Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 441: Talking About Liking Octopuses On Sunday Reminds You Of Mendou-Kun, Doesn't It? -- Review and Synopsis

That's a nice pic of Nagi on the cover, isn't it? (lawlz, I've been waiting for an opportunity to say that since forever.)

Synopsis:  Just as predicted, the mysterious person from the previous chapter wasn’t who almost everyone expected it to be. It’s actually 8 (you haven’t forgotten about this sometimes homicidal bucket of bolts who is in love with Makimura-sensei have you?) and he wants the octopus because without it, he can’t marry Makimura-sensei for some reason. He attacks Hayate in an attempt to get the octopus but refuses to tell him exactly why he needs said octopus. Hayate dodges his attacks and then simply hands the octopus over to him.

Anywayz, “mysterious beauty” suddenly appears behind Hayate asking him why he gave away the octopus. Hayate is totally confused as he’s never even met this girl before. She then walks away with the cryptic message that if he doesn’t understand the sin he’s committed, then the ocean will never give him anything.

Looks kinda manly, doesn't she?

Hayate reports back to Nagi and company afterwards and tells her what happened. Alice chimes in and says that perhaps his “sin” was in giving away the octopus when it never belong to him in the first place when he had no idea what would happen to it. Nagi reasons out that it’s just an octopus, but Alice says that the woman cared about the octopus and it’s a lovely attitude.

Hayate is flustered and says that he would be right back. Hamster rushes after Hayate and Alice seems satisfied by his reaction while Nagi is all “meh.”

Octopus: Serious business

Hayate rushes off after 8 who is about to hand over the octopus to some fisherman with a boat full of em. Hayate asks what they’re doing with all these octopuses and states that he won’t let 8 leave. Suddenly, 8 attacks him seriously from out of nowhere and sends him flying back. 8 declares that he would never understand because he’s so popular with girls and that there’s a special octopus that he’s looking for no matter what he has to sacrifice.

8 then continues the attack and Hayate feels that he’s cornered and done for, but “mysterious beauty” appears from out of nowhere and effortlessly blocks 8’s punch with one hand. She calls 8 an “enemy of the sea” and proclaims that she is the one who fights for the peace of even a single octopus.

Nice one, Hata. Almost no one saw this coming... almost.

 Poof! WTF, it’s Ikusa! Well, he doesn’t say that outright, but he takes off the disguise and reveals himself to be a “lifesaver.” Hayate is like “WTF” … just like me.

Review:  Bwahaha! Hata is such a magnificent bastard. I have to admit, I never saw that big reveal coming about the “mysterious beauty” being Ikusa until the last few panels of this particular chapter.  On the other hand, Kyle Lee from mangahere totally called it. Here’s a screenshot to prove it and you can visit this link to the actual comment to confirm this.

Good job, Kyle Lee

I have absolutely no idea where the plot is heading from here, but at least the story is still steadily moving forward and it was nice to see 8 in action again. I don’t have too many thoughts about this chapter in particular, so let’s move on to some random speculations, shall we? Some of these are quite logical, while a few are pretty off the wall. Let’s wait and see how many of these predictions of mine actually come true. At the very least, I was right about the mysterious person from the previous chapter not being Ikusa. 

Also, Astronerdboy mentioned that the octopuses might be an Urusei Yatsura reference (I’m familiar with the series since it was shown in the early 2000s on Animax), and we have confirmation of that with the mention of Mendou in the chapter’s title.

As a side comment, for being a combat butler, Hayate’s really gone down hard on the tier list. He’s probably tied with or a bit better than Hina at hand to hand, but not with her two swords. I think Athena can still pwn him in a swordfight... but full-grown Athena is pretty much OP anyway. He can’t beat Housen on his own and now it’s been shown that even 8 can beat him up. What next? Gilbert can beat him when he's serious? Of course, perhaps this changes when he senses that Nagi is in danger.

10 year celebration project is the finale of this series

If you can recall from the previous chapter, there was a small announcement that there would be a 10^th year anniversary project and no, it’s not the daily calendar that comes with volume 40 of this manga. In any case, MadMac, among others, has speculated that it might be a new anime and I’m inclined to agree. As to the subject matter of the anime however, given all that’s been happening in the manga so far and Hata’s seeming penchant for “flash forwards” via anime, I’d say that if it is a new anime, then it might be the finale of this series. Why do I say this? Well, there are several reasons that I can think of:

1. It’s the 10^th year anniversary celebration. 10 years has proven to be a pretty significant period as far as this manga is concerned. We know that Hayate and Athena first met 10 years ago, and recently, the whole King’s Jewel plot seemed to have officially begun 10 years ago as well. Furthermore, Ruka and Nagi made that promise to compete with each other with their manga again 10 years into the future. So what better way to celebrate the 10^th year anniversary celebration than to end this manga with a full-blown anime finale? The anime might cover the month of December, or a little bit before that, since I’m sure pretty much everyone expects the series to end by that time… especially on December 24, exactly one year since Hayate first met Nagi and Maria.
2. There are very few months left until we reach December. The current manga’s timeline has almost caught up with Heaven Is A Place On Earth and after that, we all know that Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and parts of Cuties will follow. Since CTMEOY takes place in September, then there are only the “ber” months left until we reach the final month.  
3. The manga has probably already overstayed its welcome. It’s gone on for several hundred chapters and its popularity has steadily begun to decline over the years. Hata is a good storyteller when he wants to be and if it’s true that he has a grand over-all plot planned out in advance, then it would make logical sense to end this series using the anime and while it still retains some shred of popularity. The manga could simply continue on until it catches up with the anime’s timeline and there’s always room for OVAs and specials.

Ikusa: I'm too epic for you, 8.

Maria is future Nagi

Wait, hear me out first! Okay, what do we know about Maria so far? All we know is that she’s Nagi’s maid, she was the smartest student to have ever gone through Hakuo Academy, and that she is apparently “17 years old,” even though her mature appearance suggests otherwise. Now we can confirm through Makimura-sensei as well as Yukiji that Maria was once a student at Hakuo Academy, but that’s all that we really know. How can we be sure that she really is “17 years old” as she claims since she doesn’t even know her own birthday? What if she is really a much older, wiser version of Nagi? After all, they’re both pretty smart and Maria is actually relatively short given her age. That’s right, folks! Maria is future Nagi and she has been summoned to the past in order to prevent present-day Nagi from making a decision that she will regret somewhere down the line to become an hero!

Mikado is trying to revive Yukariko

Which is what he’s been planning with the King’s Jewels from the very beginning. Maybe the jewels act like some kind of reality altering device that grants a single wish when all of them are gathered together inside the Royal Garden.  After all, it’s been established that Yukariko was very special to him. Why do I say this? Why… because Hata’s made some Fate/Stay Night references in this manga before, of course! Remember Nagi dressing up as Caster and then getting scared of herself in the mirror? No? Lurk MOAR J00!

Hayate will inherit the Sanzen’in Fortune

And this will finally allow him to pay off his debt and leave Nagi for Athena marry Nagi. He’s already fulfilled the original condition set forth by Mikado when he (as Shin Hayek) made Nagi cry and apologize when he said that he resigned as her butler. Of course, this assumes that Hayate is even eligible for the inheritance in the first place… oh well, not all theories can be fool-proof.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. I might add some more later if I remember something else. Let me know what you think.