blog好き

Mar 16 2009

Categories: episodic review, hayate the combat butler
Tagged: hayate the combat butler

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‘Tis the hot summer swimsuit edition.

(Maid Guys says, “Kukuku. Hayate is just a shitty pretend meido who cannot even protect his master.”)

“Do you remember this guy?”

“Guy”?

Just kidding. It’s good to have Hayate, Nagi, Hinagiku, Isumi, and, most importantly, Maria back in our lives, isn’t it? It’s even better if it’s a shameless fanservice-ladden promotion for the upcoming new season of Hayate the Combat Butler. And, yes, I missed Onsakumaru, the narrator. He’s one of the greats– he should be narrating Gundam 00 S2 right now.

I’d laugh at the palm tree joke except I found out that Stanford spends about $50k on each palm tree on campus and charges about that much in yearly tuition. Yet has a $17.2 billion endowment. I think there’s a very good chance the Sanzenin family controls the school.

Let’s see… in order, who do I want to see in a swimsuit:

1. Maria
2. Maria
3. Hinagiku
4. Aika
5. Miki
6. Izumi
7. Isumi
8. Hayate (if only because we know there’s a gag coming with this one)
9. Maria
10. Hinagiku

And, yeah, all Rie Kugimiya characters kinda blend into a single flavor. She’s the melted ice cream of seiyuu. If I just heard and not seen the initial conversation between Hayate and Nagi, I wouldn’t be able to tell if it were Louise and Saito, Shana and Yuji, or Taiga and Takasu.

Yes! My +130 prop bet for the inevitable Maria o_o;; look at five minutes into the episode paid off. I took the under. Easy money.

(If you understood that sentence, you have both an anime addiction and a gambling addiction. I hope I’m not the only one.)

The most beautiful sound I ever heard:
Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria.
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word:
Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria.

Love winking Maria. To recap, Maria gave us the epic, heroes “have to score all the girls” line. She’s also super awesome meido and stuck forever at 17… I still find it funny that she’s capable of anything, yet agrees to be Nagi’s meido. Is it like some sort of Tome and Chiko type of arrangement? Or does Nagi have a compromising sex tape of Maria? Or does Nagi just pay Maria loads and loads of cash? I need to know these things. Plus she’s in love with dressing Hayate up more than Kana loves dressing Mako-cakes up.

(And if it’s just straight cash, when she becomes a free agent, that will be the biggest and most important free agent signing ever. LeBron who?)

Secret ballot: if Maria tried to make you wear a frilly, anti-masculine outfit, would you resist?

A. Yes.
B. No.

“Dear audience, thank you for waiting. Are you ready to die from moe?”

Let me imitate Joe from Family Guy for a sec here: BRING IT ON!!!

I like the classical music that’s playing. I can’t tell– is it Vivaldi? Or is it Bach? Or is it Loli? Uh, it’s still very nice.

Reminded me of Nia and Yoko for the beach episode… when Nia was dazzling everyone with her flatness and could do no wrong, yet Yoko kept getting embarrassed and flustered even though she’s wearing more clothes than she usually does. Just two very different looks and reactions. I think Nia was wearing white while Yoko was wearing yellow.

(Needless to say, I probably watched one or two episodes of Gurren Lagann too many.)

Why is there a nun drinking wine? Have we entered the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei zone?

Eh, a manga cover that promotes the upcoming season of the same show doesn’t interest me as much as Kagami reading about serial killers while thinking of Konata.

(I want Kyoto to work on Mirai Nikki next. Please no more visual novel games from Key for a while. Unless you want to branch into H and work on a proper Tomoyo After. Please.)

K.O.! K.O.! Down goes our blogger! Down goes our blogger!

So Nagi wants Hayate to play with the hawt meido? And that hawt meido has a naughty slash happy expression on her face? This is a fantastic idea… except if Nagi’s the jealous type. Which, she isn’t, because that’s just not a Rie Kugimiya kind of a character.

(Oh wait, OH SHI-)

All the random cuts to Isumi just slay me. I have no clue why. Is that dust on my monitor, or is that her nose?

“Meanwhile, a girl stood in front of a mansion in thought, much like a boy forced to sit in a giant robot.”

Fantastic line. That’s actually also how I look when I’m sitting down, hands on the keyboard, and “Code Geass R2” as the title of a new blog post.

Hinagiku has the same look that Cramer had when he was on Jon Stewart’s show. I haven’t seen a smackdown like that since gravity and balance completely eviscerated Steve Wozniak. Good times, good times.

Just crossed my mind that there’s a high probability that we’ll get Hayate stumbling across a nakkid Hinagiku. Anime is so predictable, but that’s why I enjoy it.

There’s a good chance of a topless Maria scene as well, but they wouldn’t do both a nakkid Hinagiku and Maria since this is still a “kiddie” show. I think it’s going to be Hinagiku, since we already had the “Hayate temporarily stunned by Maria’s bathing suit” scene already. See, this is the type of hard hitting analysis that you expect from blog好き.

(There’s just no way I can concentrate if I’m on the same court as Maria. I mean… how do you focus?)

Wasn’t this exact situation resolved in Toradora by Takasu sewing performance enhancing, uh, enhancements into Taiga’s swimsuit? And then Taiga promptly disrobes Ami-chan? I’m rooting for the same type of thing here– Hayate giving Tai– Nagi an upgrade and then Nagi ripping off Maria’s top.

(Like football to the groin jokes, somethings never get old.)

A few things slay me about this montage where Hayate tries to find Nagi but ends up finding various heroines stripping instead:

1. He never knocks! Shouldn’t he knock on the door, especially if his original target is a self-conscious girl? Or does Nagi like it when Hayate stumbles into a situation like that with her?

2. All of these rooms have big, spacious windows.

3. Fantastic chance to work in the rest of the humongous cast of the show.

4. None of the male butlers were invited. It’s a complete anti-sausage fest. It’s pretty much the same as the premise of Dead or Alive Xtreme Volleyball where Zack (voiced by the immortal Dennis Rodman) invites only the DoA heroines to his private resort to frolic, conveniently forgetting all the guys. Needless to say, if I had billions of dollars, I’d do the exact same thing.

5. He needed to stumble into a room with a disrobing red haired, chain smoking guy who has a barcode tattoo.

Jackpot. Unfolded pretty much how I expected: Hayate denying he saw anything, Hina getting mad because he wasn’t staring enough, Hayate runs out flustered, and Hina sad that she blew an opportunity, not worried at all about exposing herself to Hayate.

Who is escorting these girls around? “Hey, come to this room with a huge window, and you can change into your skimpy swimsuits here.” It can’t be Maria, since she’s playing volleyball all during this time.

(Is it Klaus? That bastard. You just know he’s on a boat out in the sea somewhere with a 1000mm telephoto lens.)

Gotta love how both girls just completely ignore Nagi and just say innuendos about their time flashing Hayate. I’m hoping it leads to an emo facial distortion.

Eh, needs more explosions and distortions. Three out of ten.

A villain who de-tops tops? Reminds me of the mechanical crab from Mahoromatic. There’s nothing new left in anime.

(And how dare it not de-top Maria?)

Can’t be a Rie Kugimiya-voiced anime without the obligatory “URASHAI!” Also, I’m going through my checkboxes… have I:

– Made fun of Code Geass and/or Gundam 00 yet? (Yes.)
– Marveled at a meido yet? (Yes.)
– Used an NBA reference? (Yes.)
– Incorporated a current popular culture event? (Yes.)
– Typed a meme like “LOL FANG-TAN,” “bromance,” or “melonpan”? (Yes.)
– Ragged on Nagisa as the end girl for Clannad? (No.)

Why is Maria’s top staying on?! This is a bigger upset than Nagisa over Tomoyo.

(Okay, list complete.)

If I were in charge of etiquette, girls wouldn’t have to sit side saddle on a bike. Nor would they hold swords like that.

Love the random Isumi scenes. I have a great idea for a picture book, “Where’s Isumi?” like those Waldo books. And then for a sequel, “Where’s Isumi’s Nose?” Where is her nose? Damn, it might really have been dust before.

I hate the DBZ-like moments Hayate sometimes resorts to. I’m not a big fan of blobs of power colliding… which was exactly the last Graham versus Setsuna fight. Seriously? That’s all they could manage animation-wise?

I… I… I’m just not good enough of a writer to write what I want to write. Let’s just say it runs the gamut from Superman to Strike Witches.

Hayate… Nagi… if Nagi bags Hayate, wouldn’t that give Rie Kugimiya almost monopoly-like status in terms of being the end girl? She beat out superior Horie Yui-voiced heroines twice, and now a Rie Tanaka-voiced one. She’s also thrashed numorous meido in her path. I’m shocked at the revelation that Rie Kugimiya might be the Microsoft Windows of haremette seiyuus.

Fight-o Maria! Fight-o!

(Maid Guy OVA tomorrow.)