Here's a series I love that's pretty obscure to English speakers: Kuromajo-san ga Tooru!! — or translated, Here Comes a Black Witch!! It's a silly Magical Girl series, yet it doesn't bother to adhere to typical tropes for its genre. Choco has basically no friends and is essentially a side character trying to live quietly in a classroom of main characters when she gets forced into becoming a black witch. The good thing: she loves occult; the bad thing: she would rather engage with occult at a distance and not have to slather gross concoctions of boiled lizard guts or whatever else over her skin. And she would really, really rather not have to wear gothic lolita and stay in her comfy overalls forever, but her brash, androgynous instructor insists on it as her uniform anyway. Choco is constantly retorting in her head to the ridiculous antics of the figures around her as she's dragged into all sorts of situations she'd rather not be in, but she somehow manages to save basically every single one of her classmates from supernatural death. And through all of this, she develops a bond with her instructor, Gyubid, that she values more than her own biological family even as she side-eyes her constantly. The relationship between Choco and Gyubid (who is downright hilarious) is why I keep coming back to this series. The writing strikes a great balance between Gyubid's pranks and her care for Choco. Gyubid will try to loop a 10-year-old into a scheme to obtain expensive Gyubie (aka Barbie) dolls, call that 10-year-old a dumbass for not understanding magic, get chased around the block when this 10-year-old raises hell, and then work her ass off to defend this kid over and over again. I never get the sense that Gyubid ever wants to set Choco up for anything besides success despite all her heckling, and she's always got Choco's back no matter what. And she's just so funny.
So I figured reading the novel series (41 books!) would be a good way to practice my Japanese. I thought I'd just log some of the differences with the anime like how I did with the Heartcatch Precure novel. But I didn't quite account for how much got shaved in the low budget 7-minute episode format, so enough of it ended up being different that I just gave up and summarized the scenes in detail instead. These aren't full translations as I don't have time for that, but you can always go watch the anime if you're new to this series. The voice acting is really great, especially for Choco and Gyubid. (I fully expect no one but me and my friend to read these posts, though).
Differences, more context, etc., are in the footnotes. Which won't function correctly on Tumblr, but oh well. Many thanks to my friend @magical-pun-girl, who helped me figure out how best to translate terminology and spells.
This are character profiles, each consisting of 2 sentences. Nothing new here.
(A True Scary Story)
The Girl Possessed by a Black Witch
This prologue follows the format of recounting Choco's attempt to summon cupid and ending up with Gyubid. Nothing new here, either.
Story One: A Black Witch vs. A Flight of School Ghost Stories
This story is adapted in Ep 1 of the anime.
1. A Black Witch's Early Morning Training!
Rather than showing their very first encounter like in the anime, the book just leads right into Gyubid waking Choco up for her 5AM training by moving stuff around in the air and pulling her sheets out so that she tumbles onto the floor. Choco initially thinks that it's evening, but it's 5:30 AM and Gyubid is mad at her for sleeping in.
Morning Training Menu:
- Tidying your bed (Repellent for Contagious Magic)
- Cleaning (Repellent for Contagious Magic)
- Magic Circle Transcription (Level 1 Necromancer Magic)
Choco starts protesting while changing into her day clothes (her overalls), asking why she has to bother with this. Gyubid says it's because Choco wanted to be a black witch. Choco protests that she never said that, her nose was just stuffy when she was trying to summon Cupid. Gyubid says that it doesn't matter what the circumstances were, she has to train Choco into becoming a black witch. Choco digs in her heels and says, what if I don't want to, no matter what? Gyubid takes a hairband from around her wrist and puts it around the pajamas Choco just took off.
"Luciuge ⬥ luciuge ⬥ titetoms." [1]
Choco's overalls constrict around her. Gyubid chants the spell again. Choco tells Gyubid to cut it out since it hurts, but Gyubid says she has to add "-sama" when she says Gyubid. Choco uses -sama and says she'll study properly. The spell goes slack, and Gyubid explains that she wasn't actually serious with that spell; Choco can think of it as tough love to make her want to become a full-fledged black witch. Choco mutters that it's more like Gyubid can't return to the Magic World unless she makes Choco a witch. Gyubid casts the spell again, and Choco scrambles to say that she didn't say anything, stacking polite verbs to the point where it's ungrammatical (ありませんでございますです). Gyubid laughs releases the spell. She then explains that the spell just used was a type of Contagious Magic. Choco's pajamas weren't put away and still had the impression of Choco's shape in them, so a rubber band could transmit the magic to Choco's body. To protect yourself from Contagious Magic, you have to make sure that you don't even leave behind a single strand of hair.
Gyubid says that she's never seen such a dirty room. Choco doesn't know how true that is, since she doesn't have any other kid's room to compare to as she is friendless.[2] Choco is going through the grueling cleaning process — making sure there's not a single wrinkle in the sheets, etc. — when her mom calls her name and suddenly opens the door. Gyubid immediately clings to the ceiling like a bat. Her mom is shocked as Choco has never woken up at 5am to clean her room before. Choco says that she's already a 5th grader, so she can at least take charge of her own room. Choco asks for a vacuum cleaner so she can clean the floor. Her mom nods and then goes running down the stairs, crying out of joy and calling for Choco's father to tell him the news. Choco thinks this reaction is totally overblown.
Gyubid comments that her mom is rude for not knocking before opening the door as she comes down from the ceiling. Choco says that her mom is bound to see Gyubid if she looks just slightly upwards. Gyubid says she won't see anything, because she's only visible to Choco. Choco is confused at why Gyubid even bothered to cling to the ceiling; Gyubid says because that's what the demons and vampires do in the movies, and it looks cool. Gyubid then says that Choco can't use a vacuum cleaner. Witches have to use brooms.
2. Megu's Spirit Photography
Choco has unearthed her floor for the first time in five years when Megu suddenly calls her name from the front door. She says she wants to walk to school with Choco, and Choco's mom starts crying again. Choco again is annoyed by this overblown reaction, but her mom says that this is the first time this has happened since Choco entered elementary school. Choco mentally notes that this is true, but she also doesn't care because she thinks having to deal with girl talk (fashion, etc.) is annoying. Gyubid says Choco has a bad personality. Choco thinks she doesn't want to be told that by a black witch.
Choco invites Megu up to Choco's room. Gyubid goes to hide in the corner of the ceiling again for the fun of it.
Choco hears Megu counting the steps as she comes up the stairs, but she falls silent right before Choco's room. She starts going down the stairs and the count starts over. Then Megu dashes up the stairs and cheerily bursts in with a, "Good morning!" Her outfit is loud as always in Onee-kei style (likely Gal-adjacent, given Choco's reaction). Megu has been into fashion since kindergarten. Choco asks what she was doing on the stairs, and Megu talks about how there's a story about their school's stairs where something bad happens to you when the number of the stairs going up vs. down aren't the same. Choco thinks this is ridiculous and doesn't appreciate that Megu's playing around with her home staircase. Though the formatting of the text indicates that it's a thought,[3] Megu catches on and insists that she's not playing around; it's real, and that's why she's come to talk to Choco. Choco mentally notes that this checks out since there's no way Megu would hang out with her unless it had to do with occult stuff.
Megu brings out her fashionable tote bag (of which she's the only student to be using as a school bag) and shows Choco a picture. Unlike the class photo in the anime, it's a pic of Megu, Mai, Yuri, and Shou. There's a figure behind Megu's peace sign but only their hair is visible. Megu says that they took the photo after making up after fighting over Shou (to which Choco is internally annoyed about because she was the one who solved that for Megu with the attempt to call Cupid), but weird stuff has been happening to her since.
The hair apparently belongs to their teacher, who snuck in the photo because he was so touched his students were making up and getting along or whatever.
Megu insists that there's a face in the wall and that other creepy things have been happening to her. She lists off things that all sound normal to Choco. Megu wants Choco to be her bodyguard, and Choco wants to say no, but Gyubid telepathically tells her to say yes because the photo really is haunted.
3. When It Comes to the Self-Proclaimed "Hearty Hunk of a Teacher"...[4]
The two walk to school and Megu imagines all sorts of paranormal phenomena, but Choco points out that it's all regular stuff. Megu doesn't listen to this and, at school, tells the other kids that all this bad stuff happened to her but Choco guarded her. Mai asks Choco to be the president of the Paranormal Investigation Committee because other stuff has been happening to the students in this class. Yuri is worried about the stairs thing.
Their teacher, Matsuoka, comes in and looks around for attendance and points out that there's someone crying: Yokozuna, to Choco's diagonal left. Choco apparently didn't notice this because Yokozuna cries often, like whenever people say that he's fat or his legs are short or that he cries a lot. (leave this kid alone)
Matsuoka's mean nickname for Yokozuna (Iwata Daigorou) is "Kuishinbou Banzai" in the novel (the "Banzai" part didn't make it to anime, just "Kuishinbou," which was translated to "Piggy"). When Matsuoka says it, the other boys in their class put their hands up and repeat the name, or just the "Banzai" part.
Matsuoka tells him to speak up about what's wrong, but Yokozuna just weeps, so Mai stands up and says that the boys were bullying him with no-rules dodgeball. Choco notices marks on his face and the back of his T-shirt. In no-rules dodgeball, there's no court, so people who are hit with the ball can keep playing instead of standing on the side and waiting. Choco thinks this way of playing dodgeball makes no sense. Since balls can fly out from anywhere, it often hits people in the face. Being bigger and someone who's quick to cry, Yokozuna ends up getting targeted more. Choco thinks the other boys are stupid. Mai goes on about how no-rules dodgeball is supposed to be forbidden, and it's unforgivable that the boys were using that game to bully Yokozuna. The boys grow flustered and say they weren't bullying him. They demand proof. Mai swiftly replies that the proof is the marks on Yokozuna's face and his nosebleed. Choco mentally cheers Mai on.
Matsuoka asks "Piggy Banzai" if that's true. Yokozuna nods. The boys protest and tell Yokozuna to say that it isn't true. The teacher gets mad at them.... for calling him Yokozuna instead of Piggy Banzai. He then tells him to just wear thicker clothes. Mai insists that the problem is the no-rules dodgeball and the boys are in the wrong. Matsuoka just laughs and says that humans hate following rules. Mai protests, but he says that there's no point in banning the game. Then he turns to Yokozuna and tells him that hard experiences make you stronger, and that's what youth's about. The girls are aghast.
Matsuoka then changes the subject to a surprise kanji quiz. Everyone groans, and he gleefully says wanting to hear that sound is why he became a teacher. Choco thinks something is deeply wrong with him. Choco barely has time to do her homework due to all her witch training, so she does poorly. Matsuoka makes them read their scores out loud. Mai says "full points" egotistically. Yokozuna also got full points, at which point Matsuoka bullies him by saying he's full both on the test and on food. The boys all join in on the "Banzai" joke again. Choco is forced to read out that she got 3 points, but Matsuoka pretends not to hear her and asks if she said full points ("santen" sounds close to "manten"). She repeats 3, aggravated that he's pretending not to hear her when she sits right in front of him. Matsuoka joke asks if she's had a curse put on her. Choco mentally thinks, yes, by the freeloader black witch in her house. Megu scores 0 points. After making an annoying joke about if she's speaking Kansai, Matsuoka looks at her paper and reads aloud her first kanji mistake with its unintentional warped meaning. He starts laughing and the boys laugh with him, and ask him to read out more. He does, and Megu stands there biting her lips and staring at the floor. Choco thinks she must be really hurt, since normally she expresses her feelings loud and clear.
4. Black Witch Debut!
Choco is home recounting what happened to Gyubid. Yokozuna cried all day; Megu got so mad she screamed and kept talking about how she was going to make Matsuoka pay. Mai and Yuri agreed to help her. Choco likewise can't forgive Matsuoka's behavior. Gyubid interrupts her and asks what she's going to do about the Paranormal Investigation Committee. Choco doesn't get the connection, but Gyubid says that Matsuoka is probably dealing with something supernatural. Choco says she checked out the area where they took the photo, but the face that Megu saw was just a trick of the eye or some kind of prank. Gyubid says that the problem isn't with the location of the photo, but who took the photo. Ghosts don't exist. Humans just disappear after being cremated, so all psychic phenomena are created by the feelings of living humans. [5]
Choco takes out the photo and Gyubid sniffs it. Then she tells Choco to head to the school at night with Megu. Taking out another black coat from inside her coat, Gyubid tells Choco to wear it since it raises magic power and also wards off evil. Naturally, she also tells Choco that she'll be in trouble if she loses it or gets it dirty.
Choco meets up with Megu at the children's park behind the school. She's really embarrassed to be wearing Gyubid's spare coat. Megu freezes in place when she sees Choco, so Choco starts saying something about how she should change, but Megu interrupts her with excited praise about how she knew Choco wasn't just your average occult maniac; she even looks like a black witch, how wonderful! Megu says she couldnt help but feel scared about checking out the staircase together, but she feels full of courage now since she knows that Choco can resolve the issue.
They go to the school and Megu worries about opening the gates, which are locked shut and will sound an alarm if forced open without a card-key. Choco calmly states that the gate isn't locked and alarm system is out of order tonight, and pushes the gates open. No alarm. Megu is amazed. Choco thinks to herself that it's not like she did anything particularly amazing — it was all Gyubid. Choco says that since the card-key system is broken tonight, Matsuoka will be patrolling instead. They head to the staircase.
They climb up and count the steps from the second floor to the third (where their classroom is). Going up is 14, but going down is... Megu starts counting, but when Choco turns around, she sees a new shadow on the floor from the window that wasn't there before. It looks human-shaped.
Megu finishes counting: 13. There's one step missing. The shadow disappears, and Choco and Megu head to the next place paranormal phenomena have been occurring: the girl's bathroom on the third floor. All the single use stalls are closed even though there should be no one around to use them. Megu says they're also closed during the day and there's no response when you knock on them. Choco spots the shadow from earlier sitting on the floor in front of the stall furthest in. The shadow is big and its shoulders seem to be trembling, like it's crying.
Choco asks Megu who took the photo she showed her earlier. Megu says Yokozuna. Matsuoka saw Yokozuna passing by and made him take the photo for them. Choco asks how Yokozuna was acting when he took the photo. Megu says he was crying while doing so because their teacher had taunted him by asking if his fat finger could even press the shutter and saying that the camera might get lost in his fat cheeks. Choco confirms mentally that the problem with the spirit photograph isn't the location but who took the photo. Yokozuna's resentment turned into a vengeful astral body [6] and was causing paranormal phenomena throughout school. To dispel this spirit, they have to solve its grudge, or rather, take revenge on Matsuoka.
Choco asks Megu to go ahead to the next location, the music room. Megu is afraid to go alone, but Choco tells her that she's going to perform exorcism now and Megu could get caught up in it if she sticks around. Megu agrees to leave Choco, shaking all the while. Choco gets to work — not on exorcism, but on using a spell to give shape to Yokozuna's resentment. After all, the specialty of black magic is to cast curses.
Choco chants "Luciuge ⬥ luciuge ⬥ liberare" [7] three times, and the shadow stands up and charges at her. She reflexively steps back, but the shadow darts to her side and then off to the music room, where Megu is.
5. An Astral Body's Vengeance
Choco finds Megu in the brightly lit music classroom: she's fine. They hear Matsuoka humming and talking to himself, coming down the hallway. He's annoyed about being on patrol duty and talks to himself about how he wanted to dance in a club all night long instead.
Choco and Megu hide themselves between a window and a desk. Matsuoka assumes that the light was left on by mistake and turns it off. Then the piano suddenly starts to play slow, sad sounding notes. Megu is clinging to Choco, who has a hand against Megu's mouth to keep her from screaming. Choco's legs are shaking. Matsuoka directs his flashlight to the piano. There's a figure there — Beethoven.
Choco looks to the wall. Of the pictures of the composers, Beethoven's is missing from his. Beethoven starts speaking (in Japanese, which even Choco comments on) about how sad the sounds of the trampled are, then yells at Matsuoka for failing to grasp his meaning. Matsuoka fails to form any words, but when Beethoven comes closer (without feet, Japanese ghost style), Matsuoka throws his flashlight and runs out the room. Beethoven's picture reappears in its frame, smirking.
Choco tells Megu that they gotta get going since they don't want to be in this room anymore. Outside in the hallway, Matsuoka keeps running two or three steps before falling on his hands and knees, crashing into the walls or hallway windows. He reaches the girl's bathroom and darts into it. Choco looks in and he's desperately knocking on the closed stall, screaming about how it won't open. He's crying buckets. None of the doors will open, and there's no response to his knocks. He screams for some reason unknown to Choco and tries to open the stall furthest in.
A response comes: "This stall is occupied by the student you've nicknamed so cruelly." The voice comes out in small starts, interrupted by weeping in between.
The voice says that it will be out shortly to clear away its resentment towards Matsuoka. Just as Matsuoka takes a step back, the door slams open. Yokozuna's dark shadow comes out and asks Matsuoka to flush himself away along with all of the bad things he's said. All the toilets suddenly flush. Yokozuna's shadow reaches out a hand to Matsuoka. Matsuoka squeaks out a "Help me," and then bolts from the bathroom. Yokozuna's shadow chases him.
Megu's knees give out, and her eyes are hollow. Choco is worried about her, but she's more worried that Matsuoka is going to be killed, which she'll then feel guilty about because it was her spell that gave Yokozuna's astral body a form. Choco tells Megu, who looks like she's half-fainted, to wait there, and runs after Matsuoka and the shadow.
Matsuoka pleads "Help me," and starts running down the cursed stairs, but stops halfway when Yokozuna's shadow teleports to the bottom of it when it had been behind Matsuoka just seconds ago. It calls out to Matsuoka; he recognizes the voice as Yokozuna's. Yokozuna's shadow says that the Matsuoka only ever says mean things to him and never helps him. He resents Matsuoka. And it's not just him; many others in the class also resent Matsuoka. Matsuoka says he'll apologize. The shadow says that if apologies were good enough, we wouldn't need the police. It gets closer to Matsuoka. Matsuoka begs for forgiveness, saying he won't call him any more weird names, and he'll reprimand the other boys.
Matsuoka suddenly turns around in Choco's direction, frantically trying to run up the stairs instead. He collides into Choco and screams out another "Help me!" while trying to cling to her. But Choco's coat is slick, and his attempts at grabbing her slide right off. Matsuoka's foot slips, and he goes tumbling down the staircase.
"Luciuge ⬥ luciuge ⬥ retractale." [8]
Gyubid stands at the bottom of the stairs. She chants the spell again. Yokozuna's shadow fades away.
Choco asks Gyubid why she's here and steps over Matsuoka to descend the stairs. Gyubid says that she came to check on Choco since the astral body's grudge was stronger than expected and might have been too much for her. Choco asks if everything's all right now. Gyubid says yes, because she chanted the spell to withdraw the astral body. Gyubid says she also wiped the memory of Choco's flashy friend (Megu), since she looked so scared that Gyubid figured she might not come to school again if she remembers what happened. Gyubid says that Yokozuna's spirit [9] is also satisfied now, though that might not last if the teacher pulls the same stunts.
Gyubid says that Choco did good on her debut, since usually people freeze up when they see astral bodies. She's in the middle of saying that Choco passed when she lets out a yelp and points at the jacket Choco is wearing. She asks accusatorily what Choco did to her precious spare coat. There's a bunch of tiny scratches all over the bottom part of it. Choco says that Matsuoka did that when he was trying to run away from Yokozuna's astral body. Gyubid fires off a stream of her typical insults: "Idiot! Moron! Blockhead! Numskull! Dipstick! Utter imbecile!" (The book describes this as like a machine gun.)
Gyubid yell-asks what Choco's gonna do about this. Choco says she's going to do nothing since this is just what happens when you use black magic. Gyubid yells not to give her attitude when Choco's nothing but a low-level witch and demands compensation. Choco protests that she has no way of doing so, but Gyubid is shouting, "Compensation! Compensation!" as she runs down the stairs. What a childish tantrum, Choco thinks, but there's no way she can actually replace the coat, so it doesn't matter. All in all, Yokozuna's resentment has been satisfied, Matsuoka is reflecting on his actions, and the school hauntings have been solved, so things turned out pretty well. Matsuoka starts to get up, so Choco quickly gathers Megu and returns home.
The next day at school, the classroom's air is tense. When Matsuoka hobbles in, Mai immediately stands up and says that she became the leader of the "Denouncing Mr. Matsuoka Trampling All Over His Students' Feelings Committee", and she wants to have a word with him during this morning session to...
Mai trails off and the whole class gasps in shock. Matsuoka apologizes and says he was in the wrong. His face is covered with injuries. He apologizes to Iwata for giving him the Piggy Banzai nickname and for saying it was his own fault for being bullied. Matsuoka also says he won't make fun of people's tests anymore and he'll be watching for people breaking the rules. He apologizes again. Mai starts to say something, but Matsuoka cuts in, saying he understands: If apologies were good enough they wouldn't need the police. He asks her what he should do and says he'll do anything. Mai says that wasn't what she was going to say — she's curious about what happened to his face. The whole class nods. Matsuoka rubs his swollen face with his fingers, and says, "I hurt myself ghosting down— I mean, going down the stairs at school." [10] Choco thinks to herself that he's hopeless for making a pun in this situation.
(The text says, "Just kidding...")
Bat: And then? And then??
— End of Volume 1, Story One —
Personal Comment Section
I don't think they clarified the Beethoven thing in the novel, but that definitely has to be Gyubid's doing.
Choco is so real for also being like... "Man, I just don't want to feel responsible for someone dying on me."
Interestingly, we don't get any dialogue here of Yokozuna saying that he prefers the nickname Yokozuna rather than his name Iwata. I guess they added that in the anime? It's weird to not have it here, since nicknaming a fat kid "Yokozuna" (top rank in Sumo) can also be offensive if the kid doesn't like it.
I'm not into how the book describes Yokozuna's body. Uses a lot of imagery tied to food (like he looks like a steamed bun) and SFX that emphasizes the plump feeling. I don't feel like other characters' bodies get this type of treatment; it reads as fatphobic.
In general, I prefer the anime's take on this first story since the crimes fit the punishment there (one bad nickname, not enabling bullying nor bullying all the students = one big scare by Yokozuna's astral body) rather than what happened here. I'm guessing since it was a 3-pronged "ghost" scare (music room, bathroom, staircase), it was meant to stand in for each of these bad things he did in the novel (calling Yokozuna "Piggy Banzai", excusing the dodgeball bullying, shaming Megu's kanji test), but it still doesn't feel equal. The section with the girl's bathroom also didn't make sense to me. It feels like the more logical thing to do is to just try to exit the building entirely rather than bang on the stalls of the bathroom, asking to be let in. Let in to do what? Take a nervous poop? Hiding in the bathroom doesn't seem any safer than hiding in another open room. Maybe if they had gone into the horror element more rather than the kiddy ghost story vibe, it would've been better.
I do think the counting stairs thing is pretty funny, though. I definitely remember having this discussion in elementary school on step counting and whether it was the same going up or down.
Footnotes
1: The general format of the spells is Luciuge ⬥ luciuge ⬥ __re (ルキウゲ・ルキウゲ・～ーレ), which derives from the demon Lucifuge Rofocale in the Grand Grimoire. As a result, "Rofocale" is the most common spell in the series. (Note: the dots in the Japanese just emphasize the split in words for katakana, but me and my friend think they look cool and opted to use diamonds instead of just commas or spaces.)
"ルキウゲ is referring to Lucifuge, but they changed the フ to a ウ in the name, so I dropped the F as well. "Lucifuge" is a combination of two Latin words, "Lux" (light) and "Fugio" (flee), which makes the term "one who flees from the light". I suppose that's pretty black witch-y.
The ーレ ending is likely a reference to the れ command form in Japanese.
All of this is to say that this spell (ルキウゲ・ルキウゲ・タイトゥムス), which only ever shows up in book 1, doesn't follow the format of the typical spells. The last word, "タイトゥムス" doesn't end in ーレ, and doesn't seem Latin, either. My guess is that it's a portmanteau of the English words "tight" and "bottoms" (as in referring to lower garments), タイト and ボトムス. This would fit the effects of making Choco's overalls constrict around her. "Titetoms" is my way of combining these words. I used "ite" instead of "ight" to not seem so obviously English in a sea of Latin-like spells.
The anime doesn't use "Titetoms" (タイトゥムス) but "Contages" (my best transcription guess: コンティギネス), which the Anxious-He sub group rendered as "Contagiarsi." I don't actually know why they did that over "Contages." But also, I don't really know Latin that well anyway so I don't know if my spelling is the most correct either, but it actually gets a result on internet searching while "Contagiarsi" does not.
The anime also differs from the book in that "Contages" uses a strand of Choco's hair to control her like a puppet.
Still, neither the "Titetoms" nor "Contages" follow the typical spell format, and they also never show up again (at least according to a Japanese blog post I'm using as reference for the spells in the books. Limited-edition redacted spell?
2: Choco in this book regularly says she doesn't have any friends (友だち), yet during the ritual to call out Gyubid in the prologue the narration said "friends from school" (クラスの友だち). I guess she means she doesn't really have people she's close with. I'm not really sure why this inconsistency exists; Choco could just call them classmates if she really wanted to. Choco also later does use the word "friend" for Megu in her head when she's reacting to her mom's tears, like "There's no need to get so emotional just because a friend came to pick me up!" (友だちがむかえにきたからって、そんなに感動するなぁ！) but I guess you could say this is more rhetorical.
3: Sometimes people respond to Choco's internal thoughts, so I guess her face just displays what she's thinking really clearly or she somehow says parts of it out loud without quotation marks. This kind of confused me when reading at times. In the anime, she does sometimes make small side comments to herself, but she also has times where she quips without voicing anything.
4: Fansubs seem to use something like "Schoolgirls' Heartthrob Teacher," but this doesn't actually make sense with the Japanese. For one thing, "schoolgirls" is nowhere to be found. The Japanese is 熱血イケメン教師, which basically means "hot-blooded handsome teacher." The point of this isn't that he wants young girls to fall in love with him but that he sees himself as one of those inspirational young teachers you see in Japanese Dramas. In fact, this self-proclaimed name is rooted in the term 熱血教師, which is just "passionate/enthusiastic teacher." The イケメン (good-looking guy) being inserted here is just for his ego. As such, we're going with "Hearty Hunk of a Teacher," as it rolls off the tongue and captures all 3 parts of this self-given title.
5: The word Gyubid uses here is 霊 (rei), which is "soul; spirit; departed soul; ghost." The sense I get here is that souls of dead people don't haunt the living, so there are no "ghosts." More on this to come in future chapters.
6: The term used for this is 生き霊 (ikiryou), which is a "vengeful spirit (spawned from a person's hate)." The kanji that make up this word are literally "alive" and "spirit".
7: ルキウゲ・ルキウゲ・リヴェラーレ
"Liberare" is a Latin word meaning "to set free." This spell only appears in book 1. It is also used in the anime, though.
8: ルキウゲ・ルキウゲ・リトラッターレ
"リトラッタ" from the English word "retractable" (リトラクタブル). The ッ could be standing in for the omitted ク. The ending of the word is replaced by the typical spell format. This spell only appears in book 1. Not used in the anime.
9: Uses the word 気 here (spirit; mind; heart).
10: Both 怪談 (ghost story) and 階段 (stairs) are read as "kaidan." Given that this is the punchline of the story, I also tried to preserve this wordplay in the story title: "A Black Witch vs. A Flight of School Ghost Stories." (学校の怪談 VS. 黒魔女)
