What does a debt-free Hayate Ayasaki look like? Ever since I started reading and watching Hayate the Combat Butler back in 2007(!), I wondered how author Kenjiro Hata would present that moment. Now, finally, in its forty-seventh volume, that moment has arrived. And needless to say, it looks and feels like a big weight has lifted off the shoulders of both the readers and the manga’s characters.

It feels appropriate that Hayate becomes debt-free in Las Vegas, the place where most people find themselves diving deeper into debt. The big contest for the 150 million yen continues, with the last game involving luck and money. Normally, this is where Hayate would fail spectacularly at, seeing as he has neither. However, after a mixture of string pulls and blackmail, Hayate gets the chance to choose the next game: Old Maid, but in reverse!

Seeing as the winner is the one with the Joker, the strategy of the game is to prove how unlucky you are. As a result, all of the remaining players (save for Nagi, who is taking a nap) keep dishing out every moment of bad luck in their lives in order to snag the Joker. Hearing how shitty these characters’ lives are is funny as hell, even if you feel a tiny bit of sympathy for them. However, seeing as his parents sold him to the yakuza, there’s no one in the world who is as unlucky as Hayate Ayasaki.

Thus, the game ends, and Nagi also gets eliminated. At long last, Hayate can pay off the debt, which he does, leading to a moment that’s so satisfying to read! And considering that this manga is called Hayate the Combat Butler, it would be wise of our blue-haired good guy to stay at his current place of employment. So is that the end? Nope, not in the slightest! (We’ve still got five more volumes after this one, so hold on tight!)

There’s a thing called “gag manga space-time”, and it happens to even the best protagonists in the genre. Things seem hunky-dory, only for the powers that be to throw a monkey wrench into the situation. Hayate is now in the midst of avoiding that, and he’s planning to do everything he can to leave this manga without owing anything to anyone! However, that’s not to say there are others who will fall victim to such a thing.

A Grand Canyon treasure hunt goes underway, and it goes down exactly how you would think. Only instead of Hayate and Nagi being the victims, it’s poor Segawa, and by this volume’s end, readers will be calling her that in a literal sense! All of the manga’s trademark chaos-styled humor is featured, as one horrible thing after another happens to Segawa, with the others just watching her fall deeper into the pit of poverty. And she’s got no one to blame but herself…and the friends that could’ve told her to stop at any time!

At long last, our titular Hayate the Combat Butler is free from his debt. However, as Volume Forty-Seven shows, that does not mean an end to the mayhem. There’s this new quest, the mystery behind the Royal Power Stones, and another Kenjiro Hata series that is also competing with this series (Ad Astra Per Aspera, which went on hiatus after one volume). So with Hayate and Nagi very close to the finish line, one wonders if these two will end the series with heads held high. And no, they won’t be held high for the sake of peeking up someone’s skirt.

Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media. Click here to read past reviews of Hayate the Combat Butler!