Strange punctuation in book?

[Leanan Sidhe]

I was slowing working my way through a book recently (and not the children's books I'm accustomed to) and encountered two instances of something I'm not exactly sure how to interpret... They're almost like commas, but they're not. They're not even in the right place. Here are pictures of them from the book I was reading:

and

It's the lines to the right of ちゃん and あるとき. Can anyone tell me what these marks mean?

 

[mdchachi]

It's emphasis. Similar to how italics are used in western languages.