[justsomeguy]

The good:
* It's Hayate no Gotoku

* The story is epic (once it finally gets going) and expands on the Sanzenin family backstory quite a bit.

* Um, I liked the OP?

The bad:
* First off, Manglobe's art and character designs are freaking terrible. Their directing is more active than JC Staff (who just used the manga to storyboard) since most of the material is new, but can't compare to either JC Staff or Synergy SP in grasp of comedy (not that there was much good comedy in this show, there's a near total lack of the zaniness present before).

* Ruka - her solo Greek chorus wasn't funny, replaced Norio Wakamoto as the narrator, and contributed nothing to the show. It also doesn't help that she was introduced in the current horrible boring arc the manga is wading through, which has me associate her with "suck".

* Tsugumi really needed a more conclusive ending. It seemed like she was written just to get the characters into the story, but as the show went on her contribution as a character faded.

* The recycled episodes: the Hinagiku date was just ripped from a much earlier part of the manga and stuck in here in a different context that had none of the humor and emotion. The cafe robber episode was also ripped from a much earlier part of the manga, with Tsugumi replacing another character who's long since been banished from Hata's memory. The ripped episodes wouldn't bother me so much if the show had not been called an original storyline. Now they just seemed to indicate Hata's apathy toward the whole franchise.

* The gags, comedy, and references are mostly gone. In their place is open namedropping of other shows (see episode 4). If I wanted suggestions I would go to the suggestions forum, not watch a character ask for suggestions. The stuff like Hayate's "ugly angel" comment was more in line with what I was looking for.

* Heck, the entire first half of the show exemplified what's going wrong with the manga at the moment.

* What happens when the manga gets to this timepoint (assuming it ever does before getting canceled)? Is Hata going to retread this whole storyline for a hundred chapters (oh joy -_-)? Or will he write this out of canon? Neither option is good.

* Given this season's horrible sales, it is a miracle that the anime is getting another season.

I really can't grade this show without also taking into account the current state of the manga. For the past two years and a hundred chapters (I could be remembering wrong, but...) the material has been mired in an extremely boring stretch with a mere fraction of the fun that made me love HnG. Based on the number of chapters and the pathetic 2-volume-per-year rate of Viz's official English release (vs the 4+/year of the Japanese), that means I'm stuck with at least 4 fucking years of the current situation.

Final score: 7/10. A lazy effort overall. Making the first half good would have made the show so much more. This show is not representative of HnG's full potential. Though as a whole, the franchise is inching towards 5/10.