ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 454 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Nagi gets irked with Ikusa for not remembering her name when it was just told to him, so she insults him. This irks Ikusa, who insults her back, leading Nagi to start throwing sand at Hayate for not addressing the insult.

Ikusa challenges Hayate over his notion of putting his life on the line for Nagi. Ikusa states that saving someone is a matter of luck, then casually mentions Hayate’s popularity, citing his time with Hina in such a way to cause Ayumu to become upset. As such, Ayumu and Nagi both start throwing sand at Hayate, leading Ikusa to tell him he has a happy life.

After showing his anger to Nagi and Ayumu to get them to stop, Hayate empties the sand out of his shoes while recounting the story of Nagi saving his life, thus the reason he’s willing to risk his life to protect her. Ikusa asks if Hayate can really protect Nagi now that he’s found so much he finds important, including dying for someone.

Ikusa explains that if Hayate died, the people around him would be sad, thus with so much importance, he would hesitate to put his life on the line.  Ikusa says that to accomplish this, one has to cast aside everything not needed, including memories or family, thus no one will have to be sad. With that, Ikusa leaves them, pointing out where to leave the trash they’d gathered as Nagi wonders whether Ikusa really has amnesia or not. Nevertheless, she’s sure that Hayate won’t have to risk his life.

The next morning, Hina is not feeling well, which is apparently ghost related. Maria offers to take care of her. Ayumu and Nagi are on board to help with the restaurant, but then Hayate learns that Chiharu and Kayura were up all night in the arcade, thus won’t be up during the day. Further, Ah-tan states that she has something to do, so she can’t help either.

Ayumu and Nagi are confident that “Team Cafe Donguri” can do it. Hayate starts to do the math on earning ¥8 million over two days, meaning they’d need to serve 625 people an hour. At that point, Hayate realizes the impossibility of the situation and to Nagi and Ayumu’s surprise, suggests giving up.

Thoughts/Review:

Hayate accomplishes the impossible by having Kotetsu completely rebuild the restaurant in a day. That makes it kind of amusing to me to suddenly have reality injected in here about the impossibility of serving 650 customers an hour.

Regardless, Ikusa appears to be attempting to prepare Hayate for something more severe in the future. With Hata-sensei’s writing, it is hard to tell for sure, but he’s already laid out some interesting plot markers for things to come as the manga begins to wind down, some of which are likely to be even more dangerous than what’s he’s faced so far. Considering how Ikusa was to save Athena years earlier, Ikusa has a point to a degree, even if he’s being a jerk about it.

As an aside, I was amused by how Ikusa being a jerk and purposefully wording Hayate’s time with Hina on the island ticked off Ayumu and Nagi to get them to throw sand at Hayate in frustration. It is childish, but funny.

The implication this chapter leaves us with is that Ikusa sacrificed memories and family to be able to risk his life to the full. He actually does remember more than he’s letting on. I suspect that Hayate will end up finding a different path than Ikusa that allows him to save Nagi, but not sacrifice everything in the process.

Although Hina being out helps add to Hayate’s problems in the current plot, Hata-sensei is notorious for having Hina’s illness be a plot point in another story. She did have the Japanese ghost light orbs around her, suggesting there’s more to whatever’s happening to her.

Athena bailing may be where she exits the manga for a while. I could be wrong about that, but I do expect her to leave and give Hayate a new quest to accomplish after he restores Nagi to the mansion.