February 12th, 2015 
AstroNerdBoy ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 481 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Ayumu teases Hayate with a bath offer, taking off her towel to reveal shorts and a tube top. After Hayate leaves, Ayumu thinks about how Hayate blushed over the idea of bathing with her, so she thinks she has a chance.
Ayumu decides to take the offensive by putting on her middle school sailor uniform, which guys are supposed to like. She’s surprised that he only agrees that she’s cute and turns away, so she decides to wear the school swimsuit, another guy fetish.
Things aren’t going like she thought, so Ayumu asks why Hayate kissed that girl (Konoha). She braces herself for the worst, but gets relieved when Hayate says that Konoha confessed, he turned her down, but she kissed him before leaving. Ayumu asks if he was happy to have been kissed. He says that he wasn’t since he doesn’t want to kiss just anyone. As such, Ayumu asks for a kiss.
Thoughts/Review:
I still feel badly for Ayumu, though Hata-sensei trolled us a bit with how he ended the previous chapter. I really had no idea of how things would go, but the gag joke Hata-sensei pulled fell flat for me. That’s because I don’t see Ayumu wearing clothing under a towel to tease Hayate about bathing with him, even though Hata-sensei attempts to recover from that by making it as if Ayumu were merely testing Hayate’s response.
Ayumu’s comedy/fanservice attempts to pique Hayate’s interest do make her look cute, but as a comedy element, it doesn’t work for me. That’s because Ayumu’s feelings for Hayate are quite deep and real, so trying to inject comedy to them doesn’t make me laugh.
I’ve long been an Athena shipper, but a chapter like this really makes me feel bad for Ayumu to the point to where I wouldn’t mind seeing her win. Since I don’t believe Hata-sensei will have Hayate pair up with Ayumu, I do hope he’ll give her a lovely boyfriend before the series is over.
Still, of all the girls in Hayate’s harem, Ayumu is the most straight forward of them all, which is another reason one might want her to win. She’s the only one to confess her feelings for him and she’s the only one to ask for a kiss. I guess her earnest nature is what makes me feel so badly for her.
Since there’s no telling where Hata-sensei will go with Ayumu’s request for a kiss (after all, Hata-sensei could do a chapter with other characters who will end up seeing this request by Ayumu at the end of their chapter), I’m not even going to speculate. I just hope it isn’t too bad for Ayumu.
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I actually liked this chapter mostly because of how it defies expectations and both Ayumu and Hayate’s reactions. Normally, you’d expect this kind of situation to drag itself out with the girl being unable to just say it out loud, but since Ayumu is so honest and straightforward (At Ikusa: “do you own a shirt?” LOL!), she just asks Hayate directly and to Hayate’s credit, he doesn’t beat around the bush and actually just tells her what happened — which actually spares Ayumu the anxiety of speculating about what was actually going on between Hayate and Konoha.
Also, I don’t believe that things will turn out too badly for Ayumu no matter what happens. We can’t really count her out of the running yet, but even if she loses the race for Hayate’s heart, I don’t really see her getting too emotionally devastated given the kind of person that she is.
Yeah, I like Ayumu’s straight forward personality. She does like getting to the heart of a matter, although at times, she does hesitate.
I hope so. Although I’ve never been a Nagi shipper (and I do like Nagi as a character), I think Hata-sensei is going to make Nagi the choice come hell or high water.