Momo Ayase

* Anime
* Manga

**Momo Ayase** (綾あや
瀬せ
桃もも
, *Ayase Momo*?) is the main female protagonist of the manga series *Dandadan*.

After forming a friendship with an occult fanatic at school named Ken Takakura, whom she nicknames "Okarun", led to her awakening her psychic powers and the latter losing his kintama from being cursed by the Turbo-Granny, Momo complies to help him find what he has lost and overcome any paranormal obstacles along the way.

## Appearance

Momo is a teenage girl of average height with medium-length brown hair that mostly frames the right side of her face and brown eyes. She is noted by Okarun and a few other male characters to be quite attractive.

While she can be seen wearing a variety of outfits, her most common attire is her school uniform: a long sleeve sweater on top of a white undershirt with a loose bow, a skirt, baggy socks, and sandals. She also includes circular earrings and a black choker around her neck that has a circular item at the back, which is an accessory that she sticks to wearing at all times when choosing to wear different outfits.

### Gallery

Momo's color scheme.Momo's anime concept art.Momo in her school uniform.Momo as a child.Momo in her Moe Moe Kikoho waitress uniform.
## Personality

Momo is a confident, bold, and outspoken young girl, who at the same time, behaves kindly and compassionately towards others at heart. After noticing Okarun being bullied by his classmates, Momo went out of her way to come to his rescue and saw no reason not to form a friendship with the boy after the sudden events of their bet. Upon overhearing how Aira intentionally messed with Okarun's feelings when they first met, Momo retaliated by using her powers to drop a basin on her head, as well as make a snarky remark. She is also shown to have a vengeful side if others cause suffering to those that are close to her, as she temporarily harbored great anger towards the Turbo-Granny for harming her grandmother with her curse.

While she has a good nature, Momo is also short-tempered and has a no-nonsense attitude, as she usually gets annoyed by the antics of her friends and allies and reprimands them for it, which sometimes leads to her lashing out in violence. However, she knows when her outbursts go too far and will apologize subsequently. She also hates being lied to, as she could not easily forgive Okarun for having a secret unintentional meeting with Aira at school after he had lied to her earlier about wanting to spend some time writing a report alone.

Momo has a deep admiration for the actor Ken Takakura. She is a beloved fan but also obsessed to the point where she only went out with an ex-boyfriend because his appearance resembled the actor’s. Upon learning that an alien fanatic student from her school has the same name as her beloved actor, Momo refused to call Takakura by his real name and decided on addressing him by the alias Okarun. She also that he was not allowed to speak his real name in front of her, which would result in her being overwhelmed with emotion whenever she heard it slip out.

## Abilities and Powers

### Natural Abilities

**Hand-to-Hand Combatant**: Momo has demonstrated to be a capable fighter in melee combat, as she was able to hold her own against the Kito Family. During that fight, she also showed use of applying her psychic powers by drawing her opponent to her punches and kicks, as well as draw objects to her opponent's blind spot.

**Impressive Durability**: For a human, Momo has demonstrated an impressive amount of resilience. After the Flatwoods Monster furiously threw a barrage of punches that were devastating enough to create a crater on the wall behind her, Momo only came out with a few minor bruises and was well enough to move about after getting a few minutes rest later on. Momo was also able to come out unscathed from being kicked by Acrobatic Silky that sent her crashing and could remain on her feet after the yokai thrashed her around.

**Stamina and Endurance**: Aside from having great durability, Momo also possesses an impressive amount of stamina and endurance, being able to remain conscious long enough to defeat the Flatwoods Monster after taking on multiple devastating blows from the alien. She was also able to endure a thrashing from Acrobatic Silky and from being set on fire.

**Keen Intellect**: Momo is very perceptive and quick-witted when in tight situations. When partnered with Okarun, along with any others, while taking on the paranormal, Momo would mainly be the one to come up with clever tactics that always seem to work. Based on his sumo appearance, Momo figured out the Flatwoods Monster's vulnerability to touching the ground. To temporarily stop the Earthbound Spirit Crab from chasing after her and Okarun, Momo lured the Earthbound spirit into an onsen to stiffen its muscles and devised an effective strategy with her grandmother to lure the Turbo-Granny into a trap that almost came close to the yokai's demise. During her confrontation with Mr. Mantis Shrimp and the Serpod Dover Demon Nessie, Momo was creative in using her psychic powers to have Okarun act as a living speed boat to dodge the two alien's underwater attacks more easily, rather than to have both of them swim for their lives, and came up with the plan to destroy the Serpod Dover Demon Nessie's mantis shrimp arms by using her powers to divide the water the moment the fused-alien threw another punch, knowing that mantis shrimps are unable to withstand the power of their own punches when out of the water.

While having a clever way of thinking, Momo's tactics could also be perceived as being dangerous and reckless. In order to eliminate the Flatwoods Monster by putting the charm back on the Torii gate, Momo came up with the plan to have the alien use his strength to beat her into the wall blocking the entrance until it created a large enough crater to provide space on the outside. After being swallowed by Acrobatic Silky, Momo took an extreme measure to have the yokai release her, Okarun, and Aira by lighting Acrobatic Silky's hair on fire.

### Spiritual Power

 Momo moving a living being.Momo controlling inanimate objects.
The major strength of this ability is that Momo can move and levitate living and non-living things regardless of how heavy or big they are, such as a fire truck or the Tsuchinoko. Since her psychokinesis applies to both hands, Momo is able to grab ahold of two targets. Momo's psychokinesis is strong enough to divide a large body of water and block off other psychic users, as she was able to push back the Serpo's psychic field that was preventing Okarun and Aira from using their yokai powers.

 Initially, Momo could only grab on to auras if she could see them in plain sight but has since improved ever since her confrontation with the Turbo-Granny, now being capable of taking a hold of auras by using her sense of touch even if they are concealed from her field of vision.

Since Momo's power is an extension of her hands, they reflect her grip strength. While she requires no effort to control large targets if they are immobile or willing, Momo cannot stop them from resisting and may have trouble holding them down. If her target manages to regain mobility through sheer force but has not broken the hold, Momo will end up being pulled by their movement as long as she keeps her power active. This also applies to targets that are already moving at a great velocity, such as a bullet train. Momo, however, used this to her advantage against the Turbo-Granny to escape from her.
Additionally, Momo's psychokinesis is also linked to her sense of touch, meaning that her hands are susceptible to the sensation of strain and pain. Resilient though they may be, Momo's psychic arms can be destroyed if an opponent is strong enough to break free from them through sheer brute strength, or if the psychic arms are struck with a strong attack. As a result, Momo will feel an immense pain in her hands that will render her unable to manifest her powers for an unspecified period of time.

Momo uses her powers for combat. Using her psychokinesis, Momo can choose to hurl her targets to be sent crashing, restrain her opponents to leave them vulnerable for her comrades to attack, or carry her targets while on the move by having them levitate over her head. Momo is also capable of applying her powers in close-quarters combat. As shown in her fight against the Kito Family, she can pull her enemies towards her punches and kicks and send objects flying their way around their blind spots. During her first confrontation with Reiko Kashima, Momo covered the entirety of her psychic arms with levitated rubble as if they were physical arms that she could use to inflict damage to the yokai with tangible punches (though this strategy of fighting quickly proved to be a failure as Reiko Kashima easily swiped the rubble away in a fit of rage before Momo could land a single attack).

Defensively, if anticipated on time, Momo can use her psychic powers to shield herself from incoming attacks by placing her psychic hands between herself and the attack, though this will not prevent her from being sent crashing backwards depending on the force of the attack. Her power can also push her enemies away if they are too dangerously close to harm her.
During her battle with a mind-control alien, Momo learned how to use her psychokinesis offensively. Remembering Seiko's past lesson on how to use the Power of Words, Momo managed to develop the ability to unleash a repulsion blast of devastating force with her hands, similar to the way the Serpo attack with psychokinesis, with one shot being capable of knocking back multiple mind-control Serpos and obliterating the mind-control alien she was fighting.

Throughout the series, Momo has been able to use her powers in a variety of ways:
* After Okarun was cursed by the Turbo-Granny, Momo used her psychic abilities to prevent him from going berserk by "squeezing" onto the curse aura until it became small.
* By using her psychic hands to grab on to a person's heart if they are in cardiac arrest, Momo can perform an actual cardiac massage to restore blood circulation.
* If someone has swallowed too much water after drowning, Momo can forcibly release the water out from their mouths.
* As instructed by Acrobatic Silky, Momo used her powers to link the yokai's aura with Aira's diminishing aura for a transfer, acting as a "communication cable" that is needed to restart the "battery".
* To easily move around the flooded Empty Space in her confrontation with the Serpo and Mr. Mantis Shrimp, Momo developed the idea of using her powers on Okarun to turn him into a living speedboat by constantly squeezing him forward.

## Weapons

Momo previously took control of the Great Kinta Bodhisattiva, Zeta Version created by Kinta to combat against Bamora's kaiju suit. Irritated by Kinta's piloting that caused her and Aira to experience motion sickness, Momo and Aira took control of the mecha by applying their powers. While the mecha was wrecked by the kaiju, Aira applied her long Acrobatic Silky hair powers to the head while Momo used her psychokinesis to take control of the separated forearms from the shoulders.

## Etymology

* The name **Momo** means "peach" (桃).
* Momo's surname **Ayase** means "design" (綾) (**aya**) and "swift current, rapids" (瀬) (**se**).

## Trivia

* People who are on a first name basis with Momo address her as "Momo" (モモ).
* According to Miko, Momo doesn't last long working at part-time jobs due to her often getting into conflict with her superiors, with the conflict being unfair treatment from Momo's perspective.

## References

1. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 12, Pages 5 - 6
2. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 2, Pages 13 - 14
3. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 10, Pages 10 - 14
4. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 4, Page 19
5. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 1, Page 16
6. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 1, Page 4
7. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 36, Pages 4 - 5
8. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 14, Pages 7 - 9
9. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 23, Page 14
10. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 24, Pages 17 - 20
11. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 4, Page 5
12. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 14, Page 6
13. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 75, Pages 14 - 15
14. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 23, Page 18
15. ↑ *Dandadan* Manga: Chapter 54, Page 11