Ken reviews Chobits and produces this (I'm going to ignore spoiling considerations, because of the series' age):

I didn't mind the fellow sort of adopting the "Chobit" after realizing he might have an emergent AI and trying to help "her" along he was ethical to do so...that was cute and sweet..and her childlike nature made it poignant.
I didn't mind the idea that the android that was self aware might "want" companionship or even that there might be a romance of sorts between "her" and someone.......
The fact that it is the same guy who is essentially her father figure and she is STILL waiflike and...almost...developmentally challenged at the end makes my skin crawl.

Try as I might, I don't see the problem. What is so wrong with Chii? It's no creepier than Pigmalion, a classic of Anglospheric literature (well, maybe the original myth is what I mean). And hey, just read how soldiers in Iraq antropomorphize their robots, think of them as part of the team and mourn when said robots get blown up by an IED. All of it is only natural for humans.

I'm not approaching the issue from the position of cynicism. I remember how SDB rather flippantly observed that "[although conventional sex with Chii is prohibited,] fortunately there is no such silly prohibition against blowjobs". But I can look at it calmly. Let's consider Chii's as a self-aware personality. Is there any damage from Hideki falling for her? Perhaps society may suffer from a demographic collapse on the macro level, but neither of the two seem to be worse off.

As for the father complex, it's just an import from Freud, which he simply took out of thin air and which was refuted innumerable number of times since. Plus the subconscious fear of incest. It's not applicable to the main couple in Chobits no matter how you look at it. Curiously, Ken forgot about the real father of Freia and Elda, where the issue has dealt real damage.

Moving on...

For all that it is an interesting series, and touches on but doesn't explore some intruiging issues.

* Chi gets a job. How does this work? SHE gets paid and it is implied that persocom owners doing this is not uncommon. It is also implied that this is recommended for people who must leave their PerComs at home...to keep them from getting bored. (aieee!) The implications for low end entry level work are not good.

True, we do not want to explore this to the very end. Otherwise, it's going to be Someday's Dreamers and Mage's Bill of Rights equivalent. I thought that the story was coherent in itself. The world creation of many anime is incomplete this way ("what if Ranma gets pregnant?").

If you really want to explore all ends, I think a stable society has to adopt what basically amounts to slavery rule. Slavery is only repulsive if humans are the subjects, but here it's not an issue. Feel free to write fanfics to elaborate.

What is the threshold of sentience? While the focus of "intelligence watch" is on Chi, Minoru's ersatz sister has a delightfully unnerving off the cuff remark. While talking to Chi she says that she knows everything about Minoru's sister and can act as she would...but she is not Minoru's sister...and it bothers her.

Yes, I noticed it too: Minoru is in denial about Yuzuki's capabilities, claiming that it's "only a program". But of course it's not only a program if it can build upon itself. There are some interesting questions and details here, but I know nothing about the architecture of Yuzuki's brain and/or mind, and in any case it's all fiction. I scoped a little bit how I would do it, but in reality it's just impossible so there was no point to bother too much.

Not stressed in the series is the actual victor of the piece. Shinbo got the smart sexy reasonably well adjusted woman...everybody else got a robot or a weirdo..SHINBO WINS!!

Heh, I chuckled. But please, Yumi is no weirdo.