Hayate no Gotoku! 25
Hayate the Combat Butler Ep. 25

SPOILER Summary:

Hayate has been sold to Isumi-san, and has lost it in that he decides to count the threads on the tatami mats. Meanwhile, Maria finds Nagi at Wataru’s store and a discussion soon has Nagi in tears at the thought that Hayate will not like her any more. After Maria leaves, Sakuya’s older brother Gilbert arrives, and states that Nagi should test Hayate by staging a kidnapping.

Elsewhere, Maria finds Hayate and talks with him about the situation at Isumi-san’s estate. Meanwhile, Nagi and Saki go with Gilbert to an underground place where he has a large mecha unit waiting to fight Hayate with. This mecha was created by Shiori, who used Eight’s previous version (8.1) for its A.I., but she forgot to put the control chip in it to prevent it from going nuts. Sakuya arrives in the cave gives Nagi a bit of a hard time regarding her current situation. The mecha starts going nuts, leading Saki to call Wataru and bring them running to save them.

As things start looking grim (as the mecha is looking for “twin tails” and Hayate), Nagi is given a disguise by simply having her ponytails removed. Her bodyguards place them on Saki, making the mecha go for her. Wataru manages to arrive in time to save her but there’s still no Hayate until Nagi screams for him. At that point he arrives and saves Nagi before ultimately defeating the mecha. Nagi, somewhat embarrassed by the situation, does hire Hayate back.

Thoughts:

I enjoyed the episode, though there were no laughs for me. Looking around the web, I see that manga fans seem pretty disappointed with the anime and based on other titles where I’d read the manga first, I can understand that. Since I don’t have that issue, the anime has been a lot of fun to me, but I do admit that the laughs aren’t there like they were before.

On a related note, one blogger quit (Random Curiosity) doing the series. He was a good resource on pointers to references in the series (he wouldn’t state a specific reference, but just list titles referenced, which helped a ton when I’d research the references). So I wanted to give a shout out to him for the pointers. To those readers of his blog for Hayate no Gotoku who’ve come here, welcome. ^_^

References: Well, the toughest part about the series is finding all the references. As always, any help from you guys is appreciated.

1. Nagi’s reference to the amazing underground of Tokyo is a reference to different series where the setting supposedly takes place under Tokyo, like Tokyo Underground. However, the cave she’s in might actually be a specific reference to Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho: Tou according to Eisdrache.
2. Gilbert’s mecha has many fans thinking it is similar to the mecha used in the anime Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. I find no specific mecha to tie it to that series (they have done so previously though) but if you have a specific title this mecha belongs to, I’d love to know it. Update: the mecha came straight from the Hayate no Gotoku! manga, which predates Gurren Lagann, so that ends any possibility of a reference there.
3. No clue what Devil**der is (that was the translated term).
4. No clue what “You’re inferior to fake ******* in design…” is either. I’m wishing I’d bookmarked a foreign site I stumbled into several weeks ago (I often forget to do that) because they appeared to get the bleeps right.
5. The destruction of the mecha unit leaves a cross of light, like that seen in Neon Genesis Evangelion.