Hayate no Gotoku! Ch. 465

Work ethics: busted.

As the 10th Anniversary of the series approaches, we seem to have seen a rather sentimental chapter title. Yet while some would pay more attention to “ten years”, my focus remains on the “eight months”, and more specifically on a relationship nobody would love to talk about: that of Hayate and Klaus.

I seldom talk about Klaus. Of the 330 minus one articles I have written on this blog, I only mentioned Klaus in about 20 of them. More importantly, in most cases I simply acknowledged Klaus’ existence and then moved on. There has been no analysis, Doughnut Gunso style, on Klaus. And how many panels with Klaus have I captured? Well, that beats me.

Maybe it is time to do Klaus some justice – or, more likely, give him some love. So, let’s talk Klaus.

And let’s capture Klaus.

Hayate and Klaus are actually very similar in at least one way: both are very proud of their job. The two butlers love their duties to serve the Sanzen’in daughter and mother respectively, and we can see that they are willing to set anything aside so that they could excel in serving their mistresses.

We already have seen Hayate repeating his catchphrase “I would do this or that for milady!” for the n-th time in this arc alone, so his loyalty is well-proven. Klaus is more subtle not only because he is more matured, but also because his allegiance is more to Yukariko than Nagi. Yet Klaus is so loyal to Yukariko, that not only he continued to look after her descendent, he also looked after her apartment long after she was dead. Now that is some devotion to your job.

This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the relationship between Hayate and Klaus, but if you love and are proud of your job, it is unlikely that you would want it to be reassigned to another person. If I were Klaus, I would definitely want Hayate, who is hired to take exclusive care of Nagi, fired and gone. So, while people in and out of the story explain Klaus’ hostility towards Hayate as an ongoing trial to make sure Hayate is worthy of his job, my take is that he genuinely hates Hayate, and he has been trying to throw Hayate out of the door with no hidden agenda.

More Klaus.

If I remember correctly, Klaus never directly confronted Hayate. After all, it lacks class if Klaus, the most senior member of the known Sanzen’in employees, explicitly expresses hostility towards a new employee handpicked by the young mistress herself. Even if he doesn’t care about his image anymore, he also has to weigh the probability of him coming out on top. No matter how skilled he is, Klaus is a lot older than Hayate, and it is a huge disadvantage to him.

No matter how absurd it sounds that Klaus has to work part-time down in the dungeons four times a week, he is now given the perfect opportunity to confront Hayate – not as Hayate’s senior, but as Klaus himself. In a way, this has nothing to do with the Sanzen’in household, and it is 100% personal for Klaus.

More… Klaus.

Unfortunately, Hayate doesn’t make the response Klaus expected; instead, he plays cheap and stuns Klaus. Of course, he has no reason to fight Klaus fair and square, but he might do better than pretending to fight him, while pulling a dirty trick and claim the “victory”. While Hayate ended up doing pretty well with his conscience in the Konoha incident, this time he simply shows no respect to an elder. Android Hayate, anyone?

Finally, Hayate finds the King’s Jewel, but our attention soon turns to a mysterious watch. Put your hand up if you have followed the manga and the anime closely, but never considered this watch to be Kurotsubaki, which made its appearances in CTMEOY and also Cuties.

Not designed by Apple in California.

For people who believe that this watch is Kurotsubaki, this tells a very different story from the aforementioned two seasons of anime. Specifically, Kurotsubaki has been confirmed not to be stolen by Shin Hayek, and not kept in a safe in Las Vegas. The implication is that the two seasons of anime may have become non-canon, spin-offs, a parallel universe, or a teaser appearance of Kurotsubaki not unlike the Himegami bullshit in Season 1. What we might be seeing now is the “canon” appearance of Kurotsubaki, and it might strikes new fear or excitement into us. After all, Kurotsubaki is said by Tennousu “A-Goddess” Athena to be the equals of Shirosakura, yet we never saw the two swords confronting each other in the anime.

As much as I would like to throw the Hayate-Nagi lovely-dovey propaganda out of the window, we must consider the possibility that this is not Kurotsubaki at all. Indeed, who has said that this is Kurotsubaki? Maybe it’s just a stupid watch! As such, it is still too early for anyone to overreact just yet, and let’s wait for some answers in the near – if near at all – future.