Hayate no Gotoku! Ch. 482

First of all, a message to all Chinese: Happy Year of the Sheep! Doughnut Gunso wishes you prosperity and good health!

The red pocket from Hata is A-Goddess. Happy?

I think most of us would have expected Hayate to be saved from responding to Ayumu’s request to kiss her. However, I still think that the way of Hayate getting away would still surprise a few people – myself included, to be honest.

What goes around comes around. A long time ago Hinagiku asked the favour of Hayate to hold her hand as she fell asleep, Athena bumped into the scene and ruined the moment for her. This time, it is Hinagiku who bumps into the scene and ruins the moment for Hayate and Ayumu. In both cases, there is absolutely no point of telling the two people to “continue”. When awkwardness comes into romance, the moment is over.

They do not seem willing to continue…

Curiously, the reaction of Hayate, Hinagiku and Ayumu to the scene is collective panic. Of course, Hayate’s standard reaction to being “got caught” is to yell in panic. Hinagiku has just made a social disaster of herself by being at the wrong place at the wrong time, so it is understandable that she flees in embarrassment. The most interesting case here is Ayumu. She is at absolute liberty to demand a kiss from Hayate, so why is she reacting like she has been doing something bad to Hinagiku?

It is true that Hinagiku and Ayumu share a precious friendship, so they would prefer not to hurt each other’s feelings. However, there also exists a deal between them that they would be competing for the affection of Hayate, fair and square. Now, Ayumu has not done anything out of border, so why is she stopping when Hinagiku is witnessing her victory?

Sometimes it merely looks like they are not “love rivals” any more…

This made the Violet Mansion a power spot.

The fact that Hinagiku is home (in a different outfit) means that her part-time job at Cafe Donguri is done. Indeed, Athena has also returned to the Violet Mansion and is investigating the “Power of Royalty” with Isumi. It seems that every time we come back onto the subjects of the Royal this-and-that, we would be given a summary that attempts to explain everything. Perhaps even Hata realises that people might forget a thing or two between all the long gaps would make things hard for us to remember?

You all know me, I am just not the biggest fan of the plot(TM), anything Royal this-and-that, or even Athena herself. You are on the wrong blog if you are looking for detailed analysis of the conversation between Athena and Isumi. In fact, I cannot even tell if the most updated summary contradicts with anything we knew before. As such, I will simply note the summary and accept everything to be correct.

There are a few apps I do not recognise…

The two girls now find that someone must have evoked the Royal Power at the Violet Mansion, which means that the number of the King’s Jewels is not quite right. The mystery remains to be solved, but without a good way to approach the problem, Isumi suggests to seek help from technology. As such, she pulls an iPad mini out of nowhere and attempts to ask Siri, the voice assistant built into all current iOS devices (and the upcoming Watch OS device), her questions.

Funny enough, Athena seems to have no knowledge of the existence of the iPad mini, or that it comes with Siri. She is so extremely excited by the technology that she hasn’t thought how ridiculous it would be that Siri could know something that only a handful of people in the world know.

You are touching it wrong.

Anyway, Isumi dramatically presses on the iPad mini in an attempt to invoke Siri. As it turns out, she has only managed to initiate a call to Sakuya. Given that Isumi has pressed on the screen instead of the Home button, the mistake seems understandable. The more headscratching thing is that Sakuya says that there is no Siri with her, but she is clearly holding an iPhone 6… Maybe she is just trying to avoid any further conversation on technology with Isumi?

Now that the first attempt to invoke Siri has failed, Athena suggests that to rethink how to use the iPad mini properly. Fumi and co. choose this perfect moment to join the conversation, and offers Ell to solve the problem. The very idea of having a robot to operate a mobile device is not as bad as Maria suggests, but then the question Isumi ends up asking is downright stupid.

And, it appears that Ell isn’t solving the problem with Siri either. She is just using the Calculator app, as far as I could tell…

This from the girl who still uses a feature phone.

Anyway, as far as the tech dumbs girls are concerned, their business with the iPad mini is done once it correctly answered Isumi’s question. They all leave for the next troubled person to help, leaving the iPad mini on the floor. The device is then picked up by Hinagiku, who has yet again changed her outfit. She successfully invokes Siri and asks a question, but as any serious iOS user would tell you, Siri is not that very good with such questions.

So, interesting enough, the “ball” of trouble of love has once again been passed to Hinagiku, although she has almost nothing to do with Konoha in the first place. As we are so frequently given chapters to highlight HInagiku’s weakness with love, and her ongoing love issues, I do not see why some people have been claiming that the development of Hinagiku’s love story is “stalled” – unless, of course, they are only cherrypicking the progresses they like to see.

On a more plot(TM) related matter, let us not forget the latest version of the progress report: the number of the known King’s Jewels is now 10 instead of 9. I am not sure if it means that Mikado has been lying on this matter, as there is the possibility that something has happened behind his back that he didn’t know either. He might have been deceived, instead of deceiving.