Inkspot Fancy

Hayate the Combat Butler 9

Oh, this volume. It makes me laugh. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an interesting, weird interlude in the story of Hayate.

Hayate wants to thank Hinagiku for her help earlier by getting her a nice present for her birthday. This, of course, leads into hijinx, as he encounters a friend from his old high school while out, Nagi gets a bit jealous, and he learns something new about Maria. But in the second half... well...

You know Hina dolls? They're a set of display dolls associated iwht a festival, and Izumi has a cursed one in her set. Sakuya, with her incredible powers of knowing what will cause chaos, breaks the thing, releasing a curse - which targets Hayate. And makes him dress like a woman.

This is not the first time this particular plot point has been used, but this is the first time it's quite so protracted and blatant. He starts out in a maid costume, but it goes further before the end. And while he's all girled up, he encounters the guy I like to call Creepy!Butler. And Creepy!Butler falls in love. Instantly. And then when he finds out that Hayate is not the woman he thinks, he gets rather... angry. Kidnaps Nagi. I assume just foregos his work while he's having his episode.

It's funny, but it's also kind of uncomfortable and I wanted to flag it in case it might bother you as well, dear reader.

Hayate the Combat Butlet 10

So much love! Hinagiku investigates her feelings toward Hayate! Saki goes to a marriage interview! Britney loves Senpai! And a new mechanical butler loves to corner the market on butlering.

The mechanical butler is actually the lion's share of this book. With Hayate studying hard for exams, he's been given some time off and the robot butler is called in to cover his duties. And if you've made it to book 10 of this series, you are expecting that to go wrong in a certain sort of way. And it utterly betrays those expectations in a pretty fun way. :)