Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 453: About The Brother -- Synopsis and Review

Huzzah! Another Nagi cover... dun really like the new art style though.

Synopsis: Continuing on from where we left off in the last chapter (thankfully). Nagi realizes something about the name of the hotel and dashes off somewhere. Meanwhile Hina has finally returned from the island and she says that she and Hayate finally found the “secret spice”

There's a SFX for realization?

The group (without Nagi) return to the seaside restaurant where Hayate is furiously working on making curry using the so-called secret spice that they found on the island. He claims to have a secret cooking technique even if it’s just boxed curry… which turns out to be nothing more than a sleazy restaurant owner’s cost-cutting, profit-maximizing scheme of using nothing but boxed curry and making it seem like freshly-cooked curry.

Hina's back and kinda pissed off.

Athena, who is now in Alice form once again, says she’s tired and leaves Hayate to his sleazy business. Ayumu chooses to stay behind while Kayura, Chiharu and Hina leave as well. They encounter Nagi speaking with the front desk on the way and she says she’s been talking about whether the Hotel makes a lot of money or not.

These two kinda look good together.

Hamster senses that it’s her chance to make a move on Hayate and imagines a lovey-dovey scenario of helping him cook curry, but he just sends her out to take out the trash consisting of empty boxes of curry. Outside the hotel, Hamster is in a bit of a pinch since she doesn’t know where she should leave the trash. Just as she’s contemplating on leaving it secretly at the neighborhood gathering point, Ikusa appears and offers to take the trash bags from her. They talk a bit about Ikusa and why he’s always saving people and about Hayate and Nagi and why he’s dressed like a butler and -Ayumu does her best to explain things – although she does a terrible job at describing Nagi’s appearance.

Hayate appears from out of nowhere since he’s feeling a bit guilty for sending Ayumu to take out the trash on her own and Ikusa scolds him about that, but he counters that he wouldn’t have had to do that if it wasn’t for Ikusa in the first place. Ikusa says it was just a joke. Hayate  gets really agitated about Ikusa’s obsession with money and starts lecturing Ikusa about making money instead of saving people.

Where the eff is this quote from?

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a wild Nagi appears with a quote from “Kenshin” it seems… I seriously do not remember that (Hayate says it’s not a famous quote anyway) if she’s talking about Rurouni Kenshin. Anyway, she explains that the hotel that they’re staying in called Asuki Hotel Resort is actually Ikusa’s name spelled backwards. In other words, he’s the owner. Hayate is dumbfounded, but Ikusa just calmly restates that the bet was just a joke. Hayate demands to have the stone back right now, but Ikusa still refuses and says that it’s no longer just a joke.

Review: Well, allow me to summarize what I liked about this chapter: Nagi!

Haha! Joking aside, I really did like seeing her more capable side once again in this arc. It seems Hata’s trying to establish that Nagi can be the sensible one in these types of situations just like in the Mykonos arc as well as HIAPOE, CTMEOY and the last episode of Cuties. Anyway, I like that she was the one to figure out Ikusa’s secret – because she’s the main character after all! Can’t have her being useless all the time.

Anyway, I’m kinda liking seeing Hayate get all agitated because he’s usually so calm about his personal problems. It’s funny seeing his reactions when he’s pushed to his limits.

Plot-related stuff: The biggest reveal… and possibly a shocker for some, is that we now find out that Ikusa is pretty rich since he does own the hotel that the group are staying in and it seems to be a luxury hotel based on the accommodations (luxurious public bath and all). Also, the murder island group have finally returned without any incident and Athena is back in her Alice form for now. It looks like she’s here to stay for this beach arc.

Alice is back and here to stay

Lastly, I believe this chapter points out something important about Hayate and his desire to protect Nagi. As Ayumu points out, it has nothing to do with his financial debt to him. He wants to protect her because she “saved” him. That’s all that the hamster says – and she’s most likely correct.

Another cliffhanger... not that it's unexpected

Speculation corner: Not much to speculate on at this point. I can’t say much about Ikusa’s chapter cliffhanger, but I can say something about his character. Seeing how much he suspiciously knows about his own past based on his conversation with Ayumu and how he’s actually humoring Hayate instead of just sending him away and not giving him the stone entirely, I’d say this chapter all but confirms my past speculation that he hasn’t really lost his memories and has just been pretending all this time. He even goes as far as to say that the whole bet was just a joke.

Based on the HIAPOE design. I think she looks really pretty with her hair down like this.

Have a Nagi fanart. I drew this because I was inspired when I recently watched Heaven Is A Place On Earth again on Animax and I thought Nagi looked really pretty with her hair down in that one scene. I think Hayate might take more notice of her if she drops the twin tails every once in a while like this. C’mon, Hata! Just draw a scene where Hayate blushes at seeing Nagi looking so pretty and we’ll know that it’s all over… for everyone else, that is :D.

Edit: Just occurred to me that Ikusa's initial reason for the bet might have been just to tease Hayate, but the cliffhanger most likely implies that he can't give the stone to Hayate because of his recent conversation with Athena.