Jungle no Ouja Taa-chan 22

He may look like a complete loser who spends his time protecting the animals that he loves, but there is more to ranger Crawford than even he's letting on...

No. 22: Crawford the Welcomed Visitor

44.
Ta-chan: ?
Ta-chan: CRAWFORD, HOLD ON!!
Narrator: Crawford of the Wild Animal Protection Patrol. He’s an acquaintance of Ta-chan.
Crawford: Ta…Ta-chan? The poachers hit me in the head and I fainted, but I protected the animal.
Ta-chan: The animal you protected, perhaps, was this leopard that pulled your fainted self up into the tree and was going to eat you!!
Crawford: Bing-bong—
Caption: Leopard

45.
Ta-chan: At any rate, ride on my shoulders; we’ll return to my home and give you treatment…can you stand on your own?
SFX: Hyoi
SFX: Zuru zuru zuru
Ta-chan: Don’t give behavior that you’re returning evil for good!! (Turn towards him with thanks!!)
(TN: The expression Ta-chan uses to chide the leopard out is “On wo Ada de Kaesu”, which has the meaning of “returning a good deed with an evil or bad action”)
Caption: Certificate of Commendation
(TN: This caption is a funny pun that builds on the “hyou” that stands for “leopard”, changing it into “hyoushoujou”, which is “certificate for commendation” but begins with “hyou” like “leopard”, thus making it a “leopard giving a certificate”.)
Ta-chan: I’m home.

46.
Ta-chan: My…my wife Jane.
Crawford: I’m Henry Crawford of the Wild Animal Protection Patrol. I was saved from a dangerous place by your husband…
Jane: Henry Crawford: that’s a name I’ve heard somewhere…
Jane: It can’t be: Gold Medalist Olympic Gymnast Henry Crawford!!
Ta-chan: Eh, an acquaintance of yours?
Jane: This wouldn’t be understood even if it was explained to you, having been raised by a chimp, but he was a hero of America who returned with 5 Gold in the gymnastics competition.
Crawford: You remember it well. Now that you mention it, 5 Gold hung from me and I appeared in various magazines.

47.
Etekichi: Ki—
Ta-chan: But now he just has two gold balls hanging there.
(TN: Ta-chan’s line here sort of continues on from Crawford mentioning his “five gold”, with him stating he has “two kintama” or “gold balls”, which is the literal translation of “testicles”)
Jane: At any rate, it’s best that you go and take it easy until your wounds heal, hero of America.
Caption: Newspaper of Long Ago
Jane: It’s for real.
Ta-chan: Amazing elasticity, Crawford; is this a reason you did gymnastics?

48.
Narrator: As such, Crawford came to depend on the Ta-chan household for a little while.
Ta-chan: I’m certain that lazy Jane has some scheme in her gallant assistance.
Caption: Ta-chan’s intuition, which well hits on it.
Crawford: Jane-san is a good wife.
SFX: Dote
Caption: Monkey
Crawford: Jane-san and that Ta-chan she married are happy.
Hippos: Apu apu apu apu apu
Caption: Hippos

49.
Caption: Fennec
(TN: A fennec (Vulpes zerada) is a small nocturnal fox who lives in the Sahara desert and is also kept in some areas as an exotic pet)
Crawford: With that, I’m indebted in many ways. Will you be fine if you say how I can thank you?
Jane: Since you’re fine in thanking us, show us gymnastics.
SFX: Zui
Crawford: Eh?
Ta-chan: Here……
Jane: Since it’s fine even if you don’t say thanks, show me the greatest gymnastics in the world with your body that’s become healthy!! I want to see gymnastics and I did help you.
Crawford: I want to show it if I could, but I don’t have a horse like a vault or a pommel horse and…
Ta-chan: Ah—
Jane: Go—ahead with whichever you like.
Captions:
Left: Zebra
Middle: Hippo
Right: Donkey
(TN: The joke here involves Crawford bringing up various gymnastic terms involving horses…and Jane offering various animals that have “horse” as part of their name at the end like the horse apparatus! A slight explanation for all of them:
-“Chouba” (literal kanji: Leaping Horse): The Vault or “Long Horse”, where a gymnast leaps over a bar with a flip. It has since been replaced after the 2000 olympics with a table.
-“Anba” (literal kanji: Saddle Horse): The “pommel horse”, an apparatus usually with a long body with two handles on it, generally only used in male gymnastics due to the strength required to use it.
-“Shimauma” (literal kanji: Striped Horse): Zebra
-“Kaba” (literal kanji: River Horse): Hippo
-“Roba” (literal kanji: Donkey-Horse): Donkey)

50.
SFX: Tatatata
Caption: The Hippo Vault
(TN: The name of the “vault” here ended up fusing “chouba” and “kaba”, leading to “choukaba”, which I ended up translating here as “hippo vault”)
SFX: Suta
Crawford: I did do a Front-Revolving Jump, which is the easiest but
(TN: I didn’t quite know if I translate it right or even got the name right, but Crawford called his movement “Maekorotobi” in Japanese, which based on images of its performance is a vault where one leaps using the vault and does one rotation that both starts and finishes with the performer standing straight ahead facing in a direction that faces the vault when starting and having it behind them in the same direction when completing the same vault)
Caption: Flamingos
Jane: 9.90
Ta-chan: That was good, Crawford.
SFX: Pachi pachi
Narrator: Crawford was a welcomed visitor…

51.
4. Happiness
I’m happy when I sleep.
It’s great to sleep fast and sound and to have various dreams.
In spite of being a mangaka, I don’t have physical strength and can’t work with 5-6 hours of sleep.
I steadily sleep 8 hours.

Tokuhiro: U~~h, deadline, deadline

Caption: I see a lot dreams where I’m standing on a precipitous cliff. Shouldn’t myself characteristically not face this as a mangaka?

TN: OK, now that came out of left field. That idiot loser Crawford...an Olympic champion? Well, I know usually Olympic winners usually have a hard time finding a job after their period of physical prowless is done, but I wouldn't have pinned down that lazy, strange Crawford in having such a past like that. (then again on first glimpse, you don't realize that Jane used to be thin...or that Ta-chan is an Egyptian prince) I somehow liked Jane's weird manipulation this time even if it did feel a bit much on the idiot to relive his glory days...though I loved the "horse" joke and him using the hippo as a vault. At least even Crawford has some physical skill left...even if he's still probably going to end up leopard food someday.