Jahy confronts her fears of meeting the Magical Girl again and then meets her again! Later, Jahy drinks with Landlady to drown her sorrows.
Restoration Plan No. 6 – “The Great Jahy Doesn’t Seem to Stand a Chance…”
Hmm.
The Great Jahy became a total gag reaction comedy this week. In the aftermath of last week’s episode, Jahy needed to process her fear of the person who destroyed her world. And how she’s even more powerless to oppose her in the human world. The show decided to make Jahy jump at any utterance that sounded like “magic.”
In the next act, The Great Jahy built upon Jahy’s fear of the Magical Girl and how she could take her palm-sized mana crystal. Yes, she met the Magical Girl again! Her worst fears came true when the slightly bonkers Magical Girl took Jahy’s crystal away! What can Jahy do now?
The Great Jahy can drink! I love watching pretty girls drink tall mugs of beer, so this scene spoke to me on many levels. Landlady added to the humor by becoming the opposite of her usual self. She’s a happy drunk who sloppily encourages you and she’s your drunk best friend. The Store Manager revealed some of her own quirks. A common character trait among big sisters in anime is to secretly love their little sisters in embarrassing ways. Taking pictures of Ryou-chan being a sloppy affectionate drunk just adds to the Store Manager’s charm.
Still, Store Manager said a couple of things that point to the dark secrets behind The Great Jahy.
The Great Jahy is Anime for the Master Race.
Provocative, yes? Seriously, all the demons from the Dark Realm have names of daevas from the Zoroastrian religion. Zoroaster (Zarathustra) established it within the ancient Aryan culture. Yeah. Those Aryans.
I mentioned in the first episode that Jahy is the demon of “lasciviousness.” Druj is the demon of lies, and Saurva is the demon of oppression. The Great Jahy takes these elements as inspiration for why Druj needs Jahy to keep lying to her and why Saurva dresses in a neat military uniform.
Speaking of Saurva’s uniform, just be glad there aren’t Nazi symbols all over it. By the time Hitler rose to power in Germany, the culture’s zeitgeist was full of symbols and myths. The Overman (or Superman) came from the philosophy of Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra) and Wagner’s operas (The Ring Cycle). That mass hysteria clung to a culture that existed before Western Civilization.
When the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of Alexander the Great’s campaign into Persia, the Aryan culture and its Zoroastrian religion were already hundreds of years old. It’s madness to think that Germanic barbarians could be the ancestors of Persians from 2500 years ago but riding a zeitgeist can take you to weird places.
Japan hasn’t been shy about Nazi symbols in mass media until recently. In the 1970s, the ecchi anime Kekkou Kamen put swastikas everywhere. In the 2000s, Naruto borrowed heavily from Hindu and Buddhist theologies and put a swastika on Neji’s head in the manga. By the time of the anime adaptation, the symbol is an anodyne crosshatch. The Great Jahy avoided that controversy, but Saurva’s military uniform gave me the shivers because of the Aryan context.
Finally, the Store Manager and Jahy connect through Aryan references too. The craft pub Maou superficially refers to the Demon Lord that Jahy used to serve. So, it’s funny when The Great Jahy makes Store Manager call Jahy her “Number Two” employee. As if there’s an oblique relationship between the missing Demon Lord and the gentle Store Manager.
But through the Aryan lens, Mao is the Zoroastrian Moon God. And Mao and Jahy are part of an Aryan creation myth together. The Great Evil incited Jahy the Whore to slaughter the primordial cow. Remember, cows are sacred to Hindus and other cultures of the subcontinent region, so this is a big deal. According to the myth, the Moon God Mao rescued the essence of the dying cow and cared for this spirit. That essence is the progenitor of all animal life, which is how the cow became sacred in South Asian traditions.
Here’s the kicker for how Jahy and the Store Manager relate in The Great Jahy: Jahy is also known as “the vagrant” in Aryan traditions. The owner of a pub named Mao took in a homeless child named Jahy. A member of the Aryan Master Race would nod knowingly at all the references!
Heh.
The Great Jahy has PTSD about the Magical Girl. Her trigger is the word “magic.” How can Jahy laugh so loud with her head stuck in a garbage can? The Ladybeard Magical Girl is already famous in the neighborhood. Jahy lost her rock! Now what? Oh, good. The Store Manager picked it up for her. The Great Jahy still has great pride. Nothing would ever, EVER, terrify her! Oh? Jahy says she clawed herself up to the Number Two position in the Dark Realm. Can she not draw on her earliest experiences? The Great Jahy uses classic comedy setups here. Don’t leave, Jahy! You need to take a bath first because you stink from dumpster diving!
The Great Jahy still makes a great stink. Oh, no. It’s the Magical Girl? Those beauty marks under her eyes say yes. The way she says, “you there,” also agrees. Ha! Magical Girl transformation in a flash! That should well trigger Jahy. She still wants Jahy’s crystal while she’s walking around with another rock. Misfortune! Magical Girl walked into an open manhole! There was no way Jahy won that easily. Yup! The Magical Girl is like the girly version of The Terminator and Jason, from Friday the 13th, put into a JK uniform!
More misfortune! Someone in a high rise has slippery fingers. Haha! The Magical Girl trained herself to be a masochist for all the tribulation a mana crystal gives humans. Uh, good job? She’ll need that training! Here are more slippery hands! The ultimate insult again with stomping Crocs. We know The Great Jahy can’t end it like that. Yes. Yes! Mahou Shoujo Transformation! And she just stole Jahy’s crystal! What a rotten day for the Great Jahy.
Time for drinking the sorrows away. I approve. Adult Jahy drinking mugs of beer is way better than toddler Jahy chugging ale. The Great Jahy makes frothy ales look enticing. Wait a minute. Why does Store Manager agree with Jahy’s memories about what the Demon Lord allowed her to do? She says Jahy’s the Number Two of the bar, so it’s the same thing!
Aha. Landlady joins the drinking party. Oh, fun. Sweet, beautiful drunk talk. This sounds just like Uzaki getting drunk… Hoh. Landlady is Jahy’s drunken best friend! She’s the best drinking buddy ever! Landlady loves her big sister too. Uh oh. The Store Manager likes taking pics of her younger sister being cute! I’ve learned a lot about Landlady and Store Manager. I’m fulfilled.
Hohoho. Waking up naked next to another girl! The Great Jahy goes there! The Store Manager has proof of their drunken BFF behavior!
The omake shows Jahy stir-frying bean sprouts at succeeding levels of fanciness. That reminds me of One Punch Man‘s series of “normal punches.” Next time, the Great Jahy “don’t play dat!”
The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! (Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai!) streams on Crunchyroll and VRV.
