Hayate x Blade 1-53 (all that is in English so far, of this ongoing 95-chapter series)
I like this series a lot, and really want to know what happens next... it's right in the middle of a bunch of important stuff here, but the wait for the next chapters will probably be so long... argh.
Apart from that though, yeah, this series is good. Hayate x Blade is a seinen manga about a somewhat crazy girls' boarding jr. high and highschool, where some students are normal students, but all of the ones who matter (who have names, are shown, etc.), in addition to doing schoolwork, also have this kendo-like tournament thing. Basically, all of the (wooden) sword weilding girls pair up, and fight duels at times chosen by the student council for stars. The duels are won by hitting a star hard enough to make it register the hit. Each pair is made up of a "heaven sword" and an "earth sword"; the duel is won when the heaven sword, who has their star on their shoulder, loses. The earth swords, who have their star around their waist, can protect their heaven sword, but defeating the other one doesn't end the match. Yeah, it's kind of odd. Also, there are double-points days, etc. And the students have ranks based on the number of stars they have, so they go from D rank up to S rank.
Also making this school ... unique ... is that there isn't really much in the way of adult administration. Instead, the president of the student council, who is also the strongest swordfighter (because the way to turn her out of office is to beat her in one of the fights, a nearly impossible task, not to win an election), is pretty much in charge of the school. There are some adults working for the school, as a secretary, judges for the matches, or of course the almost never seen teachers, but there's no adult administration. So yeah, it's one of those all-powerful student council series.
The series has a large cast, with over 20 major cast members. One pair, Hayate and Ayana, are the main characters, with Hayate in the lead, but all of the characters get some amount of attention here and there, and some get chapters focusing on them; it often feels like an ensemble series, not one just focused on the main pair. And yes, I do find it hard to remember who is who. I can recognize most of them based on looks by now, but don't ask me what most of their names are, I have no idea for a lot of them.
Offhand, I remember Hayate, Ayana, Jun, and Yuho, and probably a few more, but I'm not sure about most of their names. Oh well, that's just me.
In addition to the cast being large, as I suggested above, it's all female. Males are very rarely seen in this series, and even more rarely does one get a speaking role, much less a name. Most of the series is set on the large campus of this school, and if there are male teachers, well... teachers aren't generally seen anyway, this series isn't about classtime. And of course, there are no administrators, and even if the judges and medical staff (and secretary) are employees, they're all female. So yeah, unlike the vaguely comparable series Bamboo Blade, don't expect any male characters of note. I think it works fine. The student council/school president's pretty amusing too. She bends the rules all the time if she thinks something will be funny or entertaining...
So, the series mostly divides its focus between several major subjects, including comedy, drama, and action. It definitely has some of each. Oh, and while I think it runs in a yuri magazine, there are no romantic relationships between the girls here; it's all either jokes, or partnerships (sword-sisters) which are just partnerships, not romantic couples. The series also has virtually no fanservice -- there are no pantyshots or bath scenes to be found in the series. There was one volume where most of the girls were wearing maid uniforms (yes, for a whole volume), but despite a tease of sexy maid costumes, they ended up pretty modest.
So what makes the series good? Well, primarily it's the drama and comedy. The action is done well enough, but it's somewhat generic "people can talk paragraphs during pages that should last seconds" stuff that is ... not exactly realistic, to say the least. In addition, while the setting is mostly vaguely real-world, there are some random actual magical powers that some characters have, so it's not entirely grounded in reality (not that that's bad, but it's kind of odd when it's a few characters with those powers, and not anyone else). And anyway, action like this is rarely the main draw for me. The drama and comedy are both done quite well, and the cast is as likable as it is large; I definitely want to know what happens next...
Now, while the series has no real yuri, it does have lots of yuri humor. That is, to be specific, Hayate and Jun constantly make yuri-themed jokes, for which unimpressed Ayana beats them up. This never leads to anything, just more of the same -- but apart from the overdone violence, it is somewhat amusing. Jun's a pretty funny character, I can see why she wins all of the character polls. :lol But because of the zero-fanservice policy, even though Jun constantly jokes about wanting to see pantyshots, or oggle the other girls in the bath, the audience never sees any of it. That's okay though, it works fine as written humor.
As for the drama, the series definitely has a serious side, and most characters have some element of trauma in their past. That does kind of make sense though, really... I mean, they are at a boarding school in junior high (Hayate's a first year junior high student, Ayana third year, the others scattered around jr. high and highschool), which is a pretty young age to be doing that. often people would have reasons for it. For Hayate her trauma involves her twin sister, though I don't know the details of it because that story arc comes next and isn't translated yet of course. They seem to have some serious issues though, and now that her sister's attending the academy too. For Ayana, it's about her grandfather. Both Ayana and Hayate rarely, if ever, contact their family, too -- they stay at school for breaks, and apparently never call home. There is an orphan place, or daycare center, or something that Hayate does care a lot about protecting, though. For Yuho, it's about her tragic illness that might kill her. For one other girl, it's about an arranged marriage with a guy who seems to be a jerk (again, this doesn't resolve until later). Some don't have any stated problems though, and are just there, but many of the more important characters do have issues. The most important characters who don't have any major issues I know of are the school president and her sword-sister, but who knows, maybe they have something which'll happen sometime.
... On the note of Yuho, she has a particularly bizarre case of anime illness disease. On the one hand, as usual, no illness is named; she's very sick and often in the hospital, but what she's sick with isn't stated. That's of course the norm, sick anime girls rarely have named illnesses. But... well, she doesn't have a named disease, but some details ARE said which rule out almost everything. Specifically, she has a disease which can go into remission and which can be helped with a bone marrow transplant. Um... why say those things, but not just name it? It's kind of absurd! Oh well... (I hope she makes it, Yuho is awesome.)
I could continue, but I don't want to go through the whole series' story, it'd take way too long. I will say though, even though it's really important -- the last arc I've been reading, from chapters 44 to ~53 or so (and I think it continues through 57 or 58 or something), is central to the plot for both of the main characters. It's a major confrontation between them and Ayana's old nemesises, the ones who fought her the time she injured her old partner and then separated with her, staying alone until Hayate bugged her enough to give in and try again. However, while it is important, the series had not previously spent so long on one arc, so I do find the suddenly much slower pace somewhat frustrating. I've never been a fan of overly long fights, even if they are important, and this one has like eight chapters of buildup and training, and then a four chapter long fight... hopefully the pace gets back to something a bit more like what it used to be later on, but who knows.
So yeah, overall, I like this series a lot. I've heard complaints that it's not really yuri, and it's not, but it's pretty good at what it does do. I just want to be able to read the rest of it much sooner than I will. Oh well, at least there's something. It's got action, drama, and comedy, all done fairly well, with a good cast and writing. Finally, that I wrote this much about the seties, but feel like I could write twice as much, easily, says something about how much I liked it...
