ハヤテのごとく！Manga Volume 12
Hayate no Gotoku Manga Volume 12

–> PURCHASE FROM RAKUTEN.COM (formerly BUY.COM)
–> PURCHASE FROM BARNES & NOBLE
–> PURCHASE FROM RIGHTSTUF!

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Katsura-sensei gets talked into taking a trip to Shimoda with Miki, Riza, and Izumi after Miki mentions she has a credit card with a high limit. Meanwhile, Nagi helps the alien girl Maya find her missing space craft in the hopes of scoring a new, sexy body via alien technology to catch Hayate’s eye. While Ayumu and Hina have a bath and a chat together, Nagi finds that Isumi’s family is using the UFO as part of their attraction to their Shimoda onsen. Seeing Hayate pay an unannounced visit there, Nagi assumes that Hayate may be having an affair with Isumi but is shocked to discover Kotetsu on top of Hayate. She’s further angered when Hayate reveals he didn’t react to seeing Nagi naked because she’s a kid, so she decides to run away.

She goes to Maya’s UFO but ends up getting shut inside after an attack by Ginka. The UFO takes off without Maya inside so to allow Hayate to rescue Nagi, Isumi takes a small amount of Hayate’s blood via a kiss and she summons the Japanese gaijin baseball player Gipson, Jr., who then knocks Hayate to the ship with his bat. Now that Hayate and Nagi are reunited, they discover that the ship took off because of a drunk Katsura-sensei. When Maya arrives (also having been whacked to the ship), she thanks them and sends them back to Earth. Hayate then sees an image of an older version of Nagi (Nagi’s mother) and then wakes up near the grave of Nagi’s mother alongside Nagi. Soon, Nagi’s other friends arrive and a hanami breaks out at the end of which, Nagi introduces Hayate to her dead mother.

After returning home, Hayate ends up battling a giant persimmon tree (with Sakuya watching) for a special, out of season persimmon for Nagi to eat.

It is White Day, so Hina gets Miki back by giving her a White Day present of cookies. Hina finds herself wishing she had given Hayate a chocolate at Valentine’s Day so that she’d get something in return. She finds Hayate in town, who’s looking for a White Day present for Ayumu. Hina reluctantly suggests an elaborate cookie basket which Hayate buys but accidentally ends up giving it to Maria. He then runs into Ayumu and sets up a meeting with her that evening to give her a White Day present. Unfortunately, he has no more money but Hina shows up again and upon learning his situation, leads him to a local cafe where the Master (aka: manager) allows Hayate to use the kitchen to make cookies. Again, misfortune hits as the cafe gets super busy and Hayate ends up helping Master.

Hina returns to the cafe with Maria, both deciding to help Master out to allow Hayate to make his cookies to give to Ayumu. Hayate just makes his appointment on time to give the cookies to Ayumu, who’s happy to receive them. Hayate then meets with Hina later that night and also gives her a White Day present of cookies.

After several characters tell ordinary stories, Hayate shows that he is skilled at identifying which pieces of famous art are fake and which are real. Nagi decides to find Hayate’s weaknesses with Maria but only discover two of Nagi’s weaknesses — frogs and ghosts.

Thoughts/Review: I was surprised when I saw the persimmon story and the “Hayate’s weakness” story in this volume of the manga. Why? Well, the first anime series had used both of these stories (though with some modifications) . I hadn’t realized that the first anime series had reached so far into the manga series to cherry pick stories out.

Regardless, this is another good manga volume in the Hayate series. There were some subtle parody references that I caught in this volume and I loved them all, mainly because I knew what they were referring to (unfortunately, Viz still does not have translator notes to identify these references). On page 12, Nagi squirting Hayate with water and then accusing Hayate of lying because he didn’t turn into a girl is a reference to Ranma 1/2, where the lead male character Ranma turns into a girl whenever he gets even a small amount of cold water poured/splashed on him.

On page 157, Miki, Izumi, and Riza make a play with Nagi’s name by addressing her as “Nagi-pon,” “Nagi-rin,” and “Nagi Springfield” respectively. Long time readers of this blog will know that I’m a big Negima! manga fan and that Nagi Springfield is a reference to Negi Springfield’s father from that manga. I’ve seen a photo of Akamatsu-sensei and Hata-sensei together, so I’m guessing at minimum, Hata-sensei is a fan of Akamatsu-sensei. Regardless, I had a big old smile when I saw the parody reference.

The final reference that I caught is on page 179, where Nagi uses the Hanamaru game whereby Maria chooses a box with the appropriate character and the reveal is a frog wearing a skull cap with a star on said cap. That skull cap looks a lot like Keroro’s from Keroro Gunsou, with Keroro being a frog-like alien species.

I get the feeling there may have been a couple more references, but if so, I didn’t know them.

As to the stories, I rather enjoyed the conclusion of the Shimoda arc. While the anime wasn’t very clear about Maya’s UFO and Isumi’s family, the manga makes things pretty clear that Ginka found the UFO and decided to use it. I liked how the arc allowed us to meet Nagi’s mother and also brought back the character of Nagi’s grandfather for a cameo (which the second anime series dropped). Since Isumi is able to literally summon or create images of people, I can’t help but wonder if Maya is in fact a creation from Isumi to comfort the mourning young Nagi since Nagi’s artwork from then has the same UFO and alien girl that we saw in this volume. Hata-sensei is being rather vague about this aspect of Isumi’s powers though.

The sub-plot with Ayumu and Hina is a very mild bit of yuri action though based on how things go in the manga, it is only a joke as neither Hina nor Ayumu are interested in each other. I guess Hata-sensei couldn’t resist hinting that there might be some sort of attraction between the two girls. The harem reference did make me smile though since that may well be how Hayate the Combat Butler concludes. So maybe Hata-sensei is laying the groundwork for a harem ending.

The White Day story was rather amusing, starting with Hina getting Miki back and going through all the trouble Hayate had to get Ayumu her cookies. I was glad that Hata-sensei didn’t fall into the cliche of having Hayate get to his meeting with Ayumu late. Their meeting was sweet, enough so that I’d like for them to go on a date of some kind in the future. Hayate’s meeting with Hina a bit later was also nice.

Finally, there is the omake at the end of the volume and thanks to Nagi’s mother Yukariko (who calls herself “Yukkyun”), it is Hata-sensei’s best bonus pages yet. Her answering Klaus’s question was funny, especially when she ended it with that little dance. Ditto poor Hina’s question. *lol* Yukariko is a sweet, caring woman in the regular story but in this omake, she’s frank and a bit of an airhead but that combination makes her funny.

In the end, we have another really enjoyable manga volume. It is a shame that Viz still won’t provide translator notes though.