ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga Volume 22
Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

–> Purchase Japanese tankoubon from YesAsia!

*SPOILERS!*

Well, some highlights of the events of this volume.  Hayate gets Nagi’s precious hat. Kaoru and Yukiji have their Italian vacation,  The group travels by cruise ship to Athens to continue their vacation there, where Hina and Hayate have a talk, where he learns that someone named Athena runs Hakuou Gakuen, and it is run by her family, the Tennousu.  Hayate meets Athena, though she claims not to remember him. Miki and company reveal that Athena and Hina used to be good friends before Athena left Japan, and gets confirmation that this Athena is the A-tan from his childhood when Hina says her addressing Athena as this caused Athena to get very angry.  Nagi takes Ayumu sight-seeing along with Maria so that Hayate can have his date with Hina. Hayate serves as a waiter for Hina to have her meal, where she finally works up the courage to tell him she loves him, only to have him tell her he loves Athena.

Man, this is a dense volume in terms of things that happened.  I’ll start with what I assume is just a side-story of Yukiji’s and Kaoru’s trip to Italy.  It would have been cool if Hata-sensei could have actually gone to Italy to get imagery for the art, but nonetheless, the chapter really did make me wonder what caused Yukiji to become the woman she is now.  Maybe it is because she had to be a grown up while still a teen (helping raise Hina) that once she became an adult, she switched back to an immature attitude to make up for her lost teen years.

As to Karou, I understand why he is the way he is.  He’s a traditional nice guy who hopes that his feelings will magically reach the woman he loves, causing her to vocally (and I suppose physically) respond in a positive way so that he knows without a doubt that she feels as he does. He’s afraid of rejection, so he has a tough time just “doing the needful” (as the Indians say) and just confess. It would be nice if somehow they get together before the manga ends.

I see that Hata-sensei is setting the stage at this point for the living conditions that Hayate and company find themselves in (the apartment house everyone is living in).  So I have a pretty good idea that Nagi is going to lose her inheritance, quite possibly because Hayate won’t be able to go against Athena.  However, that doesn’t explain why Athena is a little girl again.  I’m sure that will be explained later.

Regardless, despite the fact that this is a harem comedy series, with some element of “whom will Hayate choose” thrown into the mix (’cause that’s how most harem titles go), I like the idea that Hayate really does still love Athena.  It makes sense to me.  I’m sure most of us had someone we fell in love with when we were children (to the extent that children understand the concept of love), and possibly even thought we might be with this person as an adult and marry them.

I liked how Hata-sensei has managed to tie in the two omake chapters from long ago, whereby he showed that everyone would be in Greece during Golden Week.  The hat story with Nagi has been very touching with a bit of humor as well.  Of course, Miki, Izumi, and Risa doing their thing and partying the night away made me chuckle.  I really like how Nagi took Ayumu for an extended sightseeing trip.  It is just one of those little things that make the manga special, and makes Nagi more human, even if she is spoiled and rich.

I didn’t like Hayate’s and Hina’s date.  Date?  HA!  I know Maria set things up so that Hayate could treat Hina to a fancy meal, but it just was so wrong atmosphere-wise for Hayate to play the waiter.  I know that his notion was that Hina gets a fancy meal, and is treated like an ojousama, but it was set up like it was to be a traditional date. So I figured they’d both be dressed up and eating.  Well, I suppose if it had been done properly, Hina would have probably gotten in her confession.  As it is now, she got the revelation that Hayate loved Athena.

Oh, that reminds me, the thing with Athena and Hina having been friends came off as retcon material to me.  It isn’t the egregious kind of retconning, but in Hina’s circles, suddenly inserting Athena in seems a bit much to me.  Add to that the whole “A-tan” thing and well, that made me cringe a bit.  That’s because there was nothing that set this up.  Indeed, way back before Hina’s birthday, there’s no reaction from Hina about learning that an “A-tan” was the “evil little girl” who made Hayate odd in his thoughts about women. I can’t imagine that there are that “A-tan” is a commonly used nickname, but maybe I’m wrong.  Also, I don’t recall anyone mentioning who ran Hakuou Gakuen, and one would think maybe something could have been at least hinted at.

Still, that’s a minor complaint in what I found to be an otherwise fairly engrossing manga volume.  Plenty of humor and plenty of plot advancement.