Next year's combined 2nd/3rd volume of Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine is announcing on Wednesday that a theatrical anime film adaptation of Kenjirou Hata's Hayate the Combat Butler manga has been launched. The story follows a boy named Hayate who serves as a butler, bodyguard, confidante, and more to a girl named Nagi to pay off a 156,804,000-yen (about US$1.8-million) debt.

First-time director Hideto Komori (animation director of Darker than BLACK, Ergo Proxy, House of Five Leaves) is helming the project at the studio Manglobe (The World God Only Knows). Yasuko Kobayashi (Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider Den-O, Blassreiter, Casshern Sins, Claymore, Shakugan no Shana) is scripting.

Viz Media will publish the 17th manga volume in North America next March. The manga already inspired two television anime series in Japan, and Bandai Entertainment announced at Anime Expo 2008 that it licensed the first anime series for North America. Crunchyroll simulcasted the second anime series in several countries as it aired Japan in last year.

The Taiwanese production and broadcasting company Gala TV will air a separate live-action television series based on the manga next year.