Subculture Anime Blog

OP: “Hayate no Gotoku! (ハヤテのごとく！)” by KOTOKO - Anything KOTOKO instant win for me. The song itself is fast paced, and I love it. The actual animation shows things that happen before Hayate and Nagi meet, and characters from throughout the entire series.

After the OP rolls, we see a young Hayate asking why Santa doesn’t give him any gifts. Santa explains that it is because his family is poor, but he should work hard to get what he wants. In the next scene, we see two business men anxiously waiting for a package. One of them assures the other that it will definitely arrive, and sure enough, Hayate the delivery boy arrives just on time. On his way back to the workplace, Hayate passes by some of his friends from school. They are going to a Christmas party and ask if Hayate will come along. Hayate declines because he has no money, and has to work. This is because his father is unemployed. His parents are active gamblers and seems to always lose their money.

When Hayate reaches his workplace, he finds out that he has been fired for lying about his age. His boss informs him that all of his wages were given to his parents when they stopped by. Hayate rushes home, but only to find out that all of his wages were lost to gambling. There is also a “Christmas girt” left for him - a very large debt. Some men invade his house because he has been sold by his parents, but Hayate escapes through his window.

Now at an empty park, Hayate has lost all hope. He decides that becoming a criminal may be his only hope, because he has nothing to lose. Hayate notices a young rich looking girl having trouble with a vending machine. He sees this as his chance, but at that moment two men start to harass her. Hayate ends up saving her, and giving her his coat. She says that she should repay him, and that he can ask for anything. Hayate insists that he wants her, but this is mistaken as a confession. He ends up getting her phone number, and as he goes to make a call, she finds an envelope addressed to Hayate in his coat pocket.

Hayate insists that no one can stop him now, but when he calls the house he answers by giving his name. He immediately hangs up, realizing that his ransom idea was a failure. As he collapses to the ground, he decides that it would be fine to freeze to death there. However, he is woken up by a beautiful lady that was passing by. Moved to tears by this, Hayate sees that there are still kind people in the world, and that he was wrong to give up on it. At that moment, they see the young girl from before taken into a car by two men.

Hayate borrows that lady’s bike and chases after them. The two men are harassing the girl in the car, but she insists that there is someone who would definitely save her if she called for him. She screams Hayate’s name, and sure enough he falls from the sky on the bike. They end up running him over, but he jumps back onto the hood of the car with quite an evil look on his face. Seeing that he is still alive, they agree to give the girl back out of fear.

Afterwards, the girl mentions that she is in debt to Hayate again and asks if he wants something else. As he collapses to the ground, Hayate says that this time it would be nice if she found him a new job. We find out that the pretty lady from before is named Maria and the young girl is Nagi as they address each other at the scene. Nagi suggests that she is going to make Hayate her new butler, as her personal helicopter arrives to pick them up.

ED: “Proof” by MELL
Also from I’ve Sound…Proof by MELL is slower than the OP but just as good - it shows various shots of the girls of the series sleeping. Moe moe? ;P

Preview: In the next ep, Hayate is introduced to his new job in the mansion as a butler.

Impression:

This episode covered the first two chapters of the manga.

Brought to us by Geneon among other companies, this series is already set up to be money. the manga has already been licensed and im sure this will soon after its done airing.

What first got me hooked on this show was when I heard KOTOKO was doing the OP, which lead me to finding out that Rie Kugimiya was voicing one of the lead roles. I basically went fanboy mode and this show probably became the show I was looking forward to the most this season. The animation is great and the voices are done very well. The episode followed the manga pretty closely, although they changed some minor things. For example, in the manga, Maria actually runs Hayate over on her bike before saving him. Probably the only thing I didn’t like was the narrator’s voice. It was a bit on the annoying side to me, but maby I’ll get used to it. Also, what’s up with them censoring Hayate’s body at the end? It was kind of weird xD. Either way, I am definitely looking forward to future episodes!