Seiko Ayase

Seiko has a youthful build and features that do not match what anyone expects from a grandmother. Her hair is light-colored — lavender or silver-pink in color illustrations — styled in an elaborate sculptural high bun or top-knot. She wears signature thick-rimmed glasses, most often red or dark in color. She is almost always depicted with a cigarette in her mouth or hand.

At home and during training she wears stylish athletic tracksuits or "Yankee"-style varsity jackets featuring dragon or yokai embroidery. For professional rituals she dons traditional Japanese spirit medium robes and ornate headgear. The gap between the varsity jacket version and the ritual robes version of her appearance is significant, and both are fully her.

Her youthful appearance is a recurring source of commentary from characters meeting her for the first time. It has never been explained as anything other than how she looks.

Seiko is blunt, professional, and operates with the specific efficiency of someone who has been doing this for a very long time and has no patience left for performing patience. She says "Sorz" instead of a formal apology. She calls the protagonists "idiots" or "scumbags" when they are being reckless. She is fiercely protective of her family and disciples and expresses this primarily through training them hard enough that they stop needing protection.

The Tough Love Framework

She does not fight battles for Momo and Okarun that they should be fighting themselves. She gives them tools, training, knowledge, and a secure base — and then sends them out to use it. This is not indifference. It is a deliberate decision about what protecting someone actually means long-term. When she told Okarun he needed to "get tough" and put him through five sets of 100 push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, she was investing in his ability to survive situations she would not always be available for. She was correct that those situations would arrive.

The Pragmatic Belief System

She fully recognizes the reality of spirits and has built an entire career and city-protection system on that recognition. She initially dismissed aliens as non-existent — a position the series corrected. She adjusted. She values willpower and conviction, believing people should live without regrets, and her teaching of the "Power of Words" technique is a direct expression of this: belief strong enough to alter reality.

Currently

She is in a hospital in Shimane after Enenra's ambush, acting fine to avoid worrying Momo. She does not own a cell phone. The group has been working with artifacts she left them. This is the most vulnerable the series has shown her and she is spending it pretending it is not happening.

Seiko comes from a long line of spirit mediums whose family has specifically been hunting the Turbo Granny for generations. The depth of her knowledge about that particular yokai — identifying the earthbound spirit merger, knowing the territorial limitations, understanding the exact sealing mechanism — comes from this ancestral history rather than from any single professional encounter.

She established herself as a top-tier medium before the series begins, reaching a level where other experienced practitioners refer clients to her when a case exceeds their capability. She maintains a formal contract with the local land gods of Kamikoshi City, allowing her to create a permanent protective barrier over the area. She has a formal disciple relationship with Manjiro, a priest who assists in her rituals. Her home — a traditional Japanese-style residence — is enclosed in this barrier as a permanent sanctuary.

She raised Momo alone after Momo's parents were no longer in the picture. Momo initially resented her: the rituals Seiko required caused Momo to be mocked by classmates, and the "spirit medium" identity was a source of social embarrassment rather than pride. Seiko's approach to this was to continue the training. The relationship eventually settled into something Momo describes as genuinely close — built on the specific warmth of someone who was strict when it mattered and present when it mattered more.

Seiko also reportedly "just about killed" a boyfriend Momo brought home. She does not own a cell phone. These two facts together explain a significant amount about her approach to the world.

The Turbo Granny Conflict — Chapters 3–10

Seiko arrived home to find Momo under attack from a rampaging, cursed Okarun. She suppressed him without particular difficulty, identified the Turbo Granny's curse and its specific configuration — including the earthbound spirit merger that was keeping the Granny anchored — and established a massive mystical barrier around Kamikoshi City. She orchestrated the high-speed tag match strategy, explained the territorial limitations, and guided Momo and Okarun through executing it. After the confrontation, she sealed Turbo Granny's consciousness into a beckoning-cat figure. She kept the cat.

Mentorship and Training — Chapters 22–94

Seiko converted her home into a training ground. She put Okarun through five sets of 100 push-ups, sit-ups, and squats and told him he needed to get tough enough to protect Momo. She supervised Aira and Okarun's Ki development, taught them how to manifest spiritual energy through physical conditioning, provided them with specialized tools including the Ogre Club and protective talismans, and handled the Evil Eye situation — identifying its nature, determining she could not fully exorcise it, and sealing it within Jiji's body using the medical model Taro while assigning Okarun as its "playmate."

The Hokkaido Absence — Chapters 77–111

Seiko was away on a ritual mission in Hokkaido for the entirety of the Space Invasion Arc. Because she does not own a cell phone, the protagonists could not reach her when the alien fleet began its full-scale attack. The group managed without her. It was significantly more difficult.

The Shimane Ambush and Hospitalization — Chapters 121–present

While on a professional mission in Shimane, Seiko was targeted by a mysterious organization and ambushed by a high-ranking smoke yokai named Enenra. She was brutally defeated — a shock for a character previously established as one of the most powerful spiritual practitioners in the series. She was left in critical condition, hospitalized in Shimane, and has undergone multiple surgeries. She is acting fine to avoid worrying Momo. She is not fine. Her absence has forced the group to rely on their own training and the artifacts she left behind — most significantly the Ogre Club, which Okarun uses to defend a powerless Momo during the Black Paladins' ambush.

Barrier Magic

Her signature ability. Seiko borrows power from the regional deity governing a specific area to create massive mystical barriers — capable of covering an entire city or sealing off specific rooms and structures. The geographic limitation is also the key constraint: she can only activate this in areas where she holds a contract with the local land god. In Kamikoshi City, she has a permanent arrangement. Elsewhere, she must establish the contract before deploying the barrier.

Power of Words

Seiko can use conviction — belief strong enough to alter reality — to significantly amplify attacks or manifest effects through vocalization. She taught this to Momo, explaining that saying something with genuine belief makes it real in the spiritual sense. It is both a combat technique and a philosophical statement about how she understands spiritual power.

Spirit Sensing and Extraction

She can visually perceive auras and spiritual entities, and physically pull foreign auras — curses, possessing spirits — out of a person's body through direct contact. She identified the Turbo Granny's earthbound spirit merger through this sensing capability, which was the critical piece of information that made the tag match strategy viable.

Martial Arts

Even without spiritual tools, Seiko is a master of hand-to-hand combat capable of trading blows with high-level spirits. She can "slug" them into submission. This is not a backup option — it is a practiced discipline she maintains alongside her spiritual abilities.

Spiritual Tools

She utilizes talisman nails, the Ogre Club (a spiritually charged stick that scales with the user's Chi), and Kozuka knives. The Ogre Club became Okarun's primary weapon after losing the Turbo Granny's powers — a tool that works based on the user's own internal force rather than any external curse, which makes it the appropriate weapon for someone who has chosen to fight as himself.

Current Status

Hospitalized in Shimane following the Enenra ambush. Full capability unknown while recovering. The group is operating on what she left them.

• Her professional name is Santa Dodoria (サンタドドリア) — the name under which she is recognized by other practitioners and regional land gods. Characters meeting her for the first time sometimes recognize the name before recognizing her.
• She does not own a cell phone. This became operationally significant during the alien invasion arc, when the protagonists needed her and had no way to reach her. She was in Hokkaido. The invasion happened anyway.
• She is almost never seen without a cigarette — in her tracksuit, in her ritual robes, at home, in professional contexts. It is as consistent a visual detail as her glasses.
• Her youthful appearance surprises every character who meets her for the first time. The author notes this as a deliberate recurring commentary. An explanation has not been offered and may not be coming.
• She reportedly "just about killed" a boyfriend Momo brought home. Momo has exercised significant caution about boys and the house ever since. Okarun's regular presence there is, in this context, a notable exception that Seiko has apparently tolerated.
• Her family has been hunting the Turbo Granny for generations before Seiko sealed her. The generational conflict ended with the spirit living in Seiko's house in a cat statue and training her granddaughter's partner in combat. This was presumably not the intended outcome.
• The Ogre Club she provided Okarun — a spiritually charged stick that scales with the user's own Chi rather than any external power — is what he is currently fighting with after returning Turbo Granny's abilities. She gave him the right tool for exactly who he was choosing to become, before either of them knew that was what would be needed.
• She says "Sorz" instead of a formal apology. This is confirmed in the source material and is the most efficient single word for communicating who she is.

vs. Turbo Granny — Ch. 1–9

Seiko did not fight Turbo Granny directly — she orchestrated the conditions that made victory possible. She identified the earthbound spirit merger, established the city-wide barrier, devised the tag match strategy, and supervised its execution. The Granny was sealed. This is how Seiko's combat style generally works: she creates the situation where the protagonists can win, rather than winning for them.

vs. Cursed Spirits — Ch. 90–93

A gauntlet of enemies during a ritual mission. Seiko fought through directly. No further detail provided in source material beyond the outcome.

vs. Enenra — Ch. 121–124

Ambushed in Shimane by a mysterious organization and the high-ranking smoke yokai Enenra. She fought to protect her disciples and the region. She was beaten badly enough to require multiple surgeries and extended hospitalization. This is the only defeat on her record in the series and the event that most significantly altered the group's operational situation — they are now without their most experienced practitioner at the point when the Black Paladins have emerged as the primary threat.