It’s all about Hinaguki!
What They Say:
Kenjiro Hata, notable for creating Hayate the Combat Butler, also created the new series Hayate the Combat Butler! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. In this series, Hayate Ayasaki continues to work alongside Maria at the Nagi Sanzenin’s mansion. Nagi receives a call from “Area 51” inviting her to the universe but will she accept?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the show continuing its character focus, it’s definitely working out for the best overall. Considering the number of characters in the property overall, rather than just rolling with more episodes, I’m rather appreciating the way it’s giving each of them some individual attention. And even with the previous episode where it went and did things for two of the girls at once, mostly splitting it in half for them, worked well as the stories clicked just about right even if the characters weren’t all that interesting. The only thing I’d actively change at this point with how this season is going is to just do individualized opening sequences so they all get the attention they do deserve. But when comparing this to the previous season, it’s hard to really complain too much considering what a train wreck that was for me.
With this episode, we get to see how easily Hinagiku gets set off when it comes to Hayate and the way he’s involved with everyone, though she covers it well with her frustration in a lot of ways. She wants to get closer to him but she ends up continually getting angry, which she feels (rightly so in some ways) just drives a further wedge between the two. Because of her nature, she’s continually creating friction, though more of it is in her mind than anything else, and then works doubly hard with some amusing ways of trying to get closer to him. With her internal dialogue over it all and how she rationalizes it, you just have to laugh at the experience overall since she tries so hard but just has either bad luck, bad timing or what she ends up doing is just oblivious to Hayate, which only makes her feel worse. Even when it’s something simple like wanting her shoulders rubbed.
Of course, some of the other girls get involved along the way as well, especially as they hit the beach for a bit for some fun and games, including a little volleyball. Of course, that’s one of the more amusing aspects of the episode since Hinagiku is just playing it up in such an awful way with how she claims to be hurt, playing up her fragile nature (which everyone knows she’s the farthest thing from), hits all the right notes here. Having everyone watch on just makes it even more comical, especially when Hinagikue gets challenged by someone outside the group and she does an about face since she can’t handle being thought of as weak by anyone other than Hayate. Suffice to say, the show gets silly from there in an expected way and it rolls along in a way that makes Hinagiku fun to watch and the others commentary along the way spot on.
In Summary:
Hinagiku certainly has her fans and with this episode it’s easy to see why since she’s just so much fun to hang around. What helps is that we do get a good look at her internal thought processes so we can see how she thinks, both when faced with Hayate doing things to other she wishes would be done to her, but also when she gets challenged by others that she has little to no regard for. It’s comical seeing her being so submissive in an exaggerated way to try and get Hayate’s attentions, not realizing where his mind really is, but also good to see her finally come back to being who she really is and not being ashemed about it. Of course, we get a bit of patriarchy at the end with Hayate trying to shame her a bit, but that’s anime being anime, which isn’t always as progressive as we’d like it to be.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.