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The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!
Episode 11

by Mercedez Clewis,

How would you rate episode 11 of
The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! ?
Community score: 4.3

Episode 11, “The Landlord Can't Come Home…” is about one thing and one thing only: Jahy learning the joys of growing your own food. Okay, well.. .it's also about the brand new OP, which ushers in a new era of banger songs -and frenetic songs- for The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, which like… thank you for the food, my demonic mistress. It's greatly appreciated.

Okay, seriously, episode 11 is really about Jahy learning how to grow her own food, largely because her manager is growing food in front of the izakaya. In doing so, Jahy hopes to save money, which like… mood: I don't have any yen to rub together either, Jahy-sama. Naturally, this is easier said than done, as Jahy learns what every millennial in the pandemic learned: growing a plant is hard. Keeping said plant alive if it sprouts… is even harder, no matter how much you love your plant.

A moment of silence for Tomarou the Tomato Plant, my favorite new character in the show: he never even got to bear fruit. Only plot twist: Jahy does it, which… I'd be lying if I didn't get the strangest tears from seeing her finally succeed, especially since The Great Jahy treats us to a montage of Jahy very lovingly tending to Tomarou the Tomato Plant. Strangest tears I've ever shed, but absolutely worth it because finally, Jahy gets a break… even if she actually grew peppers instead of tomatoes. Does that make the plant Pepperou the Pepper Plant, or rather, Habanero-kun the Habanero Plant? The world may never know.

Yet all of that's just the beginning of Jahy's strife this episode. We see her, once again, go through it all: ranging from a shattered window pane to her landlord temporarily moving in to just lots of little life troubles, which feel like a kick in the pants after the Habanero Incident™. It's laughs aplenty in episode 11, though some are definitely more groan-inducing because of their relatability. I know I laughed in sympathy when Jahy's landlord gobbled up her snacks and snatched up her blanket. There's nothing like that one friend who does all of that and then some.

The laughs keep coming and they don't stop coming when it comes to The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!. Just like a seven-layer dip, there's so much to this show to enjoy. Whether you're enjoying the simmering plot of “Jahy getting mana crystals” or, like me, are fully here for the real plot of “Jahy tries to survive being in her late twenties on Earth”, there really is something here. And while the show is quite simple, it excels in its execution, squeezing laughs out of me like the last bit of ketchup in the bottle.

I think that's actually The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!'s true strength: it's really executing the slice of life with a demoness plot excellently, constantly upending Jahy's initial domineering, jaded, and snotty personality by forcing her to grow into a much more relatable, down-to-Earth character who's still got a nice growth arc ahead of her. That, in fact, is what has endeared me to Jahy so much: it's not that she's been knocked down a peg. It's that she's been knocked down a peg, and now, has to actually do a healthy amount of hard work to grow into a better person, all while hunting down those precious mana crystals. It makes for a really complex slice of life that's still perfectly playful and good, light fare, when it comes down to it.

You already know what I'm going to say: if you're not watching, then you should be watching. I'm practically begging you to swan dive into the Team Jahy fun because let me tell you: this slice of life isekai is great fun, especially when it lets its hair down and gets downright silly. You're truly missing out on a very special show from last season, and honestly? One of my Top 5 series for 2021, no questions. And like they always say: there's no time like today to catch up and become a Jahy stan too!

Rating:

The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Mercedez is a JP-EN translation and localization Editor & Proofreader/QA, pop culture critic, and a journalist who, when not writing for ANN, writes for Anime Feminist, where she's a staff editor, and for But Why Tho?. She's also a frequent cohost on the Anime Feminist Podcast, Chatty AF. This season, she's devouring Restaurant to Another World bite by delicious bite. When she's not writing and reviewing, you can find her on her Twitter or on her Instagram where she's always up to something.


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