In honour of Sugachi’s (delayed) birthday, the Univeil Manga Club presents the long-awaited English fan translation of Sui Ishida’s manga one-shot, Parsley! (Cubari || Mangadex)
Focusing on the Onyx class in the Jack Jeanne universe, Kiyoharu Sugachi struggles with self-doubt, calling himself just a ‘garnish’ in comparison to the other incredible performers at Univeil. But he’s forced to face these insecurities head-on when chosen by the class leader, Dakeshin Kaido, to take the leading female role as the Al Jeanne. The story shows the beginning of Sugachi and Kaido’s partnership, one year before the first game.
As this is a prequel story, there are no spoilers for any game routes. While the game provides more context for certain characters (such as Fumi), the translation was written to make it understandable to a general audience with no prior knowledge. Dialect features were also added to Sugachi’s speech to try to distinguish his heavy Kansai dialect.
I would also highly recommend checking out the fully voice acted video which goes through the entire story panel by panel.
The official manga is also available physically/digitally in Japanese via the Foliage anthology, which includes Puppet and Pecker. (Shueisha || Bookwalker). Please support the official release if possible.
Other Jack Jeanne manga:
Puppet (EN): Mangadex
Duckweed (JP only): Part 1 || Part 2
January 19th is Suzu's birthday so I am here once again with a birthday story translation. This was posted last year by Towada on the official website and takes place on Suzu's birthday in-game.
People familiar with the game will recognize this is the first birthday story we're getting after the Christmas route split. I've checked for both the Suzu route and the Kisa route and the story still works on this date either way, but there is a tone shift on this day in his own route which makes it work particularly well. There are no route spoilers but it does add additional weight to his character and gives us a few more nuggets of Tamasaka lore.
Suzu's image flower is the sunflower which Ishida explains as being a large, bright, and powerful flower that faces the sun head-on with a feeling of passion. Towada also posted this sunflower art on Bluesky, noting that everyone probably already figured this would be Suzu's.
(Side note: I will not be translating Neji's bday story as someone asked me last year if they could do that one. Also I had some formatting issues with denoting dialogue spoken from a script versus regular dialogue so I ended up using 《 》)
Clouds trail across the winter sky like the puff of white from an exhale. In the faint light of early morning, rhythmic footsteps echo down the cobbled streets of Himehiko Way.
A morning run had been part of Suzu Orimaki's daily routine for quite some time. Normally the road was bustling with tourists, but the crowds had yet to arrive at this hour and the view was wonderful.
"Hmm?"
Without the crowds to block his view, he spotted something.
A man, about in his early 70s, was staring down at stacks of booklets piled up next to the hedge. They were covered up by his shadow.
"Mornin'!" Suzu slipped a little into his stage voice volume as he greeted the man
The man looked up in surprise before saying, "Oh it's you." His expression softened. He was the owner of the house behind the hedges. Since he made a habit to clean the road every morning, the two of them would always exchange greetings and had gotten to know each other.
Suzu sometimes helped out with the cleaning and got to hear the knowledgeable man's stories about Tamasaka City.
"I'm glad I saw you one last time."
"Last time? Whaddya mean?" He had heard something about the man moving to the same city as his son and daughter-in-law.
"I had wanted to stay in Tamasaka for the rest of my life but…after a point it's just a 'bonewife' isn't it?"
"'Bonewife'?"
"It's a Tamasaka folk tale."
The man removed one of the booklets from the bundle and handed it to Suzu. The cover read Tamasaka Folk Tales: The Bonewife, with the man listed as the editor.
"This was from my hobby of collecting Tamasaka folk tales. My late wife…she loved my stories about the city so I tried to collect them all on paper for her to read. I was away from home working a lot so I figured she was lonely."
"So you made these to share with your wife?"
The man shook his head.
"I started working on it after she passed."
A gust of northern wind swept down the street, playfully flipping through the stacks.
"…So what are you gonna do with them?"
Suzu knew that they were lined up to be taken to the trash. Yet he asked anyways.
"They've just become baggage." The man laughed it off cheerily, as if trying to brush away their importance to him.
"In that case," Suzu held up the booklet in his hand, "can I have this?"
"Uh, well sure but…."
Suzu pointed at the stack next to the confused man.
"I'll take all of those, please." The man's eyes opened wide.
"All of them?"
"All of them." Suzu nodded.
"What on earth could you do with these things," the man said as he laughed once again.
"I'll use them in practice." Suzu's response without a moment of hesitation caught the man off-guard. "I'd like to have them." Suzu looked directly at the man. The man's eyes finally met with his.
"Oh you're a cheeky one ain't ya!" He burst out laughing. "Take 'em, take 'em, use as many as you like!" He laughed and laughed until his voice gave way to a small creak in his throat and white fog trailed from his breath.
Then the man turned away and covered his face. Suzu dropped his eyes to the booklets.
"People around the neighbourhood say you're pretty amazing up there on stage." He rubbed at his face then looked at Suzu. "I'm coming to the next show." His face was bright again.
(I'm gonna spread these stories through Univeil.)
Suzu thanked the man, "Well, I'll see you later," and dashed back up the hill he was previously running down. His running habit was a remnant from his kendo days.
He reached Mount Oodate in no time and walked deep into the forest until he reached a place where the sunlight shone through the trees like a spotlight.
"The Bonewife"
He had brought just the one booklet with him.
"《Once upon a time, there was a man. The man was pressured by his work and passed many days without a care towards his wife.》"
As he read it aloud, Suzu's vocal expression began to change.
"《Just be quiet!》" His voice was cloaked in winter cold. "《Don't talk to me about taking a break. If I don't get this job finished, there won't be any money coming in.》"
Suzu, or rather the man, spoke as if to push his wife away. He didn't notice how pale she was as she hung her head, apologized, and stood up from her chair.
"《How could this happen?! This can't be! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!!》"
He woke up the next morning to find his wife's body as cold as his words from earlier. "《But I wanted to buy you a kimono. I wanted to buy you dango. I wanted to take you to a play…!》"
The man wept day and night for three years.
Until one day, laughter reverberated through the house.
"《Hahaha, how's that? Beautiful, right? It's for the play tomorrow. Hahaha, hahahaha.》"
Curious, the townspeople peeked inside his home. There they saw a beautifully dressed skeleton. The man had dug up his wife's grave and brought the bones home with him.
The townspeople tried to tear him away from it.
"《What are you doing! Don't touch my wife, off, off!!》"
When the man managed to shake free of them, he grasped the skeleton in his arms and fled into the darkness of night. He never returned again.
"《The way he cuddles up with those bones, if only he did that when his wife was still alive. This is a story of a pitiful man.》"
As he read the editor's closing note, he thought of the man from earlier. Suzu tilted his head back to the sky and let out a breath that rose from his mouth like smoke.
"All right!"
Suzu bent down and put both of his hands on the cold hardened ground.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please watch closely."
Suzu tightened his fists and stood up from the ground as if trying to draw 'something' out of it. This thing immediately tried to collapse back into the earth, but he forced it to draw close and started dancing with it ―― a dance with a fragile and fleeting skeleton.
He used to do kendo.
He used to have dreams for it.
But those dreams were soon crushed.
He thought that something in him had already died once. Just because he never talked about it did not mean he had gotten over it. It still hurt, even now. It probably always would. Because it mattered to him.
And so, he came to live with this pain.
"Nagayama-sensei, I'm still having trouble moving my body right. Can you tell me about any clinics or trainers or people who could help?"
When Suzu asked this to the Onyx homeroom teacher, Yamato Nagayama, the teacher grabbed him firmly by the shoulder.
"In your case, Orimaki, you can just keep dancing." His hands and words were both heated up.
"There's no need for you to engage with the opinions of others. Please adhere to your own intuition." That was the response from Amber's homeroom teacher, Kazuya Tagane, when he tried asking for advice on scripts that might suit him.
"But I'd like to learn a bit from everyone."
Tagane squinted his eyes, "That is fine then," and wrote down several works on a piece of paper.
"Little red bird, it is not morning once the sun has reached its peak."
That one was from Rhodonite's homeroom teacher, Midori Tancho. She said it out of nowhere one day when they passed each other in the hall.
"Some think that if the sun did not shine each day that there would be endless night, but those who can keep the light burning within themselves will have eternal morning. It depends on you."
Univeil was a place to continue finding oneself.
Suzu clenched his fists as if he could feel his own passion running through them.
(There it is.)
A weight could suddenly be felt in his hand. He gladly pulled it up towards himself.
It was as if the bones grew flesh and a beautiful girl had come to life.
Suzu danced in a blend of brilliance and happiness.
The man continued to pen his regrets towards his late wife. But at the same time, he also continued to inscribe his love for her.
The girl's body became soft and light. Suzu stretched their clasped hands high up towards the sky to release her.
There wasn't a speck of shadow in that cloudy sky.
――The final play
He felt that if he lost sight of himself within that whirlwind of emotions, that he would easily be sucked away.
So he held firm to the core within himself.
He loved the stage. He loved Univeil's stage in particular.
That stage drove away his shadows. That was the self he wanted to be.
And then――
Suzu gripped his fist tightly around the traces of that weight in his hand.
"…Wait, oh crap, I'm running late!!"
A school bell rang in the distance. Suzu hurriedly ran off.
For him, every day at Univeil was something special.
Today, January 19th, was no exception.
(Masterlist link for all previous story translations)
"but if i gave up on being pretty i wouldnt know how to be alive" ; this lyric maybe is talking abt physical look but for me is more abt if i dont hold up to my own standard (if i gave up on being pretty) then i would just rather destroy everything (then i wouldnt know how to be alive)
I enjoy related reading and thought others might as well so I'm sharing this list of JJ literary references and allusions* in the hope it brings additional color to your Jack Jeanne world as it has for me.
If I can make a recommendation, you may want to start with the "Interview References". These came from Ishida and Towada in interviews and most are connected to specific characters. Anything else with 'direct' is mentioned either by name or strongly alluded to. 'Related' either have a connection to Ishida's other works and could apply to Jack Jeanne too or are explained in the notes.
This list is still very much a work in progress. There are works I can't quite pinpoint or have less confidence in that I hope to add if the connection becomes clearer. If anyone else is tracking things down, I'd love to work together.
Finally, thank you to everyone who has shared translations and to himehikoshrine, who pointed me in the direction of some things early in this project that I might have missed. Any mistakes you find here are entirely my own.
Please reach out if you spot a mistake, have questions, or would like to chat about anything on the list.
Happy reading(/listening/watching)!
Sheet1
English Title/Topic - Author,Japanese Title/Topic (Author),Length,Connection,Interview Referenced,Other Notes
Maxims and Reflections
*The list includes things other than literature as well
Note: These references were identified in the English translation.
First of all I would like to give massive credit to Tiktok user @campaign_baby for their Tiktok I saw on this that really made me think of it alot more
I will Bring up Examples from:
Shikaku
Mermaid Rhapsody
Goodbye Eri
Fire Punch
Chainsaw Man Part 1 (Quite a big spoiler in this will give fair warning)
Fujimoto has a sort of strange method he uses to write that a character Loves/cares deeply for someone. And its The character either being willing to be consumed or to provide sustenance to someone, Or to consume the other person. Examples:
Shikaku
After Shikaku confesses her love for Yucel, He rushes to the hospital to offer her his blood, Making her into an immortal vampire just like him. Yucel has also fallen for Shikaku, its basically his confession of love, He wants to live with her Forever.
Its drawn in a way you can tell its such an act of compassion too.
Mermaid Rhapsody
"I loved her so much that I thought, If it was by someone with a smile as pretty as hers, Maybe being eaten wouldn't be so bad."
Toshihides Dad feels the exact same way about his Mom as Toshihide feels about Shijyu. Mermaids eat humans, But that never mattered to either of them.
Goodbye Eri
In Yuutas Movie about Eri, He writes her to be a Vampire, because he wouldnt actually mind to be her sustenance, In his movie, he loves Eri so much. (I genuinely cant read this fucking story without sobbing, Rereading it again just to get this screengrab just made me cry for like 20 min help)
Fire Punch
This one is Pretty straight forward, Agni with his regenerative powers feeds his village by continuously chopping of his Arm so they dont all starve to death. But more importantly he does this to prevent his sister from doing it aswell. He doesnt want her to suffer that pain so he takes sole responsibility for providing himself to the village.
Agni also later feeds his followers with the help of Togata Chopping of the part of his face that isnt on Fire. I think this has more todo with making sure Togata gets fed rather than his followers, To Agni Togata means alot.
⚠️Chainsaw Man Part 1 (Spoilers for the Final arc)⚠️
When Power is about to Die, Power not only offers her own blood For Denji to Drink so he can get back to health, But Pochita also offers a small part of himself so she can come back as a Powerful Devil.
And ofcourse the big one is Denji Eating Makima. He obviously has to and all for the sake of erasing her. But he explicitly says it wasnt an Attack, It was an act of Love.
Its such a fascinating thing that the idea of consuming someone can be concidered something you do to a cherished one, as an affectionate thing. I guess as Denji mentions that you basically become one with eachother in a way if you consume them.
But this is such a Weird thing Right? Where does this idea even originate from? Well ofcourse we can only Speculate but I really think he took on inspiration from his own life here, Because he has actually done this to someone he loved. Yes, Seriously.
Tatsuki Fujimoto eating his deceased Pet Fish
In the Authors notes for "Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man: 22-26" Fujimoto shares a story from when he was 24:
"Even though we were poor, we had a pet Japanese rice fish. I found it dead one summer. I went to toss its body into the trash like in Parasyte, but my girlfriend said she wanted me to bury it, So off I went to the park, alone. I tried to bury it under this big tree, but the ground was too hard, my hands got all dirty and I had no hole to show for my effort. Out of Options, I figured I would pretend I had buried the fish and left it lying there on top of the ground. As I watched it for a little while, ants found the body and began to carry it away. Im not sure what came over me, but in that moment, love for that pet fish welled within me for the first time. I brushed the ants away, and then Ate it."
You can read the full story here
It has that "Wait what the hell am I reading" Charm to the story like alot of his works, But theres something so weirdly beautiful about this story, Somehow stricken with grief and love for this fish, He ate it. As Denji says, its not an attack, his fish is part of him now and its an act of love. So strange, yet so Beautiful.
Anyways thanks for reading this insanely long post if you even got this far I appreciate it!
horoscopes are over, tell me about yourself with your jack jeanne story ideas, au scenarios, and headcanons.
some of mine are:
suzukisa postgame where suzu's mom immediately takes kisa in as a daughter. actually suzu's mom just in general meeting the rest of quartz. these kids need an actual adult
fumi being childhood friends with tsuki and kisa (at a separate time from souchan)
kaido and sugachi are basically married. the instant they were announced for the shuffle cd everyone unanimously agreed they'd be covering compass line, the clearly romantic duet song. "best partners in univeil" uh huh.
germansingergirl
discoholicmusic
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
