Hayate no Gotoku! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You episode 03
ハヤテのごとく！ CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU
Hayate the Combat Butler: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – 03

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Yukiji wants Hayate to deliver papers to Hina since Yukiji already spent the ¥10,000 Hina lent her. Hayate reluctantly does this, discovering Hina asleep at her desk. A breeze from an open window causes a paper to fly up in Hina’s face, waking her. Hayate is worried that she’ll be mad, and his opinion is backed by Risa, Miki, and Izumi, who’ve just arrived and refer to Hina as scary.  Hayate makes a quick retreat, so Hina decides that maybe she should be nicer. Meanwhile, Risa and company break some of Hina’s favorite tea crockery and fear the worst, but she smiles and says it isn’t a problem. Kaoru-sensei rats out Yukiji for blowing Hina’s loan, but Hina smiles and lends her more. Risa and company find this most disturbing, so Miki recruits Hayate to take Hina on a date to explode the land mind.

Hayate asks Hina out to a kids movie with tickets provided by Miki. On the way to the theater, they are intercepted by Ruri, who wants to come since Nagi kicked her out of the mansion. Hina agrees to let Ruri come.  The theater is packed with kindergarten students, who belittle Hina and Hayate for clearly being childish when it comes to adult relationships. The movie starts and Hina gets into it while Ruri sleeps. The film breaks, so Hayate takes Hina to a theme park, leaving the sleeping Ruri behind.  After scaring Hina on a rapid-drop ride, Hina enjoys the rest of the time at the park. On the way to the train station, Hina asks why Hayate suddenly asked her out. Hayate says it is because of Miki, causing Hina to be disappointed. Hayate confesses that he wanted to do it as well, then asks her for train fare home, setting off the land mine.

Thoughts/Review:

I was somewhat disappointed with this chapter, since the story was taken from the end of volume 15 and the first part of volume 16 of the manga. For me, that makes this anime automatically non-canon since it now conflicts with the manga.

For the most part, as one would expect, the manga story of Hina’s and Hayate’s date is superior.  Miki’s use of porn to show she could trust “Hayata-kun” on a date with Hina is missing, and I found that to be funny in the manga. Hayate didn’t do anything mean to Hina in their manga date, and Hina became quite enthralled by the time they’d done a few of the simple, theme rides. Also, Hina’s words to Hayate as the train passed, while lost on him, were revealed to the manga readers.

One thing the anime did better was the actual movie theater experience. Having the theater filled with judgmental kindergarten students who were disdainful of Hayate’s and Hina’s obvious lack of experience (kissing, dating in general, etc.) came off as pretty funny to me.

Ruri’s injection into the story did nothing other than (1) remind everyone she’s around (and apparently not in school and (2) pretty much reveal that Hina’s not living at the apartment-house any longer. Otherwise, Hina would have known Ruri had they been housemates (and Nagi did not appear to have kicked Ruri out of the apartment-house, just out of her mansion). I had hoped we’d get a joke about Hina and Hayate having already done this date business before in the manga, but alas, no.

Ultimately, I get the feeling that Maniglobe wanted something that could feature Miki and company, since the Ruri story would not appear to have a place for them otherwise, thus this manga story from ages back was brought forward to be inserted into the now.

The intro bit of the anime was amusing this time (to be fair, it was amusing last time too). I couldn’t help but chuckle at Hina being insulted more and more as Tama, Yukiji, and Fumi as game show contestants kept taking hints referring to Hina and coming up with a worse and worse type of oni as an answer. ^_^

Maniglobe’s character designs aren’t my favorite, but they seemed somewhat worse to me this episode, as seen in the faces of Risa, Miki, and Izumi.

In the end, we have a filler episode that is mildly amusing at times, but ultimately disappointing for me since I’d kinda wanted the anime to have a canon role in the overall Hayate the Combat Butler storyline.