Hayate the Combat Butler
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| Hayate the Combat Butler | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Comedy, Romance |
| Manga | |
| Authored by | Kenjiro Hata |
| Publisher | |
| Serialized in | Weekly Shonen Sunday |
| Original run | May 2004 – |
| No. of volumes | 8 (ongoing) |
Hayate no Gotoku/Hayate the Combat Butler is a manga series by new mangaka Kenjiro Hata. It is currently on its seventh volume in Japan, released in March. It has been recently acquired by/licensed VIZ Media for distribution in November.
Contents |
[edit] Story
16-year old Ayasaki Hayate was the industry's fastest delivery boy, till he was fired after his employer found out that he was underage. Forced to support his terrible parents, who are unemployed, since he was nine, he is shocked to learn that they got his monthly payment of 17,000 yen. Returning home on Christmas Eve, he finds that they lost all but twelve yen gambling away his salary and garnered a 157,000,000 yen debt to the yakuza, who they pay off by selling Hayate's organs. Escaping from the yakuza, Hayate decides to kidnap a young girl, Nagi Sanzenin, for ransom money, but fails miserably by giving away his own name. In addition to that, Nagi mistakes his asking for her to come with him to be a confession of love, and gets kidnapped by the yakuza instead. Just as Hayate lies down and waits to freeze to death, a bike runs over him and he meets Maria, who is looking for Nagi. Hayate is stricken with her at first glance, though initially, he lies to Maria by saying that he didn't know anything about Nagi. But he does a turnabout when Maria gives Hayate her muffler, and goes off to save Nagi when she is kidnapped by a pair of brothers in a similar predicament, being chased by the same yakuza. After saving Nagi, she says that she is in Hayate's debt, and Hayate asks her to repay the debt by finding him a new job before collapsing from his injuries. This leads to him becoming Nagi's new butler, who must protect Nagi from all sorts of trouble while performing more normal duties alongside Maria, who is Nagi's maid.
[edit] Volume 1
Hayate is given a job as a butler by Nagi Sanzenin, who is the heiress of the Sanzenin family and extremely rich, after saving her from kidnappers and falling unconscious from injuries that were garnered during the rescue. He has an embarrassing incident with Maria after regaining consciousness involving the bathtub of Nagi's mansion and a misconception of being in the afterlife. Following this, he accidentally reveals to Maria that he was trying to kidnap Nagi, and he pledges to protect Nagi with his life when she enters the room, embarrassing her because of her misconception that he confessed his love to her. Maria is ordered to fire him by Seishoru Klaus, the head butler, though she is reluctant to do this due to Hayate's unfortunate circumstances and amazing cleaning skills. However, after finding Nagi's self-drawn manga in the study, which Maria was supposed to tell him to avoid, and calling it a picture diary to Nagi, Hayate leaves the mansion after misinterpreting his Ojou-sama's orders. This leads to him being captured by the yakuza, and being saved by Nagi, who pay's off Hayate's debt with the yakuza. Hayate is then presented with a repayment plan covering forty years of working for Nagi.
The next day, Klaus, who wants to fire Hayate, arranges for a strength-aptitude test to make sure that Hayate is strong enough to protect Nagi. Hayate is fights against the Nursing Robot Eight, and wins by electrocuting both himself and Eight. This convinces Klaus that, for the time being, Hayate can stay. The following morning, Hayate encounters Tama, a white tiger from Africa, while going to wake up Nagi. No one can control Tama except for Nagi and Maria, revealed with Klaus is slashed in the face by Tama. Nagi and Klaus for Tama and Hayate to fight by threatening him with being fired, but the fight is interrupted by Maria. Tama and Hayate had been fighting in her flower garden, which she had taken great care to cultivate. Using her amazing insight ability, she deduces exactly what happened and proceeds to treat Hayate's wounds while Nagi and Klaus await their punishment. After telling Hayate how Tama came to be living with Nagi, which was similar to how Hayate came to be living with Nagi, Hayate remarks to Tama how similar they are and lucky they are to have been adopted by Nagi. Tama though, having learned the human language, tells Hayate that he shouldn't be classified as a similar type of loser as Hayate, and goes on to tell him to die because Hayate's face has "poor written all over it."
Sometime later, Hayate is forced to crossdress in a catgirl uniform by Nagi and Maria, and is attacked by Tama, who he beats in a single move. He is also attacked by Klaus, and both times, he is mistaken for a girl. After the incident, back in his regular butler uniform, Hayate is asked by Maria whether he like older or younger women. This is because Maria knows that Nagi has fallen in love with Hayate, though Hayate himself doesn't know this. Hayate hasn't yet told Nagi that he was trying to kidnap her when they first met, and himself has a crush on Maria, leading him to remark that older women make better love partners. Nagi wants to help Maria following the early morning battle that killed Maria's flowers, and agrees to go get new flowers. However, this leads to a talk in a secret backyard flower garden where Nagi believes for sure that Hayate has confessed his love, while Hayate really meant that she was important to him because she saved his life. The chapter ends with Nagi picking a flower, which leads to the cliff that the garden was on breaking, with Hayate falling off. They return to the mansion with a single flower, and a muddy, dirty Hayate.
[edit] Volume 2
Tama and Hayate meet in the entrance hall while Nagi and Maria get ready for bed. Maria remarks that today was a chaotic and messy day, just as Eight makes a re-entrance through the window. Eight is back for revenge because his creator and the person he loves, Dr. Shiori Makimura, said that his design was bad from the beginning following his defeat by Hayate. Hayate feels that this is similar to what he went through on Christmas Eve, but Eight attempts to kill him anyway. During this time, Maria and Nagi are in bed, talking about what's going on, and they find out that Eight had been upgraded to version 8.1, which gave him a corrected file. Hayate and Tama are saved by Dr. Makimura, who arrives because Eight was thrown in the wrong trash pile. She takes him away to be dismantled. The next morning, Nagi asks whether Hayate defeated Eight with the Kamehameha, to which Hayate replies jokingly that he isn't at that level yet.
[edit] Characters
- Hayate Ayasaki: 16-year old Hayate has had to work to support his parent's bad habits since the age of nine, always moving from job to job as he is found out to be underage. He is Nagi Sanzenin's new butler. People are always remarking that he looks poor and seedy, and he has terrible luck. He believes that everyone hates him except children, though he doesn't think about children being any other than friends, including Nagi. His ambition is to own a 3LDK. He has a crush on Maria. Hayate can play the violin, and is essentially invincible. His blood type is A, his birthday is November 11th, and he is 168 cm tall.
- Nagi Sanzenin: 13-year old Nagi is the only heir to the Sanzenin fortune. She is a tomboy and a manga and anime otaku, and draws her own manga. She is also good at finance and likes to learn, and is currently in high school. Her birthday is December 3rd, her blood type is AB, and she is 138 cm tall. She has a crush on Hayate. She also has a fiance, Wataru Tachibana, though both she and Wataru do not wish for the marriage. Nagi is afraid of dark places and has absolutely no sense of direction, and her only surviving family is her grandfather, whom she doesn't like. She regards Maria as a mother or older sister figure, and warns Hayate to not touch her in any way, or she will never forgive him. She is totally incapable of cooking, once mistaking Mama Lemon detergent for cooking oil. She calls Tama a cat.
- Maria: 17-year old Maria is Nagi's butler and surrogate older sister/mother. She is the character with the most common sense in the manga, and is the only one who understands the problem between Hayate and Nagi. She appears to be the one in charge of everything in Nagi's manor, since everyone, from the head butler to the SP obey her and fear her. She's good at general housework and likes games of all kinds, though she is scared of "the dark life-form that exists in the kitchen and other places." She has no last name because she was an orphan who was found next to the statue of Mary at a church, which is where she got her name. Not knowing anything about herself, her birthday was decided as December 24th, the day she was found. Her blood type is O, and she is 158 cm tall. She is the unfortunate one who always has to clean up everyone's messes. She has seen Hayate naked several times, and she sees the affect he has on other girls, many of whom are attracted to him for his kind nature, though she herself is not. Apparently, she is the least popular character for some reason.
- Seishirou Klaus: Klaus is 58-years old, has a blood type of A, and was born on April 18th. He is Nagi's head butler, who is usually away on business. He has a low alcohol tolerance, doesn't do well with tobacco or women, and likes cars and bikes. He initially distrusted and disliked Hayate when he was first hired.
- Tama: A white tiger from Africa, he was rescued by Nagi as a cub, and was raised on Matsuzaka Beef and expensive tuna fish, making it incapable for him to go to the zoo or back to the wild. He can speak the human language, though he does not reveal this to Maria or Nagi because he doesn't't want to shatter young girls dreams; he'd much rather shatter young lad's dreams. He will lay his life down to protect Nagi, because his situation was a lot like Hayate's. To him, Maria is the highest power there is, followed by an impassable wall, Nagi, then himself, and everyone else is below him. He has a class 2 builder's license as a boiler technician. He considers himself the mascot of the manga.
- Eight: A robot in love with his creator, he was created to be the ultimate nursing robot by the Sanzenin Technology Division. He is equipped with "nursing missiles" and rocket boosters. He has fought Hayate several times; the first time, he was defeated, which led to him being thrown away by his creator; the second time, he returned to kill Hayate but was taken back by his creator because he was put in the wrong trash pile; and the third time, he attempted to kill Nagi, but was stopped by staff at Nagi's amusement park.
