Hayate the Combat Butler Episode 30
ハヤテのごとく！Ep. 30

SPOILER Summary: Maria-san, Hayate, and Nagi are off to an onsen for some relaxation and Nagi picks one that looks rundown (and classic) but is still within the city. They hear a scream and rush off to find Katsura-sensei “dead” as the library trio, Eight, and Shiori arrive. When they initially see her in the brief intro, she’s wearing a bathrobe (traditional for an onsen) but is now wearing a princess outfit which Hayate points out is different to the irritation of Katsura-sensei. She verbally blasts him, but Nagi knocks her out, “smelling a crime” which the announcer states she just committed.

Nagi dons some glasses and a grade school backpack to start her deductions. Hina arrives and makes some sad, but insulting comments about her oneechan, to Katsura-sensei’s irritation. She has a tape which was just delivered to her. In it, Katsura-sensei starts making a recording. Initially it is in one of the Inn’s rooms, but then shifts to the bridge of some sci-fi (anime?) show. As she continues to talk about her impending death, she appears to be in a train car in space before ending up in front of a castle to be pursued by someone wearing special metal gauntlets.

First, Nagi accuses Shiori and theorizes how she killed Katsura-sensei with a speckled snake. She slaps the cuffs on Shiori, which brings Eight into the scene to free her, forcing Hayate to knock Eight out and suggest maybe it was someone else. So Nagi theorizes the killers were the library trio, using a giant, speckled octopus. They deny it and the suspicion falls on Nagi, who apparently used a spotted elephant to strangle their teacher. Hayate protests his innocense while Nagi speaks into a mic of some kind about it. This brings and irritated Katsura-sensei “back to life” to get them to push the story forward.

Hina finds a “dying message” from Katsura-sensei, that spells out the work (in Kanji) “hibiya.” The narrator explains that this is when the victim of a homicide leaves a clue to their killer, in the example, Tama being shot by Vice President Cheney. The narrator explains that “Hibiya” is an area in Japan near Tokyo where the first traffic light was installed. So, after going off the deep end a bit with a UFO theory, Nagi decides the killer has to be somewhere else, say in the onsen since the *** seeds to the left could be made into radicals, changing the Kanji, thus changing the meaning to Coed Bath.

The group heads out to the bath where Maria-san is taking a bath but wrapped in a bath towel, but not before a brief fanservice scene of the library trio in the onsen. Nagi explains this is the first “must have” of an episode of this type (sexy girl in the bath). The next is exquisite food. the third is the inquiry at a bar, where Klaus gives an example in drag (the suspect picture now being shown to be a panda). The next must have is a ping pong match back at the onsen resort. It is then that the “corpse” is discovered to be missing.

Nagi summons her staff of bodyguards who find a clue — a voice recorder taped to the underside of a table from which Katsura-sensei’s scream can be heard. Nagi decides to put everything together clue-wise and after a brief scene of Nishizawa trying to trick-or-treat in Japan, Nagi assembles the group to a cliff where she has Hayate seated in a chair. She hids behind the chair and with a bow tie, proceeds to speak in Hayate’s voice to explain things. However, Nagi is forced to eventually come forward after questions from the group about the tape, where it is showing that Katsura-sensei was in two different rooms, meaning she was killed in one and moved to the other.

After challenging the group to figure out whom the criminal is, they all come up with Hina as the killer. She starts to confess to being the killer but Nagi, again speaking with he bow tie, says it isn’t Hina. Hina protests, but Nagi proclaims the real killer to be the voice announcer. Since she produced the script, she won’t allow anyone to complain. A giant wave (the Japanese didn’t use the word “tsunami”) with Katsura-sensei surfing the crest approaches. Katsura-sensei is unhappy about her screen time and Nagi is not happy about the “corpse” coming back to life so often. So, Nagi throws down her scrips and at a very foggy onsen, we see the faces of all the girls bathing together. Hayate and Eight get to bath in an old metal barrel.

The episode ends with Hayate dispatching another Butler, parodying Battle B-Daman.

Thoughts: This was another funny episode, but since I’ve never watched Detective Conan, it wasn’t as funny as it could have been. Interesting western cultural references like Halloween and Trick or Treat. There was the announcer apologizing to “Doyle-sensei” for Nagi’s poor theory taken from a Sherlock Holmes short story and later having Nagi dressed as Sherlock Holmes with her addressing Hayate as “Watson-kun.” The one that stunned me most (and was funny to me, even though I like the person referenced) was the explanation of “dying message” with Tama being shot by a western hunter and writing the name “Cheney” in Katakana in the dirt.

Speaking of references, besides Detective Conan, I noticed what I believe to be a reference to Galaxy Railways during Katsura-sensei’s video recording. The castle background combined with the metal, pointed-finger gauntlets are clearly a reference to the best Lupin III movie, Castle of Cagliostro.

The announcer mentioning Maria-san wearing a bath towel in the onsen was for broadcast restrictions and that the audience shouldn’t do the same in reality was funny. I’ve seen way to many anime titles and they mostly have the girls completely wrapped in bath towels, which isn’t how it is in Japan.