Hayate the Combat Butler Episode 34
ハヤテのごとく！Ep. 34

SPOILER Summary: With Kuzuha in control of Nagi, the 2nd day of the school’s culture festival is turned into a manga (doujinshi) festival with a replica of the Tokyo Big Sight Convention Center there as well. When Hina finds all this out, she’s not amused. Hayate has Shion helping her work on her doujinshi and she’s not happy about it. She assumes her older form to see Hayate and Hina to try to get Nagi off her shoulders. When they arrive at Kuzuha’s office/lair, they see stacks of pages where Nagi has been working on her doujinshi. Still under hypnosis, Nagi does not believe Hayate is really there and so when Kuzuha arrives, she decides to challenge Hayate and Hina to a doujinshi contest where the winner is the one with the most sales. Hina accepts.

With Kuzuha pulling out all the stops to draw in customers, the Student Council Trio initially decides they don’t care because if Hayate loses, he has to wear an embarrassing maid costume. However, they soon change their minds when Hina informs them that a loss means they will also be wearing such costumes. As others work on the manga, they turn their butler shop into a cake shop with the recipe within their doujinshi. Because Hayate’s cakes are so good, they start gaining doujinshi sales. So to ensure victory, Kuzuha starts giving away lavish, expensive prizes with the purchase of a doujinshi. People take the prizes and the trash can is filled with the unread doujinshi.

With all of their doujinshi sold out, Nagi heads off to the classroom and ends up being served cake by Hayate. This brings her out of her hypnosis to the excitement of Hayate. Nagi is embarrassed, more so since everyone in the class is watching. Kuzuha arrives and with mere minutes to go, there are no more sales to be had meaning the class will be wearing those maid costumes. However, Maria calls and since she and the SP’s want cake, they have an order for 2000 cake sets, which of course come with the doujinshi. Hayate and Hina win. At the after party, Nagi forces Hayate to cross dress again, but he runs away rather than be seen in public (though Hina did see him).

Thoughts: While I liked the doujinshi stuff (especially since Genshiken is one of my favorite manga), the episode itself mostly didn’t do anything for me. It just wasn’t all that funny (didn’t get enough references I guess) and I guess I was kinda bored with the story. Oh well. All series have dud episodes.