More than 150 million yen. That is the debt Hayate Ayasaki's gambling parents dump on him one Christmas Eve before disappearing. He is a first-year high school student who has been working one part-time job after another since the age of nine to support them, and according to VIZ's series description, they have now sold his organs to the yakuza to cover what they owe.
On the run, Hayate decides to kidnap a girl from a nearby park and hold her for ransom. The girl turns out to be Nagi Sanzenin, daughter of an absurdly wealthy family, and she mistakes what he says for a confession of love. She hires him as her butler, a job that will let him clear the debt in a mere 40 years.
The serial began in Weekly Shonen Sunday in 2004 and ended with issue 20, released on 12 April 2017. The final chapter ran 29 pages with the last three in colour, and volumes 51 and 52 went on sale together that June.
A TV anime began airing in 2007. The year after the series ended, Hata started Fly Me to the Moon in the same magazine.
Japan has also just finished a complete edition. It restores the colour pages from the magazine run and adds one newly drawn episode to each volume; the 27th and final volume came out on 16 July 2026 with Hayate, Nagi and Maria on the cover. In Korea, Haksan Publishing released all 52 volumes.
The English edition is still going. The blurb for VIZ's volume 49, out on 8 September, announces that the final battle for the Sanzenin fortune is underway.
