ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 461 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After returning to Yukari-chan House, the group discuss the failure to get the King’s Jewel and return Nagi’s inheritance to her. Ah-tan has the location of another stone, but she’s interrupted when Nagi lets out a horrified exclamation regarding the sudden end of the Higanjima manga. Despite Ah-tan talking about returning Nagi to the mansion, Nagi says she’s more interested in seeing the Godzilla movie. Chiharu and Kayura also want to see the Godzilla movie.

Maria asks Nagi if she wants her inheritance back. Nagi says she does, but with everything that has happened recently, she’s not interested at the moment. Hayate and Maria suspect that Nagi simply wants to be lazy.

Maria goes to do her laundry, Hina goes to school for student council business, and Ayumu leaves for work, leaving Ah-tan to wonder how unimportant they think her information is. She sulks and tells Kayura and Chiharu to go watch their movie, so Chiharu says they should go to a theater in Roppongi Hills.

Since no one wants to hear her information, Ah-tan tags along with Nagi, Chiharu, Kayura, and Hayate to Roppongi Hills to see Godzilla. Nagi is excited since she’s never been to a movie theater with friends as she had her own theater before. Nagi asks if they should see the movie in 2D or 3D. Hayate gives a lengthy explanation of why 2D is best, especially for a subtitled movie. Ah-tan takes notice of the popcorn and soda, but despite her protests that she didn’t actually want it, she accepts Hayate’s offer to buy it.

When they get their seats, Hayate has purchased tickets on the second row near the isle. He gives another lengthy speech on why these seats are really the best. After taking their seats, Hayate asks Ah-tan if she’s seen a Godzilla movie before.  She says she has, but she describes it as a comedy.

Thoughts/Review:

Well now, well now. Hata-sensei does his trolling act again, this time pulling an old card from his bag of trick.  Before, it was Mikado trying to tell Hayate, Ah-Tan, and Aika information about the King’s Jewels but being denied. Now, it is Ah-tan wanting to tell information but being denied.

However, Hata-sensei puts a different frosting on this troll cake.  The manga started in 2004, and I believe the story takes place during that time frame. Yet clearly, the Godzilla movie is a nod to the 2014 version of the movie. On the off chance one might think the story is referring to the 2004 Godzilla: Final Wars movie, the fact that the Godzilla movie they were going to watch had subtitles, had an option to watch in 3D, and at the theater, Maleficent was also playing, that pretty much ends it.

Hata-sensei throws another twist on things by having Nagi complain about the vampire horror manga Higanjima ending, and that ended in 2012 before being continued with a new title. Beyond being a troll, I’m not sure what Hata-sensei is trying to do.

I was amused at Hata-sensei channeling himself into the story. With Nagi, Hata-sensei channeled a desire to just skip forward with the story and have done, but with Ah-tan, he knows he can’t do that.  He also expressed through Nagi a desire to just take it easy. *lol*

With his choices between 2D and 3D, I have to say that while I can understand that things would be less entertaining to watch in 3D when having to deal with subtitles, Godzilla was absolutely amazing when I saw it in Imax 3D.

As to his choice of seating, my crew and I never watch a film on opening weekend, and we get to the theater early so that we have first choice of seats, and there’s no problem. Of course, stadium seating is better than old movie theater seating, which is what Hata-sensei seemed to have a problem with.

Well, we’ll see if Hata-sensei bothers to continue the main story, but I get the sense he wants to chill out for a while. So while it was disappointing that Hata-sensei didn’t want to press forward with the plot, it was interesting (and somewhat amusing) to see Hata-sensei channel himself into his characters.