Anime Review: Hayate the Combat Butler - Cuties

Well, the time has come to talk about the last Hayate the Comet Butler anime we've gotten to date, which is also something of a return to form for the franchise's anime incarnations. As the title suggests, Hayate the Comet Butler Cuties puts the focus somewhat on the women in Hayate's life. For most of the series, with the exception of the last couple episodes, each individual episode focuses on a particular female character or characters and their relationship with Hayate, with some episodes doubling up on the female characters. Each episode is generally, well, episodic, with some occasional callbacks to earlier episodes. This is something of a return to form for the franchise. While Hayate the Comet Butler has always been a harem series, it's been a harem series that has leaned more into the sitcom side of things. While the manga has certainly had long-running arcs like the Athena arc and its associated Greece Vacation arc, while they have not previously been adapted, the majority of the manga's material has been short storylines about the size of one volume, or even just one or two chapters based around one scenario. So, moving the series into a more episodic structure is probably closer to moving into familiar territory. The cast doesn't have much in terms of new characters, the sole exception is Alice, the reincarnation of Athena, a woman who Hayate had met and had fallen for as a child in the previous method mentioned Athena arc and who was reintroduced as a teenager in the Greece Vacation arc before being de-aged into a young child. She doesn't particularly get much character development here, unfortunately. The show assumes that you are actively reading the manga and have read enough of it to know who this character is and what their story is. The rest of the cast is fleshed out generally better, with perhaps the standard episodes being based around Hinagiku and Shikaru Harukaze. That said, I can't talk about this series without bringing up the elephant in the room. Of the previous series, this one has probably the most greatly reduced role for Izumi, particularly considering that the series focuses on each of the female characters in turn. Considering the health issues that her voice actress, Miyu Matsuki, was experiencing during when the show was being put together, this may have been a deliberate choice to ease down on the character's presence instead of recasting the character. With Matsuki's death and the conclusion of both the anime and the manga, it makes me wonder if we're going to get any more Han Hayate anime series. Certainly, a new anime series could help sell Tankobon, but it would also entail recasting a beloved character, which is rough. I really did enjoy the show and I liked the return to the episodic comedic focus, but it also brought into harsh relief that this is likely going to be the last animated Han Hayate series we're going to get for some time if we get any more at all, and that's kind of sad. I really like this series. I like it as a manga, and I like it a lot as an anime. It's a fun palate cleanser of a show to watch while making my way through heavier fare like really anything else by comparison. However, the manga having wrapped reduces the likelihood of getting another series, and the tragic death of Miu Matsuki makes getting another series even less likely. I mean, voice actors and actresses of the past have been recast, but Hayate is a very different beast from other series that got similar treatment, like Lupin the Third. The bummer of Hayate the Comet about their cuties isn't that it's bad. In fact, I'd say it's a great installment of the series. It's just that as far as the animated installments of Hayate are concerned, it's not a satisfying final installment. By comparison, Can't Take My Eyes Off You, the series that I reviewed last time, feels much more satisfying as a conclusion in the sense that it is a series that while it is not a narrative finale, it has a sense of conclusion to it as a narrative arc that ends with the final episode of that series as opposed to this where it's just episodic sitcom installments that just go for a while and then stop. Currently, Hayate the Comet about their cuties is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com and Right Stuff, and I have referral links in the show notes. It's also available for streaming right now on Crunchyroll and HiDive, and I'll have links to where you can watch those in the show notes as well. It's definitely worth your time. As far as watching them in release order or going for the more satisfying ending, really either one works. I mean, because of how Can't Take My Eyes Off You hops forward from where it was at the time, skipping over the boarding house arc and after Nagi's gotten her fortune, it generally works. There aren't particularly a lot of new characters from Can't Take My Eyes Off You that are introduced or plot essential to Cuties. I think the Black Cornelia comes up a bit, but that's about it. Now, next time, we're getting into October, so it's time to talk horror. This year, October has five Wednesdays. Now, two of them are taken by Legend of the Force and the Nintendo Powered Perspectives, but that leaves us for three days. Three Days of Terror. So, I bid you welcome to my house of horrors as we review three horror films with house in the title. As we began, and we began as it is proper to do, with Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman, and Vincent Price, with the House of Usher. Tune in then, if you dare. Thank you very much for watching. If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe. Also consider backing my Patreon. Patreon backers get episodes up to one week early of this show and any future Let's Plays. Also, please consider backing my Ko-Fi. Toss me a few bucks also helps support the show and it's not a monthly obligation or anything like that.