Hayate no Gotoku! Cuties

Title:Hayate no Gotoku! Cuties
Hayate the Combat Butler! Cuties
ハヤテのごとく!Cuties
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: R1 License - Sentai Filmworks (ADV)
R1 License - Subtitled Only
The series takes random stories from the original manga to create episodes focusing on various characters including Hayate, Nagi, Athena (Ah-tan), Isumi & Sakuya, Hina, Risa & Miki & Izumi, Ruka, Chiharu & Kayura, and Maria. The final two episodes pick up the story from Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You.

[edit] The ↗Hayate no Gotoku franchise:
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 6 7 5 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:2749#1552]
This fourth TV anime in the Hayate the Combat Butler franchise features a series of self-contained episodes that focus on Hayate or any of the girls within the series who have romantic interest in him, as well as the final two episodes having an original story animated for the series. While they may be a treat for fans of the franchise shipping for any girl that Hayate would hook up with, it still suffers like Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You in the fact that it doesn't really do anything to advance the story at all. Also, those who only follow the anime may take notice that Hayate and a number of the girls now all live together in an apartment complex and a new girl named Athena in loli form, elements which occurred from later chapters within the manga that may get viewers lost over the change in scenery from Nagi's mansion. Overall, this is more a treat for Hayate the Combat Butler fans in spite of the fact that it adds little new to the franchise as a whole.

Last updated Sunday, April 16 2017. Created Sunday, April 16 2017.
Watch 8 8 8 8 2 5 AstroNerdBoy [series:2749#436]
Having been a longtime fan of the Hayate the Combat Butler manga, I'm always keen to watch anything animated from this franchise. Sadly, this latest animated attempt is a shambling Frankenstein of a series, pieced together from random manga chapters, then forced to take place after the events of Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You.

The concept of having episodes that focus on a single character from the franchise is not a bad idea. Ideally, I would have preferred for manga creator, Hata-sensei, to have drafted some original stories that may have nothing to do with the main plot, but would be interesting side stories. That didn't happen. Instead, Manglobe decided that since this series had to be after Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You, then they would take various, often unrelated, stories from random parts of the manga and cobble them together to attempt to craft some new-old story that supposedly happens now.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work at all. This Frankenstein approach causes quite a bit of things that make no sense. For example, it was well established in Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You that Nagi had returned to her mansion and was no longer living at Yukari-chan House, the apartment house that she owns and rents rooms to girls she knows. However, since Cuties takes manga stories from events prior to Nagi acquiring Yukari-chan House and after she moves into the place, Manglobe has it so that sometimes Nagi is chilling in her luxury mansion, but at other times, she's inexplicably slumming it at Yukari-chan House.

Also, Manglobes piecemeal episodes mean that important context of some stories are lost, meaning the stories then lose a lot of the impact they had in the manga. So, Manglobe has to dance all around the trip to Greece 'cause they aren't going there, but they are going to take stories that happened prior to the trip and even during the trip, but pretend they happened in a different manner that is very frustrating if you are a fan of the manga.

If you aren't current with the manga, forget this series completely. There's no proper introduction to characters other than Kayura, and that's only because she didn't have a lot of stories to tell about her, so her "introduction" comes much later in the series. Often, the cobbled stories will probably cause a bit of confusion because some things just won't make proper sense, the biggest item being Nagi's residence.

What I think Manglobe should have done is make the first ten episodes of this series be a party of some sort, whether at the mansion or at Yukari-chan House doesn't matter. Then, have during the course of this party, the focus shift from character to character. That way, context could be better kept and the stories could have been much more entertaining. They had to do this for a couple of characters. I mentioned Kayura earlier, so when her shared episode with Chiharu comes up, her story couldn't be mangled to fit into this false "these events happened later not when they happened in the manga" container. So, she had to be given a flashback to show how she was introduced in the manga. I think that would have worked for all of the characters, but alas, that wasn't where Manglobe went.

The final two episodes are a direct sequel of Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You, bringing back the Kuro-tsubaki artifact as well as the plushy Tanuki that lived inside it. Rather than tell those final two episodes in a chronological fashion, Manglobe thought it would be ever so awesome to just randomly tell the story. As such, the events of a single day skip at random to different points of time in the day and whatever happens to be going on then. It is poor storytelling in my opinion. Just tell the bloody story chronologically and stop trying to be clever, 'cause it was a complete fail.

Does that mean everything in this series was a loss? Not quite. I admit that at times, it was fun seeing certain things animated. Some things when animated can be more interesting or more funny than the original manga was, and that did happen at times here.

Bottom line: Beyond hardcore fans watching to see certain stories animated, there's really not much to recommend here. The aftermath of the Kuro-tsubaki story from Hayate no Gotoku! Can't Take My Eyes Off You would have been fine had Manglobe not tried to be clever. As such, I can only barely recommend a "Watch" rating.

Last updated Wednesday, July 03 2013. Created Wednesday, July 03 2013.

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