April 7th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Chapter 356
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Rika consults Hayate about a concern she has that she, Izumi, and Miki are being lumped into the “idiot” category. Hayate promises to treat them as individuals, not as a group, but Rika considers herself smarter than Isumi and Miki. This draws the two of them out of the bushes, where they angrily argue about who’s stupid. When Hayate suggests using test scores to determine who’s smartest, the three reject this.
Miki decides that they should have a video creation contests, since they are members of the Video Research Club. After they create a video, they will upload them to YouTube and let the view counts decide. The winner gets to order the loser and Hayate around as punishment.
Izumi vows to protect Hayate and reveals her project, whereby she’s been slow shooting a plant growing over a period of days. However, as she wonders how to make it grow faster, she breaks the young plant.
A triumphant Miki arrives, stating that it is cute animals that will draw the views. As such, she purchased eggs and has them in an incubator. Despite having incubated them for three weeks, she’s shocked to learn that supermarket eggs are unfertilized, thus the eggs are rotten.
A scornful Risa arrives, displaying her Rube Goldberg machine, which she built instead of studying. The ultimate goal of her machine is to have three balloons released, but as she speaks, she accidentally releases the balloons, denying her a video capture.
From all this, Hayate concludes that they are equally stupid, which they reject and attack him.
Thoughts/Review:
The “Student Council Trio” has always been a fun group, but with these current character designs, they’ve lost quite a lot. For example, Risa used to always have a knowing, teasing look with a wicked grin to boot. That’s gone. Miki used to have a knowing smirk, but that’s mostly gone. Izumi always had a bit of a cute airhead air to her, but a lot of that has changed. The result is that the the of them are no longer “cool and fun” as they just look odd. That’s a shame, ’cause I think if this chapter had the older character designs, it would have been more fun.
As to the three items the girls were going to film, I think most people have experience with these things, though not the filming aspect. I recall growing a corn plant in elementary school, and being amazed at how it comes about. During science class, we saw a time lapse film on various plants going from seed to fully grown, and that was neat.
I also recall seeing a film on chicks hatching, but as a little kid, I did understand why supermarket eggs didn’t have chicks in them. As a kid, I always wondered if chickens on my grandparents’ farm might lay eggs that possibly could have a chick in them, if some rooster managed to sneak in somehow. *lol*
For the Rube Goldberg machine, I never built one, but I remember some college kids coming by our elementary school class and building one, which was neat.
In the end, the chapter is OK for what it is. I really do wish the older character designs were around ’cause then I think it would be more fun.
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Off-topic:
ANB, a little bit about scanlations and sites, money and so on (read the first comment): http://tetsuwanbirdy.blogspot.com/2012/04/collision-course-8.html#comment-form
I think you’re interested in such stuff.
Thanks for the link.
By the way, S02 of Fate/Zero began. Time to check it out!
Yeah, I’m behind. *_*
What chapter shows Risa with a wicked grin?
I’m not sure if “wicked grin” is the right term or not (I struggled with how to describe her grin), but in the chapter where Hayate comes to school at night and finds the three with Katsura-sensei. Volume 5, chapter 3.
off topic: New Lupin III has started. Brilliant 1st episode too!
Whah! I’m behind and keep having stuff to deal with in RW. *_*
I consider this manga to have finished it’s story when the Athena arc ended, I think the story line needs to be refined a little more all this gag comedy is making the manga really boring!, I mean what’s Hyate’s purpose as a character he doesn’t seem to have any direction at all.
To be honest, I never thought the story had much of a direction other than the group was going to take a trip to Greece at some point. Yeah, Nagi’s grandfather handed out a pendent and there was this whole deal about Hayate protecting Nagi and being the one to defeat to get the inheritance. However, it wasn’t until Hata-sensei did the Athena backstory that it was made clear to me that he had some kind of real plot to deal with. Until then, it had been a series of comedy stories that allowed the characters to have whacky adventures or experiences over the course of a short period of time.
As I read the new stuff, without knowledge of what is in the gaps, including the resolution of Athena’s story, the manga seems very much like it was — a gag comedy manga where Hata-sensei puts the characters into different situations and then has them react. I know he wanted to do short, comedy chapters rather than many of the long comedy stories he did, so this may be what he’s doing now.
This has always been a comedy manga first and foremost, and the story is certainly still going places, albeit very slowly, as per usual.
Anyways, read one more chapter and you’re clear to watch the Movie, I think. There will be a few references to things you don’t know about, but not any more so then reading backwards like this. If I’m lucky you’ll be even more confused. 😉
I’ll hold off on watching the movie until I’ve caught up.