Dandadan Characters Explained

Here's the whole pitch of Dandadan in one breath: ghosts are real, aliens are real, they can't stand each other, and two high schoolers get dragged into the middle of it. Humans, extraterrestrials, yokai. Three sides, constantly tripping over each other. That same three-way split is exactly the Species attribute you're guessing in Classic mode, so it's worth knowing cold. Below is the cast sorted by what each one actually is. Every claim here checks out against the Dandadan Fandom wiki.

The premise: humans vs. aliens vs. yokai

It all starts with an argument. Okarun, the occult nerd, swears ghosts aren't real. Momo Ayase, who grew up around a spirit medium, says aliens are the made-up ones. Naturally, they both go off to prove the other one wrong, and naturally they're both wrong. Momo bumps into the Serpo aliens and wakes up a psychic. Okarun walks into a tunnel and loses his "kintama" to a yokai. After that the rough map holds for most of the series: humans tend to be psychics or mediums, the aliens are after power and bodies, and the yokai swing from "will murder you" to "weirdly on your side." Most fights end up a tangle of all three.

Humans (psychics, mediums and classmates)

Almost everyone human orbits Kami High and the Ayase house:

• Okarun (real name Ken Takakura). The male lead. An occult-obsessed loner who runs faster than physics allows once he borrows Turbo Granny's power.
• Momo Ayase, the female lead. Loud, fearless, and a psychic ever since the Serpo got their hands on her.
• Seiko Ayase is Momo's grandmother and a famous spirit medium. She exorcises the curses the kids can't handle and quietly carries half the cast.
• Jiji (Jin Enjoji), Momo's hot-headed childhood friend. Later he becomes the body the Evil Eye yokai lives in.
• Aira Shiratori, a popular classmate who wakes up her own powers and joins the crew during the Serpo arc.
• Then the later recruits: Kinta Sakata, class rep Rin Sawaki, and the centuries-old schemer Count Saint-Germain, who is, somehow, still just a human.

Seiko is the one who starts calling this whole growing crowd "the Family." It's about as close to an official team name as anyone gets.

Aliens and extraterrestrials

The aliens are usually the cold, technological side of the threat:

• Serpo, an all-male alien race from Planet Serpo over in the Zeta Reticuli system. They curse Momo and spend the opening arcs chasing Okarun's powers.
• The Kito Family, a clan of subterraneans led by matriarch Naki Kito. For generations they fed sacrifices to a "Tsuchinoko" (later revealed to be a Mongolian Death Worm) to keep their village volcano from blowing. Juju, Jurian, Juteimu, and Junko Kito are all part of this clan.
• The Flatwoods Monster, an alien UMA and Serpo associate, lifted straight from the real 1952 Flatwoods sighting.
• Show up later, on both sides: the kaiju-sized Bamora, the Dover Demon "Mantisian," and Hastur.

Half of these are real UFO lore and cryptid sightings barely filed off, and honestly that's a big part of the charm. Dandadan finds an urban legend and just points it at the protagonists.

Yokai and spirits

The yokai are where the horror-comedy lives. Most of them used to be people, then died badly and came back angry:

• Turbo Granny, the breakout star. A speed demon born from a tunnel curse who, against all odds, turns into a (very foul-mouthed) ally. We gave her a full guide.
• Acrobatic Silky, a contortionist yokai who'd been stalking Aira since she was a kid, until the team finally put her to rest.
• Evil Eye, a heavy hitter tied to a sacrificial house. It takes over Jiji, then calls a truce and ends up on the team.
• Reiko Kashima, built on the Kashima Reiko / "slit-mouthed woman" legend and treated as one of the scariest yokai in the book.

Get to the point where you can clock human, alien, or yokai at a glance and Classic mode stops fighting you. The characters page has the full roster if you want to drill the edge cases, and the story arcs guide shows you exactly where these three keep crashing into each other.