#and momo called aira leader

[s30620]

Chapter 89: Argument

Even when he's in critical condition, Okarun is still thinking about his friends. Everyone in the group is high energy, and Okarun is more mild, so he's able to balance everybody's moods. I love how Momo instantly smiles when Okarun starts responding to her, it's very bittersweet.

Plus, grandma yuri business trip in Hokkaido.

[aries-yep]

People liked my last “Aira being called a leader” post, so now have this: Aira and Momo friendship

And Aira caring about Momo:

[ithurielkeepsgettingkidnapped]

interesting insight op! I’d like to add my two cents:

Would it be possible that okarun and aira both ‘inherit’ the attitudes or personalities of the yokai whose powers they borrow? for instance under acrobatic silky’s influence, aira uses significantly more formal speech and is (at least at first) more settled into her skin, more comfortable with who she is. I’m inclined to believe that aira’s ongoing shtick of ‘i must save the world because I’m a beautiful young girl’ stems from the desire to prove herself. She is very assertive and constantly tries to establish her importance in the group (going with okarun to train, calling herself the ‘leader’). Even among her social circles at school, prior to chiquitta/loch ness fight, she is the person everyone follows. The mangaka has yet to expand on this quality of hers since she’s gained her powers, but I believe its pretty obvious that aira is very self conscious about how other people see her. Despite her appearances she seems insecure.

On the contrary acrobatic silky seems to refer to herself in a ‘diminutive’ way. She refers to okarun as ‘takakura-sama’, implying a sort of obedience and subservience to okarun, the object of her affections. This is in stark contrast to the pseudo kiss scene,where she confesses and pushes okarun for an acceptance in a very assertive way.

i theorise that this is due to acrobatic silky’s experience with men and the way she takes a very passive role in her life. From what we glimpse of her, her outward demeanour could not be more different from aira.

Hence: the formal speech. The assured way acrobatic silky aira faces life could also stem from yokai acrobatic silky’s nature as both a mother and a mature woman. I don’t recall any traits in acrobatic silky aira the way okarun’s protectiveness of momo is heightened, but i might have just missed something!

Which brings us to okarun. Turbo baba okarun is, as op has already established, nihilistic and pessimistic to a debilitating degree. At the same time he discards all formality and is incredibly protective of what he cherishes: jiji’s wish to be friends with the evil eye and of course ayase momo.

Does this not sound similar to yokai turbo baba? Her protectiveness of the girls who died untimely and injust deaths, the kitten she adopts in the outtakes. Turbo baba is abrasive and demeans others, while taking care of them reluctantly in her own way. I could even argue that the land god’s loneliness (recall the way it pleas momokarun to give turbo baba back and how it chases them across a city to do so?) amplifies the loneliness okarun already felt in his formative years prior to dandadan, resulting in the ‘that’s depressing, yo’ personality.

so going by acrobatic silky aira’s persona acting as a contrast to aira’s real personality courtesy of yokai acrobatic silky, the same theory could be applied to turbo baba okarun. They share the trait of being protective of people/things they cherish, but the similarities end there. Okarun has trouble expressing himself but is painfully genuine, while turbo baba hides her feelings not unlike a dragon with its inverse scale. Okarun maintains his boundaries with others by being formal and polite, but turbo baba seeks to intrude that space with insults.

Turbo baba okarun inherits her tendency to impose on other’s comfort zones yet retains his kindness, so he addresses momo and aira more familiarly and affectionately than he would normally. But since they share the same trait of skepticism (in okarun’s case, the impression that he is somehow less deserving of momo’s friendship than she his) and protectiveness, it turns into pessimism and turbo baba okarun hiding his insecurity behind ‘I’m too tired’ and ‘i cant do anything’.

tldr: the personalities and attitudes of yokai are inherited alongside their powers! Which may open another opportunity for examining why their personalities are paired up the way they are and what purpose it serves in developing their powers! And also: why is momo the only one with ‘inherent’ powers?

So a common headcanon/theory I’ve seen floating around is that when Okarun shifts into his yokai form, the personality shift he undergoes is representative of a “truer” inner self. I can see the line of logic that led to this, but the more thought I’ve put into it, the less I’ve agreed with the premise. And I’ve put so much thought into it at this point that it’s had to become its own whole post separated from the analysis it was originally a part of, so strap in.

Disclaimer: if this is your personal headcanon, I’m not here to try to prove you wrong or make you change your mind, I’m more so discussing this from the theory side of things and what I think will happen as the manga continues. Also slight manga spoilers for up to chapter 172 !!

So as the theory goes, the personality that comes out when Okarun’s transformed is a more genuine version of himself, where his yokai form removes his anxieties and allows him to act more confidently and openly show the depression and pessimism that’s lived in him the whole time. On a surface level this tracks, as being in this form does make him more confident, blunt, and he completely drops the formal way he speaks to people, going so far as to adopt a cute nickname for Momo.

I don’t think this fully makes sense for a number of reasons, though. Firstly is that throughout all 175 chapters that are currently out, I can’t recall any moments where Okarun ever acts in a way that would hint at his real inner workings reflecting the personality and behavior that come out when he is transformed. I could have missed something, of course, but when so much of Momo and Okarun’s relationship is built on them being their genuine selves around the other (more on that in this great video I saw), I’m inclined to believe that there isn’t going to be another shoe to drop nearly 200 chapters in.

To explain my other reasoning, I’m going to have to go into a little bit of a side tangent about Aira, and first I want to establish why I think comparing Okarun to her in this instance makes sense. So up until the cursed diorama arc, the only character that really has comparable yokai related powers to Okarun is Aira. They acquire these powers in different ways, and Seiko says Okarun has Turbo Granny’s “spiritual power”, whereas Acro-Silky says she gave Aira her “aura.” Given the contexts of the scenes these are said in I would assume they are meant to be two different concepts, however it’s not ever explicitly stated or shown how the difference there affects them or their yokai abilities, so I am treating them as functionally the same thing for this analysis. Regardless, the similarity between them seems to be that in one way or another, they have been left with the spiritual energy of their respective yokai, which allows them to transform in very similar ways. Their transformations affect them both physically in making them taller and stronger, as well as their personalities, with Okraun becoming less formal overall, and Aira becoming more formal in the way she addresses people.

Even though they are affected by their transformations in very similar ways, I haven’t seen any kind of headcanon or theory that the way Aira behaves while transformed is how she truly is or feels, which makes perfect sense considering her first character arc. From when she’s introduced, she’s shown to have a dynamic with Momo, Okarun, and her other peers at school, where even before she’s able to use Acro-Silky’s abilities, she’s pretty two faced. In chapter 51, Momo even says, “There’s our Aira!” when she and Okarun pull Aira away from her class and she immediately shifts to her more snarky attitude towards Momo. The manga makes it quite clear that the way she acts at school, and on occasion towards Okarun, is an act, and that her genuine personality is a little nasty and rude (which she is loved for! By other characters and audience members of taste). And with that established, of course no one put that much emphasis on how her behavior changes when she’s using Acro-Silky’s powers. She’s still the same person, her mannerisms and the way she speaks are just altered slightly, which is also pretty much how I feel about Okarun’s yokai form.

That being said, I don’t want to fully dismiss that the shifted personality could mean something, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Okarun did still have some repressed feelings and pessimism from his time growing up without any friends, but at the current point in the story I’m not sure if I could see that being shown explicitly tied to his yokai form. As of chapter 165, Okarun gets his final ball back, and as per his end of the deal, he returned Turbo Granny’s spiritual power to her, and she left with them and hasn’t made an appearance since. Okarun no longer has access to his yokai form, but at this point he’s surrounded by friends, he’s confessed his feelings to Momo, and he’s even grown physically strong enough to hold his own in a fight without any powers. As far as what we’ve been shown, Okarun has developed and his life has changed so much that he doesn’t really have any of those reasons to be a pessimistic downer that he had before the events of the series. Not to say he has no reasons to be sad, of course, we still haven’t been given even a hint of what his family and home life is like, and I expect something will happen with that eventually. But with where the story has gone so far, I don’t see this theory being true or narratively compelling.

TLDR: There’s not much evidence going for this theory, and several things against it, so I personally don’t see it going anywhere in the canon series. The way Okarun acts and the feelings he expresses in his yokai form could still potentially mean something, so I won't completely dismiss it, but with where the story is currently I don’t think this theory being true would add much or be a compelling element of the plot.