Turbo Granny Arc

This is the first story arc of Dandadan and the opening chapter of the Kintama Hunt Saga, drawn from the manga's earliest volumes and chapters one through eight. The anime adapts it across the start of Season 1. It introduces nearly every foundational element of the series, from the leads to the supernatural rules that govern the rest of the story.

Momo Ayase, nursing a recent breakup, sticks up for a bullied classmate fixated on UFOs. Their clash over spirits versus aliens turns into a dare, sending each to a site tied to the other's beliefs. The boy she dubs Okarun meets Turbo Granny inside a tunnel and is cursed after fleeing from her, while Momo is seized by the Serpo, who intend to extract her reproductive organs. Cornered, she taps into latent psychic ability and wrecks their craft, but the spirit has already claimed Okarun's genitals, leaving him cursed and able to borrow Turbo Granny's blistering speed.

Refusing to abandon him, Momo enlists her grandmother Seiko, a genuine spirit medium, who trains the two and warns of the danger. After surviving an assault by the Flatwoods Monster, the pair head to the tunnel for a final confrontation. Momo goads the prideful spirit into a game of tag, then a chase across the city, ultimately luring Turbo Granny and a giant earthbound crab spirit onto a rigged rail line where both are exorcised.

Momo learns that Turbo Granny had been comforting the spirits of girls murdered at the tunnel, which softens her view of the yokai. Unknown to anyone, the spirit slips inside Okarun during the exorcism, a hidden survival that keeps his kintama lost and drives the whole series forward. The shared meal afterward becomes the first of many that knit the Family together, and the two leads officially become friends, the seed of their slowly growing feelings.