So, after searching through my archives, I noticed that I hadn’t talked about Hayate the Combat Butler in very much depth yet.

I really like Hayate the Combat Butler. I enjoy its humour, like its Zetsubou-ish references and in-jokes. I also really like a lot of the characters. And I also like the non-comedy parts as well. I guess there isn’t that much I wanted to say about the series in general.

The second season got taken away from SynergySP by JC Staff. With that, JC Staff is now in control of all the Kugimiya Rie tsunderes. A lot of people hated the alleged art changes, but either I’m blind or they’re blind, because beyond some very slight colouring changes, there wasn’t much that was different from before.

The biggest change was in the story. The first season was a mixed bag. I didn’t find the non-manga arcs all that interesting, and this was before I started reading the manga. Other people really liked the tripped-out, anything-goes filler material. And so, our positions flipped on the second season.

Most people who enjoyed season one, hated season two. People familiar with the manga probably weren’t fans of the second half of the first season, but enjoyed the second season a lot more, as it focused on moving the story ahead. Those who liked the first season probably hate the second season for introducing something resembling a story and character development.

The problem with the filler-loving people is that they became fans of something that wasn’t Hayate the Combat Butler. These people complained that they were ruining Hayate by focusing on bad romantic comedy and harem instead of on the references and parodies. Sorry guys, but Hayate is romantic comedy and harem. It turns out that Hayate wasn’t supposed to be for you.

But for those of us that do enjoy real Hayate, the second season was great. For the major arcs, it followed the source material really closely. For the one-shot gag chapters, they were expanded to fill an entire episode, but the added material was pretty good too. I think it’s the best adaptation that JC Staff has done recently that I can remember.

Although one thing that I did take issue with was their mixing of 00 and SEED references that one time. Innovators and Naturals? C’mon guys, SEED isn’t that old that we’d forget what a Coordinator is.

I’m looking forward to the next season, which is well beyond the manga scanlation point, and where I will likely finally see this enigmatic Athena-tan.

Tags: Anime, hayate the combat butler

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.