Tag: romantic comedy

Hayate no Gotoku manga review

Hayate no Gotoku! a.k.a. Hayate the Combat Butler is an anime based on a manga series by Kenjirou Hata about a debt-ridden butler and the rich young girl who saves him. The story is pretty straightforward: Ayasaki Hayate’s parents rack up a debt of 159 million yen to the yakuza and take off, leaving Hayate to handle it. After a failed attempt to kidnap Sanzenin Nagi (the rich girl) for money, he ends up working for her as her butler and owing his debt to her instead.

I started out by watching an episode sometime in November and really liked it, but didn’t have time to really dig in until earlier this year. I spent a couple of weeks blasting through both seasons of the anime and then read the manga from chapter 148 onwards. I’d like to go back and read it from volume 1, but I’ll save it for another time.

I tend to prefer character-driven manga to story-driven manga anyway, unless the story is really good. HnG has a number of interesting and likeable characters (Hayate, Maria, Nagi, Tama, Hinagiku, Isumi) and not so interesting and not so likeable characters (Sakuya, Wataru, Saki, Klaus), but even the less interesting ones still make for a few good laughs.

I enjoyed the constant spoofs of and references to other anime and manga as well. I actually got a lot of them, which shows I’ve been watching too much anime… That said, I thought the quality of episodes in Season One was really iffy. Some were good, some were not so good. Later on I discovered that most of the ones I thought were bad were actually filler, which just goes to show that Hata’s unique touch isn’t so easily imitated.

Anyway, after putting the anime behind me, I’ve finally caught up to the current manga chapter, chapter 309. That was a whirlwind ride, especially the Mykonos arc where Hayate ran into his old flame Athena. I like Athena a lot. This is may sound like blasphemy to Hinagiku fans (of which I was one until Athena showed up), but I think Athena fits Hayate better in a lot of ways. She understands that he has feelings, that he’s often in pain, that sometimes that smile is just a mask. Hinagiku still doesn’t really know Hayate, deep down inside. To be honest I think the main frontrunners for Hayate’s affection right now are Maria and Athena, with Hina in third place. Athena x Hayate forever!

That being the case, I’m rather pissed off at this whole Alice arc, wiping out Athena’s memory and turning her into a kid again for 3 months. That puts a halt on any romantic development for the next 200 chapters or so. Boo! Hiss! Hata’s also added another girl called Luca/Ruka to the mix, we’ll have to see what she can bring to the party. It might be time to drop this for a while and see how things work out.

Sumomomo Momomo vol. 1 manga review

The usual “Fiancee Out Of Nowhere” story with bad art, bad comedy, and bad angst right from the very start. I like those stories when the comedy is funny (see: Ranma 1/2) or if it’s very romantic and the characters are nice (see Ai Yori Aoshi), but Sumomomo Momomo is just bad. The girl Momoko has nothing going for her except she’s good at martial arts and she’s supposed to be pure, innocent and ignorant. Oh, and she looks 12 years old but she wants to have a baby with the main character, riiight.

The main character XYZ…I can’t even remember his name and I just finished reading it…ah, Koushi, starts out snarky and rude, wanting nothing to do with his martial arts family and background. But thanks to Momoko reminding him of his childhood through the usual tears and shouting “What happened to you, you used to be so blah-blah-blah”, he finally sees the error of his ways and goes back to being a strong martial artist again…

Or that’s how it was supposed to be, but then he remembers…he got the crap kicked out of him several years ago in front of Momoko and was so traumatized he gave up martial arts. His M.O. after that is figuring out how to get Momoko to do his dirty work for him while he tries to avoid getting married and having babies with her. Oh, and how to keep her out of trouble after she naturally enrolls at his high school. Oh, joy.

Psst, did I mention that several assassins are after Koushi’s life? Just because? All of a sudden? Yeah, it’s that kind of manga.

From the sound of all that, I expected to get a funny, crazy, interesting series out of Sumomomo, but for some reason the whole thing just feels dull, dry, empty and gloomy. I’m not quite sure what to pin it on, but I think it has a lot to do with the visuals not being able to keep up with the comic mood of the series. The panel layout in the action scenes is rather hard to follow, and all Haira Ichiden Musou-Ryuu and Shindara Rettsu Ryuu etc etc terms flying about get a little hard to follow after a while. Character design is odd, the artist goes a little too heavy on the black ink and dark screentone so every page looks really dark…basically this manga doesn’t have what it takes to hold my attention after volume 1.

Nothing to see here, moving right along.