky boys come across or find androids that help out in their daily lives. With romantic feelings brewing between man and machine, lots of humor and a little bit of ecchi are surely involved. If you liked one check out the other.

Quick, name two 1990s-era series about mecha otaku who are inexperienced with girls? Hiroshi Karigari of Boku no Marie is older than Daisy's Reijiro Tekuno ("Techno"), and seems to have more of a life, but both are guys who clearly have let their left brain take complete control; what they both need is a little female companionship to take the scientific edge off. While Karigari builds Marie-chan, the perfect woman in robotic form, Techno chooses a somewhat easier path and finds a human classmate whom he places on a sky-high virtual pedestal and renames "Daisy" (much to her chagrin). The two series then diverge, with Boku no Marie verging into Marie-chan's inner life and the nature of her feelings towards Karigari, while Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy spends more time exploring how Techno came to be a technologically-advanced shut-in. Still, there's enough of an overlap that those who like one title will like the other.