ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku Chapter 389

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hayate is at Wataru’s doujinshi shop helping Saki when a frustrated Mikado calls to tell Hayate how to regain her place as the heir to the Sanzenin family. Mikado reveals that there were originally nine King’s Jewels, but including the one Nagi destroyed, only six remain and those are missing. Should Hayate acquire one of the jewels, Nagi would be allowed to return to the mansion, but she would be a candidate for the full inheritance. Mikado tells Hayate that he can consult with Aika or Athena on the location of those stones, though Aika is vacationing in Tahiti and Athena has lost her memories.  Hayate vows to obtain a jewel despite the difficulty and danger, so Mikado promises that once he does this, Mikado will tell Hayate about the end game for the inheritance.

Hayate tries to call Aika, but she refuses to answer it since her boyfriend/butler (?) has the phone and addresses Aika as “ojousama”. The annoyed Hayate sends a mail instead, then decides to head to the apartment to see if Athena has gotten back.

It is here that Hayate arrived to find Hina sick in bed and had started attending her. Upon learning that they’d be alone together, Hina’s devil self wants her to have Hayate pamper her while Hina’s angel self wants her to get well. The two beings fight, so Hina cages Hina-devil in a glass, but then decides that she’ll sleep after she has Hayate pamper her a bit by peeling and cutting up an apple into rabbit shapes.

Hayate agrees, then is reminded of Ruka and her confession, since she was someone who was a very hard worker that suddenly needed him. He discounts this as something that would never happen.  Hina wants to be fed, so Hayate complies. She says she wishes he would be this kind to her all the time since his focus is usually on Nagi. As such, she wants Hayate to hold her hand until she falls asleep. He agrees, even addressing Hina as “ojousama” when Athena busts in, making sure that nothing else happened.

Thoughts/Review:

Heh!heh!heh! Oh Hata-sensei, you magnificent bastard! After having jabbed fans in the eyes a couple of chapters back, he comes back to the plot in an unexpected move of putting soothing drops in fans’ eyes. Further to that, he incorporates the one-off chapter of Hina being sick.

In the Hayate the Combat Butler: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You series, we saw that Nagi was back in the mansion.  In the movie, Nagi hadn’t gotten there yet.  So, assuming Hata-sensei incorporates those elements into the manga’s storyline (and I think he will since he did incorporate the light novel’s destruction of the video club’s building on campus into the manga), we’ll see Nagi complete her doujinshi first, then Hayate will obtain another jewel.

While all Hata-sensei was basically set the table for the next part of the main plot, he did take a moment to give us another peek in on the devious Aika. It would seem that her fiancé is also her butler since he addressed her as “ojousama” and wore a butler’s uniform. When she refused to take the phone from him because he addressed her formally even though they were alone, I figured it was safe to assume that this is her fiancé.

Since Athena is at Yukari-chan House, I’m hoping that Hata-sensei goes ahead and has Hayate try to probe her about the King’s Jewels when the manga comes back on January 9.

That aside, Hata-sensei deciding to continue the Hina story surprised me since it was set up like his normal one shot chapters. I’m glad he did it because frankly, I like the continuity. Plus, Hata-sensei is a gifted enough writer to be able to incorporate his gag humor into ongoing stories without worrying about it being a self-contained chapter (which is something he does too often, in my opinion).

The devil-angel gag has been used a lot in manga and anime. I think this is the first time where the person cages the devil, but still follows the devil’s advice. Pretty amusing, though not the funniest gag I’ve seen from this trope (which was done in Excel Saga).

On the reference front, I’m pretty sure the Tsukibako (Tsuki-bako) reference is actually to the Type-Moon ero visual novel box set for Tsukihime.

So, an unexpected chapter setting the plot table for the next phase while making sure to put in plenty of gags.