Manga Comic Book Review Kenjiro Hata Hayate The Combat Butler 1

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2005 - Spoiler alerts I enjoy reading Japanese manga books. (Manga are comics and graphic novels, while Anime is the animation cartoon movies, TV and video shows). A great example is Hayate - The Combat Butler. It tells what could be a grim horrific tale, but turns it into a very funny absurdist comedy of errors, The writer frequently breaks the fourth wall to apologize for how silly it all gets and how dumb his hero is. Hayate is a troubled teenager. Santa Claus tell him he will never get presents, only trouble. This prediction comes true because Hayate's parents get addicted to gambling and owe the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) a great deal of money. Hayate works as a pizza delivery boy to help pay off their debts but his parents hit on their own solution to their problem selling all their son's internal organs to the Yakuza. Hayate runs away for his life and deciding that being good get him nowhere, he will kidnap someone to make money for himself. He targets a rich girl who has sneaked away from a boring party, but he accidentally saves her from more serious kidnappers and she rewards him by inviting her to be her butler, though she really just wants someone to play with as if he was a toy or a pet (she also has a talking tiger). The maid knows what Hayate really tried to do, and threatens to squeal on him, but she loves him, as does the rich girl, Nagi, though she is just thirteen and Hayate has to avoid getting too close to her. There is also Klaus, the head butler, who mistrusts Hayate and sets Herculean labour style tests for Hayate, such as competing to tidy the house before a robot nurse that turns psychotic when Hayate beats her. Some of the adventures are very funny, and the story has echoes of Little Orphan Annie and Richie Rich. Arthur Chappell