Intro to Turbo Granny
It’s late and you’re driving home alone. You haven’t seen another car for ages, so you speed up a little. You’re exhausted and you can’t wait to get back to a warm bed, a glass of wine, and your cat, Tama. So you’re zipping along when you enter a tunnel.
This is a long one. The sodium vapor lights give everything a nice yellow haunting tinge. Still no cars. You press your foot on the accelerator, glance at your speedometer. It says you’re doing 140 kilometers an hour. You happen to be a math genius and you know that is exactly 86.99 miles per hour. Fast, but hey, there’s no cars and it’s late and Tama’s waiting. So here you are clipping along at a good pace when you hear something. Kong, Kong, Kong. Someone is knocking on the backseat window. It sounds like it’s from outside. You do a quick turnaround and…
Hey, hey, this is Thersa Matsuura and you’re listening to Uncanny Japan, the podcast about all the delightfully weird and more obscure nooks and crannies of Japanese culture. I hope you’re safe and well, and if you need it, I’m sending you a big uncanny hug. Not uncanny like it’s creepy or has extra limbs or anything, just uncanny as the name of the show. It’s still a normal hug, but you know, with a vibe. Today I’m going to tell you about the urban legend of Turbo Granny and some offshoots and related unsettling and perhaps unintentionally funny creatures that you’ll find in the wilds of Japan.
The Highway Phantom of Hyōgo Prefecture
Where were we? Oh yes. Kong, Kong, Kong. You do a quick look over your shoulder and you see out the back window an old woman with a wrinkled face and long white hair. She’s looking right at you. But what is really disturbing is that she’s also running alongside your car. She’s not on a motorbike or anything like that. She’s really running. This, I hate to inform you, is Tābō Baba. In English, Turbo Granny.
A Critical Japanese Language Lesson
Right off the bat, remember last episode, 160, where I tried to swoon you into falling in love with the Japanese language by telling you about water pigs and sea rats? Well, I’m going to reverse all that now in one fell swoop with one of the most difficult, to me, and potentially dangerous parts of Japanese. I’ve gotten into trouble with this one. The word obāsan means grandmother. Obāchan is just a more familiar, cute way to say it. It’s easy. Baba is even more familiar. It’s like your kid talking about or to their grandmother. Affectionate, warm, endearing. Baba, can I have some ice cream? Everything is fine and dandy until I tell you about the word baba. This pronunciation is extremely rude, disrespectful, and derogatory. It’s like saying old hag or old bat. Baba, īsōchī. Hey, you old bat, give me some ice cream. Baba, good. Baba, bad. It works for ojīsan, Grandpa, too. Jiji, good. Jiji, bad. This is why it’s important to use and pay attention to those elongated vowels in Japanese. Both can be written B-A-B-A, but get your pronunciation off and you’re calling that sweet little lady giving you an extra bowl of rice at the restaurant a nasty old hag.
Oh, speaking of long vowels, obāchan is grandmother and obasan is auntie or aunt. Japanese like to use both to address someone they don’t know. It’s friendly and it’s better than hey you. Same for grandfather and uncle. Ojīsan and ojisan. These can be tricky too. A funny story. My father-in-law, in his late 70s at the time, mind you, was fishing one day and met another fisherman and they got to be friendly with each other. Apparently this younger fisherman kept calling my father-in-law, who I’ll reiterate was almost 80, ojīsan, grandfather, to which my father-in-law was greatly offended. Every day he’d come home all stressed out about it. Why doesn’t he call me uncle? So always err on the side of making someone younger. All that to say, Tābō Baba is usually the rougher version. In English it’s translated as turbo granny. I mean, that really does sound cuter, but the real nuance is turbo old hag.
What Happens When Turbo Granny Catches You
Anyway, so you’ve got this old woman running alongside your car. What happens next? Well, kind of nothing. She’s just there running beside you and keeping up. Even though she’s called baba, she just looks like any old regular granny. No glint in her eyes, no mouth sneering ear to ear, no blood anywhere. Just a fast-moving elder poofing it at an incredible pace. When you speed up, she speeds up. When you slow down, she slows down. So this might make you think that if you stopped, she’d stop. Which makes you also think, since she just looks like anyone’s grandmother, maybe all old women in Japan are actually turbo grannies and we just don’t know about it unless they’re in that mode. There’s a thought.
You might have heard of Turbo Granny before, because she’s also the name of a character in the manga and anime, Dan Da Dan. I don’t want to give anything away here, but she is first discovered in a tunnel. But the lore here in this story is that you shouldn’t run from her, because she will catch you and then she’ll curse you. But that’s the manga, anime version. In the urban legend, it sounds like she’s mostly found in the tunnels and forests of Hyōgo Prefecture. And there are stories from if she catches you, she’ll do nothing at all. To if she catches you, she’ll kill you. To if she passes you, you’ll get into a car accident. I read in one place that she actually has a piece of paper stuck on her back that reads “Turbo”. So you see it as she runs past your car. Kind of like self-promotion, I guess.
Turbo Granny’s Other Names and the Mount Rokkō Incident
Turbo Granny goes by a couple of other names. Jetto Baba, Jet Granny. And Hyaku Kiro Baba, 100km Granny, indicating her speed. There’s a funny video out there of the Kansai comedian Mitsukuni Daisō, who went on location to Mount Rokkō in Hyōgo to film some kind of special or something. While he’s recording on the bus, something suddenly zipped by the window at an inhuman speed. He’s all “what’s that?” and then there’s a loud bang as something hits the bus. He and his crew freak out and they stop and get out. There, on the front of the bus is a muddy-looking handprint. Lots of bad acting here, where they’re all surprised and scared. “What does it mean? Who did this?” Daisō announces. “It must be Tābō Obāchan.” Then he goes and he touches and licks the muddy handprint. He says, “Dorososu.” Dorososu. Yes, it was Turbo Granny. Dorososu, or mudsosu, is a real condiment. It’s what is left at the bottom of a barrel of Worcestershire sauce. It’s very thick, dark brown, and spicy. And delicious. I don’t know what it has to do with Turbo Granny. I’m sure it’s something. Or maybe they were just trying to start some new legend lore there. It is kind of funny, I guess.
Hyper Grandpa and the Fast-Footed Family
So you’ve got your Turbo Granny, and then there’s your Hyper Grandpa, or Haipā Jiji. Not as much about him. Anyway, here, let’s end with a handful of silly or horrifying variants of the Turbo Hag legend.
Basketball Granny and the Deadly Pass
There’s one called Basuke Obāchan, Basketball Granny. This one uses the kinder form of old woman, by the way. This sprightly little old lady likes to run up beside motorcyclists while she’s, get this, bouncing a basketball. Of course the rider is going to look over. They see the granny dribbling the ball full tilt, and what does she do? She passes the ball. What would you do? If you catch it, like your reflexes probably want you to do, you take both hands off the handlebars, swerve, and crash. If you don’t go to catch it, it doesn’t matter. She still just nailed you with a basketball, which will unbalance you and you’ll crash. Here, I’d like to add my own piece to this urban legend, to kind of round it out, if anyone out there is listening. I think it would be great if the only way to escape Basketball Granny is to shout at her, “Shoot!” She turns, looks forward, throws the ball like she’s making a basket, and you high-tail it out of there, safe, no crashing.
Mikan Granny and the Forest of Sickles
Another similar urban myth is Mikan Baba. Mikan are mandarin oranges or mikan. So you run across her sitting on a mat in the middle of the forest. She’s got some baskets full of mikan, and all around her are some sickles just laying there. Very Chekhov’s gun-like. That should be your first clue to get the hell out of there. But if you don’t leave and you do approach her, just make sure you don’t make eye contact, because if you do, she will suddenly leap to her feet and book after you at unimaginable speeds. All the while, she’s throwing mikan oranges at you. I know, what happened to the sickles? Lost opportunity there.
Pogo Stick Granny Hops Into Action
There’s also Hoppingu Obāchan. A hoppingu is a pogo stick. Does anyone know what a pogo stick is? Am I that old? So anyway, Pogo Stick Granny. You’re driving along minding your own business when an old woman, on a pogo stick, lands right in front of your car. But an instant later, before you can slam on your brakes, she hops up and over your car. Gone. If you’re not careful, you can crash.
Bonnet Granny: The 7-Kilometer Rule
And let’s not forget Bonnetto Baba. A bonnet is the hood of the car, right? So this time you’re on the highway trucking along and all the sudden an old grandmother from out of nowhere leaps onto the hood of your car and just latches on. Don’t be startled, you’ll get into an accident. Which seems to be the theme here. It’s recommended that you drive for 7 kilometers like that. Then you’ll be okay. No word on what happens if you don’t drive that far and no word on if she climbs off or disappears after you do. Guess you just have to find out.
Podcast Shout-Outs and Final Thoughts
That’s all for today. One more thing before I go, though. I’d like to give a shout out to all the wonderful podcast who have interviewed me in the past 6 months or so. There’s the interview with me, of course, but really every single show and all their episodes are first rate with all kinds of great topics and guests. I’m really happy I was turned on to them, so do consider giving them a listen if you don’t already. In no particular order, there’s Monster Dear Monster, Loremen, Unspookable, Some Other Sphere, New Books Network, Haunted History, Japan Station, Fabulous Folklore, Tales from the Enchanted Forest, This Is Horror, and Mission Spooky.
Thank you all so much for having me on and talking with me. And it was in Mission Spooky’s interview that just went out that the subject of Turbo Granny came up and I was inspired to finish this episode. So this Turbo Granny is for you, Mission Spooky. Thank you for reminding me.
Check out all the shows, and thank you for listening, and I will talk to you again in two weeks. Bye bye.
