Sanzen'in Fascination: Why I Believe Nagi Will End Up Romantically Together With Hayate: A Hayate The Combat Butler Essay

 

I don’t often talk about Nagi but when I do… WAIT, the premise is a lie and you should know it by now if you’ve been reading this blog often. Not to mention that this is a terribly overused meme. The truth is that I do talk about Nagi and quite often, but it really has been a while since I’ve last written a long article about her. If memory serves me right, the last one was the Athena vs Nagi article and that was written years ago back when the manga was in chapter 413. Now that I feel that we are approaching the home stretch since the manga has finally strayed from the path of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and relegated it to non-canon, alternate fictional timeline status, I believe that it’s time to do a follow-up article of sorts as to why I believe Hayate should end up with Nagi.

All Roads Point To Nagi

Naturally, this is my personal opinion and I am definitely donning my shipping lens when I make this assertion, but I feel that the natural and logical order of events in the manga as well as the supplementary anime (even Cuties and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You which are effectively non-canon by now) would point to Hayate finally developing feelings for Nagi and thus making her the final ending girl.

My reasoning hasn’t really strayed from the original one I stated years ago. Simply put, all the significant arcs in this manga imply that Nagi is the ending girl. To point out a few, we have Hayate promising to protect Nagi forever in the Shimoda arc, Hayate promising to protect her whether in the past or future in the Radical Dreamers chapter, Hayate being able to undo a magical amnesia spell of sorts and remember her in Heaven Is A Place On Earth when his own grandmother tried to make him forget about her and replace her with Maria, Nagi breaking the stone for his sake and Hayate being said to have “seen the future” with her words in Athena’s arc – not to mention declaring later on that she is his life.

Of course, the more recent Ikusa arc also ended on a positive note with an implied thumbs-up for the Hayate x Nagi pairing. Furthermore, even though Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Cuties are effectively non-canon, let’s not forget that for the 10^th year anniversary ending of OVA vol. C, there’s a fictional wedding between Hayate and Nagi – yes, it’s probably all in Nagi’s head and yes, the events of the OVA might be non-canon altogether, but wouldn’t you think that the author is trying to tell us something if Hayate always ends up together with Nagi in ALL of the anime adaptations? Furthermore, don't forget that several of the series most iconic songs including Can't Take My Eyes Off You by EYELIS, Ko No Me Kaze by Iku and even Heaven Is A Place On Earth by fripSide seem to arguably ship Hayate x Nagi.

It’s Hard To Justify An Ending Girl Other Than Nagi

Hayate is a really wishy-washy excuse for a man, to be honest. He is physically strong and mentally capable, but when it comes to romance, he still hasn’t moved on from the mindset he had as a six year-old about the “pain of love” that Athena taught him. As a result, he actively tries to avoid relationships because he deems himself as unworthy of a girl’s affection unless he has enough money to support her.

When people say that Hayate is a better match for X girl, I never actively disagree with them. It’s true, if you were Hayate for example, you’d probably think that someone like Hinagiku, Maria, Ayumu, Ruka or Athena is a better match because of “insert reason here.”

Well, here’s the thing, no matter what personal, psychological, logical, sentimental or scientific reasoning you can think of, you need to get past one particular hurdle first and that is: Nagi Sanzenin is the co-main character of this series and you would have to justify an ending where she does not end up getting seriously hurt.

What I think many other shippers fail to understand most of the time is that in order to have Hayate end up with your preferred girl, it’s not about applying real world standards, it’s simply about justifying said ending in the context of the story.

If he ends up with Maria for example, the three of them could indeed stay together and act as a family, but given how strong Nagi’s feelings are for Hayate as a man and not as a father figure, do you really think that she would be happy or even satisfied with this setup? Perhaps Hata could play it off for comedic purposes, but the long-term implication will always be that Nagi would end up unhappy. Face it, as much as you want it to happen, she is not going to “grow out of love” with Hayate unless Hata pulls a deus ex machine on us and makes sudden last-minute developments in the manga allowing for such an ending to happen – but if it does, then it would be going against all the developments (AND I’M NOT SAYING ROMANTIC DEVELOPMENTS! So don’t even think about using this statement as leverage against my assertions because that’s plain annoying) in the plot so far that subtly imply a Nagi ending.

Naturally, what applies for Maria applies for all the other girls in Hayate’s harem as well. Nagi just would not be truly happy unless she ends up together with Hayate as his official romantic partner. If you haven’t figured this out yet after reading hundreds and hundreds of chapters of this manga, then we have nothing to discuss… and of course, an ending with Nagi ending up unhappy just wouldn’t work for this series.

Just to make things nice and clear: Can you really imagine an ending with the main heroine having her heart broken and becoming emotionally scarred for life?

B-B-But What About Hayate’s Feelings Here?

Nagi: They don't matter, of course!

What about Hayate, you might ask? You say that he’s been in love with A-tan before/he’s still in love with her? You say that he has feelings for Hinagiku and it would be like a dream come true for him to be with her? You say he was feeling sad to have to let go of Ruka? You say that he’s always had a crush on Maria?

Well… you’re right on all counts, but this is not really a point against the Hayate x Nagi pair. Again, it would be a huge blow against the Nagi ending if we were applying real world standards here, but in the context of the story (and this is my opinion), it actually works in favor of the Hayate x Nagi ending because Hayate hasn’t shown any real feelings of romantic interest towards Nagi… yet.

Hayate: Ojou-sama and me? Well... I don't dislike her?

What we are sure of however is that Nagi is definitely in love with Hayate in a romantic way and with everything that she has been doing so far just to get him to notice her, it would be a terrible ending and a horrible waste of time if he does not at least notice her as a girl at some point. Therefore, the fact that Hayate hasn’t shown any romantic feelings for Nagi yet, but has shown interest in all the other girls in his harem is actually great news for Nagi shippers like myself.

Naturally, you could argue that there are other girls who deserve him more and who have done much more for him. It’s hard to be objective about this point of conflict of course, so I won’t even try to defend Nagi here except that I will say that in my opinion, Nagi stands on a more or less equal footing with whichever girl you think deserves Hayate more.

Finally, as some food for thought on this particular subtopic, I’d like to ask: why are people so quick to assume that just because Hayate hasn’t shown any romantic feelings for Nagi that he wouldn’t be happy if he did become romantically involved with her? Again, the problem here is applying real-life standards to a fictional and rather idealized story. It's really easy to justify Hayate eventually developing or even having already developed feelings for Nagi and just actively suppressing it... of course, if you ship another girl, you'll probably deny this to death, won't you?

Nagi And Hayate Aren’t A Bad Match

Again, this goes back to how many shippers believe that other girls would be a much better match for Hayate. Looking at their respective characters as shown in the manga however, Hayate and Nagi are definitely not a bad match for each other. In fact, you could even say they were made for each other in certain ways. Let’s go over these:

1.   The Age Difference Between Them Is Perfect

Yes, you could say that Nagi is too young for Hayate right now, but look at it this way, Romeo and Juliet, widely considered by many to be an exemplary love story have characters who are the same age as Hayate and Nagi.

Even if you were to apply real world standards, which I won’t, you’ll find that 2.3 to 3 years is the ideal or preferred age gap between dating couples. Again, I’m just using that as an example that they’re not a bad match for each other.

2.   Even Their Names Are Compatible

How about their names? Windless calm and gust of wind seem like they were made for each other for me.

3.   Unlucky Boy Meets Lucky Girl

Finally, let’s not forget that Hayate’s defining characteristic is that he is extremely unlucky. Guess what? Nagi has been stated in the manga before to be extremely lucky. In fact, Hayate himself admits that “she has amazing luck of the draw.”

So Why Hasn’t Hayate Shown Any Interest In Nagi Yet?

Very simply… because Hata wants to keep the other ships afloat for as long as possible – they help to keep his manga profitable, after all. Unlike other series like Zero no Tsukaima wherein the hero and the heroine were basically officially a couple long before the ending, the ships have become so integral to keeping Hayate No Gotoku! Alive and profitable that I believe Hata is very reluctant to have Hayate show any concrete romantic feelings for Nagi before the manga is ready to really end.

This way, he can keep stringing along all the shippers and keep everyone guessing until the very end. He will of course lose some impatient followers this way, but I believe the die-hard shippers (myself from the Nagi ship included) would keep following his manga to the bitter end just to see if they’re proven right or wrong in the end.

Right now, if Hayate were to even show the slightest hint of romantic interest in Nagi, then all other ships would be sunk – and that’s not a good thing for Hata’s manga.

Anyway, no matter what happens I’m in this for the long-run and if you’re a die-hard shipper whether you’re on my team or not, I invite you to see it through with me to the bitter end. Let’s discuss, argue, talk about why our waifus are better than each other’s and then let’s all have a good laugh in the end when Hata trolls us with a totally shocking conclusion. (We can kill him later)

The Title Of The Series In English Is Hayate The Combat Butler

Lastly, lest you all forget, this series is not complete without Nagi as the co-main character. As much as the story is about Hayate, it is also about Nagi. Being the titular "combat butler" means that Hayate is fighting to protect someone -- and that someone happens to be Nagi. In short, her role will always be integral to this series from start to finish -- whether Hayate finally succeeds in paying off his literal and moral debt to her or not. (thanks to Lucas Kits for this point and for the fun discussions from a fellow Nagi shipper.)

Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 490: I felt Like Doing It But It Was Meaningless -- Review And Synopsis

Naturally, Hata has to ride the Hestia bandwagon.

Synopsis: While Hayate is away from the cabin, Tsugumi comes in and produces a whiteboard and proceeds to explain to Nagi as to why Hayate will die if he wins the 150 million yen.

Just in case the Nagi service from the previous chapter wasn't enough. Have a little bit more.

According to the half-pint, the first thing that Hayate will do would be to retire as a butler. Nagi hesitantly counters this by proclaiming rather uncertainly that Hayate will stay with her because he has feelings for her. Tsugumi plays along with this and continues her story using Nagi's proclamation as leverage, she says that Hayate would become a NEET if he stays with a rich girl like her and then they'd do nothing but flirt all day. After three months, Hayate would get tired of her and start fleeting from girl to girl and this cycle will continue until he is eventually stabbed to death.

As ridiculous as this story is, Nagi instantly buys it and goes along with Tsugumi's suggestion to win the race herself without Hayate and she's even prepared a change of clothes and a snowmobile for Nagi because if a butler-driven sled is fine, then anything goes to win this race!

When Hayate returns, Nagi has already changed and is all set to win the race and save him from becoming a NEET! -- which she tells him as well. Of course, the clueless butler is as clueless as ever. Anyway, Nagi proceeds on her own with Tsugumi still egging her on. Hayate himself can't go out yet until his clothes are dry.

Some time later, in the next cabin, Hina's enjoying the sauna because she fell into a river as well... while following the signs! Hayate suddenly comes in and shows off his abs to the audience... but it's just a two-pack coz he's super skinny (lol). 

Clearly, the superior genes went to Ikusa.

Anyway, Hina hides on instinct and she turns it into an unofficial sauna competition to see who can last longer inside (innuendo is intentional, mind you). Of course, Hayate, who is completely unaware of her presence for now does have an advantage since she's already been in there for 10 minutes.

Hina service time.

Suddenly, Hayate's completer goes off revealing that people are dropping off the competition one by one.

Review: Well, here's a rather interesting reveal. It seems that Nagi still thinks that Hayate's in love with her or at least has "feelings for her," which wouldn't be too far off the mark, actually. So does this mean that she's still misunderstanding his initial confession? It could very well be, but I think the panel where she says that "he has feelings for me" says something else. This is just speculation on my part, but it appears that Nagi's rather uncertain about Hayate's feelings for her, which is why she stammers before replying to Ruri Tsugumi.

School Days reference?

On that note, this is also probably one of the main reasons why someone as smart as Nagi would fall prey to Tsugumi's obvious manipulative lie. Nagi wants to believe that Hayate has feelings for her and since Tsugumi's story takes her word for it as fact, Nagi's convinced herself that believing in Tsugumi's nonsensical story and acting upon it is the best thing that she can do for Hayate right now. In short, she's super gullible when it comes to Hayate.

Who knows? She might be right!

Anyway, it's an interesting plot twist and it seems that Nagi doesn't have it in her to be directly antagonistic to Hayate at all, which is why she just goes along with Tsugumi's plan and doesn't even think about just telling him to quit or sabotaging his chances in one way or another... of course, Tsugumi could still suggest that at some point. 

You're not even going to go after her? What kind of man are you!

It seems Tsugumi's after something and that it involves Nagi somehow, but not enough has been revealed just yet for me to make any concrete speculations.

Also, either Hata's double-trolled us again by not having Hayate see Hina naked... again, or he's just delayed it for the next chapter.

By the way, did anyone else think that Ruri Tsugumi's story involving Hayate fleeting from one girl to another and eventually getting stabbed was an allusion to School Days? If so, I'd imagine it'd be Nagi doing the final stabbing like so.

As to the actual competition, I'm sure that most of us are in agreement that rather than who actually wins the competition (which might be averted anyway), what is more important right now is what is actually going on behind the scenes including Kananiwa and Tsugumi's respective motivations for their actions.

I have no idea why this is happening and not enough data to speculate about anything... except maybe the Prison Hotel wasn't a hotel.

Anyway, this was an interesting turn of events and I'm hyped for the next chapter. Before that however, I'm set to do a little Nagi-centric essay... which will be posted in this blog real soon.

Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 489: Cliches Are Important -- Review And Synopsis

Do not sexualize the... oh for... go ahead! Nagi still looks cute either way. I want that bookmark!

Synopsis: Nagi is dreaming about the times she'd spent with Hayate when Hayate wakes her up and we find that she's actually fallen asleep in the middle of the downhill race from the previous chapter because it was so cold.

Right...

Hayate remarks how dangerous the downhill race is, but Nagi assures him that New Zealand is actually the perfect place since they can be rescued immediately in case something goes wrong and that there are no dangerous animals like brown bears or grizzlies here... at that moment, Hayate points to something behind her, which turns out to be a huge pedobear.

This is actually a realistic rendition of pedobear.

They make a run for it with the pedobear chasing them down, but suddenly, an avalanche covers up and the pedobear and Hayate is forced to grab Nagi and take a leap of faith to a cliff to the side to avoid it. 

Nagi has tons of faults, but lack of devotion to Hayate sure isn't one of them.

During the lull, Nagi remembers what Maria said and she asks Hayate if he'd quit or if he'd still be her butler even with the debt paid off, but she's interrupted when the ledge they were standing on collapses and they splash into some icy waters underneath. 

Inside the bus with the Hakuo Baka Trio, the number on the completers has gone down to 47 indicating that two more have quit. The bus arrives at the hotel they're staying at and it looks rather expansive and is made to look like a prison garrison.

Back to Nagi and Hayate, Nagi gets all melodramatic and says that she's going to die, fortunately, they're just a few feet away from a cliched mountain cabin... as per Hayate's words.

Inside the mountain cabin, the pair have taken their clothes off to dry and thus, we are treated with some Nagi fanservice. They talk about how this competition seems to be a bit overboard even with 150 million yen at stake.

You a cold man, Hayate.

Nagi also remembers that they were in a similar situation with both of them being together naked quite some time ago (it's only been a few months in the manga's timeline, actually.)

Nagi wonders if Hayate is feeling a bit nervous as well, only to catch him diligently hanging her underwear out to dry. She gets agitated and asks him why he's doing that so seriously, but Hayate says that he always does that.

It's been some time since we've seen this in the manga.

Ever the efficient butler, Hayate says that there's another cabin and the heater is on, so there might be someone who can help out or even a sauna in the back, so he goes off to check it out and tells Nagi to stay and warm up. Nagi complains that his clothes are wet too, but he says that he's used to being cold.

Nagi ponders out loud what he'd do if he gets the 150 million yen, to which, Ruri Tsugumi suddenly answers that his life would be over if he gets it.

Meanwhile, Hinagiku has found a sauna... which means that Hayate will inadvertently stumble in on her while she's half-naked in the next chapter.

Review: By the way, I saw this tweet from Hata.

Which basically says that it's been a while since he's drawn Nagi naked and I was like... wait, maybe it's just my terribad Japanese... so I ran it through a machine translator and it came up with the same results and I was like... no wai... and then I read this chapter and I was like. BASED HATA! You actually did it, you!

Look at your mistress, Hayate! LOOK AT HER! ... Ain't she cutieful? Also, pretty sure that the towel shouldn't be digging into her that way.

Well, this was a rather Nagi-tastic chapter in terms of fanservice. I liked seeing Nagi with her hair down and I like the little deja vu to the time when Hayate stumbled in on her in the bath. The title of this chapter is certainly appropriate.

Also worthy of note is Hayate rescuing Nagi with a sweetheart carry, which we haven't seen for years in this manga.

Probably not a good time for that, Nagi.

More importantly, it looks like Hata's building up some sort of team dynamics with the butler and mistress pair with Nagi clearly being the brains of the operation and being quite competent at it most of the time. If anything, this is the aspect of her personality that has been retained from the now de-canonized CTMEOY (btw, Nyarth, if you're reading this... your reaction on twitter amused me more than anything.) and I like it.

Unfortunately, of course, there were no actual developments for the  Hayate x Nagi ship. Hayate's still as oblivious as ever to her real feelings for him and circumstances have temporarily split the pair apart once again. Given the order of events in the manga, we'll definitely be seeing a Hina x Hayate chapter pretty soon with Hayate wandering in on her while she's in the bath.

I wish this Hayate x Nagi moment had gone on for a little bit longer.

Also, with Ruri Tsugumi once again dropping in and saying ominous things at the end of this chapter, it looks like Hata's really making her out to be some kind of villain or anti-villain for this chapter. I have no idea what she meant by Hayate's life being over if he gets the 150 million yen... with that aside, are you guys convinced that Nagi wasn't trying to prevent him from getting the 150 million yen yet? (exasperated)

Fanart Corner: Here's a quick one of Nagi in one of her season 2 outfits. This is actually the output of my "Draw Nagi Sanzen'in With Me" tutorial series. Her face came out a bit fat, but otherwise, I'm satisfied with how this drawing came out given that I simplified my style to make it easy for others to follow along with me and draw her.

Draw Nagi Sanzenin With Me Part 2: Digital Lining And Coloring In Photoshop

Before we begin, I'd like to thank and acknowledge everyone who took part in the previous tutorial and showed me what they've done including mikey, kikered, denzil and quite surprisingly... my mother, who has never drawn anything more than a stick figure her whole life. Here are some of their works:

By Denzil

By my mother

Previous tutorials
1. Draw Nagi With Me (Harder Version)
2. Draw Nagi With Me (Easy Modo)

Looks like most of you did the easier part 1.5 tutorial... which is all well and good. For this tutorial however, I'll be using the more complicated Nagi sketch that we've done in the first "draw with me" tutorial. Naturally, you can apply these techniques if you drew the image for the 1.5 tutorial as well.

We're going to need the image either scanned in or just a digital photo taken with your cellphone camera or whatever you can use to get the sketch into your computer. Trust me, it doesn't matter if we're going digital. 

What You Will Need
Adobe Photoshop 7 or higher. I'll be using CS4 for this tutorial, but trust me when I say that Photoshop 7 will work for this as well. You can also apply the techniques you learn here using any tool of your choice. Also, you won't be needing a tablet for this tutorial.

Digital Lining
First of all, you'll need to open the image in photoshop... but even before that, you'll need to know how to manipulate the Pen tool. So in Photoshop, either press "P" on your keyboard or just click on the pen tool to activate it on your toolbox.

With the pen tool activated. Make two points on your canvas by left clicking on two separate areas of the canvas as shown here.

Now make a third point in between your two points. This is the node that you can use to bend and adjust the line.

In order to bend the line, you just hold down ctrl on your keyboard and then left-click and drag with your mouse and you'll notice that the line will bend in the direction that you drag... this is how you adjust lines with the pen tool in photoshop.

Notice those two small anchor points next to the larger node in the middle? You can use those to adjust the curvature of the line as well. Also, you can add another node to the line if you want to adjust it to have say an S curve. You can add as many nodes as you can fit in-between the line, but I would advise against this.

To make a new line elsewhere, just ctrl+left click on a blank part of the canvas.

Now, using this technique, we're going to do the lineart for our Nagi fanart.

With the image opened up in photoshop, make sure that you can see your layers/this window. You can see here that the drawing layer is automatically called your background layer. We're going to create another layer on top of that, which is where we'll be placing the digital lines.

Click on the icon to create new layer as shown here. The layer will be called "LAYER 1" by default but you can right click on the new layer and go to "layer properties" if you want to rename it to something else like "LINES."

Now we're going to apply the pen tool manipulation techniques that I taught you earlier to go over the lines of the image. When lining the hair, just make sure that you create separate lines for each line that you used for drawing her hair. You can use continuous lines for the rest of the drawing. Also, make sure that you do NOT line any shadings that you might have made. We're not going to trace the lines for her face just yet as well. You can press ctrl+ or ctrl- to zoom in/out while you're tracing the lines over. Do your best, and may the RSI be with you!

You can delete any wrong lines you might have made by ctrl+clicking on the line and then pressing delete on your keyboard. You can use the circle tool on your side toolbox. For tracing the button on her outfit. It looks like this.

Once you're done with tracing the lines, go to your layers window and make the "background layer" active by clicking on it and then create a new layer. Press G on your keyboard to activate the fill tool and fill the new layer that you've created with white by clicking on the canvas. Now you can see the lines that you've made so far and make any corrections that you see fit. Your work area should look something like this now.

Make sure that your lines layer or your "layer 1" if you didn't rename it is now the active layer by clicking on it. It should be highlighted in blue as shown here.

Change your foreground color to black. We're gonna use black to line the drawing although lighter colors such as red and brown are also good options.

Press B to make the brush your active tool. Make sure that it's set to 2px and 100% opacity like so:

Press P to make the pen tool your active tool. Now right click anywhere on your canvas area and click on "Stroke Path." A dialog box will appear. Make sure that it's set to "brush" and that "simulate pressure" is checked and click on OK. Now you've set the preliminary lines... but we're not done yet.

Press B to activate your brush tool again and this time, set the brush to 1px still at 100% opacity. Now press P to activate the pen tool and right click>stroke path again. This time, uncheck "simulate pressure" and click OK. Your lineart is done! Press delete once to get rid of the vector lines and your image should now look like this!

Next up, we're going to make her face on a separate layer just below the lines layer, so create a new layer underneath the lines layer like this. I've named the layer as "facelines"

Click on the "eye" icon next to the white background layer (which might be  called layer 1 or layer 2 depending on how you've named things) to make it invisible. Make sure that your "facelines" layer is still the active layer or the one highlighted in blue.

Now we're going to make the eyes and other facial features. Your foreground color should still be black. Use the pen tool (press P on your keyboard) and trace in the basic shapes of the lines you used for the eyes. Make sure that you are drawing complete shapes because we're not going to do "stroke path" this time. Make sure that you're making complete closed shapes with to trace the lines for the eyes like so.

You only need to trace the shapes of the lines in one eye for this because we're going to be using a "dirty shortcut" that a lot of digital anime/manga artists (myself included) like to use.

Ok now with your lines in place, CTRL+Click on an empty part of the canvas and right-click>fill path with following settings.

Click on OK and the eye should now be lined. Press "delete" on your keyboard to get rid of the paths. Your screen should look something like this.

Now for the "dirty trick." Press ctrl+J to make a copy of the "facelines" layer that you just finished lining. Now press ctrl+t and then right-click>flip horizontal on the image.

You'll notice that the "facelines copy" layer has now been inverted. Now all you have to do is press the right arrow key on your keyboard until you get the new inverted layer in the proper position based on your sketch.

Now line in her mouth and nose using the same method on the new facelines copy layer. Once you're done press ctrl+e once in order to merge the facelines and facelines copy layer. We're now done with the basic lineart. Click on the blank icon next to the white background layer to make it visible again so you can see what your new clean lineart looks like. We won't be needing the sketch anymore at this stage. Check that your work area now looks like this.

Laying Out The Flat Colors
Laying out the flat colors makes use of the same principles that I taught on lining the facial features. First, create a new layer for the haircolors, which I've named as "haircolors" right underneath the lines and facelines layers but above the white background layer.

Using the pen tool again, trace the entire shape of the hair (we're going to use "fill paths" again). And then choose a yellow foreground color and fill path when you're done. You should make one continuous shape with the pen tool like I've done here before you use "fill path"

After you've filled the path and deleted the paths that you've made. Nagi should now have her iconic blonde hair like so. Take note of the placement of the layers.

Create a new layer underneath the haircolors layer for her skin and repeat the process to color in her skin. The good news is that you can allow your paths to overlap the haircolors layer since your new skin layer is found underneath the haircolors layer. Like so...

Repeat the process of creating a new layer and coloring it in with the appropriate shade underneath each layer wherein a new color is required until you've finished coloring in all the flat colors on her. Once you've finished everything, your image should now look like this.

Adding Shadows
If you're not used to this, then you are probably getting mentally exhausted at this point. I'd suggest taking a little break and saving your work and coming back to this tutorial when you're mentally refreshed.

Ok, now for the shadows. It's quite simple. I'll use the hair as an example. Create a new layer on top of the hair layer and then right click on this new layer and click on "create clipping mask" so that the new layer is a clipping mask of the hair layer. This new layer will be your shadow layer. If you found that a bit hard to understand, then just refer to this image and make sure that this part of your layers area looks like this.

Now for the shadow color, choose a foreground color that is slightly darker than her current hair color. Use the pen tool again and create the shapes that you will be using for your shadows and then use "fill path" and her hair now has shading! When creating shadows, just be safe and make sure that you create shadows where you believe the light does not fall. Here's how I laid out the shadows on her hair.

At this point, you can also add in the highlights for her hair on the same shadow layer. I personally create another layer with a clipping mask just to be safe. Repeat the process for adding shadows to each individual color on the image and you should come out with something like this. Remember to be safe and just place shadows in areas where you're absolutely sure that light won't fall on. As a rule of thumb, don't place shadows if you're not sure.

Once you've finished adding in the shadows, you should have something that looks like this. Feel free to use my shadow placement and colors as reference.

Coloring In The Facial Features
For the final part of this tutorial, we're going to color in the facial features. First, you should make another new layer underneath your facelines layer as shown here. I've named the new layer "facecolors" for easy reference.

Now create paths to color in her eyes and choose the appropriate shade of green as your foreground color. Just use "fill path" when you're done. I'll be starting with the lightest color for her eyes. At this point, you can also color in her mouth with the appropriate shade of light-red. Again, take note of the active layers here.

Create a new layer and right-click "create clipping mask' on top of your facecolors layer and add in the darker green shadows still using the pen tool>fill path method. You may also want to add in some darker shadows for her mouth.

Create another new layer on top of your clipping mask layer and again, right click>create clipping mask and create some even darker shadows inside her eyes.

Now add in the lens flares by creating another layer on top of your current layer and right-click on the new layer>create clipping mask. Using the pen> right click>fill path method to create the appropriate shapes for the lens flares.  Her lens flares look something like this in season 2 of the anime.

Finally, we're in the home stretch. Create a new layer underneath the facecolors layer. I called mine eyewhites and use the pen>fill path method to fill in the whites of her eyes.Take note of the layer placement here once again.

Now we're going to add in the shadows. First, click on lock-transparent pixels, which is the little icon on top of the layers window as shown here.

With your eyewhites layer transparency-locked, simply choose the appropriate grey color and use the pen>fill path method to add in the shadows for the whites of her eyes.

You're done! Now you're image should look like this and we can add some optional finishing touches.

Finishing Touches (optional)
At this stage, this is completely optional. We're basically going to add dark outlines on the drawing real easily. First, make your white background layer invisible by clicking on that eye icon. Your work area should look like mine above with the image completely transparent and no white background. Save your PSD file and then go to file>save for web & devices and save the image as a PNG-24 file somewhere on your computer.

Once you're done, close the current PSD that you're working on and open the new PNG file that you've saved.

Go to layer>layer style>stroke... and a new dialog box should appear. The default settings should work, which should be 3px, outside, normal, opacity 100% with fill type>color and black as your color. Click on ok, and your image should now have some nifty black outlines like so.

We're done! I hope you found this tutorial both useful and enjoyable and if you were confused as to any steps I've put in here, feel free to ask me. I'm going to try to continue this "draw with me series" for as long as I can. Next time, we're going to go a little bit more basic with pencil drawings and sketching in shapes for total nubbycakes. 

She kinda looks like Etranger from Zettai Hero Project on the PSP, eh?

If you're interested in accessing the previous drawing tutorials, here they are:

Previous tutorials
1. Draw Nagi With Me (Harder Version)
2. Draw Nagi With Me (Easy Modo)