ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 439 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

With the doujinshi competition over, it is decided that there will be a beach trip to see if the person Dr. Kurosu mentioned is Hayate’s brother.

At the beach, Nagi cites the reasons she hates Japanese beaches, so Kayura warns her that she’ll be cursed by the sea god. Nagi defies the idea of a curse, so Kayura has her look down from the end of the water breaker, where Nagi sees a ton of wharf roaches. This causes Nagi to retreat to the hotel and go to bed. Hina suggests the girls (Alice, Kayura, Chiharu, and Ayumu) go look for Hayate’s brother on their own. Kayura says they should leave Hayate behind in order to set up an emotional reunion.

After the girls leave, Hayate reminds the recovering Nagi that finding his brother will help return her to the mansion. Nagi says that getting back to the mansion was not the purpose of this trip, but rather to reunite Hayate with his brother. She encourages him to go look for his brother as she goes back to bed due to the wharf roach curse. Hayate says he can wait for Nagi to get better, but Nagi insists he go on and leave her behind.

Meanwhile, the four girls walk along the beach to Life Restaurant and discuss Hayate’s brother. Alice (Ah-tan) warns that since this is Hayate’s brother, they have to be on guard as he’ll likely be a natural gigolo. When questioned about this, Alice says his needless kindness will cause girls to fall in love with him. Kayura doesn’t believe this, but Hina and Ayumu know this is why they fell for Hayate.

Reaching the location of the restaurant, they find it destroyed. Someone comes up, saying that no one is there anymore.

Thoughts/Review:

So, after a week’s delay, the beach trip started. I had figured it would be an excuse for Hata-sensei to do some fanservice for the girls, but that didn’t happen.

While the chapter was mostly setting the stage for the beach arc, there were some points of interest.  For starters, who’s the couple on the first page with the marriage proposal.  We never see the male, but the hairstyle (what we can see) of the female is very similar to Yukariko’s hairstyle.  I really would love for this to be Yukariko and allow Hata-sensei to explore her and Shin’s relationship further than Can’t Take My Eyes Off You did.  I doubt this will be the case, but it would be nice.

Ah-tan’s warning about Hayate’s brother made me laugh, but since Hata-sensei likes to hide kernels of plot in humor moments, I did wonder if Ah-tan had her full memories as Athena back, complete with her recalling being rescued by Hayate’s brother.

I was surprised that the Life Restaurant was destroyed. Naturally Hata-sensei teases us by keeping the new party arriving at the end of the chapter a mystery. The obvious thought is Hayate’s brother, but then Kurosu might show up here as well to help.

Nagi was still Nagi in this chapter. At the same time, Nagi showed the growth she made due to the doujinshi competition. I liked that she told Hayate that the whole reason for the beach trip was to reunite Hayate with his brother and that the mansion wasn’t a consideration.

Speaking of Nagi, I loved the “curse” that Kayura pulled on her. I’d never heard of wharf roaches before, so I had to look them up. Hata-sensei using the censor sign from the first anime series was pretty funny though.

Sadly, we have a break next week, but that’s OK. I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.