Hayate the Combat Butler: Volume 19 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”

Hayate Ayasaki has worked various part-time jobs since the age of nine.  To pay off their gambling debts, his degenerate parents even sold Hayate’s organs before disappearing.  Fate brings Hayate to teenaged heiress, Nagi Sanzenin AKA “Ojô-sama.”  She is the frequent target of kidnapping plots and various schemes by people trying to get her money.  Hayate becomes Ojô-sama’s butler, zealously protecting her, while she falls in love with him.

As Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 19 opens, Hayate and fellow Movie Study Club member, Miki Hanabishi, attempt to make a romantic short film.  Next: she doesn’t normally wake up early, but one morning, Nagi wakes up so early… well, what will she do?  Next, Hayate and Maria Kyobashi, the Sanzenin’s live-in maid, are alone one night.  Can they admit their amorous feelings for one another?  Several series regulars head to America to spend Golden Week in Las Vegas, where Wataru Tachibana has a surprise family reunion.

THE LOWDOWN:  My Hayate the Combat Butler manga review is here to tell you that I finally really like the Hayate the Combat Butler manga.  Beginning with the 17th volume and continuing with the potent closing chapters of Vol. 18, I found things about this series to really enjoy.

Once I started to identify the characters and also to get a feel for their motivations, I had more fun reading this.  I look at Hayate the Combat Butler as a comedy that dips into many comedy sub-genres, but, at heart, it is about close friends.  You may find yourself wanting to be part of this circle of friends… or at least follow this circle’s adventures.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Readers looking for comedy and Japanese pop culture references will like Hayate the Combat Butler.

A-