ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Manga
Hayate the Combat Butler Chapter 499 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ayumu is watching the old, classic movie Die Hard when Ah-tan comes in. When Ah-tan hears it is about a guy in a building defeating terrorists, she decides to watch.

In South America, Hina and Hayate return to the room to discover an unconscious guerrilla soldier. Both of them immediately suspect Hina’s sister, Yukiji-sensei, of being involved somehow. They come to think that maybe Yukiji is using these terrorists to help her win the competition.

In the lobby, many of the students have been gathered as hostages. Kayura asks Isumi if this is part of the Level 5 trip agenda. Isumi suggests asking the guerrilla leader. His agenda is to bring about a nuclear weaponized, socialist empire to bring equality and overthrow the Christian society. Upon hearing this, Isumi and Kayura understand that this is the real deal, so Isumi says if she has to, she’ll do something.

Up on the roof of the hotel, Sister Sonia and Yukiji-sensei look into the lobby through a skylight. Yukiji is annoyed that there are yet more people getting between her and her prize money. Sonia asks how they are going to handle them, so Yukiji says they’ll do what she saw done in a movie. She follows the scene from Die Hard by sending an unconscious (or worse) guerrilla soldier down the elevator to the lobby with the message written on his shirt that she has a machine gun. The soldier is recognized as one who was sent to the 15th floor.

On the 15th floor, Hayate and Hina encounter more defeated soldiers. Hina leaves to check floor 16 when more appear in the elevator at floor 15. They think Hayate is the one defeating their comrades, so they attack. They open up with gunfire, though Hayate defeats them, though not without taking some damage. When Hina returns, he questions whether they are working for Yukiji since they have machine guns (automatic rifles). She thinks it is possible and reports that floor 16 is clear. As such, they decide to continue scouting.

Sonia and Yukiji observe the soldiers in the lobby start to panic, leading Yukiji to suspect a powerful enemy is somewhere down there.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, I’m getting old. Die Hard came out in 1988, making it roughly 27 years old. Still, hearing Ayumu call it an “old movie” and a “classic” made me think, “Wait! Old? How can this be old?” 😆 Time marches on for sure.

Clearly, Hata-sensei is a huge fan of Die Hard based on how he wrote this chapter. However, he also understood that many to most of his Japanese audience may not have watched it, even if some are aware of it. As such, I thought he did a good job having the parallel storied of Ah-tan and Ayumu watching the movie while scenes he was parodying were playing. So for anyone who’s never watched the movie and would not get the “Now I’ve got a machine gun” reference on the terrorist, now they at least understand it.

I laughed at how Hina and Hayate came to the conclusion that Yukiji was behind these guerrilla soldiers doing this terrorist act. Well, that is an understandable mistake, considering how Yukiji is when it comes to money — all bets are off!

I also laughed at Isumi’s rather frank statement that if she has to, she’ll get involved. Man, that would just be hilarious to witness Isumi going off on a bunch of well armed guerrilla soldiers.

Hata-sensei’s commentary, through Ah-tan, made me laugh when Ah-tan remarked on how the bad guys in Die Hard couldn’t hit McClane to save their lives, but McClane’s accuracy is laughably good. 😆 As Ayumu said, “The cop is just good at dodging. He’s an expert marksman!” Yeah, that’s the ticket. Plus it is Bruce Willis!

And finally, the look on Yukiji’s face when she saw the panicked reaction of the soldiers in the lobby made me laugh. No doubt, she suspects Hina is behind this, and maybe Hayate as well. Either way, it would be fun to see a Yukiji vs Hina battle. We haven’t had the sisters fight in a while, and Hina would likely want to punish her oneechan for her greed. 😉

In this end, this was a pretty funny parody of Die Hard that did make me feel old as dirt, but it also makes me want to pull my Die Hard Blu-ray off the shelf and watch it.