Hayate Reflections: Volume 52 Limited Extra Story: The Future Beyond

Synopsis: This is an extra Maria after story that comes with the limited edition Hayate Great Reflection book from volume 52 of the manga.

Basically, Maria reflects on how she was born alone, met a lot of important people, but in the end, she is alone once again. The world is still wide and there are lots of things to see, so she decides to move ahead. (The timeline appears to be the 2 year gap between chapters 567 and 568 of the manga and before the extra epilogue in volume 52.)

Nanahi Yakumo. Her character design is kinda similar to Hina, but her personality is definitely based on Nagi.

Anyway, after that rather touchingly worded intro and Maria narrating that she's super rich and super capable, we are introduced to a new character -- a girl named Nanahi Yakumo who wants to become a viral youtuber basically.

She spots Maria introducing herself as the local nursery school's new maid and immediately decides that an interesting person has appeared and she has to make a video using Maria.

Next, we see that she has a pushover guy named Kaname whom she basically orders around. After a short Hayate x Nagi-esque conversation between the two of them, they meet Maria to ask her to be in Nanahi's video.

That silly expression on Maria's face

Maria responds by charging them with an outrageous amount -- believing that Nanahi would give up. Instead, she declares that it's fine because she's going to be a youtuber who will have over a trillion subscribers. Naturally, this strikes a sensitive chord in Maria and she becomes interested in Nanahi. She asks Kaname to describe the girl and he responds by pointing out all her hikkikomori like ways like staying inside her room all day watching youtube videos.

Maria asks Nanahi what kind of videos she wants to make and she names off a few generic type of videos that she'd like to make like about a clutzy girl, an onee-san type of girl and most of all, a video about being someone's salvation.

Kaname interrupts her touching moment by pointing out that she's really in it for the money as a youtuber, which she points out is fine coz she's poor.

Maria: You want my services? Sure thing... pay me!

Maria agrees to defer the payment until Nanahi becomes a successful youtuber, which further inspires the girl's delusions (a lot like Nagi) much to Kaname's dismay.

Afterwards, it's just Maria and Kaname talking and when she asks if he likes Nanahi, he says that it's just a misunderstanding because he's the class rep. Maria says: "I see... if it's that kind of misunderstanding, then I think I can do well this time."

Then she diverts the conversation and says it's time to find Nanahi and make a fun movie together.

Then we have some nice narration to end things.

"Walk, walk, keep walking forward. Someday, for sure. You will grasp that path in your hands."

Review: Just a few short thoughts on this story. I'll organize them under subheadings for easier reading since I tend to ramble.

An Analog for Hayate x Nagi
It's pretty obvious that Nanahi and Kaname are analogs for Hayate x Nagi's relationship. Nanahi has many similarities to Nagi but there is enough info about her character in the short time that we come to know her to show that she's not completely a Nagi clone. Just the fact that she isn't rich by default and doesn't seem to be romantically interested in Kaname is enough to distinguish her from mai waifu. Yes, there can only be one Nagi after all -- and she has achieved her happy ending with her one true love :).

As for Kaname, he seems like the reliable type but not the reliable but really broken inside type that Hayate was. Not enough details on this guy to know what he's all about really. He has that same kind smile as Hayate, but he looks a lot wimpier with those nerdy glasses on.

More importantly, he declares that it's a misunderstanding that he likes Nanahi and we all know that Hayate x Nagi's relationship all began with a misunderstanding.

This short story also serves to further affirm Hata's choice and the type of shipping that he prefers.

Hata's Writing Works Well Here For Me
I was honestly surprised at how much I ended up liking this short piece -- especially given the fact that there's no Nagi anywhere in it. This short story shows where Hata's writing can truly shine. I believe that Kenjiro Hata is really the type of writer who is best suited to writing short stories instead of a 568-chapter long piece of serial fiction with too many characters and wherein only a few significant arcs really matter. While I'm not sure if I will be following Hata's later works, I do hope for his sake that he takes a good lesson from Hayate so that he writes a more coherent piece from start to finish next time.

They're all singing some kind of weird song. I think it's from Samba De Amigo. I looked up the title and it's a really strange song... it's nice and lively though.

In any case, I think this short Maria-centric after story really shows us what Hata is capable of when he doesn't have to worry about having enough material to write about every wednesday. While this story didn't have much of an impact on the manga itself, it was a nice piece to top things off -- sort of like dessert after a good meal -- to make an analogy.

Rare moment wherein I actually find Athena cute. Her pensive expression there (3rd panel down) just works for me. Still not as cute as mai waifu.

With that said, there is plenty of content in the extra books, but most of them are in the form of editorials and unused ideas that Hata was planning to work into the manga. To be honest, I'm not that interested in those -- except maybe for that one HayaNagi centric editorial -- which was pretty much just more confirmation for my ship.

Maria Has A Maid Fetish
Seriously, she's super rich, knows several languages, can travel to any part of the world with her passport and yet, she chooses to become a maid at a nursery school. Also worth noting that she's still wearing her maid uniform in the epilogue of chapter 568 when she revisits the Sanzen'in Mansion. Perhaps she's planning to sell it to Nanahi and Kaname (who might have gotten together off-panel)?

Anyway, I might or might not do more of the extra content in both volumes next time. In any case, I guess I should talk a bit about the future of the characters as outlined by Hata.

I'll leave you here with some slightly NSFW fanart. See you next week!

Sorry for sullying your pristine image with this, Nagi.