So, after reading this series and some of the reviews written about it I feel like I need to give some of my thoughts on Hayate Combat Butler. I find this series interesting because throughout its massive run time of 52 volumes there are a lot of things you could comment on, both good and bad, and so I can see people may have a positive inclination towards this manga. However, when you take this series into context of all the other things you could possibly be reading out there, it’s pretty easy to come to the conclusion that Hayate Combat Butler probably isn’t worth it in the end.

I’m going to split this review by first talking about the issues that I have with the series and then go into some positives at the end, so let’s start off with the biggest problem I think this manga has: its length. In case you couldn’t tell, 52 volumes is a lot to read for a single series, and the problem is exacerbated even more due to the genres that are encapsulated here. I would describe Hayate Combat Butler as generally a slice of life, harem comedy that also has large chunk of plot driven action dotted here and there. Now, I think it’s totally fine to have long a slice of life series and long comedy series can be okay too (though I’m personally not a fan of long comedies), but the one genre that really suffers from length is harem. A lot of people already find 20 volume series of harem meandering and slow, so this series is a veritable slogfest. When you introduce a character in volume 3 and have them never confess their love until volume 52 you end up getting very stale characters by the end. Since there can be no significant movement in the relationship (this is just how harem series work), it’s difficult to give proper character growth since there is never any type of resolutions. This is okay in most harem series because they end relatively quickly (and you don’t expect them to be good in the first place), but that’s not the case here. There are a handful of other characters that have around 5 volume arcs where they appear and basically disappear from the story that have far better character development and are far more compelling than the main girls that we are given at the beginning, which is never ideal for your story. You want your main characters to be the appealing ones, not the ones that there only for a bit.

The second issue I have is the lack of direction at times or at least questionable pacing. Like I mentioned earlier, this series is a slice of life comedy until it’s not. I can distinctly remember the first time that a plot point appeared in this story that was genuinely interesting was in volume 17. That’s longer than most manga go on for in their entirety. Imagine having a 16 volume slice of life comedy intro before introducing the real plot. The story then reverts back to slice of life comedy until volume 22 where the action restarts. This pattern repeats itself throughout the manga and it generally is less than ideal.

The last few small things are more personal, though I can easily understand if other people were to agree with me. First off, the main girl is maybe the worst one out of all of them unfortunately. She gets a bit of character development at like… volume 30 or something and continues to get more as time goes on, but no one is waiting that long for growth. On the flipside, the manga also slowly starts to push one of the best girls into the background to the point where she barely appears in the second half of the story. I won’t say who it is but you’ll know who it is if you start reading. The ending is also kinda rushed in this series, with final bosses introduced in the last few volumes that you don’t really care about and quite a few plot threads wrapped up really quickly or not at all. Also, if you don’t like misunderstanding based comedies then please pass on this. I don’t know how you can make all the characters speak the same language and have them not understand each other at all. It’s actually quite impressive.

Okay, so after all that bashing I think I need to say a few kind words to this series. First off, I do enjoy some of them themes that are brought up, namely focusing on the things that money can’t buy and on the importance of familial relationships. This idea is best exemplified in the main girl, who has all the money in the world but only has her maid and the main character as people considered close to her at the start of the story. Her journey of learning that she isn’t special and working hard towards goals that money could never give her is nice to see, and watching her gradually form more and more irreplaceable relationships is what makes her somewhat likable at the end of the story. These themes themselves aren’t all that rare to see in manga, but Hayate Combat Butler gets a lot more time to develop these than other stories. Themes aside, the plot in this series (when it’s actually there) is generally pretty fun and exciting to see because this manga loves to foreshadow things only to come back to them 10 vols later. So if you are a person that likes noticing small things then you might really enjoy parts of this manga.

If I had to summarize Hayate Combat Butler in a single phrase, it would be this: this manga is too long. The majority of the issues that I have with it are caused directly because of the length of the series, and a lot of the good parts would have been highlighted even more if it was shorter. In terms of impact, the series provides nothing major over other series in the same genre, yet it takes 2-10 times longer to read. That’s not the type of ratio you want to see. So is this series worth it to read at the end of the day? Probably not. Go read four other manga instead of this one and have a good time.