This is one of those shows that both gets undue criticism and praise.
CLAMP, moreso than any creator that’s emerged in the last 20 years gets it. They know how this manga and anime game works. Unless I’m missing someone, they seem to be the only manga creators in the last 20 years who have really emerged as successful polymaths, if not in the Tezuka sense, certainly the Go Nagai sense. Not only do they produce cracking artwork, they understand their audiences, are shrewd businesswomen and get involved in both the manga and anime side of things.
So when they turn to something like Chobits, basically pure otaku bait aimed at the teenage boys and young men who tune into late night anime, not only is it a success, it’s also a notch or two above that typical fare. Compared to the robot maid shows of the years previous to Chobits, this is high art. Not only did it provide better characters than those shows, they also provided better dirty jokes.
It’s not just CLAMP’s stated fandom for Devilman that draws the Nagai comparison, they are also possessors of absolutely filthy minds. I’ve seen folks accuse the whole crotch power switch gag as being sexist, but not acknowledging it’s also a pretty funny joke. Had Go Nagai come up with it, it’d be “Oh that bawdy Go Nagai, he’s so incorrigible”. Well CLAMP are just as incorrigible, and that’s great. But people seem to put them on a pedestal, forgetting that they came up with smut fests like Mizuki-chan in Wonderland as well as their more high minded stuff.
On the flipside, there’s those who liked this a little too much – either as die-hard CLAMP fans or as idiots who wore Chi-ears and shouted Chiiii! like they were hard of hearing Monty Python fans. It’s not really deserving of that response. While it does what it does well, I’m not sure there’s much to offer to people who aren’t in that target demographic they are going after.