Hayate the Combat Butler Episode 33
ハヤテのごとく！Ep. 33

SPOILER Summary: Superintended Kuzuha turns down a group of butler’s request to attack Hayate. A masked butler is also turned down, but when he produces a table of sweets, Kuzuha changes her minds and authorizes him to do his thing.

At Hakuou Academy, Hayate completes the entrance banner for the culture festival, having been conned into it by the Student Council Trio. He’s planning on returning to Nagi, but the trio won’t hear of it and gets him to further assist them. At the mansion, Nagi is cutting class and reading manga. However, after Maria talks, we learn that she’s annoyed with Hayate for being so nice and doing all those things for others in the class when he’s her butler. But she uses Maria as an excuse to go to school and check in on him (and attend the festival with him).

At class, the trio are sitting in butler outfits for their Butler Cafe, but instead of working, they are playing cards and allowing Hayate to do all the work. Seeing his annoyance, they decide to let him have a break and do a little work. However, Katsura-sensei bursts into the room and takes Hayate just as Nagi arrives. She’s annoyed that Hayate is missing. Hayate is being forced to do the work Katsura-sensei should be doing, and this is seen by Hina and Haruko. Hina confronts her oneechan about this and rescues Hayate as Katsura-sensei flees.

Hina and Hayate share some tacoyaki until Kazuha arrives with her giant snake, who tries to eat Hayate. Meanwhile, Nagi is wandering the school and depressed when the masked butler, disguised as a fortune teller, convinces Nagi to get her fortune told. He hypnotizes Nagi and sends her to bring Hayate to him. Hayate, having just been spit out by the snake, Hayate gets a call from Maria informing him that Nagi has gone missing but before he can find her, she’s there behind him, asking him in a monotone fashion to come with her. She leads Hayate and Hina all over the campus, stopping at various booths, until she finally leads them to the old school building.

Hayate is annoyed that this butler did what he did to Nagi, but Hina is also annoyed. The butler attacks with a mecha unit that looks like a small dinosaur and Hina brandishes a shinai (bamboo sword). She attacks the mecha, damaging it but manages to get snared by it. Hayate attacks and frees Hina, and the mecha unit ends up falling apart and exploding. Nagi decides she’s the queen of Japanese festivals and will show folks a true festival, holding a manga title. Kazuha decides she wants to see this true festival and so Nagi goes off with her and the snake.

Thoughts: This wasn’t as funny to me simply because I haven’t watched the shows being parodied. I did see what looked like Watanuki from xxxHOLiC and apparently this was on purpose to allow seiyuu Fukuyama Jun (Watanuki’s seiyuu) to have some fun parodying characters he’s done for other series (in addition to xxxHOLiC). I did smile at the ComiFes reference at the end of the episode, though looking back, I’m guessing Nagi’s sitting at a table with stacks of manga/doujinshi as if for sale is also a reference to ComiFes (or other doujinshi-selling event). Sure enough, next week’s episode will apparently be about doujinshi.

Overall, a pretty enjoyable episode. I do wish I knew more about the anime titles it was parodying.