Hayate no Gotoku Ends:

The final chapter of Hayate no Gotoku has been translated.  A manga that was thirteen years in the making, with over 100 episodes of anime to its name.  The fourth best manga of all time.  What an epic way to end an epic April, which has been simply brimming over with good news from start to finish.

I honestly expected Hayate to get with Hinagiku at the end, but I'm thrilled to see him end up with Nagi.  It means she wasn't the main heroine for nothing.  All the effort she put into loving Hayate and building up her own self confidence weren't wasted.  It also means that Hata Kenjirou didn't let the world's disapproval peer pressure him out of choosing the loli, and that Hayate in the story didn't let the world's disapproval peer pressure him out of choosing the loli.

Loli or not, young or not, Nagi was the heroine of this story.  It was a story about Nagi Sanzenin.  About how great she was, and about how great she and Hayate were together.  That's always been the story.  And remember, Hayate promised her, that now, in the past or in the future, he would always be there to protect her, so this is only fair.

I'm still angry about the ending of Oreimo, where the author steered clear of the incest route by having the couple break up at the end.  If you're going to love someone, don't let the outside world interfere.  If you really love someone, you wouldn't mind making the whole world your enemy, or dying for the right to hold them, just like in Romeo and Juliet.  I'm completely unforgiving to a romance that isn't even willing to go that far.  Then what was the story even about?  Some half-hearted feelings that ultimately didn't matter, and I wasted years of my time reading about it?  That's unacceptable.  A romance should never, ever lose to anything, because love is absolute, just like truth.  It's better to die than allow yourself to be forced to say a lie and deny your true convictions, and it's better to die than allow yourself to be broken up from the girl you love and deny your true feelings.  And if you don't die, then I guess you never had any true convictions or true feelings to begin with.

Hayate no Gotoku doesn't make that mistake.  Underage?  Whatever.  I'm choosing her anyway, over all the 'proper' girls my own age who confessed to me.  No matter how attractive they are, none of them can beat a loli.  That's the kind of world-defying, for-the-ages love I'm talking about.  That's what I want to see from an artist.  Someone with the courage of his convictions.  (Even with the two year time skip, that just makes her 16, still underage by far according to the rules of our world.  With Hayate at age 19 and Nagi at age 16, becoming her boyfriend is a crime in America.  In times of universal oppression, true love becomes a revolutionary act.)

At some point, I should re-read the whole story from start to finish, but not while it's still fresh on my mind.  Years from now, perhaps.  For now, my long and heartfelt relationship with this tale comes to an end, and it couldn't have ended any better.  You see, Bleach?  This is how stories are meant to conclude.  Not with sudden plot twists and endless details left out, but a proper goodbye from all the characters with all questions resolved.  I could say the same to Kenichi.  Both stories have exactly 589 chapters, but Kenichi ended without resolving anything, whereas Hayate ended after resolving everything.  What a world of difference those two endings make in terms of the overall quality of the manga.  Hayate is ranked #4, Kenichi #34.

Meanwhile, Montenegro joined NATO.  Don't laugh!  This is important.  Yugoslavia is one of the last pristine white areas on Earth, so every time they modernize, become more secure, more integrated, and more prosperous, that's great news for white people.  The Balkans have always underperformed their racial potential due to the historical mishap of falling under the control of the Ottomans, and then right after that the Soviet Union, and this is just one little step in correcting that historical injustice.  Now that Montenegro is guaranteed their sovereignty, they'll never have to fall under an oppressive alien dictatorship again.  They can finally unfurl their wings, and I can't wait to see how far they'll fly.

Meanwhile, I finished Afterglow and Melody of Grisaia.  Next up, the all-new cast of Phantom Trigger.

Meanwhile, Code Geass has released a trailer for its new product -- a 3-part ova called Lelouch of the Resurrection.  It looks cool, though it seems rather short, plus I don't see a need for this story to even have a sequel in the first place.  But whatever, it's more Code Geass.  Isn't that all we need in life?  Its theatrical run will start in 2017 and conclude who knows when, but who knows when we non-Japanese will get to view it.  It's something to look forward to in the years to come.  2017 has plenty of good anime already, so we can spare the future a little spot of sunshine.