Making ends meet and restoring personal glory, one tearful setback at a time.
Meet Jahy, the second-most-powerful person in the Demon Realm. Powerful, ruthless, and surrounded by luxury and loyal minions all over, she was the envy of almost all of the Demon Realm...
...that is, until a magical girl just showed up and destroyed the Demon Realm's mana crystal, taking the entire realm with it.
Meet Jahy now. Living in squalor at an old apartment complex in modern-day Japan, and with no magic to sustain her, she's more or less stuck in a childlike form, able only to revert to her true form for a limited time for such important duties as... working part-time as waitress at the Izakaya Maou restaurant owned by her landlady's older sister.
But she won't be discouraged! She will search for magical gems to eventually restore the Demon Realm... no matter how many times she (comically) stumbles, goes up in arms with Ryou, her landlady whenever her rent is due, gets hounded by her old rival Saurva, or is reminded of the relative success of her former second-in-command, Druj, now a wealthy businesswoman. And that's not to mention the occasional run-in with the same magical girl that ruined her life.
The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! (ジャヒー様はくじけない！, Jahī-sama wa Kujikenai!, "Jahy-sama Won't Be Discouraged!") is a comedy manga written and illustrated by Wakame Konbu, which started publication in Square Enix's Monthly Gangan Joker in 2017. Its English release is also handled by Square Enix, starting July 2021.
The series also received a 2-cour anime adaptation directed by Mirai Minato for SILVER LINK., which aired on TV Asahi note from August 1, 2021 to December 19, 2021. It is available to stream on Crunchyroll subbed in most countries here
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These Tropes Will Not Be Defeated!
- Actor Allusion: Episode 3 ends with a parody of Bodacious Space Pirates, which starred three of Great Jahy's four current voice actresses (Kana Hanazawa, Yōko Hikasa, and Ai Kayano). Oddly, while Hanazawa has a similar position as the main character's second-in-command, Mikako Komatsu—who voiced the lead in Bodacious Space Pirates—doesn't debut until the next episode, missing out on an Actor Allusion of her own.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Jahy, despite coming from a parallel universe filled with monsters and supernatural powers, does not believe in ghosts. Ryou lampshades how ridiculous that sounds.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite their hostility, the landlady does care for Jahy in her own ways. For one, when she discovers Jahy being intimidated by the Magical Girl, she calls the police on her. In another, she makes it clear to Jahy that she would protect her when Jahy haphazardly installs traps for the Magical Girl if she were to come for her mystical gems.
- Beach Episode: Chapter 37, adapted as part of episode 13, sees Ryou and the boss, along with Jahy, helping at their uncle's beach shack.
- Chromosome Casting: Every prominent named character in this series is female. The only notable male characters, all of which being nameless extras, are a couple of cops that give Jahy some trouble on rare occasions, a man that crossdresses as a magical girl that Jahy mistakes for the actual Magical Girl, a young boy who tried to bully Jahy before running away after seeing her adult form, and the sister duo's one-off uncle. There are also plenty of inconsequential unnamed guys that come to the Maou Pub.
- Cosmic Keystone: In the opening, the structural integrity of the demon world depends on Maou's giant mana crystal. When the magical girl destroys it, the entire world collapses into nothingness.
- Cringe Comedy: A good portion of humor during the early chapters/episodes, especially everything relating to Druj, involves constantly tormenting Jahy over her Pride-based Honour Before Reason, mainly by forcing her into situations where she screws herself over and ends up miserable because she refuses to accept help due to seeing it as pity, while her interactions with Druj revolve around smacking her Perpetual Poverty status in her face from Druj's immense wealth, which always ends in her going home in tears because her pride prevents her from asking Druj for any money or food. This style of humor gradually fades away as Jahy experiences positive Character Development, as she starts being more successful and experiences happiness due to Laser-Guided Karma rewarding her more than it punishes her.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Jahy didn't even get to finish her sentence or even be acknowledged before the Magical Girl destroyed the Dark Realm.
- Cuteness Overload: The main reason the landlady/boss sisters tolerate a significant part of Jahy's rudeness towards them, as it's glaringly obvious to them how hard Jahy's fallen, how cute she is and how hard she's trying. They can't help but try to aid her.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The first opening is sung by Yui Ogura (Kokoro), while the second opening and ending are sung by Sumire Uesaka (Kyouko the Magical Girl) and Miho Okasaki (Maou-sama) respectively.
- Fashion-Shop Fashion Show: Home version. When Jahy sleeps over at Ryou and the boss's place, the boss has her try on Ryou's old childhood clothes.
- Festival Episode: Chapters 62 (from Jahy's perspective) and 63 (from Saurva's perspective), adapted as part of episode 20.
- Food Porn: The episode where the Owner has Jahy and Kyoko try out different cooked meats, including fish, ginger pork, and steak, provides both types of food porn, with Kyoko giving impressively elaborate and enthusiastic descriptions of them as if she was a high-class food connoisseur, while Jahy experiences increasing levels of bliss at being able to eat good meat, with the steak outright inducing a fanservicey Food Wars!-style foodgasm. (The original manga chapter only features Jahy's blissed-out reactions.)
- Gilligan Cut: When the landlady warns Jahy about catching a cold, she laughs it off. Cut to Jahy discovering she's caught a cold.
- Hard Truth Aesop: A pervading background truth about the world that both the demon Jahy and magical girl Kyoko have learned is that, in modern human society, success, happiness, and even just survival frequently require you to have money, regardless of how much of a Determinator you are about your goals.
- Hot Springs Episode: Chapters 26 and 27 are the bath house variant, adapted in episodes 8 and 9 respectively.
- I Wrote Our Story: Episode 4's after-credits scene sees Jahy and Druj working on the Great Jahy manga, with the landlady as the editor riding hard on them to get the manuscript before deadline.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapters/episodes are called Restoration Plans. Chapter titles in the manga are normally of the Character Name and the Noun Phrase format (e.g. "Restoration Plan No. 5 - The Great Jahy & the Mountain"), so far limited to the demons, while episode titles in the anime invert the Character Action Title, describing something a character doesn't or can't do (e.g. "Restoration Plan No. 1 - The Great Jahy Can't Go Back!").
- The Jinx: The magical demon gems have this effect on any humans that possess them, with even a small one making the owner suffer bad luck like frequent tripping or animals attacking them, while a massive concentration of them being held under the "ownership" of a human will turn the place they keep it into a decrepit Eldritch Location constantly trying to kill them with bad fortune. Kyouko the Magical Girl is only able to handle owning so many of them because of being incredibly tough through a combination of magical girl powers and natural sturdiness gained from being Born Unlucky even before she took up her role fighting demons and gathering gems.
- Me's a Crowd: In Chapter 80, Jahy drinks Saurva's cloning potion without realizing what it is, which results in five Jahys squabbling with each other over who gets to do what until the potion wears off.
- Near-Death Experience: When the Magical Girl finds Jahy at her apartment, sick with a cold, Jahy deems that she's just moments away from having her gem stolen until the Landlady calls the cops on the Magical Girl. Jahy is so frightened that she breaks down, and Ryou has to console her to sleep.
- Oh, Crap!: Jahy has one after the Magical Girl shows up at her apartment while she was sick. Fortunately for her, the Magical Girl doesn't seem to recognize Jahy in her tiny form, and wants the mana crystal that's in Jahy's possession.
- Right Behind Me: In Chapter 83, while Jahy's on a hot springs trip with the rest of Izakaya Maou, she says she'll properly enjoy herself and forget about the restoration of the Demon Realm... then she catches sight of Maou-sama and Su behind her and panics. Fortunately, Maou-sama doesn't seem bothered.
- Shout-Out: Episode 15 has Kyouko imagine herself as Momotarō, accompanied by a dog, monkey and pheasant.
- Sick Episode: Chapter 14 sees Jahy catch a cold, adapted as part of episode 5 in the anime.
- Spoiler Opening: The second opening that starts on Episode 11 prominently displays Maou and her personality before her appearance was first revealed at the end of the "Sister Break-up" segment, and long before her actual character was properly introduced. It also heavily hints at the future friendship between Jahy and Magical Girl Kyoko, which happens shortly before Maou's proper introduction.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- The main ethos of the series, as Jahy has to learn to survive after being brought down to human level, learning hard lessons in austerity after a lavish lifetime of supernatural excess.
- Any time Jahy tries to go out in adult-mode while wearing her Stripperific demon-outfit, not only does she learn she's just as vulnerable to the cold as a human, but the police almost always detain her for committing public indecency.
- The Magical Girl confronts Jahy-chan... and gets arrested by the police for not only trying to assault somebody in broad daylight, but also trying to assault somebody (un-powered Jahy) that looks like a young girl.
- Switching P.O.V.: Chapter 26 shows what was happening at the bathhouse from Jahy's perspective, then Chapter 27 reveals what Jahy missed from Saurva's perspective.
- Theme Naming: The demons are named after Zoroastrian mythology.
- Jahi: Sexual impropriety.
- Druj: Disorder and deceit.
- Saurva: Oppressive rule.
- Title Drop: Restoration Plan No. 20 is titled "The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!"
- Transformation Sequence: The anime adaptation provides some anime-original transformation sequences for Jahy and Kyoko to their super-powered forms, in the style of Magical Girl transformations, fittingly enough since the latter is a magical girl. Both of them act as Stock Footage when needing to fill out episode runtime, so they aren't always shown.
- Trapped in Another World: Inverted, with Jahy and the other survivors of the Demon Realm being stuck in modern Japan.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Neither the landlady nor the boss, and not even Kokoro, seem to comment on the fact that Jahy constantly spouts her intentions to reclaim the Demon Realm or the fact she can shift her appearance.
- The World Is Just Awesome: In the bathhouse chapter, Jahy takes delight in something as small as the bubbles that the hair shampoo made.
- Wrestler in All of Us: The first OP features shots of Jahy and the landlady putting each other in submission holds.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Jahy had killed a lot of her servants for various reasons.
