The HA-NA-MA-RU boxes say, “It is time for more Hayate the Combat Butler goodness.” ^_^

ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku manga volume 13 review
Hayate the Combat Butler Volume 13

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*SPOILERS!*

The volume gets started with Nagi deciding to become a bit more active and so she accompanies Hayate to an electronics store as he buys a cell phone but ends up getting stuck with the lost children. I remember this story from the anime and it is no less funny to me in manga form. I still crack up at the yakuza parody with Nagi taking control over the punk kids. I did a look up of “Leaf Fight” (“REAF FIGHT” on the cards and “リーフファイトTCG” in the Japanese) since Viz doesn’t believe in translator notes and it does seem to be more for “maniac” players (as the original Japanese calls Nagi for pulling that game out).

Which reminds me, for those who can read Japanese, this blog entry explains all of the “blanked” (where reference words have some letters removed and replaced with a circle) referenced materials in volume 13, such as LEAF FIGHT. The great thing is that the page references in that blog entry match the Viz page numbers. ^_^

Moving along, Sakuya needs a laugh, so Nagi consults the HA-NA-MA-RU boxes and produces a harisen for Hayate to use on Maria only to end up with Nagi using a weapon from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha on Hayate. It is a fun story with Sakuya and Nagi waiting for Hayate to make his comedy move on Maria. Gotta love whenever Sakuya does things for a personal laugh. I’m at a loss as to why Viz doesn’t use the term “harisen.” After all, the characters pulled it from the “HA” box. Oh well.

The third story has Hayate pay a visit to Risa’s home at the “Asakaze Shrine” (I’m using her family name) where he meets her forgetful grandfather and a giant crocodile living in the dungeon caverns on the shrine grounds. This story wasn’t adapted for some reason, which is a shame since it gives Risa a bit more fleshing out. Plus, her grandfather is pretty funny and the giant croc showing up was funny and may well be a parody reference to the urban legends of giant gators in sewers in the U.S. I also think that Hata-sensei parodied Mana from Negima! with her brandishing a pistol to deal with the problem (Hata-sensei and Akamatsu-sensei are apparently friends).

For the forth story, Katsura-sensei feels entitled to the ¥3000 lottery winnings of Hayate, leading Nagi to solve the problem in a way that makes both Hayate and Katsura-sensei weep. I still laugh when I see how Hayate tricks Katsura-sensei into cleaning dishes for a bit for control of the winning lottery ticket. For some reason, I can’t remember if this was in the anime or not. I guess I need to check my own blog. *lol*

Chapters five and six have the story of what it is to be a maid with Isumi attempting to get Father Radiostar to go to heaven by wearing a maid costume and capturing the spirit of a maid. This was in the anime and introduces Chiharu as “Haru,” maid of Sakuya. I love this story because in addition to being funny, we get to see Isumi out of her traditional Japanese clothing and in a couple of maid costumes. I hope we get an explanation as to why Haru is so keen on keeping her job as a maid a secret from Hina.

The next story covers chapters seven and eight with the story of how Nagi found Tama as well as Tama’s and Shiranui’s adventures in Tokyo. Tama’s backstory is sweet while at the same time, absolutely nutty and funny. I loved the parody of 2CH (or other such Japanese message boards) when Tama posts a message for help. As someone who follows a few such boards, Hata-sensei isn’t exaggerating about the kinds of posts there.

The final story takes up the rest of the manga with Nagi deciding to get a part-time job in order to buy Hayate a birthday present rather than use her massive wealth to do this. As such, she, Hayate, and Ayumu end up working at Cafe Donguri (or Cafe Acorn as Viz names it) with humorous results. Hata-sensei uses this story to not only give us some more Nagi-Ayumu-Hayate love-triangle fun, but he also gives a rather funny and possibly self-abasing parody of a manga-ka.

Hata-sensei’s note at the end about trying to avoid any lengthy story-arcs makes me go, “Why?” While the short stories are certainly amusing, fun, and often funny, I do enjoy the longer stories as well. For example, having three chapters about Nagi’s first job (assuming the story doesn’t continue in the next volume, which if I remember the anime correctly, a new story takes place that night after the cafe closes) is not a bad thing. Had Hata-sensei rushed things, we wouldn’t have time to savor the conflict between Ayumu and Nagi, nor see Ayumu dealing with working with the boy she loves. So my thoughts are that Hata-sensei shouldn’t worry about story arc length and simply tell whatever stories he wants, no matter how long they take.

So, another good volume of the manga with Viz continuing to keep me mostly happy. They really, really should have a translator note section and define all of the references.