ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 474 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hayate goes to school to consult Aika on the fact that he’s become too popular, meaning Konoha’s attraction to him. After accusing him of bragging, she advises that he ignore this girl, but Hayate says that he feels that doing so would be dangerous.

Aika shows Hayate a picture of a butler on her smart phone. After pleasing Aika by saying the guy is good looking, Aika explains that this is her boyfriend and that they recently went on a trip together. However, despite picking frilly clothing and such, nothing happened. Indeed, her boyfriend would only refer to her as “ojousama” and would make no moves on her, frustrating Aika to no end.

Hayate recounts to Aika a conversation he and Konoha had, where he explained that he’s Nagi’s butler and thus can’t be in a romantic relationship. Konoha says that they don’t have to be in a romantic relationship. Aika agrees that Hayate is popular and states that the girl is in love with Hayate. This surprises her since she thought only flat chested, strong willed girls (like Nagi and Hina) liked Hayate.

As Aika is explaining cuteness and how Hayate shouldn’t be fooled by it, her phone rings and it is her butler boyfriend. Hayate is then treated to a whole new side of Aika that he’d never seen, whereby he uses a very sweet voice and despite being embarrassed, says says she loves her boyfriend in front of Hayate.

Hayate succeeded in finding Konoha a new job, but as he began to part ways with her that night she confesses her love to him. He follows Aika’s advice, which ends up with Konoha kissing Hayate. Hayate is flustered when he again speaks to Aika, saying he didn’t want a method that would result in him dating the girl. However, he now realizes that this is how Aika’s boyfriend swept her off her feet by doing the very same thing Hayate did to Konoha.

Thoughts/Review:

Heh!heh!heh! Well, this is a new side of Aika. ^_^

Until now, Aika has mostly been a sadistic character, whom while nice and polite, often discovers people in moments of weakness or in an otherwise unguarded state. She then keeps a notebook filled with those weaknesses. She also has delighted in giving out romantic advice, which she also did in this chapter.

What made this chapter so different is seeing Aika getting lovey-dovey with her butler-boyfriend on the phone. As such, Hayate is the first to see such “weakness” on Aika’s part. I loved it. ^_^

I rather enjoyed learning how Aika fell for her butler. It does explain why he also tries to keep some professional distance even though he apparently does love Aika.

As a side note, the service image of Aika in a bikini at Tahiti made her look the best she’s ever looked. Hata-sensei really tries hard with that one.

As to the story of Konoha and Hayate, we now know why Konoha was kissing Hayate. However, based on Aika’s experience, this was the wrong choice and now she’s firmly in love with Hayate. Poor Ayumu — no breaks for that girl.

It will be interesting to see where Hata-sensei ultimately takes Konoha.

In the end, a pretty humorous chapter with some character work done for Aika. I liked it a lot.