The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! Volume 6 Review

In Volume 5 of The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! We saw Jahy take a trip to the beach and challenge the magical girl to a rematch. The events of that fight have significantly changed Jahy’s life. What awaits her now in Volume 6? Well, let’s find out. 

After her life-and-death battle with the magical girl, Jahy was invited to her house where she discovered her beloved Dark Lord has been revived and is living there! This suddenly explains all the bad luck the magical girl is constantly afflicted with and Jahy is eager to take the Dark Lord off the magical girl’s hands and bring her home. Unfortunately, the magical girl has been feeding the Dark Lord extremely well, so she has no intention of moving out anytime soon! 

Jahy is hurt that her leader is so eager to stay with the enemy, but given that Jahy has the magical girl under control (for now) under the pretext of them becoming friends, she’s willing to let that go. Instead, our plucky protagonist decides to focus on collecting even more Mana Crystals to restore the Dark Realm more quickly. After all, if she and the Dark Lord can simply go home, then there’ll surely be no issues between them…or so she thinks. 

With the introduction of the Dark Lord, it feels as if the author is moving along the main plot, something that the previous four or five volumes have shied away from doing. Of course, at heart, this is a comedy series so while restoring the Dark Realm has always been the base premise, there’s always been plenty of distractions as Jahy gets herself mixed up in countless comical situations involving her work-life or her friends.

Even in this volume, beyond establishing the return of the Dark Lord, the majority of the chapters revolve around Jahy and the magical girl becoming closer. The magical girl even turns up as a new part-timer at the bar Jahy works for, which causes all kinds of trouble, thanks to her unlucky nature. Then Jahy has to explain to her subordinate Druji why she’s working with their arch-nemesis and of course that leads to Druji and the magical girl arguing about who is the better minion. There’s never a peaceful moment for our heroine. 

Perhaps what’s most interesting about meeting the Dark Lord and spending more time with the magical girl is that our understanding of Jahy as a character is beginning to change. Before she always proclaimed herself to be the second-in-command, but now that we’ve gotten to meet the Dark Lord for ourselves, it’s clear that Jahy was ruler in all but name. The Dark Lord is a gremlin who loves to eat, sleep and relax and none of that mixes well with the responsibilities of being in charge! Of course, if anyone points that out to Jahy, she will instantly rise to the defence of her leader but perhaps when the Dark Realm is someday restored, this will mark a change in leadership. 

Now that Jahy’s beloved leader has returned, the series feels a lot more focused with a clear end-goal in sight. And I’m excited to see where that takes us. With the magical girl now among Jahy’s friend/minion group, there are no enemies to speak of in particular but I can’t see that remaining so for long. 

The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! Volume 6 comes to the West thanks to Square Enix Manga and continues to be translated by Amanda Haley with lettering by Ken Kamura. As with previous instalments, this release reads well with no issues to speak of. Volume 7 of the series is currently scheduled for an English release in late December. 

Overall, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! Volume 6 introduces us to the ruler of the Dark Realm which means a new determination for Jahy to restore her old home to its former glory. Now the series has a tighter focus than it did before, even if we are still following Jahy’s daily life. 

A free preview of this volume can be read on the Square Enix website here. 

Our review copy from Square Enix Manga was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).