Tag: Hayate the Combat Butler

L: Consulting Detective and Other Great Anime Spin-offs

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hisuiconA common complaint I hear about series is that the main characters are bland but the side characters are far more interesting and nuanced. It seems almost epidemic in shonen fighting. In fact Shonen Jump just started a spin-off magazine whose whole purpose is to put the spot light on some of the more popular minor characters in their magazine. The announcement of Super Strong Jump was just the catalyst we needed to bring out one of our post ideas from the back burner about our favorite side characters who would do just as good if not better in their own feature title. Remember that Gunsmith Cats’ Rally Vincent is a spin-off from the original Riding Bean series and look how far she has come.

This post has been brewing for a while, and is by no means a complete listing. But before it got totally out of hand, we had to think of which characters could really use their own stories beyond the fact that we just like them a hell of a lot. This is mere sampling of some of the great side characters that we’re pretty sure could hold their own in a series. Eventhough the title of this post mentions L, he already has a spin-off albeit a bad one, so we’ve come up with a list of other great spin-off options! Oh, yeah, 1/3 of our picks are still detectives though!

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No Case Too Small: Hayate the Combat Butler

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Welcome to our latest detective initiative! In No Case Too Small we will be highlighting series that pay homage, do a parody, or simply have an episode that involves a detective. These are one or two episodes stints in a larger series that doesn’t really involve sleuthing otherwise. Since our detective series list excludes such we wanted to give them a place all their own. And we want to make sure they don’t go overlooked or get forgotten.

The case in question is episode 30 of Hayate the Combat Butler: “The Beautiful Rich Great Young Detective Lady Saw It! The Case of the Murdered Female Teacher Amidst Clouds of Steam”

hisuiconHayate the Combat Butler is a character based comedy series but they love to parody and poke fun at a wide variety of topics at the same time. Given the popularity of detective anime, and detective series in general in Japan, it is no wonder that Hayate and Nagi encounter a mystery while visiting the hot springs. This intentionally cliché scenario leads to a  fourth wall breaking look at the mystery genre with tongue firmly in cheek. Continue reading →

November’s Final Denouement: A Tale of Master and Student – Kenjiro Hata and Koji Kumeta

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hisuiconAt first Hayate the Combat Butler by Kenjiro Hata and Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei by Koji Kumeta might not seem like manga with a common ancestry. The sense of humor and storytelling is quite different in both manga. Hayate has a very traditional design for a comedy manga in Shonen Sunday where as Zetsubou-Sensei is very stylized. But when we realize that Kenjiro Hata used to be an assistant to Koji Kumeta we begin to see greater similarities in their styles. When we look at, Katte ni Kaizo, a manga they both worked on together we can see how Hata was influenced by Kumeta. Hata’s work on Heroes of the Sea Lifesavers is clearly influenced by his mentor. Hata would go on to develop his own style in Hayate while Kumeta would further continue to refine his own style in Zetsubou-Sensei. I have compiled some samples from each manga to help illustrate this evolution.

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