Erin here. I read Hayate the Combat Butler volume one on a very aggravating bus ride to New Jersey in 2006, possibly during Anime Next. I wrote my review in my head, but failed to actually type it up. I watched a couple episodes of the anime and was summarily unimpressed. Katherine Dacey ended up reviewing it instead. This year I found myself saddled with reviewing more volumes of the series, but when I cracked open volume nine I discovered a cast of characters I’d never met having adventures I couldn’t follow with a lot of character-driven humor. I decided to pass the review off to my friends the Reverse Thieves, a group of anime bloggers. They love Hayate, and have keychains and ringtones to prove it. Here is the Reverse Thieves article on the series.

Please enjoy the following guest review by Alain Mendez. (Editor’s Note: And what a terrific review it is. Thanks, Alain! Come back anytime!)

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vols. 9-11

By Kenjiro Hata
Published by Viz
Rating: T+ (Older Teen)

Hayate Ayasaki is still up to his neck in debt and working as a butler. Hayate and Nagi are still light years from discovering each others’ actual feelings for the other. And Hayate is no closer to discovering the secret of the pendent he received from Nagi’s grandfather. Essentially, the latest books of Hayate are more of the same: silly characters having the worst luck in extremely meta humor situations with a dash of romance and drama. However, Kenjiro Hata keeps the humor fresh, the characters enjoyable, and the situations bizarre, making Hayate’s latest installments just as enjoyable as earlier ones. These volumes won’t win new fans to the series but they will satisfy regular readers.

If it weren’t for bad luck Hayate would have no luck at all. We start volume nine with Hayate’s alcoholic homeroom teacher trying to find a boyfriend and end in volume eleven with the beginning of a story about several regular characters trying to get to a hot spring that supposedly has magical powers. In the meantime we see Hayate’s first girlfriend, watch Hayate be cursed by a cross-dressing doll, look on as Hayate gains a homosexual stalker, view Hayate getting caught up in a hostage situation, see a day in the life of Maria the maid, and listen to Hinagiku sing what is obviously the opening to Evangelion. There is also a rather bizarre Detective Conan chapter that was part of a magazine-wide theme. This chapter takes inside jokes to a new level for a manga that was already famous for having referential humor.

While the longer story arcs are quite amusing, it’s the little throwaway chapters where Hayate often shines the brightest. This is not to say there is no character development in these three volumes—Hinagiku finally realizes she has feelings for Hayate, we learn more about Maria’s past, and we gain insight about Nagi’s mother. We also get the staple of the long running shonen manga: the character popularity poll.

The biggest problem with Hayate the Combat Butler is that VIZ still refuses to add liner notes. While most of the jokes in Hayate work without explanation, it is still a comic with references to Japanese pop culture in every chapter. A few notes in the back would do a lot to help explain references to things like Nadia, Haruhi, and hina dolls that will fly past the heads of those who are not experts.

Volumes 9-11 of Hayate the Combat Butler are available now.