(This review contains no spoilers and is heavily opinionated. I by no means attempt to have an objective stance on this manga, this review contains my pure, raw feelings on the manga I love so much)

(A TL;DR can be found at the end)

I'll start off by saying Hayate no Gotoku is my favorite romantic comedy ever.

The cast is diverse, the humor is great, the characters feel unique in their quirks, the developments are tear inducing, and many, many other reasons explain why I like this manga so much.

With that said, if you are interested in reading Hayate no Gotoku (it will now be abbreviated as HnG for convenience), a warning has to be issued: you should NOT read it for the plot and character development.

The reason for that is pretty simple: it's a 570 chapter long comedy manga. As much as the developments are worth it, they are not by any means the focus of this manga, and if you go in expecting them, you'll be in for disappointment.

HnG is at its core a comedy, and that is something present throughout the entirety of the manga, even in more serious chapters. Most of the time you'll have long periods of chapters with no development whatsoever, just Slice of Life between the characters. And that's the type of manga it is. To enjoy HnG, you'll have to be enjoying the slice of life first and foremost, and treat the more serious arcs as bonuses the manga gives you along the way.

If you enjoy the Slice of Life HnG presents you, than fear not you'll absolutely love it, and you most definitely will not get tired of it. Heck, in the end you might even feel like you wanted the manga to go for another 500 chapters, just like I do. But if you don't, I really think you shouldn't try to stick to it.

With that said, I do need to acknowledge that I personally believe the manga is the funniest after 100 chapters or so, because that's when the cast is already pretty sizeable and the story starts offering a nice variety of punchlines and gags. So my recommendation is that, if you start reading and enjoy the style of the manga, even if not very much, just keep reading and see if it gets better as chapters pile up. If it does, great. If it doesn't, don't feel forced to read the rest, you might end up hating it.

With all that said, and if you're still following me, I just wanna talk about the manga I love so much.

Hayate no Gotoku is such a great romcom because it knows it's a comedy. I hate when a romantic comedy starts getting overly dramatic and forgets it's comedic side over time, and HnG does really well in that regard because even in chapters with more serious development, it manages to deliver funny punchlines that do not detract or remove the weight from the seriousness of said chapters. The author handles the drama masterfully.

Hayate no Gotoku is such a great romcom because of its cast. Every character does have the stereotypes they play into, but at the same time they all have their own quirks that make them so unique that it feels fresh. They're all lovable idiots in their own ways, and seeing them interact with one another in multiple different ways is always something fresh. This manga excels at those interactions also because the cast is so big, and thus many different interactions can appear, some that you wouldn't even expect. Slice of Life in this manga is only so strong because every character has their own quirks that feel fresh and unique when mixed in together with others. And if that isn't enough, the author is a master at bringing out their true specialness, because even after 570 chapters I can't say any moment ever felt tiring.

Hayate no Gotoku is such a great romcom because of its atmosphere. Thanks to how stupid fun it is, you're always reading looking forward to what punchline will come, and that feeling overall just feels very joyful. I was having fun reading references to Gundam when I hadn't even watched any Gundam shows (yet). That's all because the atmosphere the manga sets is very lighthearted.

Hayate no Gotoku I'd such a great romcom because of its plot. Every time the manga had a more serious development, by the end of that arc I was left in tears. By the end of the last arc, and subsequently the end of the manga, I was bawling my eyes out for half an hour because of how much it had moved me. The author really excels at making compelling, relatable characters, with struggles you can empathize with. You want to root for the well being of every character, and that invests you a lot in the story. By the end of each arc, I was crying not tears of sadness (well, maybe in one or two they were of sadness too) but also happiness, because characters I loved finally got what they wished for. The plot in this manga is something out of this world, and it never disappoints.

This manga evolved over time, and that can be seen on both the art and the humor, but all throughout it kept its essence, and I really appreciate it. The author knew what he was doing from the start, and even if he had to scrap some things along the way (specially the ideas he had regarding Maria and her development), I personally think it was for the best, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to observe such growth. At the same time, I also feel like in certain points I have evolved alongside this manga too, but that's too personal for a review.

Lastly, before I close this out with a tl;dr, I just wanna point out something very important: I binge read this manga. It took me around two months to do so. I'm 100% sure the reason I can love this manga so much is because I binge read it instead of reading it weekly. This manga has lots of characters, some that are introduced briefly early on and then 300 chapters later they're ultra relevant to the story. I can remember such things because I read it in one go, but had I read it weekly, I'm sure I would feel somewhat lost and probably condemn the manga. Also, this manga ran for 13 years. It must have been hard for weekly readers because they never knew what to expect, and sometimes they most definitely felt like this manga would never go anywhere because of how much slice of life it had with no development whatsoever. I just wanna give props to everyone who read it weekly and made sure this series received the recognition it deserves.

With all that said, here's a tl;dr

You should read Hayate no Gotoku, but only if you enjoy the slice of life, because otherwise you'll be disappointed when you find out it heavily outnumbers the plot in number of chapters.