Hayate no Gotoku!! 01
Hayate the Combat Butler!! Ep. 01
Hayate no Gotoku “Season 2” Ep. 01
ハヤテのごとく！！Episode 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

It is time for for the annual marathon at Hakuou Gakuen (Academy) and Nagi is being forced to enter. She’s not thrilled but when Klaus makes a bet with her that she has to win her specific race or Hayate is fired, she takes the challenge. As she sees it, Hina is her only real obstacle so she dispatched Hayate to find out which race Hina is not running in. Hina is running in them all, but suggests the freestyle race which is a course, but short cuts through wooded areas are allowed.

After two days of training, the race is on. Hayate and Nagi encounter many hindrances including rival butlers and even Hina herself. However, Hayate manages to thwart them all and just as Nagi is about to win the race, Katsura-sensei squeaks out a win since teachers were also allowed to race. Thus, the ¥150 million prize money and Hayate’s job are apparently gone up in smoke while Katsura-sensei sees Dom Pérignon in her future.

Thoughts/Review:

YES! This was one of the early chapters in the manga that the first series (or season since the Japanese are determined to use that phrase) skipped in favor of something else. So I was very glad to see it come into anime form.

However, before we go there, let me say something about Crunchyroll, who are officially releasing the anime with English subtitles as it is released in Japan (instantly if you pay them, days later if you want it free and not at the best resolution but good enough). When I first saw this, I thought, “A fansub group had to upload this. There is no way that any official translator would be this cool with otaku-friendly subtitles.” Yep, that’s right. The official Crunchyroll subtitles make full use of Japanese honorifics. Heck, they are even using “ojousama” which really made me happy.

The title/honorific “bocchan” was scrapped though as was the title “Waka.” That’s a shame but I’ll let it slide. They translated “Waka” as “young master” which is fine (it is the male equivalent of “ojousama”) but for “bocchan,” they just left that as master when “young master” should have been used. I really do wish they’d have left them in as Viz did in the manga, but again, I won’t quibble.

The video quality of the H264 was fine, even at my 1920×1200 screen resolution. That’s the free video size. The two HD versions are for paying customers so I can’t say how they are. I’m quite sure they are good though.

There were no OP/ED translations for the music or even Romaji lyrics. That’s a real shame and hopefully future releases will have those. So overall, kudos to Crunchyroll for having an otaku-friendly release that could have been a bit more otaku-ish, but it could have been a LOT worse. ^_^;

Now back to the story. As I said, this story had been skipped in the original anime and now it is here. For the most part, the anime team followed the manga pretty closely. There were some minor changes here and there so that they could introduce ALL of the players in the series thus far. Heck, they even introduced Ayumu and her little brother Kazuki and he didn’t even show up in the anime last time (as an aside, Ayumu being forced to be the butt of food jokes every week seems to be gone since that didn’t happen this time).

They also quickly set up the premise of the series (Hayate’s debt and how he became Nagi’s butler) and then crack a joke on themselves via Maria. I liked that a lot as it ensures those who didn’t watch the first series or haven’t read the manga can still get into this current series.

I did have a few minor quibbles with the anime writers though. For starters, when Hina and Risa show up on the day of the race to join Izumi and Miki, the manga sets up the joke that Miki believes she’s going to skip out on racing at all along with Izumi and Risa, only to learn to her horror that Risa and Izumi already ran the shortest race which leaves her being forced to run the freestyle marathon with Hina.

The looks on Risa and Izumi’s face when they let Miki know in the manga just cracked me up. While the scene is still there in the anime, the joke is scrapped as Izumi tells Miki up front that she’s already run and then Hina forces Miki to run to her horror. The manga version was much superior.

Next is when Himuro tries to stop Hayate and Nagi during the short cut through the woods. Things happen pretty much as they did up in the manga complete with Maria and Saki being “Maid Black Max Heart” and “Maid White Max Heart” respectively. Maybe it was because the writers didn’t have enough time but the joke about Hayate knowing who those two were and Nagi not recognizing them but only seeing “super heroes” was dropped from the anime.

Further, the “combat” of the two maids against Himuro was dropped and that was an even bigger shame. Why? Because to defeat him, Klaus comes up with a briefcase full of cash, causing Himuro to bleed from greed and collapse defeated. That’s why he didn’t pursue Nagi and Hayate in the manga. In the anime, he just leaves the scene after the two maids show up which as I state is a bummer.

Beyond those minor issues, I have to say that I loved this episode and am glad to see this new series get off to a bang. Some of the jokes worked a little better in the anime (I think of Hayate luring Hina to the suspension bridge or Katsura-sensei racing with Kaoru-sensei) and some were about the same (Nagi punishing Klaus) but I was smiles and chuckles throughout. ^_^

With Hina’s seiyuu singing the ED theme and the ED sequence all about Hina, I wonder if other seiyuu will sing the ED theme and have sequences about the character they play. That would be a nice touch but we’ll see what happens.

The preview for next week have me excited because its the Butler’s Pit arc (which likely should be three episodes to do the story any justice). I see Sister Sonia is going to be involved but will the priest show up? I sure hope so.

So kudos to Crunchyroll for a quality translation for the most part (though lets get some song translations, shall we?) and kudos to the anime production team for a good start to this new series!