ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku manga volume 24 review
Hayate the Combat Butler Volume 24

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Since I’ve already reviewed this volume based on the Japanese tankoubon, this review will focus on the Viz release as well as additional thoughts regarding the content of Hayate the Combat Butler Volume 24.

***SPOILERS***

I hate Viz, and not just because they falsely accused me of theft. I hate them because as far as I’m concerned, they’ve completely hosed their handling of Hayate the Combat Butler, and they purposefully make things worse by their 2 volume a year release schedule.  Hata-sensei wanted volume 23 and 24 released together, but naturally, Viz says, “Up yours! We’ll release as slow as we want. Be thankful that we are forced to continue working the manga at all.”

So why continue supporting a company I hate (and one whom I believe would turn down a million dollars to speed up the release schedule)? Because I love this manga series and I do want to send that message with my hard earned money.

That aside, it was a joy rereading volume 24. Hata-sensei is really good at crafting very interesting stories and characters while infusing them with plenty of humor. It is also amazing to see how Hata-sensei manages to keep all of these plot lines together, more so when one reads the more current chapters.

Resolving things with Athena in this volume was very nice, and the aftermath that started to be seen at the end of the volume was rather sweet.  I’m really hoping that my theory that Hayate will end up with Athena at the end pans out.

Since I don’t have anything else to remark on with the contents, I’ll move onto Viz’s stuff.

I was disappointed to see that Hina referred to Yukiji as “Sis” instead of “Oneechan”, as she does in the Japanese. Viz has always been hit or miss on how Hina addresses Yukiji, sometimes using “Sis” and sometimes using “Oneechan”. Considering how this adaptation uses a lot of honorifics and titles, including ojousama, as well as some Japanese terms, one would think that they’d just stick to the “Oneechan” term and be done with it.

Otherwise, it seemed that the Japanese honorifics were intact.

The other usual extras are here (the two comic strips; the “front cover” comic page; a note from Hata-sensei; the omake pages, this time featuring Yukariko; and the visual novel choices art). I note with no amusement that Viz has a 2-page ad for the next volume of Hayate the Combat Butler. For a brief period of time, it looked like Viz was planning to release it this December, but then dates were corrected to the usual February time frame for the first of its two volumes a year release schedule. No wonder I’m so angry and want to slap the people who run Viz in the back of the head…repeatedly.

Despite this, I do recommend purchasing the manga, at least to give secondary support to the brilliant Hata-sensei.