May 4th, 2015 
AstroNerdBoy ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 491 Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
While in the sauna Hayate notices people are dropping out of the competition like crazy. Hina passes out, thus revealing she was hiding, so Hayate gets her out and to a couch, covering her up. Despite the fact that he’s wearing a blindfold, she panics that he saw her nakedness, though he unconvincingly denies denies having seen it. She decides it could have been worse since it was Hayate who saw her.
Realizing they are alone together, Hina asks where Nagi is. Hayate explains that Nagi took off to win the orientation so that Hayate wouldn’t become a NEET. Hina figures that if Nagi left Hayate here, she’s trying to stop him from paying off his debt.
Hina decides to ask Hayate what kind of girl he’d date if he had no debts. Hayate says he’d date a queen. Hina asks if Hayate wants someone to lord over him, which he denies, having thought of Athena. He explains that he is attracted to a girl with confidence in herself. Hina interprets this to mean that he may like Nagi.
Hina then asks how Nagi left since she can’t ski. Hayate responds by telling her that Ruri lent a snowmobile to Nagi. Hina doesn’t know this person, and Hayate is surprised that Ruri isn’t a student of Hakuou as she claimed to be
Meanwhile back at the prison, Rika, Aika, Chihharu, Izumi, and Risa are horrified by the conditions of having only bread to eat and only a blanket to sleep. Then men in black show that those who quit are back at the luxury hotel having a grand old time. Kayura says that with ¥150 million on the line, things could be a lot worse.
Thoughts/Review:
As expected, the prison part of the story element was to weed out everyone except the core group of girls and possibly Kotetsu. So the question then becomes, “What is Kananiwa attempting to achieve with those who don’t quit?” She may be wanting to put people through enough suffering to open the gate to the Royal Garden, but that doesn’t feel totally right. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
As for Ruri, she appears to have her own agenda and having played on Nagi’s fears, is seeking her own objective via Nagi. Whether Ruri and Kananiwa are allied still remains to be seen.
The rest of the manga was the comedy stuff revolving around Hayate having seen the naked Hina in the sauna. I laughed at Hayate wearing a blindfold and attempting to deny having seen Hina’s goods.
I was also amused by how Hina kept derailing herself during the course of the conversation making her think of Nagi, then asking about Nagi.
Finally, being an Athena x Hayate shipper, I am glad to see that Hata-sensei acknowledged that Athena was the one who sprang to Hayate’s mind when Hina asked him what type of girl he’d date. While I still believe that Hata-sensei will try to have a Hayate x Nagi ending, the story to date has shown that Hayate is physically attracted to girls like Hina and Ayumu, but his heart is still with Athena.
That being said, I also think that Hata-sensei is trying to create the path for his Nagi x Hayate ending. By having Hayate say he’s attracted to someone with confidence in herself, and by having Hina immediately think of Nagi, I think that Hata-sensei is attempting to lay the groundwork for the ending he wants. It has to start somewhere, ’cause to date, there’s been nothing to suggest Hayate is romantically interested in Nagi.
In the end, a pretty fun chapter that manages to push the current arc forward a bit. It will be a couple of weeks before we get another chapter, but I suspect we may see Hina and Hayate go after Nagi.
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(cross-post with slight rewording from Batoto)
Page 4 of the RHS version puzzled the heck out of me in a couple of spots. Arythazin at Batoto was extremely gracious to explain the meanings from the raw level, which led me to write out the slight rewords which I’d include if it were me (against the off-chance anyone else is puzzled by it):
2: “Ahhh!! What are you doing here, Hinagiku-san!?
3: “Wait, this isn’t the time!! Are you okay, Hinagiku-san!?
4: “Slip”
5: “Is this really happening…?” “Please pardon me for this…”
5a: sfx: cover
If anyone’s bored enough to be curious about the reasoning, it’s in the spoiler:
[spoiler]2: “Wai—!!” and “What are you doing!?”, while literally correct, would sound very much like he’s speaking directly to Hina (rather than to himself) and thinks she’s consciously doing something that he wants her to stop. (Hina’s response: “Uh, lying here unconscious wondering what you’re talking about?”)
3: Just semantics. It probably seems weird to drop “Wait” in 2 and add “Wait” in 3, but in 3 it’s very clear that he’s talking to himself (and it helps add a sense of confusion to his words).
5: Big thanks for catching the “Is this really happening…?” that got left out; it changes the meaning even more.
“Pardon me” (slightly formal, technically asking forgiveness but implying that the action is necessary) sounds much more accurate than “Spare me”, which (at least to me) sounds more like a haughty villainess saying “Ugh! I don’t want to deal with this!”. I guess it would be more accurate if there were a middle ground between “Pardon me” and “Geez, I’m having to deal with something like this again?”, but if there is I can’t think of it.
5a: If I can trust random pages on the Internet, an equally-fair interpretation of the sound (versus “fall”) would be that of a soft rustling (which would fit perfectly with him sliding a blanket or towel over her).[/spoiler]
~~~~~
Because I’m hopelessly juvenile sometimes: Is it just me, or did Sensei give in to the temptation to act like a Disney animator (with the blanket and placement of the “movement” lines in panel 4)?
Thanks for the info.
Heh. Maybe. But then I couldn’t say for sure because my eyeballs are on fire right now from lack of sleep.
A couple of random thoughts about the chapter itself:
Maybe I’m too jaded for pure-hearted manga, but to me it was refreshing (and at least to my mind, a mark of Hina’s intelligence) that for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long a manga heroine reacted more-or-less logically in this kind of a situation. Usually, it’s:
1) “Eek, you pervert!” *beats the crap out of him even if it’s an accident, someone else’s fault, or her own*
2) “Eek! He’s the last person I ever want to see me naked!” (uhhh…)
3) “Woohoo!” *attempts to rape him for the umpteenth time even though it turns him off*
4) I feel like I’m probably missing one or two typical reactions, but I can’t recall any that were more logical than Hina’s “Well, I suppose… it could be worse. It was embarrassing, but at least it was Hayate-kun who saw me.”
But then, only a couple of pages later she reminds us that for all the intelligence she’s still a vulnerable young woman, when she hears “confidence in herself” and thinks “Nagi”. Maybe it’s just me being prejudiced towards my favorite ‘ship… but when I heard that, my first thought was that it was a great sign for Hina (despite Hayate’s default being Athena). Maybe something got lost in translation? Not sure… but to me, it doesn’t add up with the way it was worded unless Hina (for all of her strength and justifiable confidence in herself) has a very big weak spot for Hayate.
(Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve been in a tizzy ever since 483:14, first panel, and I’m still seeing things through that filter.)
There was a bit of #2 in there, but as you said, Hina then went with “it could have been worse” and rolled with it.
The Hina x Hayate ship? ^_^
Looking back at this comment, I wish I’d expressed it a bit more clearly.
With respect to #2, “Eek! How embarrassing!” is absolutely understandable. What gets me is how often it’s tinged with or overtly expressed as “He must never see me naked!”, which strikes me as a bit illogical. (Particularly when their relationship is almost or already physically intimate, though that’s not the case here.) I know manga heroines have to be pure-hearted, but to me this is just “What the huh?” (^_^);;;
I could well be reading too much into it… but to me it seemed like Hina thought about it, realized “This is someone I trust already, and someone who I may trust enough some day to be seen that way anyway”, and moved on instead of reacting as though she’d rather be dumped naked in the center of Akihabara.
Aye aye, cap’n. (^_^) Almost got tempted into jumping ship for the JDS Ruka x Hayate, but now it’s clear sailing even though we’re probably going to be torpedoed sooner or later.
I think you are absolutely correct in your assessment there.
Yeah, I’m rather resigned to the notion that the ship that ultimately sails is the one that isn’t established.
Y’know, Hayate is seriously starting to annoy me right now. He hasn’t been acting very nice (and that’s putting it mildly) towards Nagi ever since Ruka’s arc. In that arc, he was basically nowhere to be found while she was agonizing over how she might lose the competition and lose him in the process. He even asked to have some time off to help out Ruka just after that scene wherein Nagi caught him hugging Ruka from behind and promising her happiness. In this arc, although it’s played for comedic effect, he was out snowboarding with Hina while Nagi was whining for him to help her because she couldn’t ski. While here, Hina makes it clear what a dunce he’s been by allowing Nagi to go ahead on her own with a complete stranger when he knew perfectly well just how dangerous the orientation has been so far and how physically vulnerable Nagi is.
I get that Nagi shouldn’t be overdependent on him, but I miss the times when he was actually always around for her whenever she was in trouble since he is her titular “combat butler” after all.
Ahem… end of rant. Anyway, if he continues acting this way, I’m seriously hoping he ends up forever alone and the girls get paired up with other partners who actually appreciate them.
With that said, this could just be another of Hata’s subtle implications and that Hayate is actually starting to see Nagi in a different light nowadays but is still conflicted as to where she actually stands in his life, which is why he isn’t around as much for her.
Oh, right… pretty sure Hina called his taste “abnormal” like the english word in Katakana when he said he’d prefer a queen in the raws.
I think this chapter and the last may have been very much about vulnerability – Nagi’s in assuming Hayate would drop her like a bad habit, Hina’s in assuming that when Hayate says he would want to be with a confident girl that he doesn’t mean her, and Hayate’s in assuming Nagi doesn’t really need him or want him except as a servant. Maybe I’m projecting because I tend to err too far on the side of questioning… but to me it’s easy to see how Hayate could have thought Nagi was ordering him to stay behind so she could win, and felt rejected.
Thank you for the info! (^_^) It makes more sense that way, it was worth a couple of chuckles even belatedly, and would’ve probably been worth a lol when reading.