ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Chapter 399

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Nagi and Isumi encounter Kayura, where Nagi states her purpose in taking a trip to Kyoto. Kayura says they need her help, which Nagi denies until she learns that Isumi has somehow managed to get them from the Tokyo area to Hokkaido in the far northern part of Japan. Nagi demands Isumi explain how they ended up in Hokkaido when she supposedly knew the way to Kyoto. Isumi asks why Nagi would think that Hokkaido wasn’t on her normal route to Kyoto, leading Nagi to give Isumi a noogie.

Kayura contacts Maria to let her know what happened. Maria lets Hayate know, who’s stunned by this, especially since Hina and Chiharu were supposed to be with them. Maria says they got separated somehow, but Hayate can’t figure out how they got to Hokkaido so quickly. His worrying about Nagi is noted by Ruka.

Meanwhile, Kayura takes Nagi and Isumi to her (multi-story?), apartment building-looking home.  Inside, they find Kayura’s father with an overseas client but without an English translator. Nagi is surprised to learn that Kayura’s family owns a small video game company as Kayura’s father asks his daughter to translate. However, Kayura finds she can’t understand the client even though he’s supposedly speaking English.

Nagi understands the man (George) and that he’s speaking Australian English. Nagi agrees to translate as it is the kind of experience to help her manga. As Kayura and her father look in awe at the graphics of the game George developed, George reveals to Nagi that they spent the entire ¥1 billion budget on the graphics. They need another ¥500 million to develop the AI of the game or it won’t work.

Nagi hears Kayura’s father talking about how thankful he was that the game was developed for ¥1 billion as they can’t afford to spend another yen. Kayura’s father asks what George said, stating that if the game doesn’t get released, he’ll have to kill himself. Nagi is stunned by this turn of events and lies about what George said.

Thoughts/Review:

Har! With Isumi around, one never knows what one will get. I half expected Isumi to just disappear but instead, we get her to separate Nagi from Chiharu and Hina. Not only that, but she gets herself and Nagi to Hokkaido in record time. Not that Isumi being able to do this is a mystery since she is not bound by oceans.

Kayura had been absent of late, so this gave Hata-sensei a means of bringing her into the story and seeing a bit about her life.  Her home looks like an apartment building, but I got the sense that the whole building is her home.  Actually, it may be more likely that the building not only houses Kayura’s family, but also houses her family’s video game business.

I enjoyed Nagi being shown to know English, even with an Australian flair. Nagi certainly learned a thing about the adult world here, but whether that translates into something she can put into her manga remains to be seen.

Ruka’s noting Hayate’s concern for Nagi could be the opening needed for her to win the doujinshi competition but still give up on Hayate (or at least, not force him to marry her). I have no clue which way Hata-sensei will go, but we do know that Hayate remains with Nagi at the end of the competition and that Nagi and Ruka are still friends.

So, we continue to get the unexpected.  It’ll be fun seeing what new, unexpected fun awaits us for the 400th chapter.