Hayate The Combat Butler Chapter 495: It's Not The Strong Person Who Wins. Those Who Win, Win! -- Synopsis and Review (japanese)

I dun like airheads

Shoutout: Join our new FB fan group. I provide chapter spoilers for the Japanese raws whenever I can: Hayate no Gotoku! Another Fan Group Also, ecchi is quite fine in this group and I'm an admin there, so if you love Nagi, then this group is for you. If you don't and just love the series in general, this group is for you too~

My current CP wallpaper (lol... in more ways than one)

Synopsis: Izumi has been left alone and falls asleep inside one of the huts in the forest.

Nagi's sooo cute!

The teams have officially been formed and they're each given cameras to be used for the orientation contest.
Risa is joining Wataru and Saki as a commentator for the event and Wataru mentions something about capturing the spirit of a unique animal in a photograph.
The teams are:
-Chiharu, Kayura and Isumi
-Nagi, Hayate and Kotetsu
-Hina, Miki and Aika
Anyway, all the teams are doing well in their own right according to the commentators
-Isumi summons all kinds of forest animals and a Cheetah bites Chiharu's head.
-Yukiko (Yukiji sensei) goes fishing like a pro
-Hina's team takes a picture of her next to some pink dolphin 

#TeamHayaNagi

 
Nagi and Hayate also feel overwhelmed by the fact that Hina's team has both money and intelligence at their side since Hina won the previous orientation, but Kotetsu says that it doesn't matter because when it comes to photography, backlight is justice! 

Anyway, with everyone doing well, Hayate feels that he's gotta step up his game too... and promptly punches an innocent gator.

The focus shifts to Izumi who has just woken up and then thinks about how no one will come to help her now and about Hayate for some reason. Then she sees a cute animal and takes a picture of it, only to find out that it's some weird fish-people monster. Y'know, like that pedofish that was after Alice/Athena.

Thus, Izumi is declared the winner. End of chapter. 

Review: I have to say that this chapter felt very formulaic. We have the underdog protagonist (of this chapter) introduced in the previous chapter (in fact, someone correctly called out the outcome of this chapter... ya know who you are) in Izumi and then the strongest contenders in the different teams highlighted and shown being able to take amazing photographs in their own right. Finally, the scene shifts back to the one girl who never had a chance of winning this orientation... except by dumb luck and voila!

Not enough Nagi this chapter!

The formulaic structure of this chapter serves as a reminder of one very important thing: despite all the apparent chaos and seemingly convoluted plot threads going on in this manga, the reality is that Kenjiro Hata definitely has a long-term plan for this series and he is most likely leading us, albeit as slow as molasses, towards his planned conclusion. Furthermore, he has probably left several hints towards what this conclusion might be. Yep, there's one big underdog in the romance department in this series whom Hayate has never shown any romantic interest for and yet can't leave alone. Is it gratefulness? Is it a purely platonic feeling? Do you feel that way for your younger sister? Yeah... yeah, son. Think about it - that is all.

Anyway, fun chapter and the highlight of this chapter for me would be Hina's pink dolphin shot. Although everything else was pretty funny as well. Also, I wonder if this will give rise to the very dormant Hayate x Izumi ship?

Pink dolphin! Take a selfie with it! (I selfie na yan!)

Fanart Corner: Warning, this week's fanart is extremely NSFW... ya ready? Well anyway, a friend on FB actually requested this pic and I went along with the idea... then I saw several screenshots from CTMEOY and thought about turning it into this (Japanese version is for a twitter friend who can't understand English):

Dat ass!

I thought this last panel was funnier

The answer is always... I just want to gently put the comforter on you...