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Hell Teacher Nube (Jigoku Sensei Nube) is a supernatural shonen manga written by Sho Makura and illustrated by Takeshi Okano, which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1993 to 1999. A 49-episode anime adaptation by Toei Animation aired from 1996 to 1997 on TV Asahi. This was then accompanied by three sets of films and OVA all the way till 1999.

Meisuke Nueno (known as "Nube" by everyone who knows him) has been able to see spirits ever since childhood thanks to his Psychic Powers. Cool as this may sound, it has made him a constant target for all kinds of nasty creatures. Not to mention, his mentor and mother figure Minako-sensei perished because of this...

Fortunately, "Hell Teacher" Nube is able to deal with these spirits by way of his magical left hand; unfortunately, this results in him attracting even more supernatural events to center on him... and to his workplace, which happens to be an elementary school. Luckily for him, his students are often more than happy to give him a hand when resolving his cases.

Followed by the sequel Izuna the Spiritual Medium: Ascension (霊媒師いずなASCENSION) in 2011.

In May 2014, the official sequel Hell Teacher Nube Neo (地獄先生ぬ〜べ〜NEO) started publication in Shueisha's Grand Jump anthology book. Set ten years after the previous series, it follows Nube and a grown-up Kyoko Inaba (who has become a teacher in Nube's footsteps) as they protect their brand new cast of students from the demonic horrors that haunt the city. This sequel ended after 4 years in 2018. In June of that year, a Live-Action Adaptation was announced and premiered on Nippon TV on October 11, starring Ryuhei Maruyama of Kanjani 8 in the role of Nube.

Nube has also made several appearances alongside other Jump mainstays in the world of video games; starting with 2006's Jump Ultimate Stars for the Nintendo DS as support characters alongside Yukime, with Hiroshi and Kyoko as help characters. Later, he became a playable character in 2014's J-Stars Victory VS. The game eventually released the following year for both Europe and North America, making it the first piece of Hell Teacher Nube material to be released outside of Japan.


This series provides examples of:

  • Accidental Pervert: And nobody ever hears Nube's side of the story, either.
  • Aesop Amnesia:
    • Exorcising Youkai is repeatedly shown to be a complicated process, yet whenever Nube brushes something off as a rumor or seems to be taking advantage of the situation, his students always assume the worse, forcing him to step in and deal with the situation.
    • It goes the other way too: Nube should just explain what is going on to his students so that they don’t freak out. Though this can be explained as him trying to get them to stop thinking about it, as in most cases Your Mind Makes It Real.
  • Age Lift: The live action Dorama adaptation is notable for having Nube's students aged up from elementary to high school age.
  • An Ice Person: Yukime, naturally (as well as her "sister.") But not only can she create ice, hail, and snow in any amount she needs, she's actually made of it, and warm climates can make her drip or melt... starting with her face and chest. She just surrounds herself with a snowman until she has cooled down again.
  • Artificial Human: Two explicit occasions, created by the protagonists. Three times if you count the Visible Human anatomy doll that came to life.
  • Artistic Age: And Miki is supposed to be a fifth-grader?
  • Art Shift: Contrast the clean and cute character designs with the nightmarish, gruesome monsters or the fountains of gore and guts caused by (or trailing from) the latter. Expect more than one evisceration.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Orochi, for starters. Also, Miki once befriended the very literal Gentle Giant Daidara-bochi, who could rearrange the entire geography of Doumori by pushing buildings and mountains to her liking.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Baki's attention span is like that of a hamster hopped up on speed and sugar and let loose in a toy store full of balloons and videogames and fireworks and shiny ooh what's that can I play?
  • Badass Teacher: Nube, of course, but Ritsuko has her moments. Tamamo eventually ends up in that direction, too.
  • Baku: The baku, instead of being a benign creature that eats nightmares, eats good dreams and leaves its victims in a state of utter, suicide-inducing despair. It's actually composed of hundreds of tortured souls who moan and writhe in the vague shape of a tapir.
  • Balloon Belly: Often used as a sight gag for characters pigging out; on one occasion, though, Kyoko was possessed by the soul of an infant, and she ended the chapter by having to work off all the food it ate.
  • Batman Gambit: Zekki, brother of Baki and Minki, intended to release his older brother by inflicting so much pain and destruction upon Doumori and Nube's class that Nube would be forced to fully unseal the oni hand —absolutely confident that, in doing so, Baki would fully consume Nube instead, and the two of them would then go on an unstoppable rampage in the human world.
  • Beautiful All Along: The child of a Monkey God is a Casanova Wannabe Gonk that disgusts all the girls (even the one that looks like a Gonk herself) until he reaches maturity, becoming an impossibly beautiful and gallant boy that goes away and leaves said girls cursing their luck. It was actually even funnier because he thought his true form would scare females away...
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Hiroshi and Kyoko, definitely. Also see Rescue Romance below.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Katsuya is very protective of his little sister Manami. Baki would rather fight alongside Nube rather than risk hurting his sister Minki's feelings. And Minki herself wants Nube to act like this towards her, because, as far as she's concerned, the oni hand makes him just like Baki —the problem is, she's so unbelievably powerful that she has to intimidate thugs into "intimidating" her to force Nube to help her, and he never buys it.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Nube. Lampshaded in the first OP where he gets a close up to his face and is shown wriggling them.
  • Black Comedy Rape: A rather strange example in chapter 59. One of the students managed to separate her ethereal body and finally decided to possess a cat... cue a horde of male tomcats in heat chasing her down.
  • Blessed with Suck: Yaobikuni, the woman from the legend who became immortal after eating the flesh of a mermaid she saved, received this two fold. The first is Who Wants to Live Forever? which she realized once everyone around her died, leaving her with crippling loneliness. The second is the fact that since the mermaid in question was Hayame, her intelligence was affected as well effectively transforming her into an Almighty Idiot.
  • Body Horror: In droves, most likely caused by Demonic Possession. Nube's own Oni Hand counts as a major example.
  • Bowdlerise: The anime tones down the gore and the more frightening imagery that came from the manga.
  • Brother–Sister Team: Baki and Minki are semi-villainous examples.
  • Butt-Monkey: Male Meganekko Akira Yamaguchi starts as one, never able to get what he wants. Actually, it's because of a youkai haunting him ever since he narrowly avoided being drowned in the sea. Nube has to fight the youkai to free Akira from the curse
  • Bittersweet Ending: Minako-sensei's soul is finally released and Nube sends her to Heaven; Nube and Yukime finally get married after several hardships, but then they leave Doumori to live in another city despite pleas from his students.
  • Catchphrase: Nube's "LEAVE [NAME] ALONE!" that cues the unleashing of his Oni hand and a can of serious whoopass.
  • Censor Box: During Minki's intro story, in which she shows up lacking panties, the Shonen Jump Pirate logo is used to cover up her crotch (to its great embarrassment.) Worse, the poor Pirate —multiple Pirates, in fact— was also made to cover up Baki's Gag Penis when the oni took on human form (and forgot to materialize some pants.)
  • Cheerful Child: Makoto Kurita.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Nube is head-over-heels in love with Ritsuko, but his rejection of Yukime comes on the grounds of him thinking she's too young for him (She's 16, he's 25).
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The wish-granting Kesaran Pasaran.
  • Class Trip: And even then, they run into nasty critters.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Yukime, though she gets quite more Character Development than other examples of this trope. And she actually wins in the end.
  • Conspicuous Gloves: Nube always covered his left hand with a black glove. It's to hide the hideous deformation of the hand, because an Oni is sealed within it.
  • Continuity Nod: Minor obake, especially those that are only sealed away, tend to make reappearances complete with flashbacks to their original appearances. At one point, a Knight Templar exorcist bent on exterminating every supernatural critter (good or bad) causes a large number of them to rush to Doumori Elementary as a safe haven, with cameos galore.
  • Cool Car: Just where did Tamamo get his? Also, Nube once bought one as an incredible deal, unaware that it was cursed by the couple who killed themselves driving it.
  • Crossover Cosmology: In SPADES. Even aliens get into it.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In his regular life, Nube is silly, bumbling, and a pervert. He usually introduces himself to his new class by performing some ridiculous stunt (such as playing Tarzan) that backfires and humiliates him. But he will drop this attitude in an instant and turn deadly-serious when the situation calls for it. Even when drunk.
    • Deconstructed with Yaobikuni, who had 800 years to master a great numbers of skills and can legitimately be considered a Renaissance Man. Yet the intelligence-reducing effect of her immortality means that she’s more prone to hurt her self then her target.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: Nube's mother, whose death made his father abandon him. Also, Yan Kairen, the wandering Chinese exorcist, whose sister's death inspired him to declare war on every supernatural apparition.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Goes together with Light Is Not Good in that plenty of Obake are actually friendly and helpful, whereas several gods are spiteful, mean, and would destroy humans trespassing their domain if given half a chance.
  • De-aged in Death: Hiroshi goes into a coma after falling down and hitting his head against concrete, and finds himself stuck in the spirit world between life and afterlife. He meets and befriends a beautiful young girl, and helps protects her from the guards who would otherwise force them to the next world. After Nube helps to revive them, Hiroshi is appalled to discover that the beautiful girl is in fact a 63-year-old crone. A bemused Nube explains that this is because spirits don't age.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Tamamo, Minki, and Baki.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen:
    • Yukime.
    • Ritsuko-sensei, who would always keep Nube at arms' length due to his connection to the supernatural, eventually does come around and accept him for what he is. Unfortunately he's so used to being spurned, he thinks she's under Demonic Possession and slaps the tar out of her with his exorcism sutra.
  • Delusions of Beauty: One chapter features a New Transfer Student who is short, hairy, and looks like a monkey, but is a Casanova Wannabe towards the girls, and doesn't seem to notice that his classmates find his appearance repulsive. Justified since he's a Yōkai who probably has the completely wrong idea of what human women find attractive, especially since his true form is actually very good-looking.
  • Demonic Possession: Naturally, a recurring theme.
  • Demoted to Extra: It looked like Akira would be one of the main charas from Nube's class, but never got lots of development. Subverted a bit later in the manga, when he shows off his scientific skills.
  • Determinator: Nube, by dint of being a Shounen hero. But then, he takes it a notch above reasonable levels; even if all he has left is a broken toe and the rest of him is a bloody paste, he'll stand on that broken toe and protect the innocent (even former foes.)
  • Disability Superpower: Ayumi Kinoshita, a perpetually bedridden girl who was taught by Nube to project her astral body to attend school like any other kid. Thing is, in this series, astral bodies can take whatever shape you want, so while Ayumi usually attends as her regular self, she's not above giving herself a Magical Girl makeover to foil the occasional criminal.
  • Distressed Dude: Hiroshi gets kidnapped by Tamamo in episode 7 and spends a good portion of episode 8 with his hands chained together.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Nube, to Ritsuko.
  • Dumb Blonde: Miki's selfishness, Genre Blindness, materialism, and willingness to unseal supernatural horrors just to see if they're true, have gotten her and the rest of the class (if not the town) into loads and loads of trouble. Miki, sweetie, learn your lesson already.
  • The End... Or Is It?: A surprisingly high number of incidents end this way (or, rather, don't.)
  • Enjo Kosai:
    • Nube accuses Izuna of this. He's not far off.
    • And if she could get away with it, Miki would dive in headfirst. Then her sugar daddy turned out to be a god...
  • Eye Scream: Ai! Oh, Ai.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Only Minako-sensei and his dad refer to Nube by his given name, Meisuke. Everyone else calls him either "Nube" (the kids from 5-A class) or "Nueno-sensei" (Yukime, Tamamo, the teachers)
  • Extranormal Institute: Youkai High, which Yukime attends in the late manga. Populated and staffed by, what else, youkai.
  • Fan Disservice: Ai is pretty, she has a cute body, we see her only in her panties... with demon eyes sprouting all over her.
  • Fanservice: Feature Panty Shot and partial nudity.
  • Fartillery: Kappa can fly by using their farts. Nenekogappa is the only kappa in this series to be seen doing this though.
  • Feuding Families: The Mountain God will stop at nothing to prevent his daughter Yukime loving Nube, sending out enforcers to kill the latter when attempts to persuade the former fail. Also, Nube's father abhors Obake and nearly kills Yukime on sight.
  • Fighting from the Inside: Subverted: Minako-sensei had potential to do so, but prefers to not do it so she can keep Bakki at bay in Nube's hand until they can find a way to keep him definitely sealed.
  • First-Name Basis: It's a BIG deal for Katsuya Kimura when people start referring to him by his first name and not his surname.
  • Furo Scene: Actually, a whole Furo Episode when they attended a bathhouse, due to the bathrooms all over town being haunted. The bathhouse was haunted too.
  • Gender Bender: The offspring of a loving succubus/normal man couple results in an androgynous child, whom Hiroshi and Kyoko take turns convincing to settle for a gender... switching back and forth between a rough-and-tumble Bishōnen and a Yamato Nadeshiko woman.
  • Genre Blindness: Miki plays way the hell too much with the supernatural and invokes too many tropes for her own good. You'd think she would have learned something after the fiftieth time Nube saved her from the side-effects of her own pranks.
  • Ghostly Goals: Nube ends up assisting a large number of spirits achieve these.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Nube, in the opening narration.
  • Godiva Hair: Ritsuko.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Nube usually tries to keep his use of the oni hand well within reasonable levels, aware of its potential to take over his body. However, for extreme cases, he unseals more of its power —thus letting it transform his arm, his shoulder, or even part of his torso— to save his students. When fighting Zekki, however, he was so desperate and so outmatched by the demon he allowed his entire body to be taken over, which caused his friends to despair that they had lost him. It was only his love for them that allowed him to retain enough of his humanity to keep control.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: Hayame the mermaid can regenerate from virtually anything, including being reduced to a desiccated corpse for hundreds of years or slicing out her own liver. A Buddhist nun who once ate her flesh is subject to some of the most gruesome punishment in the series (but so over-the-top it loops back to hilarious) merely because she can heal just about anything, even getting her head blown off.
  • Gossipy Hens: Only one: Miki. Slightly subverted because she actually shows genuine distress at the possibility of being seen as a harmful one, and later a Monster of the Week uses this against her.
  • Gratuitous Spanish: "Adios!" and boom goes Tamamo's Dangerous Forbidden Technique.
  • The Grim Reaper: Is a Meganekko, wields a Sinister Scythe, and likes ice cream and cute things.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Subverted. Nube went through long years of arduous training to get to his level of skill. Whenever Izuna tries to find the easy way, she tends to get into trouble and Nube scolds her for it.
  • Haunted Technology: And if it isn't, Nube can stick his hand in it and use it in ways it wasn't meant for.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Yukime and Tamamo. And Nube's left-hand Oni, Baki, as well as his sister, Minki.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Nube himself, Yukime, Tamamo, Ritsuko, and Nube's teacher Minako-sensei all risk their lives to protect their students.
  • Heroic Host: Nube, although closer to Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can then usual. Although he's extremely skilled and powerful even without the help of his Oni Hand, many of the critters he encounters would be unbeatable or at least extremely difficult to approach without it.
  • Hitodama Light:
    • Nube-sensei likes to introduce himself to his new class by strapping candles to his head to mimic this effect... and then swinging, Tarzan-like, into the classroom, or try to play-exorcise a doll. The irony is that Nube is such a tremendously powerful spiritualist and exorcist that he can summon the real thing at will, but will only do so when he actually needs to.
    • Of course, a vast number of the Obake he encounters is naturally surrounded by hitodama.
  • Hot-Blooded: Nube and Hiroshi. Sometimes, Izuna.
  • Hot for Student:
    • Played with, since despite Kyouko's open interest in Hiroshi, her first crush was actually Nube. And in their past lives, they were lovers (as a princess and her retainer who held a Bodyguard Crush on her).
    • Additionally, when Tamamo joined the school as the nurse, all the girls gained crushes on him. He didn't do a lot to encourage them (aside of some random flirting to piss Nube off), since he had quite a goal in mind...
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Nube is quite a bit taller than Yukime.
  • Idiot Hero: Hiroshi, Hiroshi, Hiroshi. Nube isn't much smarter outside his field of expertise, either.
  • Immortal Breaker: Somewhere between this and Soul-Cutting Blade, Nube's Red Right Hand can harm and kill ethereal beings, which are otherwise ageless and invulnerable. A few spirits mock Nube for thinking that he, a human, can harm a spirit. A slash from the Demon Hand later, and they're begging for mercy. And even more potent than his hand is the Hatamonba cursed blade.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Hayame the mermaid, whose Godiva Hair usually takes care of things while in her natural form. Her method of turning into a human (transforming her tail into legs that she spreads wide open, in public) can cause heart-attacks, though.
  • Kamaitachi: The kamaitachi show up in all their glory: the eldest sibling carries a cudgel to knock people over or inflict severe bruises; the middle sibling's forelegs are shaped like Absurdly Sharp Blades which can literally cut up anything and anyone; the youngest carries a jar filled with a mending balm. Makoto inadvertently takes the latter as a pet, and as the elder ones tried to find it they bring catastrophe to the town — nearly killing Nube by slicing him in half until Makoto finally releases the younger kamaitachi and it heals the teacher with its balm.
  • The Lancer: Tamamo even before his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Lethal Chef: Yukime (she's an Ice Maiden so, even when she *does* try, it takes her a LOT to not get it frozen), Kyouko (just a fifth grader, so she still has time to improve) and Minki (whose food isn't bad... per demon's standards.)
  • Living Statue: The Sontoku Ninomiya statue on Doumori Elementary's front yard. Mistaken for evil at first, when it was really trying to protect Makoto from real demons.
  • Literal Genie: Inverted with Agyou-san, a demon that can modify reality itself by making it the exact opposite of whatever you've just said. Can work as a very handy Reset Button if you're smart enough, as long as you're not stupid enough to yell "We can beat him!" just as your allies have arrived to save your butt.
  • Loners Are Freaks: Katsuya, in the beginning
  • Love Redeems: Yukime starts as a Fille Fatale, but when she sees Nube's love for his students she decides to gain his appreciation through more honest means.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: Kyouko suffers the effects in both anime and manga.
  • Love Triangle: Ritsuko and Yukime both end up vying for Nube's affections.
  • Mama Bear: Ritsuko tries to protect a child from an evil ghost despite knowing she has virtually no chance to win, eventually buying Nube enough time for a Big Damn Heroes..
  • Marshmallow Hell: Ai, on Makoto. After she's liberated from the Eye demon. And she was naked. Also, Miki got a little too enthusiastic trying to help Makoto get over his nightmare issue by giving him what she thought would be a pleasant dream...
  • Mental Time Travel: Allowing Nube and Kyoko to revisit their own past lives.
  • Missing Mom: Hiroshi's mother died when he was a toddler. The episode when he finds out she's been reincarnated as a kindergarten girl is one of the biggest Tear Jerkers of the series, if not THE one.
  • Mon: Affectionate parody with some minor obake sealed in capsules.
  • Monster Clown: Pierrot in the second movie. Made worse by being voiced by Ryusei Nakao, the same voice actor as Freeza and Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
  • Monster of the Week
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    • Izuna, to her distress. Her Tube Foxes often pop up merely to cover up her bits with signs reading "Fanservice!"
    • The Hot Teacher Ritsuko Takahashi. Often unwillingly, to her distress.
    • Nenekogappa: a playful girl kappa with some feline qualities and and incredibly large bosom that puts Miki’s to shame. The fact the first thing we see of Nenekogappa are her huge breasts, albeit with Barbie Doll Anatomy, is quite telling.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Cruel subversion: Yukime is tortured to death when she refuses to kill Ritsuko, when given the chance to do so.
  • Mysterious Parent: Nube's father Jikuu.
  • The Napoleon: Makoto.
  • Narrator: The late Ryoko Kinomiya narrates the anime's opening sequence.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Both Nube and Miki.
  • Nightmare Fuel: As expected. In universe, one of the monsters actually causes nightmares as part of its powers.
  • Obake and Youkai: Japanese spirits form the core of Nube's opponents, though every once in a while he also deals with foreign creatures.
  • Obvious Pregnancy: A very unique example: In chapter #220 of the manga, "Izuna becomes a Mother!?", whoever gets possessed by the Boze (the unborn spirit of a human child) immediately looks heavily pregnant. Justified by the fact the mother was due to deliver any day now, and in fact goes into labor by the story's end, before Izuna carelessly expelled the spirit from her womb.
  • Ojou: Ai Shinozaki, also the local Lonely Rich Kid.
  • Orochi: Explicitly stated to be the most powerful of all Youkai, summoned by a Mad Scientist via use of Magitek.
  • Older Than They Look:
    • Makoto looks almost like a third-grader, despite being a fifth-year student.
    • And Cute Witch Mami-sensei is actually 22, when Nube thought she was six.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Aside from the one actual vampire, a surprisingly large amount of Obake in the series attack people just to suck out their blood, Life Energy, Battle Aura, or soul.
  • Papa Wolf: You do NOT mess with Class 5-3 or whomever else Nube happens to be protecting. It is this quality of Nube that causes Ritsuko to look upon him more favorably and eventually fall in love with him.
  • Paper Master: Yang Kairen uses ofuda for a variety of effects, from summoning fire, heat beams or even meteors, to merely slapping a paper ward on a foe and then ripping the paper in half (causing the same effect on said foe.) Nube's Sutra can unfold into a whip-like shape that can ward off spiritual attacks.
  • Parental Abandonment: Nube's father, again. Hiroshi's father, who works as a trucker, is on the road so often he might as well count, but father and son still love each other very much.
  • Perpetual Poverty: Nube, to the point of the actual God of Poverty haunting him for a few weeks. It is shown explicitly that he could make a fortune by abusing his clairvoyance and other Psychic Powers (much like Izuna and his father), but chooses not to out of dignity, outside of cheating at the nearby Pachinko machines. And what kind of an example would he set for his students if he didn't earn his living honestly, anyway?
  • Pet the Dog: Shuuichi Shirato is a male Rich Bitch, but he genuinely loves animals and specially dogs. To the extreme of being willing to give up on his own life to calm down a dog spirit which rage he incurred upon, so it wouldn't kill his friends.)
  • Pilot: The first episode of the anime series was adapted from the manga pilot, which was called "Hell Teacher Nubo" and had a drastically different character design for the titular character.
  • Playing with Fire:
  • Pollyanna: Zashiki Warashi, the soul of a little girl who worked herself to death making everyone around her happy, and continues doing so as a spirit by granting unbelievably good luck and happiness to people. Just don't get on her bad side or she'll give you BAD luck indeed...
  • Power Limiter: Nube covers the Oni hand with his black glove.
    • Power Incontinence: Will happen to him in a fixed day and hour which is the anniversary of the moment when he got said Oni Hand.
    • While Miss Minako usually serves as this to contain the oni's power, occasionally, Nube finds artifacts that allow him to use more of said power deliberately without risking a Power Incontinence or the oni taking over, or at least give Miss Minako a break. They never last, however.
  • The Power of Love: Nube is primarily motivated by his love for his students, and his desire to protect them allows him to defeat stronger and more experienced opponents such as Tamamo.
  • The Power of Rock: Hayame's singing compels anyone who hears it to respond to the emotion in her words, such as becoming aggressive with hot-blooded lyrics or lovey-dovey with romantic ballads. Then she makes it big as an Idol Singer...
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: The anime version trims a lot of story lines to make it fit in a limited number of episodes. Bad thing, some of these involve important Character Development and the appearance of interesting characters like Jikuu Nueno, Nube's Disappeared Dad.
  • Pretty Boy: Tamamo is long-haired, elegant and charming, and this allows him to get away with lots of things that Nube is beaten up for.
  • Redemption Equals Death: A good number of hauntings, of course. More explicitly, Jikuu makes peace with his estranged son before tossing himself at the Mountain God, sealing it forever at the cost of his own life.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Nube has red irises. They're a sign of his spiritual power than any evil intent, though (but do take warning).
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nube and his rival, Tamamo, respectively. Nube is loud, passionate and emotional. Tamamo is aloof and reserved.
  • Red Right Hand: The very premise of the character.
  • Reincarnation: Implied to be par for the course for human souls. Explicitly demonstrated with Nube and Kyoko, who have even returned (briefly) to previous lives, and with Hiroshi's Missing Mom, reincarnated as a kindergarten student.
  • Rescue Romance:
    • Kyouko's former crush on Nube started when he saved her from a demon. Yukime also falls for him this way, when Nube saves her from being shot to death as a little girl.
    • Also Kyoko and Hiroshi; more poignant because, whenever he saves her life, she remembers, even several volumes later (although the reverse isn't necessarily true.)
  • Rich Bitch: Shuuichi Shirato is a male example, to a degree.
  • Scare Dare: School after dark, haunted house, derelict playground, ancient graveyard, you name it. The scary urban "legend" always turns out to be true, if not worse than the legend. Dammit, Miki!
  • Schmuck Bait: A good deal of Nube's time is spent saving his students from horrors they brought upon themselves by playing with Urban Legends, toying with Artifacts of Doom, irritating a local Obake, or just fooling around with powers they don't fully understand.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can:
    • The Oni sealed into Nube's left hand that he gradually gains more control over as the series progresses. A whole episode deals with this since Tamamo, Kyouko and Hiroshi have to Time Travel to save Nube's life when the Oni almost takes over him.
    • A large number of hauntings involve either objects that became youkai through curses or the evil committed with them, or independent demons that were sealed into artifacts and have to be sealed again after Nube's students accidentally set them loose. Most notably, a katana that was used to execute so many people it became a powerful, nigh-unbeatable monster, and had to be sealed in a special shrine; and a goblin that resides in the dimension between two facing mirrors and was later trapped by Nube inside a kaleidoscope. Since neither youkai could be destroyed in their original appearance, only sealed, they were brought back for an encore much later in the series.
  • Sealed Good in a Can: Minako-sensei, after a fashion —if circumstances allow her to manifest, she proves herself an overwhelmingly powerful spiritualist. Izuna and Nube's Tube Foxes, which willingly live inside tiny cylinders (such as pens) also count. Amusingly, Nube himself was sealed once: while mishandling youkai-containment charms that look like gachapon capsules, the charm reacted to his oni hand and sucked him in. He was later released during that chapter's Pokemon parody to defeat the worst of the youkai the kids had been playing with.
  • Sexy Mentor: Minako-sensei was beautiful, had a magic mini skirt and was VERY well-endowed.
  • Shapeshifter Weapon: Although Nube tends to use the Oni Hand as, well, a hand, most of the time, the more control he has over it the more he is able to reshape it to suit his needs, transforming it into blades, branching spider-webs, or whips. In the two occasions that Minki had to replace his original hand (long story), and when he finally made peace with Baki, the friendly alliance gave him such precise control as to create wings and cannons from it.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In order to make up for ruining Yaobikuni’s life by turning her immortal, Hayame gave her Hayame’s own beating heart, which would negate Yaobikuni's immortality once eaten. It also turns out that despite what they thought, this didn’t result in Hayame’s death. Unfortunately, as Yaobikuni was being consumed with gratitude, Hayame decided to cook it for her, meaning it was no longer beating. To make matters worse, it would take another 300 years for her to grow a new one.
  • Shout-Out:
    • To many other Shonen Jump titles, including Dragon Ball. Nube and Tamamo mimic the Fusion Dance in order to split themselves into tiny doppelgangers; what makes this homage even more hilarious is the heartfelt apology to Akira Toriyama in the footnotes every time that's necessary.
    • The last name of Kyoko Inaba was probably thanks to Koshi Inaba, singer of B'z, band that also made the first ending "Mienai Chikara -INVISIBLE ONE-".
  • Shrinking Violet: Noriko "Noro-chan" Nakajima. Ai Shinozaki also has some traits, but she hides them better.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor: Nube's father.
  • Split-Personality Takeover: Happens to Ritsuko when the spirit of Minako-sensei accidentally ends up in her body, fusing both personalities into "Miss Rinako."
  • Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Nearly all female ghosts, but especially the Wet Woman, which is practically an Expy of Sadako but with a black kimono.
  • Stripperiffic: Minki redefines the trope. Her first appearance in the manga was missing her thong panties, meaning she was missing about 70% of her total wardrobe. Nube gives her actual clothing later on.
  • Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Nube in his youth; several of his clients and/or students ended up with a similar problem.
  • Super-Power Meltdown: Whenever Nube loses control of the Oni Hand, it threatens to consume his entire body and overwhelm his spirit. Also, Minki needs her panties to control her vast powers at all, otherwise her attacks blow up in her face (sometimes for laughs, sometimes for real.)
  • Thanks for the Mammary: Nube accidentally groping a woman with the Oni Hand results in Minako-sensei getting very angry.
  • Theme Naming: Baki, Zekki, and Minki, the three oni siblings, all have names that play as variations of the 鬼 root for oni.
  • Token Mini-Moe: Mami-sensei, the 22 year-old teacher who looks (and acts) every bit like a first-grader.
  • Tomboy: Kyoko, see below. Justified in that her guardian spirit is a powerful samurai.
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Yukime gets one after melting and being reborn into a new body, but eventually recovers her memories thanks to The Power of Love.
  • True Companions: Class 5-3 become this eventually, to the point of the entire class getting themselves attached to a parasitic tree spirit to rescue the one student trapped inside its trunk.
  • Tsundere:
    • Kyoko, a Type B (sweet and caring default with a hair-trigger temper). Ritsuko also is one, showing a very pleasant and cordial disposition until Nube brings up ghosts to the conversation and she goes ballistic.
    • Yukime is also just as likely to kiss and hug Nube as she is to encase him in ice and toss him out a third-story window when he pushes her buttons.
  • Two-Teacher School: Averted, since Nube and Ritsuko (and Minako-sensei, when alive) are NOT the only teachers we see. The Principal is more or less often around (and in fact he hired Nube fully knowing about his powers), the PE teacher has helped the cast once or twice, and Tamamo often poses as the school nurse. Ootsuki-sensei also fancies himself a ''scientific'' exorcist, out to prove paranormal events as some manifestation of "plasma." And then there's Mami-sensei, the ten year-old looking teacher/part-time witch out to win the heart (or at least some other part) of Nube.
  • Urban Legends: ...and abuse thereof are part and parcel of Miki's life. Specifically (and, sometimes, unrelated to Miki!) the series has dealt with modern-day urban legends such as:
    • Red Mantle. But in Nube's case, not a yokai, but a human serial killer who patterns his crimes after the urban legend.
    • Kuchisake-onna. And not content with that, her comeback story involved a whole group of them who joined together for support.
    • Hanako of the Toilet: a two-fer, in fact, based on the original legend's Multiple-Choice Past. Both Hanakos died in the toilet stall, but one was malevolent and the other was a victim of air raids in the war.
    • Turbo-Obasan, a decrepit old woman who chases after young people with supernatural speed.
    • Chain letters that claim that a great tragedy will befall you should you neglect to pass them on to more people. Nube was NOT pleased with Miki for this one.
    • Reiko Kashima, a young woman who was torn apart and killed in an accident and now haunts the streets trying to replace her missing legs with those of her victims. Nube conflates her with the urban legend of Teke Teke, who suffered a similar fate but instead "just" slices her victims in half.
    • The Chupacabra.
    • Peering into two facing mirrors in order to see your future self reflected into infinity.
    • Counting the steps on a staircase with your eyes closed, with a thirteenth step appearing out of nowhere as a gateway to the world of spirits.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Kyoko and Miki are a female version. Nube and Tamamo often act like this after the latter's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Nube (but he gets clients because he is a well-known spiritualist), and Class 5-3.
  • Wishplosion: Again, the white puffball that is the Kesaran Pasaran. Used to teach Miki a lesson in its first appearance, then brought back by Nube's kids to defeat the ultimate evil.
  • What Is This Feeling?: This is the only reason the Nine-Tailed Fox revived Tamamo and granted him of its own tails to restore his fading Life Energy after the Jar Test.
  • What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Before his Heel–Face Turn, Tamamo decided to stick around Doumori (and Nube) specifically to find out how The Power of Love provided the teacher with such an indomitable will.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Nube rejects a mermaid's offer to eat her own flesh due to this trope.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ritsuko is terrified of ghosts.
  • Who You Gonna Call?: Although his primary responsibility is to his school, Nube also works as the local exorcist and people often drop by to request his services. "Itako-girl" Izuna is a much more mercenary version, but she still lacks the skills and often gets in over her head. Nube's father is an extraordinarily powerful exorcist with worldwide following.
  • Wrecked Weapon: After a fashion. Nevermind the occasional Super-Power Meltdown when the Oni Hand goes berserk and tries to consume Nube; more than once this appendage was stolen away from the teacher, leaving him to cope with a cat's paw or even just a stump.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Kyouko temporarily turns into one when Nube swaps her guardian spirit, but this doesn't stick as said guardian spirit also turns her into a Distressed Damsel.
    • Noriko is basically one in training. It specially shows when she manages to appease the very angry Library Ghost Girl with only kind words.
  • Younger Than They Look: Ai Shinozaki is 12 years old and already looks like an adult supermodel. Ditto Miki with her mature figure and large breasts, though her height at least matches the other fifth-graders. Even Katsuya, who is supposed to be a delinquent and likely has repeated more than one grade, looks like he's in his late teens.
  • Lampshaded by the students themselves in one chapter, where they actually forgot they were in elementary school!
  • Your Soul Is Mine!: Nube can perform this as a Dangerous Forbidden Technique (although it's more forbidden than dangerous for him), ripping the soul off the human and sending it directly to hell. He once tried it on a serial child killer, although it was interrupted.

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