Hayate the Combat Butler Episode 31
ハヤテのごとく！Ep. 31

SPOILER Summary: Sakuya arrives at Nagi’s mansion to find that Nagi, in a nurse costume, is attempting to get Tama to leap through a tiny ring of fire, which of course he’s very reluctant to do. Some smacks by Sakuya and a fire extinguisher later has Sakuya blasting Nagi as animal abuse is more of a problem than copyright violations. Nagi isn’t concerned as the firing of a script writer or two for the series wouldn’t mean she’d lose her job. Getting back on story, Tama is grateful to Sakuya to Nagi’s annoyance. Hayate is surprised that Sakuya is so good with animals, and she reveals that she was like an “oneesan” to Nagi when they were younger (to Nagi’s embarrassment).

As Nagi and Sakuya have tea, Sakuya states that she used to take care of Nagi. Nagi feels that she would be a great “oneesama” and gets Hayate into a school girl’s costume. Hayate is to address Nagi as “Nagi-oneesama” and behave in a stereotypical fashion. However, when Hayate accidentally grabs Nagi’s breast, he takes a beating for it but gets out of playing a little sister in exchange for finding some real kids for Nagi to care for. He immediately returns with a couple of kid brothers, which has Sakuya suspicious. Since this isn’t Isumi-san, how’d they get lost on the mansion grounds? The kids don’t want the cops involved for finding their parents and Nagi sees a perfect situation.

The kids (Itsuki being the older kid and Shunji the younger) begin calling Nagi “oneechan.” However, she wants to be addressed as “Nagi-oneesama” which they are happy to do. She orders her SP’s to find the kids parents and a military force launches to do just that. The kids inquire about the price of certain objects which Nagi reveals. Sakuya comes in with a suitcase, which she says contains incredible treasure so Nagi better not steal it. Nagi isn’t interested, but the kids eye it with interest. Nagi instead decides to show them more treasure, which is a room filled with doujinshi, including a lot of yaoi/shounen ai stuff. This brings Sakuya’s harisen out again as she whacks Nagi since the kids shouldn’t even be looking at this stuff (a great deal of doujinshi is hentai in nature).

She asks if they like animals, and when they say they do, she brings them to Tama, who’s dressed up in a boyish fashion (likely a nod to some anime title but I don’t know what). Again, Sakuya whacks Nagi with the harisen because the kids are afraid of the giant tiger. Sakuya suggest going outside to play and reluctantly Nagi agrees. That brings a game of kick the can, which Nagi isn’t pleased to play since she’s a master of modern computer games and not “retro” games like kick the can. But she even agrees to play hide-and-seek with the kids as Sakuya reveals that when Nagi was small, there were no other children around, only adults after her fortune. So Sakuya brought Nagi out of her shell and helped her make friends.

The SP’s are still looking for the kids’ parents when one stops Nishizawa-san if the kids are hers. She is offended by the implication, then goes on about how she’s only been able to hold the hand of the boy she likes and be a lap pillow for him. Realizing what she’s said, she smacks the SP and races off. The SP’s continue their search for the parents.

Meanwhile the games are over and Nagi admits to having fun. She then decides she’s going to prepare the kids a meal, which Maria and Hayate are concerned about. She refuses their offers of assistance but when her nasty stew is done, Maria has Nagi try a sip and of course, its nasty. The kids take off quietly and Hayate notices them gone so he leaves to find them. They’ve gone for Sakuya’s case and she’s waiting for them, knowing there was something not right with them. They get away and Sakuya and Hayate pursue.

Nagi, with Maria’s help, makes a decent meal but the kids are gone. They find Sakuya and Hayate, but Sakuya refuses to allow Hayate to speak the truth about the kids since it would break Nagi’s heart. Instead, she makes up a story about the kids being kidnapped which has Nagi dispatch security to include the security droids. The kids are trapped but are saved by Hayate and a couple of SP’s from Security Droids. The kids give up and Sakuya ends up giving them the case with its contents.

Returning to the mansion, Sakuya says she was mistaken and that there was no intruder on the mansion grounds. She tells Nagi that the kids’ parents picked them up and all is well. Hayate is a bit depressed that she has no little brothers any more, but Sakuya reminds her that Nagi has other family (Sakuya, Hayate, Maria, etc.). Meanwhile the case contains two gold suits and a harisen so the kids can enter a comedy competition.

The episode ends with a third butler dispatched to challenge Hayate. This time it is with some sort of race cars and Hayate wins (no clue what series was being parodied this week).

Thoughts: A pretty funny episode. Finally, Sakuya has a decent role to play and her harisen use is actually funny (well, it was when she beat Tama in an earlier episode, but mostly, the harisen stuff hadn’t been funny to me). The writers using flash images of unrelated scenes and characters to simulate crash sequences was funny to me. Seeing the super deformed characters outside Nagi’s room(s) was funny. I later found out both are Ink-chan from the series Moe-tan. The other reference that I was quickly able to find was for MÄR. The characters Toramizu Ginta with his ball-and-chain mustached mace Babbo as well as Dorothy (I’m taking a guess there since the bastards at Wikipedia are too afraid of posting a blasted image of the character).

There were clearly lots of other references, but researching that was something I just don’t have time for. Seriously, whomever licenses this anime for the U.S. had better do the research though because I want to know them all, just like I did for Excel Saga.