Hayate the Combat Butler “2nd Season” Ep. 22
ハヤテのごとく！！Episode 22
Hayate no Gotoku!! – 22

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Nagi decides to get a part-time job after learning from Hayate that if she gave him a present, he’d want a watch from her. Since Master at Cafe Donguri needs some help (he’s getting a maid cafe going and Hina can’t work often), it is arranged that Nagi and Hayate will work at the cafe. Nagi is nervous but when she goes to change and put on the uniform (which is really just putting on the apron over her regular clothes), she sees Ayumu there and is not happy that the Hamster is around. Their heated argument brings Hayate by where he sees Ayumu without her shirt on and her slip underneath. This causes Ayumu to scream out in embarrassment.

After Master leaves Hayate in charge (with Nagi and Ayumu giving each other dirty looks), their first customer arrives and Ayumu flubs up the greeting. Nagi takes advantage and does everything properly from greeting to serving the water to taking the order. Ayumu sees she’s losing and tries to regain some composure, but seeing Hayate makes her remember he saw her semi-undressed. This leads to an awkwardness between them which causes Nagi to take out some irritation on his foot.

Nagi takes the next customer’s order and is stunned to see it is the famous manga-ka Ashibashi Gouji-sensei. Nagi excitedly tells Ayumu who’s not really impressed. When Ashibashi-sensei states his death wish, Nagi explains that many manga-ka have such a wish. Nagi is excited to see the rough sketches for what will become the manga. However, when she learns of the plot twist that Ahibashi-sensei has planned for her favorite manga, Nagi goes off on him and has to be restrained by Ayumu. Once Nagi calms down, she serves him coffee and has him take a break where the two discuss the manga and Ashibashi-sensei leaves with renewed motivation.

Meanwhile, Maria is concerned about Nagi working her first job and under the SP’s advice, she dresses up in a nurse’s uniform. Ayumu, Nagi, and Hayate recognize her but decide to pretend not to since Maria seems to be in disguise. When Ashibashi-sensei returns to give Nagi an autograph for her help, he sees Maria and immediately proposes to her. Since they’ve decided not to let Maria know they know who she is, Hayate decides to help her out of her awkward situation by telling Ashibashi-sensei that Maria is a man. Upon hearing this, Ashibashi-sensei leaves, thankful he didn’t go down “that” path but Maria is furious and lets Hayate have it.

Thoughts/Review:

I’d wondered if Master from Cafe Donguri would return and sure enough, he did, even if to simply set the stage for Hayate, Nagi, and Ayumu to work together. I’m glad about that.

As to the episode specifics, the fun just continues with the rivalry between Nagi and Ayumu notched back up. As the episode noted via Ayumu, Nagi and Ayumu were somewhat closer after their Shimoda experiences together but now Nagi feels threatened and WHAM! *lol* Still, as Hayate said, Ayumu being there is the thing that made Nagi step up to the plate and excel at being a waitress.

The parody about manga-ka was very funny to me. I’m not sure Ashibashi-sensei is representative of a specific manga-ka, but for the purposes of the story, this fictitious manga-ka wrote the parody version of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. Since Nagi has always had thoughts of being a manga-ka herself, her interactions with Ashibashi-sensei were fun through and through. His sudden marriage proposal to Maria took me by surprise and thus made me laugh.

Speaking of Maria, the SP’s getting her to dress as a nurse was a funny moment too. Clearly, those guys had no interest in getting her a perfect disguise but simply wanted to see her cosplay a nurse. ^_^; Heh!heh!

So while there may have been no real character advancement or relationship advancement, this was still an episode that was a lot of fun to watch. I’m glad this series as been done so well. ^_^