Hayate no Gotoku!! 02 (No Butler for You, Ayumu!)
Hayate the Combat Butler!! Ep. 02
Hayate no Gotoku “Season 2” Ep. 02
ハヤテのごとく！！Episode 02

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

With Hayate having failed his bet that Nagi would win first place, Klaus is going to fire him until Nagi threatens Klaus with a firing. Klaus gives Hayate a second chance, providing he pass the training at the Butler’s Tiger Den. Hayate accepts and on the way there by train, he meets a nun. When he’s accosted by an unemployed embezzler, the nun steps in. When the bum tries to attack her, she puts him out immediately.

After getting off the train, he finds the Butler’s Tiger Den is at the church the Sister works at. Meanwhile, Nagi gets a visit from Ayumu where the seed is planted that Hayate could get caught up with a strange woman. Finding this to be the case, Nagi sets out to join Hayate for his training, which consists of gathering a party of four and exploring the dungeon under the church as part of a “Butler’s Quest.” Joining Hayate’s party are Katsura-sensei and Wataru as well as Nagi. Hayate had attempted to recruit Hina, but she was still upset with Hayate having tricked her onto a suspension bridge to let Nagi win the marathon. Meanwhile, Isumi is hired by an elderly nun named Sister Fortesia to purify the dungeon underneath the church, the same name as the young nun that is helping Hayate train.

Thoughts/Review:

A really enjoyable episode with just one problem — THEY CUT AYUMU’s BUTLER STORY! With the time left for this episode, it appeared to me that this story could have been comfortably placed into the anime with Hayate getting to serve Ayumu’s family. For whatever reason, the story was cut.

That said, at least the writers acknowledged the story by having Ayumu have a brief fantasy sequence where she imagined Hayate as her butler. That fantasy sequence actually happened in the manga (along with some other stuff including a humorous Tama moment) except at Ayumu’s parent’s home. That was were me met her brother for the first time, if I recall correctly.

So sorry, Ayumu — no butler for you in the anime. That’s OK ’cause I can read it in the manga anytime I want to. ^_^ Also, since the anime isn’t making you into some walking food joke, its all good.

That was the only negative for me. Everything else was pretty spot on from the manga. Despite knowing the story so well (ever since I found out Viz is doing the manga series right, I’ve purchased the manga and have read the English volumes a few times through — great reading material before going to sleep ^_^), I found myself chuckling and smiling a lot. Sure, any belly laughs were gone, but that didn’t matter. I got to see things in action, in color, with sound from a storyline I rather enjoyed in the manga. Thus seeing this adaptation of it was most enjoyable indeed. ^_^

As an aside, I did laugh out loud when Maria speculated about a man picking up Hayate as well as the scene where the bum is telling Sister Sonia about how Japanese men prefer miko (Shinto shrine maidens) over nun when it comes to religious costumes. *lol*

I do wonder if the priest will be used in the anime. I sure hope so because he’s been a fun character. The writers have shown they can be faithful when it comes to characters (Sister Sonia is in) , but somehow I have a feeling the priest won’t show up at all. I hope I’m wrong about that because technically, he did cameo this episode when he’s shown digging the tunnel to build the dungeon.

Because the anime is following the manga more closely, the number of parody references is way down thus far. There are parody references in the manga, but the first anime series went WAY, WAY out there on parody references. The one parody reference I caught in this episode was Katsura-sensei refering to herself as “Deedlit.” Deedlit is the high-elf character from the series Record of Lodoss War. I blogged a good bit of the TV series here if anyone is interest. ^_^ Of course this can also be seen as a parody of D&D.

Two episodes and so far I’m very pleased with how the series is going.