Okarun

Okarun is a slight, short teenager with brown hair, brown eyes, and round-framed glasses; the anime instead colors his hair black. He once kept it in a tidy bowl cut, but it turned messy and unruly after his run-in with the Flatwoods Monster. Where he started out thin to the point of scrawny, steady strength training and a stream of paranormal fights have left him visibly muscled.

Though he turns up in a wider range of clothes than most of the cast, he is seen most often in his school gear, a standard gakuran-style uniform.

By his own account Okarun is socially clumsy, with a runaway passion for the paranormal that centers on aliens and cryptids. The fixation traces back to a lonely childhood; bullied and friendless, he reached out to aliens hoping to make a connection, and the longing hardened into obsession. That isolation left him with a deep inferiority complex, convinced he cannot fit in or that others are better off without him. Even after befriending Momo he carries low self-worth, at one point nearly cutting ties so as not to burden her when Jiji reappeared in her life. As Momo notes, his real obstacle is jumping too fast to assume others are judging him, which makes him hold people at a distance without meaning to.

Underneath that, he is selfless and protective, certain that helping people in trouble is simply the right thing to do, as when he offered his kintama to Mantisian to fund a blood transfusion for the alien's son. He is fiercely loyal, lashing out at the Evil Eye for hurting Momo and seizing Jiji's body. Stubbornly polite, he cannot bring himself to drop honorifics, calling Momo only "Ayase-san," a quirk so reliable that Momo spotted Reiko Kashima's impersonation when the impostor addressed Jiji too formally. When he draws on Turbo Granny's power, his whole demeanor flips: the jittery, earnest boy turns sluggish and gloomy, muttering that life is pointless while dropping his manners and tossing out smooth, uncomfortable lines at women.

Even setting aside the supernatural, Okarun keeps himself athlete-grade through daily workouts and constant brushes with the paranormal. After Momo's finishing move shut down Bamora's kaiju suit, he and Jiji hauled the heavy armor all the way from Kamigoe City to the Ayase home while outlasting the pursuing crowd. Once he gave up Turbo Granny's power entirely, a school fitness test showed off his raw conditioning: a 50-meter dash in 5.8 seconds against his own 9-second guess, a 35-meter handball throw, a 3.6-meter standing long jump, 80 side-steps, and 120 shuttle runs, beating his classmates outright while keeping more stamina in reserve.

His supernatural edge began with the spiritual power borrowed from the Turbo Granny, a transformation that reshaped both his fighting style and his personality. He later moves toward his own abilities and the Oni Club as his combat tools. His name, fittingly, mirrors the famous actor Ken Takakura, which is exactly why Momo, a fan of that actor, dubbed him "Okarun" and why he gets flustered whenever his real name comes up around her.