Hayate the Combat Butler “2nd Season” Ep. 08
ハヤテのごとく！！Episode 08
Hayate no Gotoku!! – 08

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hayate returns to the Sanzenin mansion and a happy Nagi, who’s stunned to see Hayate with a kitten. However, she agrees to keep it and raise it properly, naming it “Shiranui.” Hayate and Tama discuss the new kitten and Tama is not worried since he’s always been at “ojou‘s” side. That changes when Nagi tells Tama that he will not be allowed to sleep in her room for a while so as not to frighten the kitten. Now Tama wonders what ingredients would make a kitten taste the best.

Hayate is impressed with Nagi’s skills dealing with Shiranui, which she acquired by raising Tama. Hearing all the things Nagi had Tama do (like video game playing) makes Hayate realize why Tama is as he is. Nagi leaves Shiranui with Hayate to go take a bath when Tama comes in to take care of a kitten problem. He plans to shred Nagi’s manga notebook and then leave kitten footprints as evidence, using a rubber kitten-paw stamp. However, before Tama can do the deed, Shiranui has already shredded the manga and before Tama can even try repairs, he’s found by an angry Nagi and locked in a cage. Shiranui gives Tama an evil look as if to say this was what the kitten had planned.

At school, Isumi learns of Nagi’s kitten and wishes to see it. However, when she pays Nagi a visit, Shiranui has a negative reaction to Isumi. So the girl who fights youkai with no fear is brought low by the rejection of a kitten. Isumi decides to pay Sakuya a visit on how to win over the kitten but Sakuya decides to have some fun at Isumi’s expense and make Isumi do a lot of dumb things. Isumi is about to leave but Sakuya promises to behave and after a fan service bath, convinces Isumi that wearing western clothing rather than her traditional kimono will win over the kitten. Isumi gives in despite the skirt being short and the ensemble a bit embarrassing for her.

At Nagi’s home, both Nagi and Hayate compliment Isumi on her western clothing. However, it is here that Isumi learns that Sakuya has been playing her again and she’s not too happy. Hayate has the solution for Isumi in the form of some liquid catnip. He sprays some on Isumi and Shiranui leaps over to her. Isumi has fun playing with Shiranui and Nagi forgives Tama and has him join them. Meanwhile, Sakuya takes several candid photos of Isumi with the kitten and sells them to Wataru for ¥10,000 a picture.

Thoughts/Review:

Normally, this series has been forced to remove certain scenes and such for time purposes. This episode saw the first notable time that filler was added to “fill in the corners” as it were. Notably, the “this is not a fan service scene” comes to mind with all the different girls in the bath and the scene at the end with Tama coming back into the good graces of Nagi. This is not a complaint on my part, but I couldn’t help but notice this.

Regardless, it was nice having a Tama episode again (or rather a half-episode) because he’s been pushed to the side. That’s not to say that I think the anime writers should start making up Tama stories because those would likely be boring. However, Tama has had some funny stories in the past, but sadly he doesn’t have much to do these days in the manga (at least in the recent volumes that Viz has released as of this posting — that’s up to volume 11 for those counting). So we’ll take what we can get, eh?

As for Shiranui, he too is mostly relegated to cameo status after making his appearance and what appeared might be a future conflict between kitten and tiger. Since I’ve seen nothing in the Viz releases to indicate such a conflict will happen, I’m guessing that idea was never brought about. Oh well — it could have been funny.

Its at times like these that I miss the one Tama short story from when Sister Sonia was introduced where Ayumu ends up accidentally smooching Tama and Tama ends up trashing her family’s apartment, forcing Nagi to pay for the damages. Yeah, it wasn’t much, but it was fun.

One thing I noted with much happiness about this episode is that the writers are NOT going to ditch Hina’s birthday party. EXCELLENT! Seriously, I was afraid that they might do this since the first series already had Hina’s birthday mention. Actually, I was thinking that Hayate’s getting her the stuffed animal from the UFO Catcher game was her birthday present. I went back and checked episode 48 and see that there was no celebration and that Hayate didn’t learn of her birthday until after he’d given Hina the stuffed animal. So now I’m thinking, “No wonder they didn’t skip Hina’s birthday because she hasn’t had it yet.” Of course, her birthday seemed closer and this current series has rightly decided to ignore that fact.

Regardless, now that I know Hina’s birthday is going to be treated correctly, I’m looking forward to the forthcoming episodes involving it. I wonder if the current series will reference the gift Hayate got Hina in the previous series or not.

So another fun episode, though for someone well versed in the first 10 volumes of the manga, it comes of a bit stretched, but not annoyingly so.