Hayate the Combat Butler!! OVA – Vengeful Spirits and Hayate in drag. Again.

Not like you haven't seen it coming.

The first season of Hayate the Combat Butler was a rather enjoyable experience. It has a lot of funny moments, either related to the characters or the multitiude of parodies sprinkled in each episode. It’s got a good ensemble cast, with the exception of the highly generic tsundere Nagi, each with their quirks and their episodes of development; though I heard from a number of people that the manga had much more than that (especially related to Hinagiku and Ayumu). It even had the ever so excellent Norio Wakamoto as the narrator, being one of the funniest yet. If there’s one flaw that the series had, is that a couple of it’s filler episodes which centered completely on parodies were not funny, since the focus shifted away from what made the show work – it’s characters.

The recently released OVA, which is regarded as the episode 0 of the 2nd season, fits in line with a typical Hayate episode.

The episode starts off with Hayate and Maria overlooking a private beach resort owned by Nagi’s family, while Nagi shrugs it off. Hayate tries to cheer her up by teaching her to swim, but she refuses and acts as if she’s disinterested, but actually isn’t because the thought of being with Hayate alone makes her all shy and embarassed.

Maria then tries to find a way to help Nagi to get out and have fun, so with the help of everyone’s favorite slacker teacher, Yukiji, she manages to invite everyone over to the private beach. Of course, Yukiji didn’t do it without something in exchange, as she later on got into a free drinking binge.

Yes, she's pretty hopeless.

After a few moments of the cast doing their thing (and Izumi losing her swimsuit), Hayate notices that Nagi is gone and looks for her. He doesn’t find her yet, but does into the changing rooms with Hinagiku and Ayumu by mistake.

Hayate finally finds Nagi as she apparently seemed to have a change of heart and is wearing a swimsuit, but not without the other two girls coming in and apoligizing for acting angrily towards Hayate’s mistaken intrusion. Nagi gets mad and runs off, only to be later possesed by a vengeful spirit, who too has been ignored and hates the beach.

Now 100 times more bitchier.

With Isumi being lost at sea again, Hayate’s only chance to save Nagi was to go into full DBZ mode and charges at Nagi.

It's over 9000 etc etc

As he embraces Nagi and apologizes for ignoring her, the spirit leaves Nagi’s posession as she and Hayate crash into the sea. They’re then lost in a remote island, but it turns out that it was also in the area of the privately owned beach.

Nothing too remarkable, but was an interesting way in re-introducing the cast to the audience, while ramping the fanservice just a little bit (considering how this is an OVA series, they got no TV restrictions to show whatever they want to). The parodies have gone a little bit less this time around, which isn’t a biggie, but still better than the aforementioned parody-only fillers.

Bring on the 2nd season!