The story starts as Hiroshi Tateno talks with the principal of Domori Elementary. He is a troubled boy who is transferring in. As he is being led off to meet his teacher, he fantasizes about what a cute teacher he will get. What a shock when he sees Nube, the teacher of group 3 in the 5^th grade (5-3), in the middle of exorcizing a spirit! Nube is trying to get a ghost out of a picture of Beethoven for the music class. He chants and uses his crystal to try and get rid of it, but winds up burning the picture when the sun is magnified through the crystal. Hiroshi wonders what he's in for. The students return to class and Hiroshi is introduced. Kyoko Inaba gets up and explains who Nube is to Hiroshi; Nube used to live in Kyoko's neighborhood and she knows all about his spiritual powers. Of course, no one in the class believes her, because Nube has botched it every time. Hiroshi, feeling a bit jealous about Nube (who is popular even though he is a screw up), shows off his soccer skill to the class; he is very impressive. However, when they all tell him he should join the team, he blows up at them and puts a dent in a nearby locker (no small feat for a 5^th grader). Later, while the class is playing dodge ball, a group of 6^th graders come along and try to get them to move off the court. Hiroshi resists, and is knocked down. Kyoko starts to argue, and gets beat up! Hiroshi loses it and starts to slaughter the whole group of 6^th graders on his own. He nearly kills them, but Nube stops him in time; they all get sent to the hospital. Hiroshi feels awful about what he's done. While at the hospital, an old lady is waiting with a crying baby. Nube goes to take a look at it, and sure enough, its troubles are monster related! A small worm-like monster poking out from the palm of the hand, called a 99 legged bug, is quickly removed. Nube explains that if left in, it will cause the baby to grow into an incredibly violent person. Hiroshi later explains to Nube that he always explodes when he gets mad. He got in trouble playing soccer at his last school, and that is why he transferred. He says he is trying to do better, and Nube says that he will try to get him on the soccer team. After begging the coach, Nube gets him on. However, during the practice the other players, all 6^th graders jealous that a 5^th grader has made the team, rough him up. Hiroshi gets so mad that he takes out the whole team! The coach throws him off. However, during the attack, Nube sensed the power of an evil spirit coming from Hiroshi. And guess what: it is a 99 legged bug! Nube calms Hiroshi down and offers to help. He explains that it's not his fault, it's the spirit. Hiroshi doesn't believe Nube, so Nube shows him his Oni no Te. He explains that when he was fighting a demon, the only way he could defeat it was to seal it in his hand. Now he can use it as a weapon: since it is "spirit matter", it can damage spirits. And, since demons are very powerful (compared to most other evil spirits), the hand can dish out a lot of damage! Impressed, Hiroshi agrees to let Nube exorcize him. Nube draws out the spirit, and tries to exorcize it, but it just laughs at him. With no choice, Nube cuts it to shreds with his Oni no Te. Hiroshi is cured and becomes an instant fan of Nube from now on. He is allowed back on the soccer team (though his teammates return his previous "favor" by beating the tar out of him).
 

(Note: Ouch! Talked about a hacked translation of the title. A Jizo is a guardian spirit of children, but in this case it torments them. The "River of Death" refers to the place of crossing over into the other world; think of it as the River Styx. Trust me, it sounds more poetic in Japanese.)

The story begins as the gang from 5-3 meets at a convenience store before school. Akira pulls up in a brand new, decked out mountain bike. He has done chores to save up for 6 months to buy it. As they go inside the store to get some grub, though, a truck comes along and flattens it on the side of the road. Akira is in shock, and the rest of Nube's class comments on Akira's long history of bad luck. He is always getting hurt or having his projects destroyed. Upon arriving at school, the kids find Nube fast asleep, letting his spirit powers grade papers! Furious at his laziness, Kyoko wakes him up, and his hand goes crazy, writing on everything and everyone in sight! After he fully wakes up and gets it under control, he tries to justify it by explaining that he lets spirits write the tests as well. They talk to Nube about Akira's mishap, and Nube tells them that there is an art contest coming up, with a new bike as 1^st prize. Akira is an excellent artist, and decides to try. However, after a great start, he returns the next day to school to finish it and finds his sculpture has been smashed. Akria takes it well, but decides to give up. After a pep talk from Nube, though, he decides to give it another go. Nube, Kyoko, and Hiroshi offer to spend the night with Akira as he works to make sure no one messes up his statue this time. While Akira is working, Nube asks him if he has ever had a near-death experience. Akira answered that yes, he had, when he was younger. He had nearly drowned once, but had been resuscitated in time. Nube then realizes what is going on! On the shore of the River of Death, before they can cross over to heaven, children must stack up a pile of stones as punishment for the grief they cause their parents by dying before them. However, demons come along and kick down the piles just as the children finish, so they have to do it for eternity. When Akira died, he went to the shore of the River of Death, and when he was brought back to life, this demon, the Tormenting Jizo, followed him, and has been interfering with Akira's projects ever since. Just then, the demon appears to destroy the statue, and anyone else that just happens to be in the room. Nube pulls out his Oni no Te, however, and makes short work of this weak monster. Akira is free from his curse of bad luck! He finishes the statue and wins first prize. However, as one last bit of misfortune, it turns out 1^st prize was only a model of a bike, not the real thing. Oh well, maybe next time. 

Ah, at last! We get to meet Ritsuko sensei! We start as Nube is trying to figure out a way to impress Ritsuko. He gets an idea when he sees another teacher helping her by taking off a piece of paper that had gotten stuck to her back. Nube walks up and tries to be helpful by removing a ghost that had been stuck to her back! She shrieks in terror and tells Nube that she hates scary things. Nube offers to make it up to her by taking her out to dinner. Unfortunately, he wants to do it at the cemetery! He winds up getting rejected hard core, with a few bumps on his head for good measure. He walks into his class only to have the whole episode being rehearsed to everyone by Miki Hosokawa. And nothing Nube does can get her to shut up! Miki loves gossip, and is a pro at spreading it around. After generally ticking everyone off, and thinking she's popular because of her gossip, Miki heads home for the day. On the way, she happens upon a crime scene. Apparently a woman who was known to be a gossip committed suicide. She had alienated all of her friends with her annoying habit, and killed herself because she had none left. Miki, determined not to end up the same way, decides to swear off gossip. Unfortunately, an evil spirit has other plans, and unbeknownst to Miki, steals her shadow. The spirit runs around getting dirt on the students in 5-3. Hiroshi is having a particularly bad day on the john. Another student is found licking a the flute of a girl he likes; it has touched her lips, so he figures it's close to a kiss. And another girl is overheard telling Kyoko which boy she likes. Later, as everyone is heading down the hall together, Miki's shadow pops out from around the corner and tells everyone what was seen. Everyone gets really ticked off at Miki, but when they round the corner to grab her, she's gone. When they find Miki later she gets chewed out by everyone, including Nube. Later in the day, Miki's shadow pops out from behind a phone pole to spread some more gossip. When the class is about to go after it, one of the students throws off a disguise; it's Miki! She explains to the confused class that her shadow has been causing the problems, not her. Having been found out, the shadow transforms into the true form of the evil spirit (a big ugly blob covered with eyes and with a huge mouth). It grabs Miki, and explains that it had planned for her to get so depressed she would kill herself like the other woman, but since that didn't work, it was just going to eat everyone anyway. Nube shows up just in time to save Miki. When the monster refuses to leave them alone, it gets a knuckle sandwich, Oni no Te style. Needless to say it's a big mess, and there wasn't a lot of monster left for dessert. Miki has learned her lesson, and from now on, keeps her gossip to a minimum (though you'll see she'll slip from time to time). Nube tries again to get on Ritsuko's good side, but fails miserably when he talks about the weather and points out the floating ghost that looks like a cloud. It's going to be a while before she really appreciates him. 

As Nube is giving another rousing lecture on chemistry (in 5^th grade!?), Kyoko notices that Hiroshi is asleep. Annoyed, she tries to wake him up by throwing pencils, erasers, etc. at him, but nothing works. She winds up throwing a huge dictionary that knocks him out of his seat! He retaliates by blowing a huge pile of eraser dust on her, and they get into a huge knock-down drag-out fight, right in the middle of class! Hiroshi ends up complaining that Kyoko is not very ladylike at all; she's too violent. Kyoko takes offense, and goes home in an awful mood. She throws her books and kicks off her shoes as soon as she gets in: right at her mother! Her mom, who also decides she needs to learn to be more ladylike, is in the middle of scolding her when a wander monk comes along and offers to help. He says the problem is that an evil spirit is acting as her guardian spirit and is causing her to act to violently. Kyoko thinks he's a scam artist, but her mom decides to give him a try. Sure enough, he exchanges her guardian spirit for a new one, and when she shows up to school the next day, no one hardly recognizes her! She comes dressed in a girls' dress and has a very pleasant attitude. Hiroshi, in shock, tries to get her mad by teasing her, but she just cries at his meanness. She is now a model student, excelling in all her subjects. Hiroshi, still in shock, goes to Nube to find out what is going on. Nube figures out that her guardian spirit has been exchanged. He explains that when a person's guardian spirit is changed, their personality changes as well. That's why some people seem to have a sudden change in personality; their guardian spirit has been changed. However, since the change in Kyoko's case seems to be for the better, Nube doesn't think there is a need to switch it back. Hiroshi, who seems to like the old Kyoko better (maybe as more than a friend?), is determined to get her back to normal. He decides to get her so mad she will revert back to her old self. However, all of his teasing fails, and Kyoko remains as cheerful as ever. As she is playing with kitten on the sidewalk afterwards, however, she gets a possessed look, and steps out in front of car. Hiroshi saves her just in time. Just as he is commenting on what a sorry excuse for a guardian spirit she has, a pile of steel beams falls off of a nearby building and heads right for them, but Nube saves them both in time. He figures that something is wrong with her guardian spirit, and decides to get to the bottom of it. When he uses his crystal to make the spirit show itself, the form of an evil spirit appears... 

We left our heroes facing an ominous looking bad guy last time. It turns out that it's not a guardian spirit at all: it's a Hyoirei. He figures when that sham artist monk did the exchange, he didn't exchange for a real guardian spirit. He got an evil spirit instead. Nube takes Kyoko and Hiroshi back to his classroom to put Kyoko's original guardian back in. When he starts, however, things from around the room start flying at them! It's the evil spirit, and it's rather ticked off. Nube makes it show itself again, and this time we get a clearer look. It's a beautiful woman, and Hiroshi can't believe such a good looking person could be evil. Nube knows better. Nube demands that she leave Kyoko, and the spirit gets mad. It turns into a hideous monster, with whip-like hair and pretty nasty teeth, and grabs Kyoko and tries to pull her out the window, but Hiroshi grabs her feet and. Nube demands to know the reason for this attack, and the spirit tells him that she needs to bathe in the blood of beautiful women to keep her beauty. The spirit attacks Hiroshi and pull him and Kyoko out the window. They both fall, but in a stroke of luck, a truck full of cushions pulls up below them. During the fight, Kyoko's original guardian spirit returned to her and is helping her out! With the children out of the way, Nube hauls out a copy of a Buddhist sutra written in a pamphlet folded accordion-style [note: I'll come up with a more in-depth description in my vocab page later]. The sutra surrounds the ghost and seals it inside. Nube finds the monk who did the exchange and whacks him on the heat with the sutra, giving him the evil guardian spirit! The monk immediately winds up getting into accidents. With Kyoko back to normal, all is quite in Nube's class. Except for Hiroshi's snoring; he's asleep again! Kyoko is about to whack him again, but decides that since he helped save her life, she would be nice. She tries to wake him nicely, but he jerks awake in a panic thinking the evil guardian spirit is back: Kyoko is still acting funny! Furious that he thinks she can't be nice for a change, Kyoko starts fighting with him again. Maybe it would have been better to change her guardian spirit after all...

#6 Kappa to Tetsubou - The Kappa and the Horizontal Bar

Makoto Kurita makes his first appearance in this story.  He is very small, and as the story begins we see him practicing on the horizontal bars.  He has a hard time with them because of his size, and wants to do well on the upcoming PE test to avoid the inevitable jokes.  Suddenly, a kappa appears and scares the wits out of him! (A kappa is a water spirit that looks like a turtle crossed with a lizard (I will put up a picture.).)  The next day the class lines up to take their horizontal bar test.  Nube has forgotten his warm-up suit at home and borrows one from Ishikawa sensei.  To get everyone in the mood (and hopefully earn a little respect) Nube starts things off by giving a horizontal bar demonstration.  As it turns out, he was quite the gymnastics star when he was younger and is quite skilled.  The class looks on in admiration.  As he flies around the bar, however, some slips of paper fall our of the pockets of the warm-up suit.  They turn out to be ads for some rather disreputable establishments (a gay bar and call-girl hotline among them).  Admiration turns to scorn as the class learns of Nube's hobbies.  Needless to say, they do not believe Nube when he tries to explain the suit is Ishikawa sensei's.  When he finally does convince them, they still complain he is an idiot because he forgot his own suit on test day.  Dejected, Nube gets on with the testing.  Makoto, however, refuses to get on the bar.  He tells Nube he saw a kappa on it the day before.  Though the class breaks out laughing at him and says he just trying to get out of the test, Nube decides to believe him and makes the horizontal bars off-limits.  He catches a lot of flak from the other teachers and principal, but sticks to his decision.  Makoto talks to Nube, wondering why he is putting up with so much on his behalf.  Nube tells him that when you believe something you are sure is right, you got to stick with it.  He believes Makoto, and so sticks with him.  Makoto, heartened by Nube's support, decides that if Nube is going to go all out for him, he will get some proof to back him up.  He starts playing on the horizontal bar, trying to lure out the kappa.  All of a sudden, the kappa jumps out and grabs Makoto and pulls him into the ground right before Hiroshi's eyes.  Hiroshi runs and grabs Nube, who has an idea where the kappa's lair is.  He heads for an old well, and he and Hiroshi climb down.  They follow the tunnels, but in the darkness the kappa grabs Hiroshi.  However, just as Nube is about to nail it with his Oni no Te, Makoto appears and tells him to stop.  Makoto explains that the kappa was really trying to help them, and swings a flashlight around to the far wall, revealing an unexploded bomb from WWII, right under the horizontal bars!  With kids playing around on the bars (they just don't pay attention to signs!), the bomb is about ready to go off.  With no time for anything else, Nube bears his oni no te and sends it crashing upwards out of the ground.  The children, terrified by at the sight, run away, just as the bomb goes off.  Nube and company avoid the blast by diving into the water (with a little supernatural help, of course).  Makoto has been vindicated, and we learn that all "monsters" are not necessarily monsters (a common theme throughout the series- just because you look scary doesn't necessarily mean you are evil).  Also, with the horizontal bars destroyed, the class must work at another sport.  They wind up playing ping-pong, which Makoto just happens to be a wizard at (Forrest Gump, Jr.?).