Nabeshin! Nabeshin! Hayate Finale!

Summary: Hayate, Nagi and Maria take a holiday to Turkey, where Hayate tries to convince Nagi to go outside and enjoy the fresh air for once. After jumping up after a hat into the air, Hayate travels back in time to meet chibi-Nagi. He discovers that the reaosn for Nagi’s chronic aversion to the outdoors is due to her always being chased by kidnappers and the like when she was younger. After defeating the Sicilian Mafia and saving chibi-Nagi, Hayate finds himself back in the modern day with a now slightly less hikkomori-inclined mistress.

Episode fifty-two marks the end of a near endless series. Spanning the length of two complete seasons, Hayate no Gotoku was an anime that knew how to attract an audience, pushing all the right buttons at all the right times. Impressively the subtle mix of slapstick, tsundere romance and light fanservice kept up pace right the way through. A new story arc was introduced every two or three episodes, which meant that Hayate no Gotoku never got stale. If a development didn’t do it for you, you needed only to wait a few weeks for a fresh direction to rear its head. I guess that’s the essence of what made Hayate no Gotoku such an easy show to watch. Whilst some might have labelled it shallow or interrupted, I thought that Hayate no Gotoku was the perfect balancing accompaniment to those heavier food-for-thought shows like Shigofumi.

And that’s exactly why I’ll miss it so. Critically speaking though, I thought that the final episode of Hayate no Gotoku was sub par in terms of quality. But I was expecting as much. You see, once Hayate no Gotoku hit the forty-fifth episode mark, I began to worry about how the animators planned to round the story off. There’s not much worse than a rushed ending to a long running series, and for Hayate no Gotoku a last minute happily-ever-after conclusion would have been disastrous. After a year’s worth of excellent character development, I would not have been happy to see an abrupt and totally predictable anti-climax. Sure Nagi could have confessed to Hayate in a flash of severe deredere, but would that have satisfied you? It would certainly not me.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by the average Hayate no Gotoku fifty-two. The ending wasn’t rushed, nor unbelievable. In fact I’m not even sure if there was an ending at all. The perfect formula was simply continued - I’m sure this episode could have been put anywhere else in the series and still not seem out of place. That’s the beauty of it - Hayate no Gotoku didn’t fall fowl to the rushed ending monster at all, but instead ended as it began; amusingly and meaninglessly.

But what’s this - an announcement that series two is already in production? I personally can’t say that its very fair to call episode fifty-two the end of Hayate no Gotoku. Perhaps it’s a much better suiting midway.