Hayate no Gotoku! Ch. 500

Someone else has to give fanservice sometimes…

Five hundred chapters!

In every sense, this is an amazing milestone. This is a series that has been going on for over 10 years, and it is an incredible achievement in itself. The series mostly follows a linear timeline, and no matter how slowly it moves, the series has been pacing steadily for over 10 years. Most importantly, as we move into September in the series, the story is progressing its natural ending, and there appears to be no evidence yet that the series would be cut off prematurely. If Hayate no Gotoku! really can end as Hata wishes, it can be considered one of the better mangas ever published, just to say the least.

Perhaps even Hata is considering what to do with his manga career after Hayate no Gotoku!, so we are getting this announcement as well:

Not to worry, I’ll explain.

What it says here is that Hata will start a new monthly series in Vol. 40 of this year’s Shonen Sunday, which comes out on 2 September 2015. With Hayate no Gotoku! still ongoing, it means that there would be two series by the same author in the same shonen magazine. While competition at Shonen Jump is so intense that it is almost lucky for authors to keep their series running, Hata is enjoying quite some privilege at Shonen Sunday.

I am not entirely sure if this is the best thing for Hata to do. After all, Hata has been busy enough to work on Hayate no Gotoku! and Sore ga Seiyuu! (well, they are not quite the same thing, but work is still work…), yet now he is making himself even busier. It would be more and more difficult for Hata to maintain the quality of his work, and judging by the six fingers on Hayate’s left hand on the cover page, concerns are (very) legitimate.

On the other hand, Doughnut Gunso is very sure that it is not the best thing to get even busier, so here is an official announcement: Doughnut Gunso will not cover the new series on this blog, unless it is directly related to Hayate no Gotoku!

The core team over the 500 chapters.

So, the 500th chapter. We should not be too surprised that we have once again departed from the plot(TM) because there is the promise to show Nagi’s manga in the anniversary chapters. Funny enough, this chapter resets its spotlight on Nagi (not much involved in the most recent hotel hunt) and Maria (no appearance in the current saga), as well as Chiharu (currently missing in action). Together with Ch. 499 in which Ayumu and Athena made their cameo, I think it is finally safe to say that no one has been left out for too long… or, is it?

Britney’s adventure in this chapter surely shows some continuity from Ch. 400. At the very least, Maria and Chiharu’s characters retain their character designs: Maria is still a witch with a big dot on her face – the only difference is which vegetable she insists Britney to eat, while Chiharu is still a rabbit with an interest in… a specific form of love (we can’t say “forbidden love” for obvious reasons). If this certain continuity – or at least consistency – can be retained in future anniversary chapters, it could become an interesting story of Britney.

Oi…

Once again we are left to wonder just what does Nagi think of her friends. It is one thing to acknowledge a fujoshi, but it is another thing to call her name out. Surely, what Chiharu does with her computer is her own business as long as she isn’t disturbing anyone, and she clearly is restricting her interest to herself by setting a password to her laptop. Yet apparently Nagi has hacked (Tony Stark disagrees with me…) into Chiharu’s laptop for her private stuff, and now Nagi is making fun of Chiharu’s secret side with her manga. At the very least, Nagi deserves to be hit on the head by Chiharu.

Meanwhile, Chiharu is arguably not helping herself. I mean, seriously: can you just use a more complex password than “10086”? I thought even the computer systems themselves would demand a password with higher “security” than 5 numeric characters. Little wonder that Nagi could hack into her laptop so easily.

And don’t get me started on how easy it would be to lock your laptop in your desk drawer.

This is what you get for mocking your friend.

Much like Ch. 400, this anniversary chapter is another attempt by Nagi to poke fun at her friend – although, it must be said, there is a little bit of meanness behind all the fun. I think Nagi should try to work on her brand of humour. Good comedy should not make people happy at the expense of one – real – person. No real person’s feeling should be hurt if you intend to make a comedy. Those attempts that hurt a person’s feelings get their own category: bullying.

On another note, we won’t have a chapter next week, so see you later!