Jahy was once one of the most feared entities in the Dark Realm. Beautiful, powerful, and fierce, she served as second-in-command to the Dark Lord.
But she’s neither at the moment.
See, she and the rest of the Dark Realm were destroyed by an unknown magical girl. This resulted in the destruction of mana crystals and for a number of demons, the loss of their original powers. For Jahy, she’s now the size of a little girl and instead of dominating over her peers, she lives in a run-down and crumbling one-room apartment in the human realm.
Well, despite this tragic turn, this doesn’t get her down! Jahy aims to overcome this challenge by finding as many mana crystals as she can and revive the Dark Realm. But first, she’s got to use her minuscule paycheck to enjoy eating meat for the first time in months…
First off, time to finally complete Square Enix Manga & Books’ 2020 licenses! As in, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! was one of 6 titles announced at Anime NYC 2019, but due to COVID-19, this had the biggest delay out of the titles announced at the time. Then second off, this wasn’t explained in the volume, but we have two somewhat separate stories for Jahy. The first three chapters feel like initial test runs, but after that we then get launched into the main story.
At least the first two have some differences but generally stay the same: Jahy was powerful but got defeated by the magical girl, she aims to restore the dark realm but ends up working for a boss with large breasts and the ara-ara personality, and her minion Druj happens to be living a life of luxury while Jahy lives life in mediocrity.
It’s then a case of following Jahy’s attempts to improve her situation. But due to her lack of power, her stubbornness, and her pride, it doesn’t get much better. Along the way she gets gently scolded by her boss after losing her mana crystal, gets shaken down by her landlord because she (absolutely!) refuses to pay her rent, and finds herself planning a big mountain excursion to get a mana crystal, only for all the worst possible scenarios to happen to her. And we’re expected to laugh at that.
…Ok, well I did!
Aside from making me think about a decidedly different version of The Devil is a Part-Timer! somehow, the art and comedic timing for this manga is quite good. Yes you can feel somewhat sorry for Jahy’s current state, but when she refuses to say she needs help, laughing when she internally celebrates getting a mana crystal but Druj calls the crystal puny for someone like Jahy felt completely natural. That and Jahy’s attempt to escape her landlord only for said landlord to chase after her ends up making for great fun.
Don’t know if Jahy trying to restore the dark realm will hold up long-term, but it’s so far so good. From it’s fairly straightforward chapters to the cast of characters so far, there’s enough to look forward to. I am at least curious if Jahy can keep her shabby apartment a secret from anyone she knows. Or when her personality takes a significant turn (I suspect not for a while). And will we actually get the story on the magical girl? We’ll just have to see!