Jungle no Ouja Taa-chan 26

The wildness of the jungle may be enough to drive some crazy, even to the point of sleepless nights...

No. 26: Jane Can’t Sleep

74.
Helen: Take care of your summer body.
Narrator: Night has come to the jungle.
Ta-chan: Gori-san has a bad sleep posture.
Ta-chan: Zebras sleep when they’re standing.
Zebra: Suya suya
Narrator: However, there are also animals that are lively active when it’s night.

75.
SFX: Gasa gasa
Narrator: A carnivorous animal who attacks from behind?
SFX: Gasa gasa
Caption: Etekichi is copulating.
Jane: Just a moment, Ta-chan. Throw much more firewood on the fire. It’s dark and I couldn’t read my book.
Ta-chan: It’s already night and late and if we don’t get to bed soon
Jane: I can’t sleep.
Ta-chan: Then, I’ll gather firewood.
Narrator: Recently, Jane has had feelings of insomnia.
Caption: A red panda’s sleep-pee.
Ta-chan: Otto.

76.
Hippo: Ah.
Helen: He—Jane-san, you can’t sleep at night.
Helen: Now that you mention it, somehow you don’t have good skin color…
Jane: Because I’m delicate—
Jane: An intelligentsia raised in New York like me has moments where the life of Africa can’t meet with her body.
Jane: Here, please look at the corner of my eye.
Helen: Pitiful—
Caption: Jane’s eye
Jane: It’s reflecting.
Caption: Bear
(TN: Jane let off another weird animal pun here: she refers to “kuma”, which Helen (and we) are supposed to believe as the “corner of her eye”, but in reality the “kuma” refers to a “bear”, which is actually in her eye. It probably would have worked if I had her refer to it as a “kuma” like in Japanese but it didn’t really sound right)

77.
Ta-chan: I’ve been lacking in sleep too thanks to Jane. Since I have to gather sky-light firewood in the jungle with Jane staying up late.
(TN: Ta-chan refers to the firewood as “Akaritori no Maki”, with “Akaritori” referring to a skylight or a skylight window)
Helen: Ta-chan has a terrible complexion. Aren’t even his eyes red?
Ta-chan: Jane is fine since she doesn’t do anything during the day, but I have a job to protect the peace of the jungle during the day.
SFX: Kokkuri kokkuri (Doze doze)
Helen: It’s true. She’s dozing off due to lack of sleep.
Ta-chan: That’s a good thing. I’m certain she’s having a dream where she’s eating a kiwi.
Caption: Kiwi Fruit
Helen: Isn’t it better to wake her?
Caption: Etekichi, tired from copulating.

78.
Caption: Several days after that…
Helen: What’s wrong, Ta-chan?
Jane: He was dulled and hit from behind by a hunter.
SFX: Pon
Jane: He hasn’t slept enough in 10 days already with his collecting firewood.
Caption: He was just dulled…
Helen: Pitiful, I must heal Jane-san’s insomnia somehow. It’s beyond winding in Ta-chan.

79.
Narrator: And so, the next day
Jane: Eh—sleeping drug?
Helen: Right: it’s not dangerous since its vegetable and if you use it from tonight
Jane: Will it truly work? I’ll test it on an animal.
Jane: Take this—
Helen: Here, it’s asleep.
Jane: Tanuki, aren’t you falling asleep?
(TN: “Tanuki” is a notable “raccoon-dog” that is prominent in Japanese culture)
Helen: Right: I counted sheep one after another when I was a child. If you did that
Jane: Right—
Ta-chan: Heh—you count sheep when you can’t sleep?

80.
Jane: Take the medicine.
Jane: With that, I should compose myself and count a number of sheep.
Jane: One Barbary Sheep
Sheep: Meh~~
Caption: Barbary Sheep: the only species of sheep in Africa
(TN: The Barbary Sheep (Ammotragus lervia) is actually considered a goat-antelope . Although it is native to North Africa, it is considered somewhat rare there though introduced in other parts of the world such as North America and Europe)
Jane: Two Barbary Sheep
Sheep: Meh~~
Jane: 367 Barbary Sheep
Sheep: Meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~meh~~
Narrator: That night, the animals in the jungle came to have insomnia—huh.

81.
7. Unhappiness
When they dangle tags that is loaned out and loaned out in spite of there being many videos at the large video store…

Tokuhiro: S**t~~ But it came out again.
Caption: Fate is a serious matter.

Tokuhiro: Please let me borrow this.
Caption: Many have a pattern of having two western films and one porn video. In truth what I want to see is renting with half interest a porn video with a western film and to rent it face to face……Truly put in power and choose porn videos……

TN: Well with those disturbing thoughts in our heads (that and all the talk of Etekichi having sex), this chapter did sort of further demonstrate the almost symbiotic relationship by which Ta-chan and Jane have with one another due to their marriage, to the point that one gets troubled when the other is troubled. As Helen pointed out, Ta-chan only had problems sleeping not because he couldn't sleep but because he wants to help Jane out due to her own insomnia. Sure it shows he's a tad hen-pecked but Ta-chan is a very caring and loving husband to desire to do this for his wife. Helen...well, it seemed like she was more in it to make Ta-chan happy so she could still get him as opposed to any sort of motivation truly tied to Jane...but that's my opinion. I really loved the "kuma" joke though...and all those Barbary Sheep.