hayate the combat butler 2
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Still signing the praises of Maria.
(Sadly, this scene is already 10x more fanservice than Hayate manga… Nagasarete it ain’t.)
Maria is awesome. After suffering through the past two seasons with only Sleepy Nayuki to placate me, a tier one meido finally appears. Why is she awesome? Typical standard issue hawt meido specs: 17, great figure, fantastic demeanor. Then there’s how she’s pretty much the eye of the hurricane in that everything whirls around her, yet she’s the calm in the middle. As the series goes on, there’s going to be a lot of confusion and misunderstanding between all the characters, yet Maria is the only one who understands what really takes place, but she’s so flustered and helpless, she’s overmatched. Basically, she becomes a cross between Belldandy and Ben Stiller from Meet the Parents.
Her roles as mediator and “the sane one” becomes more apparent as the cast grows larger, but unlike Belldandy or even Marial, Maria doesn’t have the same aura of invincibility. You get the feeling that she is human and can be overmatched, much to my delight. In this episode, she can barely keep Nagi and Hayate together, and she fails to resolve their misunderstanding. (Though I am disappointed that Nagi didn’t break out the highly enjoyable, “If you fall in love with Maria, I’m going to kill you!!!” line.)
Still, her “Oh noes Hayate and Nagi are going to collide and there’s nothing I can do about it” face is still very cute. Almost up there with Zombie Nayuki.
Also, with the establish of Hayate’s service to Nagi because of the debt, Hayate the Combat Butler is basically the gender reversal of He Is My Master. The big difference, of course, is that one is a harem series pretending to be a gag series of a harem series. The other is a straightforward comedic series. The more subtler differences are just that Hayate‘s animation is much, much better than Gainax’s mail in job for HIMM, and I don’t get the feeling that Hayate is getting butchered watching it. It’s pretty much as entertaining for me as the manga. Now if we can only get a kinky French meido outfit for Maria…
Highlights
There’s really three narrators to Combat Butler: Maria, who fills-in that role in the manga, Santa Claus, who seems to be moonlighting from Chokotto Sister, and the anime narrator. At first, I thought that the anime narrator was a tad excessive and unnecessary, but the way he butts in and offers sarcastic remarks, well, he’s moving up in the charts. He’s not as awesome as Kyon, but he’s definitely a poor man’s Keroro’s narrator… and has tons of possible upside. Though I think Maria should be also be the voice over narrator just to give Rie Tanaka more lines, but that’s just me. One can never get enough of either Marial/Maria meido Rie Tanaka or crazy bat shit loco Rie Tanaka.
(Also, the manager of the household is aptly named “Klaus”… mmm…)
***DAM!
(Same thing happened in Haruhi! At least with Keroro, they blatantly promote the Gundam connection and to good effect, if I may add. But it’s always enjoyable to hear Maria say beeped out words. You can pretend that she’s saying something naughty and… wait… am I sharing too much here?)
Speaking of parodies, monkey king! They combined not one, not two, but three parodies into one. Good times… good times. Now if only we can get a shot of Maria in those HIMM outfits… or at least an assistant lesbian crazy stalker meido.
Hayate’s cleaning abilities and his inability to score with Maria has landed him on the cast for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Tokyo Edition.
“URASAI! BAKA!” Wait, is it Shana? Or is it Louise? Rie Kugimiya is seriously typecast. I’m wondering if she has range outside of the wrathful loli sphere, and I’m stumped. It’ll probably help me think of something if I were sober, but, alas.
At the end, after Nagi pays off the yakuza types, Hayate insults her masks, so she gets pissy and insists on getting paid back. “So you must work like a horse to pay everything back to Nagi Sanzenin! I am definitely not going to give you any discounts!” Couldn’t this dialogue also be construed to mean that he’s, uh, going to provide other types of favors? Or should I just go ahead and dip my head in some detergent water to clean it out?
Enjoy it while you can, because the next fanservice we’ll get is Hayate in drag. BTW, the manga featured a section about Maria refusing to “dry” certain parts of Hayate after the bath scene. High comedy.
17 Responses to “hayate the combat butler 2”
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>>“URASAI! BAKA!†Wait, is it Shana? Or is it Louise? Rie Kugimiya is seriously typecast. I’m wondering if she has range outside of the wrathful loli sphere, and I’m stumped.
Rie Kugimiya goes outside of her typecast roles in Full Metal Alchemist as the voice of Alphonse Elric (from tsundere loli to shota?).
Not to egg you on or anything, but doesn’t the anime adaptation seem to be cutting back on Maria screentime compared to, say, the manga? >.>
Aye… I have been feeling deprived of quality Maria-time in the anime. :p
Natch.
This episode gave me a much better impression of the series than the first did, Nagasarete is still more enjoyable to watch although both seem to lack anything but comedy and random-ness, was I expecting more… no. Until next week Maria…
Btw, Maria is kinda a spanish name and Siesta (Zero no Tsukaima) is a spanish term, and they’re both maids… how stereotypical can these animes get? Its ok I enjoy it, meidos ftw.
Looks like the “censoring” will be a running gag. Its nice that they add Anime fitting jokes as well as new references compared to the manga. I´m curious if they will change the opening once they get to the part in the manga that suggests a change in the opening.
Hayate in drag?
Time to bust out your no way there’s a penis on this posts again I see.
Confirmed:
You don’t need a hot bath or injury to get some of the blood bleeding out from a certain part of body!
…I feel short changed on the bath scene compared to the manga >_>
What’s the deal with censoring blood and injury in the annoying fashion in this though? Does this air in Japanese kids show hours?
Neriya> yea, i think this show airs sometime mid morning on a weekend and is targetted for a younger audience. but i like how they’ve made the censorship a running joke rather than an annoying exception.
I´m seriously wondering how this series will settle in, seeing as narration style and service ammount tend to vary so heavily in this kind of adaptation.
I liked the first two episodes, but unfortunately, I can already see this series jumping the shark.
Rie Kugimiya is still playing Karin in Bleach. Not that that means much…
The narration is still great, though is it sad that one of the reasons I plan on continuing with this series is for the Santa (aka the doctor)?
It’s good to see that Maria isn’t as clueless as…everybody else. The show needs somebody to drop sweat beads and exhale mushrooms for the “naturally empty minds” that populate it.
I also intially thought the bleeped words were curses, and I was very happy until I realized it was “Gundam”. But, still funny.
“At first, I thought that the anime narrator was a tad excessive and unnecessary, but the way he butts in and offers sarcastic remarks, well, he’s moving up in the charts.”
Wakamoto Norio = WIN. Hail Brittania!
>> At first, I thought that the anime narrator was a tad excessive and unnecessary, but the way he butts in and offers sarcastic remarks, well, he’s moving up in the charts.
I just really like Wakamoto Norio (aka Onsokumaru/Mechazawa)’s voice for doing humor voice roles. His deep gangster/deliquent type voice is the perfect contrast to the things he’s saying.
>Now if we can only get a kinky French meido outfit for Maria…
Except a certain other main character will be wearing them instead… oops, spoilers. :p
“Couldn’t this dialogue also be construed to mean that he’s, uh, going to provide other types of favors?”
Yes, this is my blogger.