Moé Moé Rabu

Nagi is playing a game on her console, but her character ends up getting killed and the console proceeds to insult Sakuya and Nagi. Though they leave the console to have dinner, it starts to emit an evil aura. The next morning, which is the same day that Hayate was forced to cosplay, Sakuya returns after leaving for school to find the console has come to life. She sends her two bodyguards to use fire extinguishers on it and to hit the reset button, but the television begins spouting out takoyaki drowning them.

The person behind it all is the Demon King, who is strapped to her throne on top of a tower. She decides to lure heroes to fight her as the final boss so she can get free by using game controllers as lures. Though unfortunately they all get trampled on. That is until Izumi, Miki and Risa are visiting Nagi’s mansion to see the new butler. Miki picks up the controller and the three girls are pulled into a game world. Upon entering the world, they are faced with a slime monster. The slime monster kills Risa instantly and is about to attack Izumi and Miki. Though the Demon King saves them by sending a lightning bolt which hits the slime and Izumi, with Izumi surviving with 1 hit point left. Meanwhile Isumi senses a monster and enters the bath to investigate and Ayumu is reading out horoscopes.

Miki then decides to call up Hinagiku who shows up immediately. The girls explain they are stuck in a cursed game, but Hinagiku doesn’t believe in such an unscientific explanation and thinks this is a surprise event made by Nagi. Hinagiku wants to return to school and searches for the goal, so the Demon King drops items and unveils a banner indicating the goal. As they make their way to the goal, Nagi reads out some postcards sent by fans where one of them talks about Maria being 17 years old. After hours of play, Hinagiku faces the Demon King, but the battle is over as the Demon King drops a metal basin on her head. So the girls have defeated the Demon King and return to the real world with no memory of what happened so they can follow the events of the day.

Preview:

Impressions

For an anime original, this was pretty funny. Though I think they jammed packed this episode with so many references to make up for the past two episodes as they were lacking in some. I noticed there are quite a number of references in this episode but I only managed to pick a handful:

• Gundam SEED Destiny: Maria doing the Meer concert since Tanaka Rie is also the seiyuu for Meer
• Dragonball Z: the Kami tower and the bodyguards doing the fusion pose
• Busou Renkin: Papillion’s mask on the Conan bust
• Marimite: well I think it is Marimite with Maria and Saki
• Evangelion: the Rei head coming from the slime and Unit Zero’s arm from the Demon King dropping items.
• Suzumiya Haruhi: the Mikuru eyecatch
• Zero no Tsukaima: Nagi wearing the Louise outfit
• Street Fighter: Klaus as Akuma with Ken and Ryu lying on the ground censored out
• 2×2 Shinobuden: Isumi spitting out Onsakumaru

Also I found it rather odd that Hayate didn’t speak a single word throughout the episode, assuming you don’t include the preview, so the absence of Shiraishi Ryoko could be the reason of the anime original episode. Well all up this was an enjoyable episode and it was very random since it kept jumping between scenes, though that’s what I like about Hayate no Gotoku, the silly randomness with the anime references. Also the part of them making fun of Maria being 17 years I didn’t get it all entirely, so I’ll wait for the subs. The Demon King was a surprise as I didn’t expect to hear Yuko Goto to be the seiyuu, though it was certainly a treat.

Next week it appears we are back onto the story and it looks like Hayate will get to meet Nagi’s grandfather.

Many panning shots in this episode so I’ve included the two Maria ones and the Saki one. The Hinagiku one I’m having trouble with as the colouring is slightly off. You may notice some lines in the 2nd Maria shot, but I’m no expert in Photoshop yet and these were done really quickly. Either way, click on the image for a larger version and enjoy.