Hell Teacher Nube 128

It is known as the personification of good fortune among youkai, who is kind and caring to everyone. But as Nube and Makoto are about to discover, there is more to even the sweet Zashiki Warashi than what is truly known...

#128: Zashiki Warashi’s Sorrowful Past

120.
Sign: Kurita
SFX: Pan papan
Kyouko: Congratulations, Makoto!
Hiroshi: You’ve done a great thing.
Katsuya: You did have that talent.
Nube: Really, really.

121.
Nube: This is for the Gold Medal at the Prefectural Calligraphy Contest…
Calligraphy Work:
Top Right Caption: Gold Medal
Center: Bishonen (Handsome Youth)
Right: Doumori Elementary, Class 5-3, Kurita Makoto
SFX: Do-----n
(TN: Japanese calligraphy is not just merely the depiction of words but a revered artform with the depiction of words with style, typically in kanji. Therefore, this and the next joke will keep their Japanese word so that it can be understood for the artform and not just the meaning it gives.)
Kyouko: The art is deep in his heart.
Miki: Where is it different from mine?
Miki’s Calligraphy Work: Bishoujo (Beautiful Girl)
Makoto: Fufu, both of you are ten years away from understanding the difference.
Mrs. Kurita: We really thank you very much, teacher.
Caption: Makoto’s mother
Nube: No~~haha, it really is because my way of teaching is create~~…well then…
Mrs. Kurita: Ara?
Mrs. Kurita: Well! This is the lottery ticket I bought the other day! It’s worth a million yen!
(TN: Don’t try to make it seem like the Kurita’s are millionaires: a million yen is the equivalent typically of $10,000)

122.
Nube: Which is it, show me! It’s true.
Makoto: Who is it this time…
Mr. Kurita: Hey, Makoto, dear, today I got a notice of personnel change from the company and I’ve become the chief clerk. My salary is drastically going up!
(TN: The “Notice of Personnel Change” does sound a tad clunky, but it is the literal translation of the word “Jirei”, which is a notice regarding appointments or dismissals or such. Another meaning for it would be “appointment”)
Nube: You’ve done it—
Makoto: Waa—
Makoto: These are completely good things—
SFX: Kusu kusu kusu…
SFX: Kusu kusu kusu…

123.
Makoto: Who are you?
Miki: Makoto, why are you talking to a wall?
Makoto: There’s a kid I don’t know here.
Hiroshi: No one is there.
Makoto: It’s here! Don’t you see it? If it’s here, then it’s here!
Miki: We—ll, he’s out of it with his happiness.
Nube: ………
Makoto: It’s eating shiosenbei crackers as it pleases.
(TN: As I on a previous occasion Zashiki Warashi showed up, shiosenbei is a rice cracker seasoned with soy sauce.)
Miki: Stu—pid.
Nube: Well…it can be seen by Makoto. What’s here is Zashiki Warashi. It’s come here to Makoto’s home for a little while. While it’s in your home, you who is childlike can see it having it’s wave tone.
(TN: “Wave tone” was a tough word to translate considering the construction. The word Nube uses here is “Hachou”, which has two different words match it’s reading but both with different kanji. The “Ha” in this case is the one that stands for “wave”, while the “chou” is the “chou” for “tone”, thus I ended up compositely using “wavetone” for it. However, it isn’t wrong to probably use “wavelength”, which uses a different “chou” for “length” as opposed to “tone”)

124.
Nube: Zashiki Warashi comes to bring good fortune to everyone of a home it settles down in. And then when this home is happy, it again goes to another home.
Miki: Wh—y is it in Makoto’s home! Was it in line to come previously to the home of me, who has good conduct and an attractive face and bo—dy! Huh?
Nube: I don’t know to where it will come with it’s whimsy.
Makoto: Thank you for coming here.
SFX: Peko.
Makoto: Ah.
SFX: Pyon
Nube: Your home has come to have good fortune. It’s going to another.
Makoto: I’ll chase after it.
Nube: Hey, Makoto.

125.
Nube: What are you doing following it? It’s no good to be greedy.
Makoto: I want to give thanks.
Sign: Villa of Poverty.
Boy: Chie, an ear of bread again—
Mother: I’m sorry: if only your father who is working away from home, would come home.
Girl: But isn’t it he hasn’t come back in two years already?
Father: He—y, I’ve come home now—
Family: Father!
SFX: Tatata…

126.
SFX: Tatata…
Father: Hey! It’s standing, it’s standing.
Baby: Da—da—
Girl: Mickey—uwa-h
Boy: It ate a poisonous dango.
SFX: Gaba | pero pero (lick lick)
Boy: Uwa—the poison—
Makoto: Everyone in those places it passes through really does gain good fortune.
Nube: Amazing: it’s a power that’s like a manga.

127.
Nube: It’s gone into this home. Is this where it will settle down in next?
SFX: Hyoi
Nube: An altar…
(TN: The “altar” that Nube refers to here is a “butsudan”, a Buddhist altar typically part of Japanese life and assists with the dealing with the dead members of the household, even up through ancestors)
Nube: !
Nube: Huh…th…that photo!!
Sign: Chitose Ame
(TN: “Chitose Ame”, literally the “thousand year candy” is a red and white candy given to children during their “Shichi-Go-San” (7-5-3) festival on November 15th. The candy promotes healthy growth and longevity and is given to those celebrating the festival: three-year old children [the age they can grow their hair], five year old boys [the age they can wear hakama] and seven year old girls [the year they can wear obi with their kimono])

128.
Old woman: Who are you?
SFX: Pyon
Voice: Aah, that picture?
Woman: That child is my daughter whom I bid farewell to with death fifty years ago…her name was Haruko.
Nube: Huh? That’s.
Makoto: Zashiki Warashi is the child of an old woman?
Old Woman: She was a compassionate child. We who had lost everything, even our home and our assets in an air-raid, lived in the barracks and couldn’t even eat sufficiently.
(TN: Remember: the chapter was released in 1996, which while it was no longer around the 50th anniversary of World War II, was still within a period where Japan was broken due to the damage the country took physically and psychologically courtesy of the war)

129.
Old Woman: Even so, Haruko was an extremely kind, cheerful girl; she gave her food, which seemed like nothing, amount to the children of the neighborhood and was beloved by everyone.
(TN: The “seemed like nothing” is in Japanese “nakenashi” which is literally “a very small amount that looks like nothing”, meaning that the extremely tiny amount that even Haruko could get was given away.)
Old Woman: But God was heartless…
SFX: Za—
Old Woman: That kind Haruko caught a severe pneumonia. Further, her last day was her birthday…the children of the neighborhood all gathered there…
Girl: Here…a cake we made out of mud.
Boy: We also have cuisine we made of grass and stones…
Haruko: Waa…I’m glad. Thank you.
Haruko: Some day…everyone, everyone will be great with the coming of a day of laughter where your stomachs will be full. (Haa…haa…) Everyone…everyone will be great when they come to have good fortune…huh?
Everyone: Haruko!
SFX: Za—za—

130.
Makoto: How could…this misfortunate girl become Zashiki Warashi who invites good fortune…
Nube: Perhaps with her own misfortune, the strong wishes that wished her good fortune by everyone presented youryoku to the girl, making her become a spirit.
Nube: A youkai who brings good fortune to people…a youkai who is cheerful and kind…
Nube: But her true form may be she’s a pitiful youkai who was born from this extremely sad past…

131.
Makoto: Th…that’s…that’s pitiful. She presents ridiculous good fortune to people and she herself was misfortunate.
Makoto: Nube! We have to give good fortune to Zashiki Warashi.
Nube: Yes…but how do we do it?
Caption: The next day

132.
Everyone: Happy Birthday!!
SFX: Pan papan
Makoto: We’re continuing your birthday party from fifty years ago.
Shuichi: Fu, most of this was made by the restaurant that’s my home.
Kyouko: Well? Is she glad? She can only be seen by Makoto.
Makoto: Well…her eyes are…

133.
Makoto: She seems extremely glad.
Nube: Well, here’s a present that will make her the most glad.
SFX: Su

134.
Old Woman: Haruko. Its your mother, who remembers you with those clothes you’re wearing and your hair as such from fifty years ago.
Zashiki Warashi: ?
Old Woman: Is she really here…? Answer me.
Nube: It’s impossible. She’s come to almost not have her memories when she became a youkai. That’s why it’s strange that she has her own picture on the altar, even though she would come to this home frequently.
Old Woman: Eh? Then, why would she do this to me?
Nube: Well, please leave this to me. Namu Daiji Daihi Kyuugu Kyuunan…
Nube: Erethral-Body Separation!
SFX: Bari bari bari
Caption: A bit tight on an old person.
Old Woman: Hiee…

135.
“Old Woman”: Haru…ko…?
SFX: Suu---…
Nube: I did an erethral-body separation to return her spirit to fifty years ago with the Oni no Te. The erethral-body can touch Haruko-chan by bringing out this spirit’s age.
(TN: This part about “bringing out the spirit’s age” really confused me a bit since it really doesn’t explain if the spirit can be deaged or just bring out the age of the spirit that can affect Haruko the most. This is something you’d have to work on when adjusting it for scanslation or interpretation)

136.
Zashiki Warashi: Mo…th…er….
SFX: Boro boro
Zashiki Warashi: Mother. Mother.
Zashiki Warashi: This is happiness…

137.
“Old Woman”: Ah.
SFX: Pyon
Nube: That girl is a youkai. It can’t rest in peace by settling down. Her mission…is to give good fortune to people…
Makoto: Is it going to give good fortune to a new house somewhere again?
Nube: Yes.
Nube: It’s the kindest youkai in Japan.
Nube: That is Zashiki Warashi.

TN: It's hard to believe that even someone as sweet and innocent as Zashiki Warashi would have a past like that. But somehow considering the Encyclopedia entry explaining that the youkai is usually tied to a dead child reborn into one of good fortune, we probably should have seen it coming, even for her. There were some real heart-breaker moments in the chapter, from the moment that the discovery is made of Zashiki Warashi's alter to the final encounter with it's mom only to get up and go back to it's business. But of course, all that doesn't mean that the chapter wasn't without it's problems. For one thing: is it just me or was all of Makoto's family having luck at the same time just really ironic? Yeah, I know Zashiki Warashi influenced that to happen, but somehow or another you sort of wish that some of that was at least through effort and not just because a youkai willed it to be. Heck, Miki should probably complain that Makoto won with outside help...but then again she did make everyone pass tests once so it's not like she wouldn't know of the youkai even if she's never seen it. I probably was going to complain though of the montage of "good deeds"...but somehow I think Nube summed it up best: its like a manga, where everything seems to happen all at once. Heck, Nube probably hit it right on the ball: sometimes manga (and likewise American media like cartoons, movies and comics) have similar things ironically happen at the same exact time. You can't contribute it all to Zashiki Warashi...but hey, Nube get us an out. I guess, though, that the problems sort of weight and balanced out the sad, heart breaking and encouraging stuff the chapter did give us likewise.