Hayate the Combat Butler Ep. 44
ハヤテのごとく！Episode 44

SPOILER Summary: The show starts off as an anime episode based off of Nagi’s manga Magical Destroy. A chibi, super-deformed Hayate challenges the chibi, SD Nagi about this and gets the proper credits rolling.

Nagi has Hayate read her latest manga, but he doesn’t get it. Ditto Maria-san when she reads it, which frustrates Nagi. Isumi appears and is very enthused about what she reads, which makes Nagi happy and they discuss it further. Isumi has an idea for the manga, which deals with a flying cat. Nagi is excited about the idea, though Maria and Hayate find it completely whacked. Sakuya appears and talks with Hayate and Maria about how amazing it is that Isumi and Nagi so well understand each other. They discuss manga creation and Maria remembers that Hayate won a prize for a manga. Considering no one’s read it and the REALLY want to read it, we are treated to his creation, Mahou Shoujo Britney-chan. Maria and Sakuya aren’t that thrilled with what they see for his creation.

Nagi decides to inform them of how the story will progress but fails to make progress. So, she takes Maria, Hayate, Sakuya, and Isumi into the city and to a small ramen restaurant, where Nagi flashes the cover of an anime magazine, with what looks like Hayate and Nagi in mouse ears on the cover. The female owner of the joint tells them to take a table in the back corner and when they are all seated, they suddenly find themselves in the anime studio from episode 35. It is hear that Nagi hopes to have her manga animated so that she can get the others to understand.

The staff of the anime company (which appear to all be parody characters from other shows, but since the old reference wiki hasn’t been updated, I don’t know for sure) reject Nagi’s idea outright as impossible but a phone call soon has them working hard on the project. Work on the anime is shown through various departments before the Student Council Trio (SCT) show up. Since the “tour” had gotten up to a discussion about dubbing the anime, they discuss this, with Izumi wanting to meet seiyuu Yahagi-san (Izumi’s seiyuu). Despite all the difficulties, the anime company finishes the work.

The group head to a screening theater, where the episode starts, previewed by a merchandising ad. As Nagi’s anime starts, the episode now features Maria as the heroine, Hayate as the hero senpai, who’s married to Nagi and has a kid (Wataru). Katsura-sensei is the witch who turns Hayate into a star-shaped thing and so Maria (Britney-chan) has a choice of whether to be with her senpai and leave Hayate as a star or to return him to human form, where he’ll return to Nagi. However, there is no answer to the question, as the story changes to one about a tall cat that runs on its hind legs. Only Nagi and Isumi get it while everyone else is still scratching their heads.

That evening, Hayate decides to pay Nagi a visit and read her manga once more to attempt to understand what Nagi is trying to say. Instead, he finds Maria there reading it as well, with the same idea. The two talk and ponder about what Britney-chan would do in the story. Would she stay with her senpai in star form or would she return him to human and thus lose him to his wife? Maria figures that if the senpai were Hayate, it might not be a bad thing to have him in star form. Hayate has a reluctant Maria draw a page of the manga to see where she’d take it, and has the male character (based on Hayate) talk about scoring with all the females. Hayate thinks it sounds like he wants to rape the girls. She suggests that he then make a choice.

The show ends with (fan) service shots of all the girls in sexy bathing suits and the like, including Hayate and Nagi’s masculine Britney.

Thoughts: It was fun seeing a parody of the anime process from original manga to screening (including a Nabeshin cameo). I wish I knew all the parody character references but as of this writing, the Moepedia wiki wasn’t updated for episode 44 other than the three items I added. ^_^;;;

Regarding the filler fanservice at the end, I’m sure Hina-chan fans are going to be miffed since she didn’t a shot this week. I expect that shortly after this episode aired, Japanese otaku with photoshopping skills were busy making the pan-and-scan shots into a single large image, with certain very naughty otaku removing the clothing from the girls for posting on naughty Japanese blogs. ^_^;;; While I’m not a fan of fanservice, I did like seeing Isumi out of the kimono and into a nice summer outfit (which for her is pretty risqué but for everyone else, is just normal summer attire of shorts and a shirt).

References! (Note: the site doesn’t get 100% of the references, but they do get a very high percentage.)