As animes go, there are only two series that I have seen in their entirety. One is Neon Genesis Evangelion and the other, now, is Chobits. Yes, not even Kimagure Orange Road—possibly my favorite anime—makes that list; while I do own all the tapes, there are still some I never got around to watching. I got the last half of the KOR TV series on VHS after the DVD revolution had already taken over, and playing tapes anymore just seems like a waste of time. But I digress.

The final, seventh disc of Chobits is really just a bonus disc. It contains three “recap episodes” and a 6-minute reunion special of sorts called “Chibits.” The recap episodes are pretty standard; they are 95% recycled footage from earlier episodes, with a few new scenes and some new voiceovers. Each recap is done in the style of “A Chat With…” where two of the series’ supporting characters discuss recent events in the series. For a series with only 24 episodes, three recaps hardly seem necessary, and I am not sure they even aired originally in Japan. Hence, the DVD producer stuck them on a seventh bonus disc that does not come in the boxed set, so you don’t have to spend money on them if you don’t want to. Kind of a nice idea.

The recaps do highlight some of the best moments of the series, and Chii is just as cute as ever, so it’s not necessarily time wasted. The third recap, oddly, seems to be positioned chronologically after the series’ final episode, which seems like a weird place for a recap. It has a few new scenes wherein Hideki and Chii go check out the former’s college entrance exam scores to see if he got in, which has been his character’s overarching goal for the entire show. Anticlimactically, however, we don’t actually find out what his results were. But all of his friends from the series’ run show up to cheer him on, which is nice.

The “Chibits” special was cute because it focused on Chii, Sumomo and Kotoko, the three “title persocoms” of the show. Sumomo’s antics are zanier and funnier than ever, but…well, maybe it’s because I’m a stupid farang…er, gaijin…but I didn’t get the whole joke at the end. Actually my wife didn’t either, so we both felt a little like “WTF?” at the end instead of giggling at the comedy. I won’t try to explain it here, because I didn’t understand it, but “Chibits” was at least funny. It needed to be longer, though. Six minutes is really nothing. Twice that length would have been good.

Even if you don’t buy the seventh disc, the rest of the series is so damn good that, even having seen it all, I’m thinking of buying the complete series on DVD. It’s split into two boxes of three discs each, with each box retailing for $40 at Best Buy. They were just re-released here in America only a couple weeks ago, and it’s nice to see that even though this is the second run of discs, the original goodies are still present (including a poster stuffed in the box, from what I hear).

I’m anxious to see some more anime from Netflix. It’s the best way to see commercial anime in my opinion, being that your only other option is usually to buy a disc of the stuff without any idea of whether you’ll like it. And Chobits is one of the most heartwarming animes I’ve seen.

Now, as for Azumanga Daioh…well, you already know how I feel about that silliness. But all was not lost: On the disc was a preview of Puni Puni Poemy, which, despite the ludicrous name, looks every bit as awesome as Excel Saga, so now I must have it. Pooch told me about it a while ago. Anything with Nabeshin in it can’t be bad. I just wish Netflix had Excel Saga. Damn fools. I want my Excel and I don’t want to pay.

Interestingly, there’s another Netflix-like service out there called AnimeTakeout which is an anime-only DVD rental-by-mail service. Useful if you want the Netflix experience but you’re only into anime. I don’t know if their service is any good though, but they seem to have a decent selection.