Season 2 of Hataraku Maou-sama! has finally been greenlit and confirmed, and Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai! is now once the perfect stop-gap show while waiting for the MgRonalds Madao Satan Demon to rescindle his rightful position. But is this show more than enough to warrant watching this weekly and tirelessly for the 5 months while this aired? Let's find out.
The adaptation from mangaka Wakame Konbu's work of the same name, and you can immediately put two and two together why I and so many others compare this to Hataraku Maou-sama!. Jahy-sama operates on two phases, since this is a 5-month, 20-episode long 2-cour series: the Magical Girl side covering the 1st half, and the Dark Lord side covering the 2nd half.
At the very beginning, the reverse-Isekai features that are akin to Hataraku Maou-sama! plays out like you'd expect: a demon being (in this case, a demon girl) that has her world powered by the mana crystals (that gives strength to the Dark Realm) that's shattered by the Magical Girl, only to fall from grace into the human world as a childlike being but a loli (because all demons instantly lose their powers) to go and gather them to restore the Dark Realm, once and for all. The plot is as simple as that, but the only thing that the Great Jahy has obstructing her path is the Magical Girl a.k.a Kyouko Jingu whom destroyed her world in the first place, and is attempting to do the same in the human world. Thankfully, the Great Jahy-sama does not do this alone, and has her subordinate Druj a.k.a Nana Dojima to help her out, except that she's a wealthy woman leading a consultant company as its president, and that Druj has all the wealth to assist Jahy in finding the mana crystals. While all of this is going on, Jahy has to find a way to make her daily life useful, so she is taken in by the Ara-Ara store manager of the pub known as "Craft Pub Maou" while being forced to live in a run-down apartment that's run by the landlord, her sister Ryou. Oh, and plus the tremendously idiotic and hilarious Salwa, whose inventive plans and strategies always ends up failing due to her carelessness. This is actually not a bad start to the series, considering that if you have watched Hataraku Maou-sama! before, you would already know how all this worked out before with the supernatural setting and the comedy attached to it. A great 1st half if you ask me.
Alas, being a 2-cour show, once the inclusion of the Dark Lord (the 1st-in-command) enters the highway, this I feel just took the show in a worse direction. The only good thing that came out of it was the inclusion of Kokoro, this innocent-looking elementary school girl that Jahy notices that she could be her next subordinate in helping her find more mana crystals. The Demon Lord character isn't bad, but looking at the way of her reaction being a non-talkative demon while simultaneously being a glutton of all things and taken care of by the Magical Girl, she's basically a mute that only responds to the things of like. Sadly though, mangaka Wakame Konbu's writing also suffers from constant repetitiveness of its gags and jokes, that once you've already seen it a few times before, you already know what to expect, and it doesn't take long for the comedy to become so stale and boring. So, I would say a great start that boggled down by the progression of the source material, adding characters that are essential to the series while putting a backburner on the comedy side. It's not an after-thought since it has already been established right from the get-go.
The Great Jahy-sama as a character can seem overwhelming at first glance because of her nonchalant behaviour to quickly get things done back to the original state with her confidence, vigor, and ambitions, and that is how we're supposed to see her from the start. It's only overtime that characters like the Ara-Ara store manager and the landlord (Ryou) sisters begin to open Jahy's hardened heart to softness and compassion towards the humans, the most significant of them being the innocent Kokoro which sees her as not just an ally but as a friend, that opens up Jahy's character development. The others like Jahy's former assistant Druj though, as much as she is the head of the conglomerate company she is leading as the president (which means money isn't a big problem), she is simply a genius character who carries all the great comedy being one that's in love with how Jahy treats her like a S&M, that even better, is VA-ed by the one and only HanaKana, which absolutely fits her character to the T. The battle to the death against the Magical Girl Kyouko Jingu, I'd fathom that Jahy doesn't even need to retaliate too much despite the fact that she destroyed the Dark Realm in the first place, because she is a parody of a hero character, a klutz out to save people from their misfortunes. The more mana crystals that she collects, the greater the karma of bad luck. Even more detrimental is Salwa (or Saurva if you wish) who aims to take Jahy's place as the 2nd-in-command, and you can think of her as the sidekick to present some kind of rivalry that her plans constantly goes awry each and every single time. A decent character to break the mold, but not by much.
Production-wise, don't expect too much from the decent studio that is Silver Link, and as much as the quality is concerned for long-running shows like this one, director Mirai Minato and his staff team (which surprisingly has hit-or-miss series composer Michiko Yokote onboard) did their best to keep it decent without being too flashy, because really, this show doesn't need that glamour. Sound-wise, this is also another show where I'd find that the former half's OST is the much better one compared to the latter half in every single regard. I mean, Yui Ogura's OP and the NEGI☆U Hololive ED were the perfect starter OST songs set for the show, giving it the appeal that the show really needed to stand out from the outset. While Sumire Uesaka's OP and Miho Okazaki's ED for the 2nd set ain't bad, it felt like a significant downgrade from seriousness to all-play mechanics. Remember that this is a show that's set on comedy roots, and I must say that I'm kinda disappointed that the show took an abrupt turn even on aspects that felt even the most minor.
Overall, I'd feel that this show could've been made as just a 1-cour 12/13 episode production, and since that would've been enough for fans to clamor for another season of Jahy-sama, I'd guess that stretching this to a 2-cour made the most sense to encapsulate the entire (translated) source material (as of the posting of this review). Also, because of its weird starting date 1 month exact into the Summer season in August, while there's clear Ws and Ls about this move, the distinction is that Jahy-sama, as good as it can get for a mime-ified version of Hataraku Maou-sama!, while feeling sub-standardly inferior to the former, the enjoyment is as much as the show starts to wear on your patience on the execution of its comedy, which is the constant variable.
See to it how you'd want to enjoy watching The Great Jahy Will NOT Be Defeated!, but it's a decent show for me.
