Sunday, July 27, 2014

Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 459: Stone of Bonds -- Synopsis and Review

Sure, sure. Hina can have the cover this time. I do not mind.
Synopsis: Hayate rushes towards Nagi who turns out to be screaming about nothing but some dead jellyfish. After confirming that his mistress is fine, Hayate turns back towards the possessed Yukiji (Higanman) and Ikusa and it appears that Higanman has turned super saiyan because of the King's Jewel.
Yukiji: Sekai de ichiban o-bake sama!
Nagi asks WTF is going on here and Hayate briefly explains that Yukiji's been possessed and her powers have been amplified by the King's Jewel. 

Ikusa says he can't even touch her when she's that powerful, but Nagi has a plan. She rushes up to Yukiji and then proceeds to bribe her with 500 yen into purifying the evil spirit.
Nagi's a more effective exorcist than Isumi here
Higanman is stopped dead in his tracks and he can't believe that he's geting defeated by a mere 500 yen. Yukiji asks for just a little bit more, so Nagi ups the ante up to 1500 yen for purifying the spirit.
I guess she does tend to solve everything with money, eh?
This time, it really does work and the spirit is purified bathing Yukiji's body in some kind of magical array of lightning bolts. The ghost isn't done just yet though. In order to get some kind of revenge on Hayate, he decides to throw away the pouch containing the King's Jewel into the ocean.
They're finally working together
Hayate and Ikusa team up and Ikusa throws him towards the pouch, but just as the pouch is within reach, the Jewel slips out and is then struck by a stray bolt of magical lightning -- presumably from the evil spirit.

Hayate falls into the ocean feeling defeated and Ikusa dives in to rescue him. Hayate says that he did it again and Ikusa responds by saying that he just has to apologize again while handing him the pouch that contained the King's Jewel.

Review: Really action-packed chapter here. Naturally, Nagi stole the show -- quite fittingly. If you ever doubted the awesomeness of Nagi Sanzen'in, let this chapter clear your doubts.

I'd thought that Hata would make Nagi the damsel in distress again, but she turns out to be pretty useful in defeating "Higanman" - using her brains to outwit the evil spirit and exploit Yukiji-sensei's personality.
At least she didn't get kidnapped again
Looks like one of my speculations finally came true here because I did say that it might just be something insignificant in the previous chapter review. 

Also, I was just joking around a bit about Ikusa x Hayate being a thing, but that panel on the last page sure looks mighty suspicious.
Looks like Kotetsu has a lot more to be worried about than he thinks
On things other than Nagi, I noticed that Ikusa was calling Hayate by his name here and he seems to impliedly acknowledge everything that Hayate said in the previous chapter -- he even treats him more like a brother now -- which is a good thing.

Anyway, a very fun fast-paced chapter and it gave Nagi a chance to shine. I'm a bit disappointed in Hayate being so helpless throughout all of this though.
That was surprising
Still, now that the King's Jewel that he was after has been broken, it either needs to be repaired (which I doubt) or he'll need to find another one to restore the Sanzen'in inheritance to Nagi. Either way, I think this beach arc is just about ready to be wrapped up now.

Speculation Fanart Corner: Okay, not going to bother with speculations this time as this looks like a penultimate arc ender and I really do have nothing to work with this time around. Instead, I'll just show you another piece of fanart requested by some Goddess of Gensokyo. Also, I still don't encourage more fanart on the subject matter.
Umm... just read it.


  1. shounen ai hint with a little bit "incest" WTF Hata

    1. Yeah, I'm almost 100% sure that panel with Ikusa and Hayate was drawn with intentional implications in mind.

  2. I was kinda annoyed by this chapter honestly. Mainly, that the cliffhanger last chapter amounted to nothing and could have been left out with no consequences. It's as if Hata feels like he has to add a cliffhanger every chapter. As well as what was made up to be a tough battle between the ayasaki brothers and Yukiji . IT would have been exciting to see that the demon hadn't left HIna compleatly and still had her under control, making it two superpowered pairs of siblings against each other. But instead, it just ended with Nagi being her old self and bribing Yukiji to stop. While funny, it was very anticlimactic.

    1. I can definitely see where you're coming from, but unfortunately, it seems Hata's chosen to go down this route of ending almost every chapter with a cliffhanger -- even if it turns out to be a whole lot of nothing.

      I guess Hata's not ready to show us an epic battle just yet without ending it with a joke. That seems to be the general theme of this whole beach arc.

      At the very least, Nagi does still need another King's Jewel to get her inheritance back and make the manga tie in neatly with the anime, so we can still look forward to that. There's also Athena and whatever business she's up to that she had to leave so suddenly.

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