Kigurumi Nagi in Amusement Wonderland

Ah the great rural countryside. Stereotypically known as the place closer to nature because well, it really is. Not because current inventions and conveniences are absent there, as it is more of a problem of quantity.

As such, finding a completely modern amusement park out of what essentially is nowhere shouldn't sound as surprising... right?

"What's the matter, my spoiled mistress?"

A voice suddenly echoed out of nowhere, almost startling the already scared Nagi Sanzenin to death. It was Hayate. Seems that he was just right outside in front of the sunflower garden and probably heard her calling out for him directly. After a brief trouble addressing her fears, she lifts her head up into the sky, and gazes into the wonderful starlit night.

*cue in Japanese B horror movie music*

This should have taken Nagi afterwards to her objective, which is the restroom, and the story would have ended there. However, a familiar white figure appears in front of Hayate. This was not his first time to encounter the entity, and as such see her again made him more determined to find out once and for all who she really was.

"Not the sudden scene shift... I still have to pee!"

Unfortunately for Nagi, she had to chase down Hayate as he tries to catch up to the entity. From her perspective, he just suddenly ran towards the forest without warning whatsoever.

"An amusement park? But this feels... strangely nostalgic."

This is finally where our first question earlier comes in play. Against all expectations, Hayate and Nagi suddenly stumbles upon a fully open and operating amusement park in the middle of the night. Both were of course puzzled as well, including rest of the others who also stumbled their way there.

"You mascots better not be forcing me to manage this run-down amusement park!"

But before they could even figure things out, they were separated from each other by some rather creepy mascots, and the same mysterious entity from earlier. Hayate "wakes up" into a weird, alternate idyllic reality where Maria, not Nagi, was the one he was serving. As for Nagi, she seems still stuck in this eerie amusement wonderland.

cat kigurumi thinking in the park

"The sky is blank, there's no exit, and it's still night even though it's been several hours already. We're in a deep fix here."

While still in deep thought as to what exactly is the true nature of this fantasy amusment park, Nagi seemingly decided to wear one of their signature costume products. Yes, it is none other than a kigurumi.

cat kigurumi getting nervous

The design of the kigurumi is generally describable as a blue cat type. This is quite unusual, given that cat kigurumi color combinations are often are based on real life breeds. But this is most likely yet another form of a promotional mascot type, a kigurumi that is directly based on some pre-built character.

cat kigurumi doesn't like to talk

"I can't possibly keep myself in my pajamas at this point in the movie you know."

According to her explanation, she decided to wear the kigurumi in order to temporarily replace her pajamas. As hinted by her desire to go to the restroom earlier, she was actually roused from her sleep at that time, and was thus wearing them when they ran into the amusement park.

Although, if you think about it, replacing your pajamas with a kigurumi kinda makes little sense from a functional standpoint. We can suppose that Nagi views kigurumi more like costumes than alternative sleepwear.

cat kigurumi looking at her friend's kigurumi

"Well, I'm getting one for myself then!"
"Do you even have the foggiest idea of the situation we're currently in?"

In any case, Risa liked the kigurumi enough that she actually went out and got one for her own, though we never really see her wear it.

"Hmm, then I believe this may be what's known as being spirited away." 

"Hmm, interesting. If your theory is true then we might indeed be the ones spirited away in this realm. To society, we would have just disappeared without a trace."

From what Nagi and others can conclude, the amusement park seems to be a unique dimension. They were immediately stopped by some unseen force field when they tried to get out, and dawn never seems to break despite having stayed there for what presumably could have been several hours. Independently, Kayura also observes that phone signals randomly appear briefly for certain periods of time as they stayed there.

cat kigurumi with her friends

"There's really no way out of here!"

But alas, after all the time they had analyzing their predicament, none of them were able to find a way to break outside this mysterious amusement park. Moments still pass on as the student council stooge trio slowly descend into madness.

"I already gave Hayate the mone-... I mean the key to instantly end this series. So Miss Nagi, you're no longer needed here."

Finally, Nagi was directly confronted by the very entity that Hayate chased earlier. She was none other than Hayate's late grandmother Suzune. In order to save her grandson from his lifetime debt, she attempted to sever his ties from the one connection she thought was the source of his suffering: the Sanzenin household.

"We're still technically in the middle of chapter 400 of the manga at this point in time, so we can't really end this series just yet, grandma."

It was at this precise time when our hero finally realizes what is going on and "awakens" from his idyllic slumber. Hayate recollects his memories together and saves Nagi, much to the surprise of her grandmother. He reassures her that he doesn't feel unfortunate with her at all, and that she was actually the one who saved her from his suffering.

What did our antagonistic(?) grandmother do after this? Suzune simply left as a spiritual ball without saying a word. Afterwards, the amusement park finally crumbled to pieces, revealing itself to be an abandonded amusement park from a long bygone era of Hayate's youth.

Hayate the Combat Butler (ハヤテのごとく!) takes you all the way back to that weird era of the early 2000s. You can definitely see the age of the older chapters with its near-archaic otaku references. But, just as its story eventually did so, it continued to progress.

In fact, it is quite uncanny to see Heaven is a Place on Earth portray the series in its ultra modern format, with perfectly preserved character designs from its source material. Granted, it is also already almost a decade ago from our current perspective (as of the time of this writing), but the vestiges of modern anime trends are already evident even within its limited story.

This may be a bit of a stretch to say, but perhaps one of the points that prove this, is the choice to include a kigurumi in its story. This is a trend that, as we have seen through the decades, would become more and more often incorporated into many different franchises and series.