Ah, the ultra-rare anime GILF enters the chat. Now that I think about it, Dandadan is a bit like Golden Kamuy in that it’s packed to the gills with large-than-life characters who run around like they own the place. That, and a general embrace of the wacky and absurd in incongruous situations. They’re obviously different as can be in most superficial ways, but they are spiritual cousins beneath the surface. Not that I’m equating the two series in terms of overall quality, don’t get me wrong (I like Dandadan, but that’s a non-starter).
Nana Mizuki is a fine choice as Ayase Seiko, the aforementioned Grandma. If you’re gonna take on a turbo granny, who better than another badass granny to do it. We first meet Seiko as she’s playing the role of a sham psychic on TV (that’s a misdirection from the start. She stops her taxi home well short, obviously realizing something is seriously amiss. She arrives home to find her granddaughter out cold and calls out Turbo Granny herself. And she has her opponent’s number, thanks to her expert use of warding and magical barriers. Seiko expresses little sympathy when T.G. holds Okarun’s body for ransom, but the results will show her bark is worse than her bite.
One of the funniest things about this arc is how Momo and Seiko are quite intimate with the paranormal yet laughingly dismiss the idea of aliens as absurd, and with Okarun it’s just the opposite (minus the intimacy). The general rule of them with Dandadan is if it doesn’t really exist, it’s real. Fortunately for Okarun Grandma doesn’t obliterate his body to take out Turbo Granny. Is it because she senses he’s different from the usual scumbags Momo brings home, or is she simply not the type to eliminate a human being even in the act of taking out an evil spirit?
When Momo wakes up Seiko trolls her pretty good about that, but eventually relents and tells her that the boy is out in the main shrine hall. That contains his curse much as Momo’s power does, but is obviously not a long-term solution. The two of them immediately resume their bicker-flirting, and Okarun – while he still has his moments of pathetic loneliness – gives as good as he gets. The problem, Grandma says, is not just that Turbo Granny is a powerful spirit that’s been plaguing Japan. It’s that when she got to town she fused with a location-bound spirit in the tunnel, and as long as they’re in that location (the town itself) that hybrid youkai is incredibly strong.
Seiko’s prescription is for the two kids to lure Turbo Granny outside of town, thus weakening her by undercutting the location-bound spirit’s powers. The problem is they have to outrun her to do it, and Momo has to keep the curse in check the whole time. That’s going to involve an intense round of training, as Okarun is obviously not an elite specifies of adolescent athleticism. As for Momo,, her spiritual power – awakened by the aliens but weakening ever since – is something she has to hone and learn to maximize. All the while trying to figure out how Okarun can take a dump without her staring at him to contain the curse (he can’t). Not the sort of problems the average new teen couple has to deal with, but this is hardly your average teen couple…
