Hayate the Combat Butler Manga Catch Up Project — Volume 22

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!*

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22Well, 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.

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

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.

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

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.

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

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.

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

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.

Hayate the Combat Butler Tankoubon Volume 22

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.

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10 Responses to “Hayate the Combat Butler Manga Catch Up Project — Volume 22”

  1. evgenidb says:

    off-topic: ANB, we almost missed this one: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=8787

    The first two episodes are out and ready to be watched. Consult with nyaa.eu for English release (only by Nubles for now; anyone know them?).

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      What you are probably seeing is the movie, which is a reworking of the first two episodes of the TV series. My understanding is that the actual TV series won’t launch until 2013.

      Ah. I see that episode 1 was done this past April as a special preview on TV. So that might be why two episodes are showing up.

      Anyway, this is most definitely on my “must watch” list. ^_^

    • evgenidb says:

      Actually, those are the episodes. The movie (summary) is another entry: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=8782

      As far as I understand it, the first two episodes make the first “movie” (50 mins), which means that it would be either 1:1 or very similar. The next “movies”, again 50 mins each, would be made from 4 episodes of the series, so each “movie” would cut half of the story.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I was unaware of any more “movies” being done other than the one to promote the TV series. That being said, look for a post REAL soon on the first two episodes. ^_~

    • evgenidb says:

      Already downloaded. But I’m gonna watch them after “Burn Notice” and “Tron: Uprising”. And maybe after “Legend of Korra”.

    • evgenidb says:

      Just watched the first episode of Yamato. What can I say? The word “facepalm” would be a good start. The CG is good, especially for anime, but the intention that “space is actually sea” gets on my nerves. (Every single time!)

      Don’t worry – NO spoilers here (or at least spoilers that matter even a little).

      Some quotes for proof (I remind you – this all happens in Outer Space):
      “The seas are calm” – Facepalm!
      “The Yugiri has sunk” – Facepalm!
      “Cross the waves of the galactic sea
      Aim for the fixed star of Centauri” – DeskHeadBump!

      And some other stuff:
      – Sonars? Don’t know but sounds like it.
      – Light signals for communication. If you thought of Morse code, you guessed right!
      – The gravity on Mars is similar to Earth’s.

      As I said the graphics are good, the music too, the plot – I don’t know yet (I haven’t watched the old Battleship Yamato, only the new movie).

      Anyway, Ozma also had some marine terms used (when appropriate and when not) but at least it made more sense there. Here – it’s not!

      P.S. Also, there is a map in one place, showing the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) in the right places: http://www.wwu.edu/skywise/planets.html (put the date Jan 17, 2199 and check “inner solar system” to view the result). Curiously, they didn’t put random positions for the planets (which is the usual case).

      Well, that’s all folks! Gonna wait for ANB’s review.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      *lol* Well, I’m not sure how much liberties this fansub group took. Any group the rejects Japanese honorifics will get level of suspicion simply because they are trying to Americanize the work to some degree. So the naval stuff may be inserted in rather than be accurate. I say this because I did notice some modifications of how folks were addressed in an attempt to accent the naval aspects.

      As to the light signals, that didn’t bother me. Actually, I thought of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan where when the Enterprise encountered the Reliant, there was mention of how Reliant could have responded to hails with running lights.

      I think my review goes up tomorrow.

    • evgenidb says:

      I don’t think it’s their fault for naval terms. ‘Course, I could be wrong. Aside from a few dozen [more or less random] words I don’t know Japanese at all.

      But the heavy naval terms and just plain and simple substitution the ocean with space is the only drawback of the first episode I could see.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Glad to see you are again working on catching up to present with Hayate. There are some fun surprises still in store for you. 🙂

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