Meisuke Nueno (鵺野鳴介 Nueno Meisuke), better known as "Nūbē", is the main protagonist of Jigoku Sensei Nūbē.
Appearance
Nūbē has black hair and huge bushy eyebrows. He has brown eyes. He wears a black glove on his left hand to cover it's demonic form.
Personality
Nūbē can be both a great, fun-loving or a serious, focused man dependent on what you see him for. On matters of either spiritual or educational importance, he is a serious individual focused on doing the job perfectly. Not only does this allow him to conquer one yōkai crisis after another, but it also allows him to be a bit obsessive towards making sure his students learn what they need to and don't fool around or forget anything. (a problem considering the underachieving attributes of several of his male students). Outside his work, though, Nūbē is a fun, almost happy-go-lucky guy with too many faults to his name. He is always chasing after beautiful women (especially the more buxom ones), spending the little money he does have on pachinko, and consistently starving his way to payday while living off whatever they serve in school or the freebies he can get, or finding a way to get rich quick (even if it means using the Oni no Te to do so), all the while trying to avoid the scorns or troubles that his rivals throw his way. While he doesn't like living the teacher's life a good chunk of the time, Nūbē does find that it does have its rewards.
Abilities
Nūbē is trained as an exorcist to have many means of facing his yōkai encounters. The most powerful of these tools, though, is the Oni no Te (鬼の手), the result of a battle with a powerful oni, leaving him forced to seal its power within the stump where his left hand should be. This grotesque appendage, usually sealed within a black glove on his left hand, allows him to use his own spiritual energies combined with the powers of the oni both to attack evil opponents and for other means, such as communicating with other yōkai or freeing spirits. While Nūbē typically is able to control the power, he is usually only able to use a fraction of its true powers and abilities, for the oni is so powerful Nūbē himself can't control it. The oni is actually being held by Nūbē's Sensei, who died being consumed by the oni when trying to save Nūbē. Nūbē's teacher is also a powerful exorcist and the reason Nūbē wanted to became a teacher.
Other than the Oni no Te, Nūbē uses other spiritual artifacts for his battles. The Sutra of the White-Robed Goddess (白衣観音経 Byaku E Kanon Kyou), a white paper-like sutra, is used by Nūbē to surround and seal certain yōkai phenomenon to either hold them down or exorcise them without the need of the Oni no Te. He also possesses a crystal ball which can make certain spirits and phenomenon visible to the human eye, and a set of prayer beads he can attack with or use as part of his summonings. He also eventually creates his own kudagitsune, a product of another kudagitsune he borrows from itako-girl Izuna and his Oni no Te, and has mastered several spiritual techniques such as the "youshin jutsu" (a technique where he can create a separate spiritual body that moves about by itself whenever he is asleep or meditating), and the separation of his physical body and spirit in order to transcend into other realms.