Hell Teacher Nube 25

How far will a parent go to disciplining their child...to the point of utilizing imaginary fears? When the parent of one of Nube's students tries to use him as part of a new campaign, will he end up making things better...or worse!?

#25: Otonai-san is Passing Through

27.
Narrator: Do you know of “Otonai-san”? “Otonai” has a meaning of “To Call”…and “To Visit”.
(TN: This was a tad difficult here: there were two “verbs” used to explain “otonai”: “otonau” and “otozureru”, both of which end up using the verb explaining it as “to visit”. However, the actual kanji used has several different meanings including “call on”, “visit”, “look up” and “offer sympathy”: in order to show slight difference between the two, I used “to call” for “otonau” and “to visit” for “otozureru”)
SFX: PIKYU—N CHUDO—N
Narrator: They are said to come when you’ve come to leave your fusuma or door partially-open.
(TN: A “fusuma” is a particular rectangular-panel door that slides open, usually made of wood with paper or cloth on both side and used in traditionally Japanese rooms)

28.
(Title page…yes, it’s a hand)

29.
Voice: UWAAAAA
Sign: YAMAGUCHI DENTISTRY
Akira: WHAT’S WRONG, KEISUKE!?
SFX: DOTA DOTA
Keisuke: Otonai-san, Otonai-san has appeared. (Wa~~) I’m scared, big bro~~
Voice: Keisuke!
Mrs. Yamaguchi: You’ve been playing your games with the fusuma left open again. Really! “Otonai-san” will come to where slovenly children are!
Caption: Akira-kun’s mother
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Every time you see Otonai-san, you’ll come to grow a tail!!
Keisuke: HIEEE!

30.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: While we’re at it, please clean up your scattered toys. If you don’t do as I say, Otonai-san will come.
Keisuke: WA—H! WA—H!
SFX: BATA BATA
Akira: Stop that mother. Don’t scare Keisuke that much.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Ara, isn’t it good? With this, he’ll become a good boy.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Akira, didn’t you believe in it long ago?
Akira: Ji…
Akira: Mother doesn’t understand: how scared ghost stories are to a small child…raising a child using fear is quite cruel!
Akira: Though I want for Keisuke to be raised much more bigheartedly...

31.
Voice: WHAT’S THAT~~!?
Nube: A PTA-recommended ghost, this is!?
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Right! It is best to scare small children who can’t reasonably be communicated with!
Caption: --Class 5-3 Parents Meeting
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Since I’ve used the tales of “Otonai-san” on my children, they’ve become obedient children who do whatever is told of them. By all means, I want to propagate this youkai to the entire school.

32.
Nube: Even if we don’t have this roundabout method…hitting them with one slap to the butt…
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Well
Mothers: You want to hit them!? How uncivilized. We oppose violence!
SFX: KENKEN GAKU GAKU
Nube: Well isn’t it violent to raise children by scaring them with a ghost story!?
Mrs. Yamaguchi: In any case! The “Youkai for Raising Children” campaign will be enacted by the PTA: the first shot will be Otonai-san. Hereafter, we have a plan that will make “A Spirit That Appears When You Don’t Give Greetings” and “A Spirit That Appears When You Don’t Do Homework” that will be used to educate children.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: We request cooperation of you, Nueno-sensei.
Nube: Fine then!!
Sign:
CLOSE IT IF IT’S OPEN!
“OTONAI-SAN” will come for sloppy children who don’t close the door!
AUTHORIZED BY
THE PTA &
NUBE-SENSEI

33.
Student 1: Is this for real!?
Student 2: It was authorized by Nube-sensei.
Student 3: So it’s for real.
SFX; ZAWA ZAWA
Hiroshi: Ha ha ha, they’re coming to wherever there’s sloppy people? Well it’s not connec—ted with me.
Kyouko: I think they’ll come for you first. (Your fly’s completely open…)
Hiroshi: Ah, Nube, is “Otonai-san” for real?
Kyouko: A convenient spirit for adults is something desperate but?
SFX: GIKU
Nube: Eh? Ah, no, hahaha…
Kyouko: It can’t be that you were threatened by the ladies of the PTA and had no choice but to approve this—huh!?
Kanji: BULL’S-EYE
Nube: She’s sharp…
Boy: It’s terrible—a 1st grader has fallen from the window--!

34.
Akira: Keisuke.
Nube: Akira! This your brother! He’s fine: he isn’t hurt due to falling on the shrubbery.
Akira: Dummy! Why would you climb out some window!
Keisuke: But…
Keisuke: Because the 2nd floor window was half-open…Otonai-san could come…
Akira: NUBE!
Nube: YE…YES!
Akira: Why did you put up those posters! Isn’t Keisuke getting excessively scared thanks to you!
Nube: But they’re…
Akira: I don’t know if this is for training for anything but! Do adults think about the extent of how they wound children by a cheerfully-suitable lie!?
Nube: I’m sorry…

35.
Akira: Recently, Keisuke has become completely nervous…he ends up trembling when he discovers even a slight crack in the door.
Kyouko: Pitiful.
Kyouko: You end up simply believing in what your parents say when you’re young.
Hiroshi: Understood, understood~~
Hiroshi: I’ve been deceived by the lie of a parent. Until quite recently, I too thought a cabaret was a sight-seeing area. (flasahback) Father, are you going to the cabaret again?
(TN: Hiroshi literally uses the line “kyabakura”, which fully is “cabaret club”, but somehow even Hiroshi isn’t stupid enough to think the entire “cabaret club” is a sight-seeing area…I think)
Mr. Tateno: Yep: those Daibutsu-sama are large at the cabaret—(Gahaha)
(TN: A “Daibutsu-sama” is generally a really, really large Buddha statue…I think you can see where this is going)
Kyouko: Your dad said…
Nube: Alright, understood: leave this to me! I’ll persuade Akira’s mother and stop this stupid campaign!
SFX: BISHI!
Akira: Really!?
Akira: …No…it’s perhaps impossible. (Butsu) My mother is quite shrewd (butsu)…This soft-hearted youngster will end up seduced simply by her. (butsu)
Nube: Hey hey hey.
Nube: Even if it seems like that, when Nube-sensei does something, he does it! Watch! That PTA woman will be easy as pie—
(TN: Nube uses an expression “chochoi no choi”, which is pretty much an expression for “extremely simple”…it was hard to directly translate it so I used the English expression “easy as pie” or “simple as 1, 2, 3” here)

36.
Nube: AHAHAHA
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Well—children must be raised strictly after all.
Nube: (AHAHAHA…) Really, of course!
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Here, go ahead, another glass.
Nube: Ah, thanks, sorry for that.
Hiroshi: He’s being seduced as easy as pie…
Akira: There isn’t a greater harm than this—
Hiroshi: Since it’s come to this, is the only thing we can do is a make-believe exorcism?
Kyouko: Right: it’s the only way to relieve Keisuke-kun…
Akira: Right…at any rate it’s a spirit that doesn’t exist due to being fabricated by mother…
Keisuke: …It’s cold…
Kyouko: This is weird!? His face-color is ghastly pale…
Akira: Keisuke!?
Hiroshi: It’s better to put him on his side; let’s go to his room.

37.
Nube: Uh uh uh, Ritsuko-sensei~~~
SFX: BESO BESO
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Well, so then, are you tormented by that beautiful teacher…(to herself) What, is he a maudlin drinker?
SFX: DON!
Nube: That’s what it is: no matter how I call her out, that woman won’t bend at all…
Nube: UOO, RITSUKO~~~
SFX: GABA
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Ho…hold on, teacher!
Nube: Ah~~you’re an iron woman.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Since we ran out of alcohol, I’ll buy some. (to herself) He’s an outrageous brawling drunk…
Keisuke: It’s coming (Haa haa) It’s coming.
Kyouko: He’s having a nightmare.
Hiroshi: He’s that scared…
Hiroshi: Hold on! I’ll call teacher now…
SFX: GARA

38.
SFX: GOSHI
SFX: ZUZUZUZUZU

39.
Kyouko: What, what’s wrong, Hiroshi…
Kyouko: N?
Kyouko: EH!?
SFX: ZUZU…ZUZUZU
Kyouko: EEH~~~!?

40.
Ghost: OOOH…OOOOOH…
Hiroshi: IT APPEARED~~
Akira: THAT OTONAI-SAN EXISTS!!

41.
Kyouko: WA—WA—
Hiroshi: Don’t be scared! It’s best to challenge a ghost with a strong attitude!
Hiroshi: Hey you, why did you come here, go back quickly!
SFX: GO!
Hiroshi: !!
Ghost: OOOOH~~~
Hiroshi: Uwa—what: he’s coming for me—
Kyouko: Hiroshi!
Akira: Hiroshi-kun.
SFX: BARI
Kyouko: GE!

42.-43.
Kyouko: IT’S A HERD OF OTONAI-SAN—
Ghosts: PASSING THROUGH PASSING THROUGH. HERE IS SOME NARROW LANE.
SFX: ZORO ZORO ZORO ZORO
Kyouko: HIII
Ghosts: THE NARROW LANE OF TENJIN.
(TN: “Tenjin” is in reference to the Shinto god of scholarship, also known by some as the spirit of Sugawara no Michizane. The name literally translates into “heavenly god”)
SFX: SUUTSU
Akira: They’re going outside.

44.
SFX: SUU | KARI…
Hiroshi: Nube?
Nube: Well, it’s here.
SFX: KARI!
Kyouko: Nube…perhaps Akira’s house was
Nube: Yes, you understood with a glance: this here is a Reidou. (a spirit route)

45.
Nube: Many of them are untended deceased…lonely spirits whom no one has held a memorial service for though they are dead. Since there’s nothing they can do, they make a round trip many, many times to the place they’ve died and to a shrine or temple where they can have a memorial service for themselves.
Nube: There is a shrine up ahead. They were all going towards over there. There, by chance, is Akira’s house…
Nube: However midway, with a door that had become half-open, it stopped the spirits there. The door gained an effect of peeping into another world. To the spirits, it became a peeping window connecting from that world to the present world.
Nube: This symbol is a signpost showing the Reidou. With this, you won’t see them anymore since the Reidou has moved from Akira’s house to here.
Kyouko: So, Otonai-san are
Nube: Correct: they’re not some spirit for discipline.
Akira: They’re pitiful spirits, peeping into the present world unintentionally with too much longing…
Hiroshi: That’s right…

46.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Ara: teacher, you’re already going home?
Nube: Yeah, the exorcism is already done. Good ni—ght.
Akira: That’s great: Otonai-san won’t be appearing anymore.
Keisuke: Nope!
Mrs. Yamaguchi: They were exorcised? That’s unnecessary.
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Hmph…what is this charm!
SFX: GASHI GASHI
Mrs. Yamaguchi: All that trouble to use it for raising children and yet…Well, it’s fine: at any rate, Otonai-san is some made-up story…
Mrs. Yamaguchi: Now I’ll think up a much more frightening spirit…

47.
SFX: NU
Mrs. Yamaguchi: GYOEEE~~~
Narrator: The next day, Akria’s mother went around tearing off the “Otonai-san” posters throughout the school…

48.
NUBE-SENSEI’S GREAT YOUKAI ENCYCLOPEDIA

19. Marathon Ghosts

There are two kinds of situations where it’s said “a spirit has appeared”. The first is what is called a “jibakurei”, who is at a place which has a connection like “a famous suicide spot”, tied to a place here and can’t move from it.

The other is a situation which comes to be a “spirit route” like this “Otonai-san”. This time was a story about a “spirit route”.

There is a National “T” University, which is in “T City” in Ibaraki Prefecture. “Marathon ghosts” emerge at the student dorm, which are in the “H” district. These spirits of the dead ground staff, wholly by rumor, are said to go through the wall one after another from the room at the end of the student accommodations and make one lap around the dorm by all means at 2 A.M. at night. Due to this, the shrieks of the students going “GYA--!” from the room at the end of the dorm occur one after another when these spirits appear and lap around the dorm. Since this is a quite famous story at “T” university, the people who are around “T” University as acquaintances are fine as they hear it.

By the way: these Marathon Ghosts haven’t seemed to emerge presently. It’s been said it’s due to an exorcism by a method that was informed as quick-witted by a certain student by all means many years ago. The method was uniquely stretching a paper tape which showed a “marathon goal” to the room that had become the spirit route. It ran through each room and the spirits who broke through this paper tape were happily smiling, and disappeared into smoke with just that.

(TN: A couple things:
1. Can’t quite remember if I translated it, but “jibakurei” = “ghost of a suicide victim”
2. The school that is being referenced as “National “T” University” of “T” City is the “University of Tsukuba” in the city of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture. Though originally established as the “Tokyo University of Education” in 1872 (as one of the oldest universities in Japan), it became it’s current form in 1973 and considered one of the best universities in Asia)

TN: Let me start off with this: Mrs. Yamaguchi is just a strict witch and she deserved everything she got at the end. Considering that she literally nearly drove her own son insane (well both of them) and nearly screwed Nube's reputation just so she can administer her will on Doumori Elementary, she deserved that ending no matter how well intentioned she claimed to be. In a way, the whole conflict of Mrs. Yamaguchi, Akira and Nube (with Keisuke and the Otonai stuck in the middle) made for a fascinating and peculiar chapter in how it turned out, possibly better than imagined but could used a bit of tweaking. The fact that one of the parents of one of Nube's students would have the authority of a major role in school PTA just shows that he can bend to power if needed, even if it's just ridiculous and stupid in what they wish to impose on the students that just isn't right. Likewise having Nube discover a means to manipulate Mrs. Yamaguchi to solve the real problem (moving the Otonai-san away from their home) showed how wily he can be, knowing how some people work and using it to his advantage to address the real problem. On the other hand, I really think Akira is reflected at his best in this chapter compared to the first volume...and a bit of the cliche he becomes later on: his modesty allows for him to want to be a good brother, but also stand up to his mother in something that is just wrong and inhuman to those around him at his school. He does have the potential to become something later on with this...but sadly that isn't really addressed. Possibly my only other real complaint about this chapter is that we really didn't see any other of the parents from the main students aside from Mrs. Yamaguchi as part of the PTA. I know it feels slight, but from the little we know of a few of the parents we know of (so far it is Mr. Tateno and Mrs. Inaba...though we will soon meet members of the Hosokawa and Kurita family and we meet a few others here or there later), I doubt they really would have gone completely along with Akira's mom's proposal leading to a conflict with Nube somehow being manipulated by one side or another, maybe even being a mediator between the sides. Heck, seeing several parents in one place would have been a neat dynamic if done right! That's really all I have to say...oh, except this: if you see any huge Daibutsu-kuns at your local cabaret, don't tell your folks.

BTW: this was done last night but had internet troubles...sorry if it feels a day late compared to the "A" chapter...but that was probably so freaky I doubt anyone would want to read this afterwards.