Hayate no Gotoku! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You episode 07
ハヤテのごとく！ CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After a preview documenting Shin’s conversion from thief to butler for Yukariko to falling in love with her and marrying her, Hayate accompanies Nagi to a local festival, where they see Ruri tempted to spend the last of her money (¥500) to buy some cotton candy. Nagi warns her against it, especially since she now knows that the kuro-tsubaki is in Las Vagas, courtesy of her deceased father. Since Nagi has no interest in going to Vegas to get the item, Ruri will need her poor savings to get to America somehow. When Hayate shows a flyer advertising a festival contest with the grand prize being a trip to America, Ruri, encouraged by Ayumu, decides to enter, getting Nagi to be her partner in the contest.

Fumi is hosting the contest, thus all the questions end up being centered around her parent’s divorce and her mother’s cheating. Ayumu and Hina win the contest, though Isumi becomes aware of Ruri at the same contest. Nagi hopes this means that whether Ruri is or isn’t her sister, she’ll give up (though Nagi has decided to believe the sister story). Ruri flees in frustration, where a bird demands to know what she’s doing about the kuro-tsubaki. Isumi shows up and dispatches the bird, which is actually a fake, but Ruri is unable to answer Isumi’s demands to know whom she and the others are. A bird-man emerges from the sky and erects a wind barrier around Ruri before he kidnaps her, just after Sakuya and Hayate arrive on scene.

Thoughts/Review:

While this episode certainly pushed the plot forward, it was kinda odd to me in some ways.  I think it is the way that Manglobe is doing things.

Last episode, we learned of Nagi’s parent’s meeting as told by Nagi’s mother, Yukariko. This time, we get the story from Shin’s perspective. It is a sweet, romantic tale showing how Shin went from thief to being genuinely in love with Yukariko.  Assuming no other changes, it seems to back up my thoughts that Shin will be proven innocent, though I had assumed he may have stolen it to actually protect it. That still may be true, but I also suspect that he may have decided to get it away from Yukariko and thus remove a curse from her. It wouldn’t surprise me if Yukkyun, as she likes to be called, scored the kuro-tsubaki when she (apparently) accidentally raided King Midas’s Royal Garden.

Ruri, who’s often been an annoying character, comes off more sympathetic here. There’s the fact that she’s dirt poor (though why she couldn’t sell off all that crap she bought to get back some of her money is a mystery), but would still like to do something simple like purchase cotton candy at a festival booth. Then, there’s the fact that Nagi has decided to accept Ruri as her little sister whether she is or not, even offering sisterly advice about not getting herself into dangerous situations.  At the last, there’s the fact that Ruri appears to have been kidnapped, but something doesn’t smell right there (and I can’t place my finger on what). Regardless, she looked pretty pathetic and thus sympathetic.

When Isumi showed up to where the bird was communicating with Ruri, I thought we might get to see her go unleashed, as she has done in the manga. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I would like to see Isumi kick some arse in animated form though. ^_^

I still am pretty clueless on Ruka’s part in this. One would presume her apple crap and the story of the nymph and the prince are somehow tied in with the plot here, but how remains to be seen. I am not aware of any tales where an epimeliad (apple tree nymph) makes a prince immortal by killing others, but I admit, I haven’t had time to check into this deeply.  I expect Ruka will eventually have a more substantive role as she’s currently in Vegas, and it looks like all of the characters will end up in Vegas.

On the humor side, the anime production team used Fumi to good effect, though they kept her in super deformed mode the whole time. Seriously though, her quiz questions regarding her mother’s cheating, the divorce papers, and the like had me laughing despite the fact that its a pretty messed up situation. I’d kinda hate it if this element of Fumi’s life is brought into the manga.

Yukkun’s batsu (punishment) game stuff at the beginning and end wasn’t funny to me. I do wonder if the production team is dropping this segment, as was suggested in this episode.  That would be fine with me as the remainder of the series may be dedicated to actual plot.

Overall, I’d say this episode was more good than bad, but there are just certain things that still bug me.