Hayate no Gotoku! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You episode 11
ハヤテのごとく！ CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

All of Nagi’s friends in Las Vegas, sans Isumi who’s not around, agree to help Nagi find Hayate. As the girls discuss Hayate being stabbed but coming through OK, Nagi recalls Hayate mentioning that he’d heard that the kuro-tsubaki was a sword, not a clock as they’d found. As the discussion turns to Dolly and her reaction to not getting the kuro-tsubaki, as if she were losing a lover, Nagi suddenly realizes the secret of the kuro-tsubaki. Ruri tries to steal the kuro-tsubaki, but the bad luck it brings foils her and Nagi gets the pocket watch back. Nagi has Maria have Klaus fly an SR-71 in with Yukariko’s wedding ring while getting Ruri to agree to steal Dolly’s ring in exchange for the kuro-tsubaki.  With that, Nagi lends the ring to Ruka, who’s frequently shown on TV wearing it.

In a hotel, Hayate sees this, so he and Yukiji return to Vegas to the Starside Hotel, where the thugs are hiding out and where Ruka is having a concert. The girls go to the concert as planned while Ruri manages to get Dolly’s ring, not realizing Dolly was aware of what she was doing. Meanwhile, Nagi carries out her part of the plan, refusing to give up the kuro-tsubaki. Hayate and Yukiji arrive and split up. Hayate enters Ruka’s darkened dressing room, where he finds a note from Nagi telling him to meet her in the wedding chapel if he wants the ring. Hayate does this and finds Nagi sitting in the front row.

Nagi tells Hayate that she knows the secret of the kuro-tsubaki, which transfers the soul of one person to another person’s body by stabbing one, then the other. The king that had made the kuro-tsubaki transferred from body to body with the help of Dolly, who loved him. However, she lost the kuro-tsubaki at some point and it ended up in the hands of the Sanzenin with the soul of the kind inside. Dolly hired thieves to get it back for her, and thirteen years ago, Shin had it and accidentally activated it, causing his soul to enter the device and the king’s soul to enter his body. However, since Shin’s body was killed in the crash, the king finally died. Thus, when Hayate was accidentally stabbed, Hayate’s soul was sent to the device and Nagi’s father’s soul occupied Hayate’s body.

Shin-Hayate acknowledges this by asking about Nagi’s mother. Shin-Hayate is surprised to hear that Nagi figured out that Shin’s wedding ring had been stolen and that he’d taken the kuro-tsubaki to Las Vegas in order to get his ring back from Dolly. Shin-Hayate seems relieved to hear that despite it all, Yukariko still loved him. He asks Nagi if it is OK to be holding the kuro-tsubaki, considering the bad luck it holds. Nagi says that because it holds the person she cares for most, she’s not letting it go. With that, Dolly’s tree busts in, tossing the captured Ruri on the ground. Dolly wants the kuro-tsubaki, but when she hears what happened to the soul of her king and lover, she doesn’t believe it. Shin-Hayate wants his ring back, but Dolly has gone nuts.

Thoughts/Review:

Well now, well now. This episode ended up being pretty darned interesting, so much so that I really do hope Hata-sensei incorporates Shin’s story into the manga canon.

Good call to the commenter for last episode’s post, who said that Hayate could be possessed by something in the kuro-tsubaki. Indeed that was what happened to Hayate, but that now leaves the question of what happens to Shin.  I figure that when all is said and done, Shin will be transferred back to the kuro-tsubaki in exchange for Hayate returning to his body, after which, the kuro-tsubaki will be either be kept in a special place by Nagi, or it will be destroyed to allow Shin to be with Yukariko in the afterlife and to remove a curse from Nagi. I’m kinda torn on how I’d like to see things go.

While Nagi’s solving the riddle of the kuro-tsubaki is pretty much out of left field, I gave it a pass since Nagi has such a high IQ.  The episode did show Nagi working things through, but when she was done thinking, she was the only one who knew what was what. None of the other characters knew, and I certainly didn’t know.

Regardless, Nagi’s reunion with the father she really didn’t remember was pretty nice. Shin wasn’t as fatherly as I might have liked, but I did like how he wanted to talk about Yurakiro. Plus, it was nice to get confirmation that Shin wasn’t the scum that Mikado thought him to be, but he was simply desperate to get his ring back (which I’m guessing Shidou stole in order to get Shin to bring the kuro-tsubaki to Las Vegas).

What’s still unanswered in Ruri’s status. I’m heavily leaning to her not being related to Nagi at all.  She might be an orphan whom for some reason, Dolly decided to take care of. Even if Ruri isn’t Nagi’s little sister, I figure Nagi will still treat Ruri as a little sister and Ruri will still consider Nagi her “oneechan”.

Ruka was finally worked into the story for a tiny but important role. I’d rather hoped to see some interaction between her and the girls, but that was not to be. We’ll see if she gets to do that later.

Finally, in addition to the comedy of Ruri getting pummeled by jack-o’-lanterns, we had the comedy at the end with Katsura going nuts on the profanity using, Engrish speaking thugs. *lol*

So, a surprisingly good episode with a lot of nifty information given, clearing up the mystery of Nagi’s father.