Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 465: A Showdown 8 Months (10 Years) in The Making -- Review and Synopsis

Apparently, she's slacking off while waiting for Hayate... that's how much she TRUSTS in him!

Synopsis: Having overcome the cute girl trap (not THAT kind of trap, mind you), Hayate and Radiostar hurry on further down the depths of the Sanzen'in dungeon (not its official name, I'm just calling it that.) 

Radiostar kinda looks like a bishounen here, no?

Both are aware that they are running out of time to find Mikado's King's Jewel and escape the dungeon alive...well, Radiostar's already dead but... aaaanyway, they find themselves inside a majestic looking place and Hayate is greeted by a familiar face, Head Butler Klaus and armed with a sword.

Hayate asks Klaus what he's doing here and Klaus explains that he works there part-time four days a week, pretty much like Konoha. Klaus attacks Hayate from out of nowhere tells Hayate to take the sword. He states that it's been eight months since Hayate became Nagi's butler but Klaus still hasn't fully accepted him, so it's the perfect time for a showdown. 

Hayate takes the sword and tries to think of a sentimental memory involving Klaus but comes up with nothing.

Klaus looks bad-ass and all kinds of awesome here

The two Sanzen'in butlers take their stances and thus begins a duel of epic proportions... or not. Hayate parries Klaus' blade with presumably the same stungun that Konoha used on his watch and zaps the older man into submission without much effort.

With Klaus out of the way, Hayate and Radiostar finally find the King's Jewel inside a glass case. Radiostar wonders how much time they have left and sees what looks like a small pocketwatch and wonders if its time is accurate. The chapter ends here.

Review: Gotta love the play of words on the chapter title. Anyway, this was a rather straightforward chapter, but let's not beat around the bush. The question that is on everyone's minds right now would be: "Is that the Black Camelia/Kurotsubaki shown on the last page of this chapter?" It could be... or it might not be. If it is the Kurotsubaki, then it has definite implications on this manga.

For one, it could do away with all the developments of Can't Take My Eyes Off You (but probably not Heaven Is A Place On Earth) since the Kurotsubaki was supposed to be in Las Vegas as part of Shin Hayek's possessions.

Ladies and gentlemen... it's TIME!

Looking at the clock, it does look similar to the Kurotsubaki, but then again, so does any other pocketwatch. On the other hand, the Kurotsubaki is clearly a transparent pocketwatch, while this one does not seem to be. There's also the month indicator on the Kurotsubaki. Of course, we could just blame that on Hata being too lazy or changes between the anime and manga adaptations. The hands are similarly shaped for both watches as are the Roman Numerals used on the watch face.

Is that really the Kurotsubaki? What do you think?

So anyway, if the Manga starts taking a different direction from Can't Take My Eyes Off You, then it leaves a lot of room for one more big arc until the finale since the whole of September was supposed to be CTMEOY's timeline. It also screws with all the theories regarding the canon status of the supposedly "future anime timelines."

Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing however. Let's face it, as much as I liked the pro-Nagi developments of the future timeline anime, there were tons of plotholes and the entire story itself felt a bit half-baked -- while of course, the finale was still quite satisfying for me. By having the manga take a different direction from the anime, Hata could easily wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and keep the universe of the canon manga free from any of the glaring plot inconsistencies brought about by CTMEOY.

On the other hand, while I'm okay with not having Nagi's CTMEOY confession being part of canon (because it's going to happen even more satisfyingly in the manga anyway), it does feel like Hata is taking the lazy man's way out if he does choose to have the manga take a different direction since that pretty much puts CTMEOY in the realm of a non-canon spin-off -- one written by the author himself.

Therefore, over-all, while I have mixed feelings about this new "development," I don't exactly hate it. On the bright side, it does leave a lot more room for Hata to work in elements of Can't Take My Eyes Off You's story into the manga and make it even better than what we saw in the anime, but we'll have to wait and see if the speculations about the Kurotsubaki are correct in the succeeding chapters of this manga. Don't blink or you might miss it!

Pic because it DID happen

On to other things, while some might say that Hayate using the stungun on Klaus' sword was a cheap shot, don't underestimate what he did. I've personally handled swords and stunguns myself (pic because it did happen)

This is not an easy "cheap shot" to make.

And let me tell you that it's not easy to parry a sword swing with a stungun and have the blade rest accurately between the prongs. You're more likely to get your hand or fingers cut off trying that. In other words, don't belittle Hayate's accomplishment there. Hata might have made it seem like a cheap shot, but it takes a superhuman level of skill to pull that off in real life... well, I just had to point that out.

Speculation Corner: Okay, I'm going to say that the pocket watch that Hayate and Radiostar saw is not the Kurotsubaki but another watch with magical powers that is somehow in Mikado's possession. I dunno why... I just have this gut feeling. 

Fanart Corner: I posted this on twitter and someone immediately got the reference. I tried the same thing on a Facebook Hayate fan page and no one knew where the pose and outfit Nagi's wearing here are from. To YOU, the one reading this blog post, tell me: do you know where I got the outfit and pose from?

Seriously... I thought this allusion would be easy to make out.