Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 421: What Makes You Happy - Review and Synopsis

Yandere Ruka by me :)

Synopsis: Although Ruka made a bold claim to Nagi that she would win the contest and therefore end Hayate’s life as a butler by taking him for herself, her confidence is shaken when Nagi declares that she’s drawn a good storyboard based on the experiences she’d been through while on a trip. Ruka works on her manga alone for a while but gets nowhere as she’s feeling quite anxious. Thankfully, Kayura arrives and to help her out in full cosplay attire. Ruka asks if Kayura can draw manga and she responds by showing Ruka a manuscript that she made when she was 12. 

 

Kayura: Brace yourselves, for I am about to become awesome!

The quality of Kayura's manuscript totally blows Ruka away, although we never get to see said manga. Apparently, just like Ruka, Kayura was groomed by her parents at a very young age to one day become a professional mangaka – but she herself is not interested in pursuing this career path at the moment and adds that your objective in life should always be to be happy. Basically, Nagi and Ruka are babies compared to her and she knows it.

Ruka shows Kayura the storyboard she’d drawn about a Murasaki Shikibu (AKA Lady Murasaki the author of The Tale of Genji)  traveling to the present in the form of a young girl and being shocked at all the new novel writing techniques being used in modern times. She thoroughly adopts the modern writing techniques in order to prove that she was still the best even in the modern age. Murasaki is however distracted by many fun things along her journey such as eating, playing and love. She began to think that true love was her happiness and her love came true.

 

You tell her, Ojou-sama!

After reading it, Kayura ends the chapter by saying, “A long time ago… an idol visited a neighborhood supermarket.”

Review: New chapter is out earlier than usual and that makes me a happy blogger :). 

Some people have complained that Kayura has basically become a useless character ever since her shining moment of awesome with her words of advice to Nagi way back in chapter 344. It seems that Hata-sensei plans to remedy that by bringing her back in this chapter. This time, it seems that Kayura’s poised to give Ruka a good reality check by showing her that she’s lost track of her original goal by becoming distracted by so many things – most notably, her obsession with marrying Hayate.

Ruka’s storyboard seems to show her true feelings. It could either be an allusion to her career as an idol or perhaps her dream to become a top-selling mangaka. It’s not all that clear yet, but I believe her storyboard is most likely an allusion to her idol career, so it seems that we might see Ruka come to realize that she really does love her idol career somewhere down the road in this manga yet.

As to Ruka's storyboard, it has a nice premise, but it falls flat at the ending because Ruka basically forced that ending in -- which is most likely the impression that Hata wants to give. Thus, it's gonna take a bit of lecturing from Kayura to set this straight, I believe. It feels like Ruka's going to give up on marrying Hayate and the bet before the competition and she and Nagi might just end up selling their manga together for fun.

 

Groundless confidence. Pure groundless confidence.

I was honestly surprised to learn that Kayura is that good at drawing manga as this is a side of her that has only been revealed in this particular chapter. If you were holding your breath waiting to find out more about Hayate and company and what they’re up to, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment as this is another Ruka-centric chapter. That aside, I really like this development for Kayura since it shows that she’s actually more than just a cloudcuckoolander with a cosplay fetish.

It’s also nice that Hata has somewhat redeemed Ruka in this chapter after making her out to look like some kind of villain in the previous one. We’ll have to wait and see how Ruka reacts to Kayura’s pearls of wisdom next chapter. If she is somehow being influenced by Yozora Housen in order to open the path to the Royal Garden as some people have theorized, then all hell might break loose in the next chapter or the one after that if Kayura’s story takes an entire chapter to tell.

For once, I have no objections with this one not being a Nagi chapter.