Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「春ULALA♥LOVEよ来い!!!」 (Haru ULALA♥LOVE yo Koi!!!) by 伊藤静 (Itou Shizuka)
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「綾崎ハヤテ」 (Ayasaki Hayate)
“Ayasaki Hayate”
This tastes just like that good ‘ol Hayate no Gotoku! of old. A very encouraging first episode!
A Character an Episode. This week: Ayasaki Hayate
Hayate no Gotoku! Cuties’ whole schtick is that each episode is centered around one (or more) characters – a sort of hero(ine) of the week format. This week that character was none other than the titular debt-ridden butler, Ayasaki Hayate (Shiraishi Ryoko)! Personally, I found this episode to be really enjoyable. It broke no ground even within the series, but it did a good job of reintroducing us to the group’s dynamic, as well as remind us exactly why Hayate is so awesome. Seriously – there is not a better butler, or a better man, that more deserves to be loved by all the girls than Hayate. But that misfortune! Well, the greater the misfortune, the greater the glory when you surmount it, ne?
Actually, the more I think about it, this was the best possible way to start the seasons. So many shows make the mistake of not showing us why we should be rooting for the main character, which is especially important for a harem lead like Hayate. Though most of us are probably fans from the previous seasons or the manga, it was not amiss to remind us of that, since it sucks you into the fun quicker and deeper. It was also frequently funny in an almost slice-of-lifey like way, and very sweet when Hayate got his reward at the end. D’aaaaawww!
The Intangibles – Atmosphere, Characters, Comedy, Flow
All these factors were roundly encouraging. I already brushed on the comedy, which was quite good when it was trying to be. The general flow and directing was good too. This first episode didn’t pack too much in; in fact, you could even say it was slow at times, and I would not disagree. That said, I much prefer that they take their time rather than try to cram everything in, especially in this first episode, so I am happy with that. As for the characters – well, come on, would you really be reading this if you didn’t already love them? From the glorious return of Katsura Hinagiku (Itou Shizuka, including that lovely OP!) to what I believe is the first proper appearance in animated form of the beloved A-tan, Tennos Athena (Kawasumi Ayako), they’re just as great as ever!
The Tangibles – Art, Animation, Music
The switch from J.C. Staff to Manglobe has always been one that puzzled fans, and I’m sympathetic. I’m a not-so-secret J.C. Staff lover, and while Manglobe has never really done bad with the series, it was a change between a studio that was faithfully adapting the manga (and nailing it!) to one that was only doing okay. But as with Minami-ke season 4, this feels like it could be the turning around point.
First of all, the art looks more like the old J.C. Staff style, with less strangely large heads and almost Shaft-like architecture and more settings and character designs that closely mirror those from the manga. The animation did have a few spots of worry though, little wonky bits that you wouldn’t usually expect to see in a premiere. They also abuse simple backgrounds to skimp on the animation costs, though I actually kind of like those, so it didn’t bother me. In the end, I’m not one who pays a great deal of attention to the animation, but if you are, I can understand if you’re a little annoyed by Manglobe here. I wish they would put a little more effort into their animating, but on the whole I think things are looking up for the series.
Looking Ahead – Nagi and Beyond!
Next week’s episode will be focusing on Hayate’s wrathful loli of a master, Sanzenin Nagi (Kugimiya Rie). Alas, this will be the end of my coverage of this series. I will be watching it though, so feel free to follow me on twitter and look out for my stream of comments whenever I catch the latest episode. Until then, ja!
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – A reminder of exactly why Hayate is so awesome. Such misfortune! Also: Hinagiku, Maria, Hamster A-taaan!! #hayate
Random thoughts:
- Still not sure if this is anime original material or not (I’ve been catching up on the manga, but I’m still a couple hundred chapters behind, heh). I’m not sure it matters though, because even if it is new I feel this would be a really familiar episode to any fan. Manga readers, what say you?
- I will never make Hinagiku smile. I will never princess carry Nagi. I will never get scolded by A-tan. FOREVER ALONE!!
- If each episode centers on a different character, are we going to get a different ED every time? I hope so, because I quite enjoyed the art & music on this one.
- With this post done, my hiatus from episodics officially begins. I’ll probably take a week or so to recharge, but after that you can expect some new Stilts Out Loud posts to start appearing. Look forward to it!
ED Sequence
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ED: 「ヒロインはここにいる!」 (Heroine wa Koko ni Iru!) by 白石涼子 (Shiraishi Ryoko)
Preview
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Though, sadly, it’s not the “End of the World” arc that so many loyal fans have desired, I breathe a sigh of relief at Athena finally being given some concrete animation.
Is a faithful movie adaptation too much to hope for…?
As noted, I’m catching up on the manga, and I just got to that arc today. Actually, I think I’ll go finish it now! A-tan is just so…well, her effect on Hayate is clear, I’ll say that.
I am picking up this anime to balance out Aku No Hana.
bunny sailor moon hayate….
HINAGIKU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 Love that you are blogging this one Stilts :3
Glad it’s just a hiatus and not permanent retirement. After the double retirement, I’m not sure how much more my heart can take. (cries) Happy sabbatical, Stilts! 🙂
Ahaha, thank you my friend! Yes, I just couldn’t go forever, not yet. I think I’m going to be really recharged from this though, so hopefully that’ll make for better writing whenever I do it. We’ll see!
Question for someone who has never watched any of the previous anime/read the manga: Can this be watched by itself? And what about the one before this?
Howdy Jason,
I’ve watched all the previous seasons of Hayate, and I must say, this show isn’t really one that takes order of episodes super seriously. Sure there are events that may be referenced or introduce new characters, but in the end, what you see in an episode is good enough to infer the relationships between characters. Actually, I myself have never been introduced to A-tan before, but It really didn’t detract from the hilarity (and truth) of her statements to Hayate. So, I’d say that if you’re looking for something funny and a little ridiculous, your in the right spot.
As someone who has seen all the anime and read some of the manga, I’ll do my best to answer. My guess: yes, but you’ll probably miss some amount of the charm.
As a stand-alone episode, this was pretty good, but it leans on our knowledge of most of the other characters by only really diving into the plight of the one this episode was starring, Ayasaki Hayate. Without knowing the others, you can still get enjoyment out of that plot, but everything else won’t have the same punch. After all, some of us have been watching this for nearly a triple digit number of episodes (it’ll cross 100 episodes with this season) or over 400 chapters of manga, so we’ve come to love these characters. Without that history, I can’t see it having the same effect.
That said, you don’t need to know EVERYTHING. There’s a large gap between the last anime that straight adapted the manga and this one, and they pulled in characters that appeared in the interim without explanation. Doesn’t matter too much, because they’re interesting enough with what they show us about them to stand fairly well on their own. I don’t like them nearly as much as they ones I grew to love before that, but they just may get there with more exposure.
Not sure if any of this helps, but hopefully something will. Enjoy!
Ha ha, whoops … I completely missed the ‘never’ in your question. Sorry about that, but I think my statement should stand. This show and the one previous are like stand alone stories that just happen to have the same characters.
I’m all smiles for this, so glad Hayate is back so soon when the last season finished a few months ago. I was laughing the whole time during Hayate’s test – I mean if he’s strong enough to break the “PFP” then a cold is a simple matter. 😀
https://randomc.net/image/Hayate%20no%20Gotoku!/Hayate%20no%20Gotoku%20Cuties%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2043.jpg
I’ll have to agree that this episode did feel a bit slower than what we may have seen in the past with previous seasons, but it’s actually kind of a nice breather. Introducing this many characters can be daunting when trying to pack in as many gags as you can, so I’m glad they kept the episode easy to watch with natural interactions between the characters.
Also, I could really sympathize with Hayate during his test … such misfortune having a teacher like that.
This episode reminded me an explanation Sakuya gave about misfortune in the fist series:
“Isumi is blessed by the gods of fortune while Hayate is being followed around by a shinigami”
That´s the only logical and halarious explnation to Hayate´s over the top misfortune!. Well, it comes together with lot of girl trouble.
Hinagiku outshines all. Enough said
Except for this: seconded!
“…it was a change between a studio that was faithfully adapting the manga (and killing it!) to one that was only doing okay…”
Why is it bad if the studio is adapting it faithfully?
I liked the 2nd anime that was animated by J.C.Staff more than manglobe’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.
Then why was J.C. killing it?
I think Stilts meant “killing it” as in “nailing it”, if I’m not mistaken
Ahaha, yeah, I meant that as in “doing really well”. Sorry, that wasn’t terribly clear…I edited it to use NKNKN’s much better wording.
Hinagiku chan still best chan!
I really really liked the older Hayate animes but after the disastrous last season that is Hayate Cant take my eyes off you, I’ll never trust any future Hayate anime adaptations including this.
This episode has been taken from manga story but little change has been made by Manglobe.But I still like it.
director are full retard ,when he decide to left the end of the world arc lol but whatever
Hayate anime is so random , that i can enjoy everything right now
Gundams can get colds but idiots can’t…
It’s nice to see Hayate go back to it’s manga roots, even though we skipped over PLENTY of great arks. Not that original material is bad, but it’s slightly jarring for the anime to suddenly shift into original material, when it was following the manga so faithfully as you said. My biggest gripe being the movie, because it would have been the perfect opportunity to animate one of the more popular arks. Such as the End of the World arc, which is what the end of the second season hinted at anyways. Though of course that was too good to be true, and instead we get something lackluster. Honestly I didn’t even watch the last season of Hayate, because of the disappointment. I’m at least giving this season a chance because I see material from the manga, but I don’t expect it too stay that way. I just like how the current setup with them all at the apartment is similar to where the manga is now. Well, I’ll just have to wait and see. Though sometimes I really have to wonder about some of the decisions made these days when it comes to producing animes…
I think they have a problem of the manga being waaaay ahead of the last fully adapted anime season, so they can either 1) animate a friggin’ ton of manga to catch up (dangerous, since that’s a lot of episodes and you don’t really see any non-never-ending shounen shows get that many cours anymore) or 2) make anime for the manga fans who will know what’s going on anyway.
They appear to have chosen the latter, and I can’t say it’s unwise…probably most of their profit would come from manga readers anyway. Though I keep thinking an End of the World movie would be really successful too, so not sure what to say on that.
I miss SynergySP… The first season is still the best. The art, the music, the humor, the parodies, and the over-the-top action arcs really can’t compare the the later adaptations. Also Himegami.
I could not agree more; the efforts done by synergySP with hayate to this day has still not been topped; they did the comedy so effortlessly were as in later seasons the comedy is not as strong. Not to mention their art was closer to the original manga than the other seasons (although JC staff slightly beat them in animation department)
Why the hell are they not animating the End of the World arc and doing this instead?
I’ve waited four seasons and half a movie just to see it, and its still nowhere close to coming out. Hurrah.
SOON.
So is it required to have watched “Can’t take my eyes off you”? I noticed they have one of the characters in that season.
End of the World was definitely a great arc but if you consider how out of line it is from the first two seasons and the general atmosphere of the show, doing that adaptation might not be a good fit. Cue in bewilderment when Medaka Box transitioned from whatever it was in the first few episodes to the battle royale that it actually is, except amplified many times over. I do believe Hayate is a dish served light and fluffy, without super heavy plots floating around.
Although personally speaking, I want to see A-tan get a whole lot of love and screentime 😛
I love how they start this off. Yes it would of been best to start off from end of the world arc, but they are starting off from a part on the manga which makes sense.
EVERYONE GOT SICK BECAUSE THEY TOOK TOO MUCH TIME OFF FROM THE SHOW. If you read Ch.352 you understand.
Having only watched what’s available in animated form, I’m still really, REALLY lost as to why everybody’s living together in a dorm (especially Nagi, Hayate, and Maria), and I’m just as confused as to who Ruka, that one mangaphile girl, and the boke/tsukkomi routine girls at the school are and where they fit in to everything as I was back with Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. It gives me the same feeling as that “Remember The New Guy” trope, and I can’t say I appreciate it…
Yes, I’m wondering the same thing myself. Why is everyone living together?
If you really want to know.
Show Spoiler ▼
I understand that stuff happened to Nagi because of what she did….BUT THAT’S all I can find out! Was that series of actions/misfortunes in an anime or OVA that I missed? What episode did I not watch that resulted in all this? Even Wiki only mentions it in passing, like everyone is supposed to know. I am seriously confused (again). Is this just a time skip that you had to read the manga to know about? AAaarrrgghhhh!!!!!!!
@SmithCB
That was in the manga only. All of that is suppose to happen between season’s 2 and 3. So yea, if it would be best to read it. Maybe this season will talk about it during Nagi’s part? Don’t know.
Sigh, I only felt safe coming to Randomc this season bec i thought Stilts wasn’t blogging any shows…and then we get this shit. Bring back Divine already so he can save Randomc.
Dat teacher.