Hell Teacher Nube 127

When it comes to finding new usage of spiritual powers, Miki seems to be the queen in all matters of the occult. Her latest innovation: discovering a strange search maneuver that opens up a brand new world beneath their feet...

#127: Wonderful Dowsing Power!

99.
Narrator: Today, Kyouko has come to stay at Miki’s home.
SFX: Zaza--…
Miki: Fu fu fu: shall I cure that washboard for a bit?
SFX: Momi momi (squish squish)
Kyouko: Hey, stupid, stop that! Idiot!

100.
Miki: Isn’t it fine—it’s not what you’ve experienced…well, haven’t you ever?
Kyouko: I get it!!
Miki: Ara, what’s that ring?
Kyouko: It’s from my cousin who’s studying abroad in france.
“Cousin”: I give this to Madamoiselle Kyouko…
(TN: So I won’t have to go through that again: Kyouko has an older male cousin, with the usage of the word “itoko” to explain him)
Miki: He—show me.
SFX: Supo
Miki: Ah.
SFX: Tsuru
Kyouko: Ah—
SFX: Za— | Poto
Kyouko: Stupid, stupid, don’t wash away--!
Miki: Sorry.
Miki: But it will be fine: we’ll find it immediately. Well—it’s the great activity of Miracle Miki-chan even today!!
SFX: Sa
Kyouko: Eh? What will you do?

101.
Miki: Ja—n! This!
(TN: The “Ja—n” here is sort of a SFX akin to “ta-dah”, but I decided to keep it as is since it’s a rather recognizable SFX in Japanese to English)

102.
Miki: These are psychic ability locators called Dowsing Rods. They can detect things within the earth.
Kyouko: Aren’t those merely thick wires?
Miki: First, we search for the pipe where water flows from the bath. We hold them parallel like this.
(TN: Though I merely translated it as “pipe”, Miki literally calls it a “dokan” or an “earthenware pipe”)
Miki: I walk in a zig-zap and
SFX: Biriri
Miki: Mu

103.
SFX: Hyun!
Miki: It’s spontaneously opening at the place where the pipe is buried!
Kyouko: You’re…lying: loan me this. You moved them with your hands.
SFX: Ba
Miki: A…ah, it’s really opening!!
Miki: Well? These psychic rods can be done by people in general.
Miki: There isn’t a special trick to these mysterious rods.
Caption 1: Thick Wires
Caption 2: Insert in
Caption 3: Objects cut off tubes of a ball-point pen. The tubes can be made by curling up cardboard.

104.
Miki: Generally finding the pipe is by walking in a zig-zag and checking for points where the rods open up. That’s the start of dowsing. Even all of you readers can practice by finding pipes from a place where there’s only water.
Caption: X = Connect places where the rods open and you’ll know the place of the underground pipe.
Miki: Here is the terminus of the pipe…
SFX: Dobo dobo | Gasa
Miki: I found the ring.
Voice: Well now, dowsing…
Nube: Haha…actually, dowsing are the famous psychic rods to the extent they’re used by the water department, though it’s for finding pipes.
Kyouko: Eh?
Miki: There.

105.
Nube: Why is it that the man from the water department can’t see that they’re walking while holding those rods deadly serious?
Nube: On the other hand, Robert Mcnamara, the American Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, created a Dowsing Corp in the Marine Corp and they searched for landmines; their damage from these mines were said to have been reduced to 1 in 8.
(TN: Robert Mcnamara is the controversial Secretary of Defense under both Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, living between 1916 and 2009. He is most notable as the man who was the architect of the Vietnam War, increasing their involvement and leading to many of the death and controversies that ended up occurring during and after his time in office. The tale about his usage of dowsing material, mostly pendulums, in the US combat in search of landmines is a true one)
Nube: The principal of dowsing is to feel something with a subconscious awareness and move it in your hand unconsciously, similar to the fuuchi. An object within the earth is felt and delicately opens by movement of the hands.
(TN: As I mentioned back when talking about “Fuuchi”, it’s essentially a cute version of “furiko” or “pendulum”)
Nube: Dowsing reacts and opens to an object that is imagined: water if it’s water, metal if it’s metal, a creature if it’s a creature.

106.
Nube: In short: reasonably if you walk while thinking “treasure, treasure”, then you can discover even treasure. Well, there is a limit but
Miki: !
Nube: --What was with thinking that stupid thing…huh?
SFX: Jara jara jara
Voices: Wai wai gaya gaya
Miki: Well—search, search! The person who finds treasure will give me 10%--

107.
Makoto: Ah, there’s a reaction.
Miki: Alright—leave this to me!
SFX: Sa
Miki: What everyone is using now is what’s called an L-rod; this is a Y-rod which dowses for the depth which the thing is buried. You make steps holding this and you’ll know the depth.
Caption: Held loosely.
Miki: For example: think and have in mind that one step is 20 cm and: stamp once…
SFX: Ton
Miki: Twice..
SFX: Ton
SFX: Pyo—n | Ton
Miki: The rod jumped at three times.
Miki: Because I stepped down three times, it is buried at the depth of 60 cm, or 20 X 3. Some discretion for an option of steps, if I felt it was 1m for a step, then it would be 3m with 1m X 3.
(TN: I’m not sure the whole matter regarding Miki taking here, but basically she’s just saying that “if she set up in her mind it was a meter for each step and takes three steps before losing her Y-rod, it would end up becoming 3 meters)
SFx: Zakku zakku
Miki: Ah! It’s emerged!

108.
Makoto: Waa: amazing. It’s filled with tops, cards and plastic models.
(TN: The cards here are specifically “menko”, which I mentioned prior as a card game involving slapping and overturning cards to take whatever comes up)
Boys: Wow! That’s great!
Miki: Ke…it’s trash.
Voice: Ooh, we’ve got an amazing treasure!
SFX: Dopyu~~
Hiroshi: Look! We got photo collections. It’s Matsuda Seiko, Abe Shizue and Agnes Lum; they have great bodies--!!
(TN: The three mentioned here are Japanese models and artists who became prominent and notable in the 70s and 80s. I already went into Seiko Matsuda back in vol. 14, so a bit on the other two:
-Shizue Abe is a musician and actress who made her name as a singer in the mid-late 70s and became prominent in dramas for an entire period between the late 70s and throughout the 80s.
-Agnes Lum (whom is the favorite model of Ryotsu in KochiKame…well when the series started in the mid-70s), is a Hawaiian-born gravure model of Hawaiian and Chinese ancestry. She became popular from the moment she became an advertiser for Clarion car products in 1975 and was a major model of the period of the mid-late 1970s)
Miki: Trash.
Shuichi: Amazing! A major discovery! Bequested from space! The Monolith!
(TN: I have no idea why Shuichi would find “that”, but basically this is a reference, for those who don’t know, to the monoliths that are crucial to the works of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the stories of Arthur C. Clarke written in collaboration. The monoliths in the novels are objects created by a super-advanced civilization billions of years in the past that influence evolution)
Miki: Trash

109.
Akira: Th…that’s…
Miki: Trash----!!
Nube: N?
SFX: Wa—wa—
Nube: Ge!
Nube: What are you doing—

110.
Nube: There’s no reason there would be treasure buried on campus. You’re burdened in making this popular!
Nube: Dowsing is now banned! It’s school regulation that you can’t selfishly dig up the campus!!
Miki: Eh~~that’s~~
Rantarou: Teacher~~come here a moment~~
(TN: He’s not identified but he’s exactly like Rantarou from vol. 9, thus I’ll translate him as such)
Rantarou: My friend became missing at an air-raid shelter in the north-mountain district.
Nube: There’s no trespassing over there.
Miki: Ri—ght! What were you thinking about school regulations!?
Nube: At any rate, let’s go.

111.
Nube: Here?
Nube: S**t…it’s complicated in here and it’s become like a dungeon.
(TN: Nube pronounces the two kanji here as “dungeon”, but the original kanji reading is the one for “maze” or “labyrinth”)
Sign: Keep Out
Nube: Further, I can feel a strange aura in here. I’d be fine if nothing happened but…
Nube: Chi…not here…
Nube: Here too…dead end…

112.
SFX: Zuru…zuru…
Spirits: Uwa—n uwa—n
Boy: Save me---!
Nube: It’s the spirits of people who came to be locked in the air-raid shelter during an air-raid and died? Hold on!
Nube: Ku, which way! If I don’t save him quickly…

113.
Miki: Nube, go the way from what’s instructed.
Miki: Are you alright--? Everyone—
Miki: Dowsing is suitable for searching around underground waterways and caves, similar to pipes.
SFX: Ba—n

114.
Kyouko: Those of you whose rods are reacting, raise your hand! If we have this, then the even an underground maze is obvious.
Kyouko: First, right.
Miki: Right!
Miki: Go into that cave!
Miki: It’s the middle one here.
Miki: It’s narrow but direct.
Miki: Right! Left! Turn three times! There you enter the hole below!
Nube: This here is the deepest…!!
Voice: Uwa—n…uwa—n…

115.
Nube: Byakue Reibakuju!
SFX: Bari bari bari bari
SFX: Dosa
Nube: Helpless spirits, I’ll erect a small shrine and perform a service later.
Spirits: Uwa—n uwa—n

116.
Everyone: Nube
SFX: Wa—wa—
Miki: How was it!? Is dowsing useful!?
Nube: I told you it was banned.
SFX: Ba
Nube: But they may be unexpectedly useful.

117.
SFX: Byun!
Nube: Ah.
Miki: Nube’s got a reaction like that…is a wonderful treasure bried?
Nube: Ha ha ha, that’s stupid: there’s a treasure in this place?
Kyouko: Guess so--…
Miki: Chie, oh well—treat us to ramen!
Nube: Are you stupid: I’ve used up my salary for the month and have to live a week on the remaining 300 yen.
Kyouko: He’s—still poor.—

118.
NUBE’S WEIRD FILES

#15: Dowsing

If you have an English-Japanese dictionary on hand now, I want you to search for the word “dowse” or “dowsing”. If you have a slightly detailed dictionary, then I’m certain it’s found in there. Incidentally, the researcher’s new English-Japanese medium-sized dictionary possessed by teachers has written “searches for underground waterways (reefs) with a dowsing rod”.

As such, dowsing has an existence that’s quite old and is an technique that is acknowledged by people far and wide. (Because it seems like that’s in the dictionary at any rate) In America, people who lead in this dowsing ability are called “dowsers”and even have it as their only way as their occupation. It’s not that far yet in Japan, but it is used in waterworks and its results are increasing.

Once, we thought that the human body was entirely controlled by the brain. Due to this, the death of the brain is thought of the death of a person, but it is gradually becoming clear that there are perceptions that can’t be perceived by the brain in humans, like those of Fuuchi that had been introduced previous, the dowsing this time, or the O-ring. The unique author Yumeno Kyuusaku wrote significantly “The brain isn’t an organ that thinks of things, it’s merely the settlement of what’s thoughts by individual cells” in the unusual book “Dogura Magura”, but unexpectedly it may be like that.

(TN: A couple things:
1. The O-Ring will be further talked about in a later chapter and involves the movements of certain fingers of the hand for discerning something is good or bad.
2. Yumeno Kyuusaku, also known as Taidou Sugiyama, is an early Showa author known for various avant-garde and surreal novels and bizarre narratives. Dogura Magura (Dogra Magra), his most famous novel from 1935 and said to be the basis of Japanese science fiction, involves a man who awakens in a hospital after unknowingly taking part in an experiment by a psychologist who is dead and the novel involves him trying to figure out who he is with his lost memories, whether merely a victim or possibly a man who had killed his mother and wife. The novel is known for its psychoanalysis and for not giving any clear answers about the truth regarding the main character)

TN: Alright, is it just me or did this chapter feel like a less dangerous version of the Fuuchi chapater? Heck, they even mentioned that this was similar to the Fuuchi, but at the same time more influenced in usage underground with stuff like pipes and searching for water. It was nice that they did it but it just felt like it was more or less a chapter doing something similar though not quite. I did like the concept that the dowsing power is influenced by what you want to appear and the rods finding it underground, but somehow...while the first two things found were funny, the monolith and...the prehistoric man/alien/whatever Akira found...I guess that's when the joke sort of went too far. I have nothing against similar feeling items in a slightly different story...but at least make it feel different and not so obvious with some of it's gags (especially...that ending...heh, yeah we get it). Though...seeing flat-chested Kyouko get squeezed like that was weird.