Youkai Watch

Primary school student Keita Amano's curiosity is as innocent as any other child's his age. But when one day he decides to venture deeper into the forest, he encounters a small and mysterious capsule. Out from its depths comes Whisper. After 190 years of imprisonment, this ghost-like creature is glad that someone has been kind enough to set him free. He decides to reward Keita by becoming his guardian against supernatural forces. Whisper is one of many Youkai that exist in the world, and provides Keita with a special Youkai Watch, which enables him to see and interact with all the other Youkai.

Youkai Watch follows Keita, Whisper and the cat spirit Jibanyan as they encounter Youkai, befriend them, fix all the trouble that they so often cause, and, with the help of the watch, use the powers of previously encountered Youkai to aid them. Young Keita may have been just an ordinary primary school student when he first encountered the Youkai, but the many adventures that follow his discovery provide him with invaluable experiences and precious life lessons that help him grow.

Jibanyan Main

Kozakura, Etsuko Japanese

Komasan Main

Endou, Aya Japanese

Whisper Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Amano, Keita Main

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

USApyon Main

Shigemoto, Kotori Japanese

Misora, Inaho Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kyuubi Supporting

Nagata, Ryoko Japanese

Komajirou Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Jimenken Supporting

Imada, Kanchi Supporting

Satou, Chie Japanese

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Lee, Sang-jun Producer

Inoue, Takashi Producer

Ushiro, Shinji Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Apr 8, 2018

Ryntaia

Recommended

In the slushy sea of content aimed at an audience of elementary schoolers, it can be difficult to fish up something that is actually genuinely enjoyable. There's a lot of fluff titles, a lot of preachy titles, and a lot of titles that are just dorky action. Nothing is actually wrong with being any of those things but such traits don't mark a show as noticeable in a sea of content. Especially with the competitive nature of appealing to such a young age group with a low attention span. Among this lot, Yo-Kai Watch has become another one of those successful accounts that has grabbed ... the attention of kids and adults alike.

Yo-Kai Watch (NOT 'Youkai' Watch, I'm not sure why its listed as that here) has similar origins to Pokemon in that respect: a video game about catching creatures that became a hit and started producing more games and ultimately a popular anime. One could argue that this is less because of the quality of the show and more due to the popularity of the games boosting success. And while it is likely that the games helped in the success of the show, I do think its more than just that. After all, being an adaptation can only help so much: at some point these shows must stand on their own two feet and prove they can perform. So....can Yo-Kai Watch?

The short answer is yes, it can. I actually saw the anime before I even knew there was a game so I can assure you that it can. This anime has a lot of things going in its favor. While it has a fairly boring setting fueled by something of a gimmick (yokai exist and cause trouble with their unique powers), it is held up by multiple factors. Probably the strongest among these is the characters. The personalities present in this show are very one note, but the show is also very aware that the personalities are one note and often use that to their advantage. It knows when to expand on them and when to keep them as they are. Even one of the running gags is that the protagonist is an archetype of a protagonist and therefore inherently a 'boring guy', which he protests.

Speaking of, there are three characters who appear in almost every episode (up until Inaho is introduced as an alternative): Nate (Keita), Jibanyan, and Whisper (Whissu). They're set up in a 'boke and tsukkomi' type of comedy rountine: Nate is typically our straight man with Jibanyan and Whisper being our wise guys, though the roles do get shuffled about occasionally. They're over the top, likable, funny, and even sympathetic at times. Later introduced is the erratic and more over the top Inaho, matched up with the more straight man character USApyon, to completely flip the formula. Both sides work really well.

As far as art goes, for a show geared at kids, the animation in Yo-Kai Watch is typically surprisingly high quality. At a later point the show would go on to make its first movie and the quality of the animation did not even really have to be bumped up that much, because the show as a whole already had really good animation. The designs are all from the game and they're all represented really well, and move really smoothly. The style is a SLIGHTLY modified version of the game art, with the eyes occasionally being a little bigger than the original game style and the faces being a little rounder as well. They're both cute styles to look at.

Art and characters aside...this show, unlike its predecessors in the popular 'kids with pets' genre of the past, focuses less on action and waaaay more on comedy. It's hard to judge the plot because functionally speaking there really isn't one. It's more of an monster of the day gig with each episode focusing on a unique yokai and the trouble they cause. Nate and his friends, being responsible for the Yo-Kai Watch, are inadvertently tasked with solving the yokai's problem so they'll stop causing trouble for people. The yokai typically have abilities that cause inconveniences to people like making people unable to stop crying, desperate to go to the bathroom, or unjustly aggressive and 'punklike'. Some of the humor can go into the realm of toilet humor, so be warned. As a whole, though, it tends to have plenty of pretty snappy character based comedy in that mix as well.

A final note to contemplate here is the music and dub quality. When I say quality, I do mean it. Yo-Kai Watch's dub was done by Dentsu Entertainment USA in cooperation with the Disney Channel, and they put a lot of effort into making the dub sound pretty damn good. They went ahead and also made an English dub for the opening as well, which is contagiously catchy to the point that I'm not really sure why they changed it later on. The regular music is a mix of pieces ripped seemingly directly from the game, though there were some odd musical pieces that I could swear were from Phoenix Wright.

Overall its well made, likable, and if you want to indulge your inner child then its definitely the show for you. Obviously a good amount of the show is meant to sell merchandise and increase game sales, but effort was clearly put into it despite that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 13, 2015

Mitsjol

Recommended

Preliminary (54/214 eps)

I managed to watch 50 episodes in about a week!

People on the internet will tell you that this tries too hard to be the next Pokémon. But that's not true at all, this show doesn't want to be anything like Pokémon. Youkai Watch tends to be more of a comedy series with various skits than an anime about a teenage boy going on an adventure.

Don't expect much of story, but the anime has a lot of charm to it. This anime is very self-aware and most of the jokes and skits are actually really funny. Some jokes tend to get old after a lot of ... episodes, but they always find a way to keep the show refreshing, even after 50 episodes. You can clearly see that the creators have a lot of fun making this anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 2, 2018

GrayRealm

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (200/214 eps)

I watched 200 episodes of this before I decided I had enough and it is now time to try something else.I wrote a review before (after 76 episodes) and it'll be available at the end of this one.

It goes like this. This is pretty much kids anime, heavily geared towards promoting youkai merchandise. it follows "3 stories per episode" format. Meaning one episode usually contains 3 short stories, usually padded by music. The anime also heavily reuses in many places, in the beginning it is very blatant.

The anime starts in a very uninspiring way - first 20 or so episodes are dedicated to itnroducing yokai, ... and are heavily padded by "summoning animation" scenes. Basically, when youkai is summoned, protagonist (keita) makes a flashy move/animation sequence ("ore no tomodachi - de te koi!" or osmething), which takes ... quite a bit of time. Then youkai upon appearing does a little dance.... and this is obviously used to pad animation and reduce budget. Those episodes in the beginning are also notable because of their use of "gerogero po" intro, which I found rather... uninspiring. Youkai are non-threatening, and episodes follow very cliched format -- people act strange, keita starts wondering what is going on, finds youkai, etc. It is very repetitive.

After episode 20, they start experimenting. Rather than keeping introducing youkai, they take existing youkai, and make short stories with them. Parody stories. For example, there's a cutesy looking youkai, and they make a story where he is a police officer. Basically... a lot of parodies. And those are more interesting.

This keeps going on for 20 more episodes.

At episodes 48+49 ther'es a massive commercial/promotion, and it proves that target audience is children. Because it is pretty much dedicated to showing japanese re-enacting portions of gero-gero-po opening.

After the commercial break, it keeps going on and on... till it ends the season at epsiode 76.

After episode 76 the next season start, they start introducing characters ,and things slowly pick up. Jokes become riskier and more interesting, the story becomes a bit more convoluted, and more importantly, they realize that voice actor that voices Kuma can actually sing (fairly well), and they use him along with voice actress for another actress for a recurring yokai in a better openings ... whose name I forgot (where they see "from east and west" or something).

Around episode 120 I ran out of english material, and started watching it in japanese. At this point the anime actually displayed several strokes of genius.

First, there were absolutely unrelated miniseries called "Android Yamada" within youkai watch, and those are very very very well done. They have gloomy dark humor atmospehre, and they were much more interesting for me than stock youkai watch. Around the same time, anime starts heavily parodying various western pop culture subjects including actors, etc. Then there's an art shift episode that is done in a completely different style.

Around episode ... hmm.... I'd say 180, they switch song once again, and it is absolutely amazing. Except... it goes on for at least 3 minutes, and is pretty much used to reduce animation time. Similar song is at the end of every episode.

The stories get better to episode 200 too, but they never reach "stellar level".

And now.... the original review:

----original 76 episode review---
4/5/5/5/5/5

I watched the first season - the whole 76 episodes.

I'm not sure why the heck did I watch 76 episodes of this when I have other anime on my backlog, but it happened. So here goes the review.

To summarize it: This is definitely an anime for children, most likely 12 y/o and younger. Promotional episodes 48+49 pretty much support this idea (they are massive sales pitch for figures + merchandise). As a result, it is pretty much simple story, with simple characters, mostly cutesy monster designs, and abilities of you-kai are usually harmless.

Meaning as an adult you probably won't find anything interesting here, unless you really need something simple to unwind. If you have children, they'll probably love it, though.

Detailed breakdown below:

Story: 4/10

It strictly follows monster of the week pattern, actually "several monsters of the week", because one episode usually contains 2 or 3 short stories. Meaning, every time people start acting strangely (typically doing something and then saying a phrase afterwards while making some gesture), protagonist says "This must be Youkai's trick!" (youkai no shiwaza), his companion says "there's no way !", The characters says "Oh! Here's the youkai!" (Yappari ita!), at which point his companion freaks out and starts trying to tell what kind of youkai that is. This pattern happens every single time.

Beginning episodes are heavily padded with summoning animations. When protagonist (Keita) calls a youkai, a short animation sequence is played (music + few words + youkai image that dances), the sequences is often the same for the same youkai, and if Keita summons several youkai's in turn, this can take quite a lot of animation time, making story siginificantly shorter.

Now... around episode 20 or so, the show starts improving and introduces "side stories" which can be telling something about a youkai, or could be a parody.

Around episode 50 it improves a bti more as well.

But otherwise it is, from beginning to the end (of the season one) is fairly childish show with not much interesting for an adult to watch.

Art: 5/10:

The art is quite simplified, most youkais are cutesy/simplistic. Some of the side characters looks good in this aesthetic (There was apparently a female bodyguard in one of the side stories). Now, now and then there are more impressive designs, for example Kyuubi (you'll know when you see him), but they're infrequent.

Some of the side characters are nice looking (for example, yuki-onna), but they barely get any screen time.

So, solidly done visuals, but nothing outstanding. Some characters are interesting, but there's VERY small number of them, and they don't appear often.

Sound: 5/10.:
I seriously don't get the original "GeraGerapo" opening. It doesn't sound good for me, although one of its variation was better (the one around episodes 20..40). I liked one of the ending themes (the one with NyanKB - I t hink it starts appearing after episode 40+ or 50+), but that it. Most of the music is not that great, although it isn't horrible.

Character: 5/10:
Well, it is a kids show, so they don't have much personality, and a lot of them, if not most of them, act in stereotypical and predictable manner. Reactions of Keita/Whisper are usually the same any time, and the show doesn't concentrate on anyone's personality. Every character has a role, and they act strictly according to it. So they are not exactly believable.

Enjoyment: 5/10:
Didn't like it much, but kept watching. Probably won't be watching the second season.

Minor detail about translation:
It looks like the primary way to see this show in the west is to watch Disney channel or something. Judging by online information, Disney attempted to americanize the show for unknown reason, and renamed a lot of characters. Keita becomes nate, Fumiko-chan becomes... well, I forgot what her name was. Keita's parents receive names, etc. Even monsterss get renamed, for example Jinmenken becomes Manjimutt, and Ikemenken gets simlar treatment. Of course, some of the jokes are hard to translate, but still, I probably wouldn't watch the show that got this kind of translation treatment. Disney apparently cut off some of the "potentialy objectionable material" (which was like... 3 minutes in the whole 1st season?). Just so you konw.


Anyway. Overall:

If you're an adult or older teen, there's very little reason to watch this show, unless you're absolutely bored out of your mind or maybe need to kill some time. Kids will probably like this show.

And that's the end of the review. Now perhaps, I can finally finish some of the longer animes that were sitting on my "need to finish watching" list for a very long time.


---end of original 76 episode review---

So... to summarize.

You get a show that is aimed at children and promoting merchandise. The stories are also children-compatible, and youkai are never exactly scary. Over time, it slowly improves, but VERY VERY slowly, at snails pace, but never become amazingly great. There are ton of pop culture references, it parodies huge number of subjects, and some of the references are obscure to the point that they WILL leave you scratching your head.

However, the anime is not great. It has its moments of genius (like those android yamada mini-series, which are absolutely amazing), but often falls back into mediocrity.

It also finally gets a nice intro song after episode 140 or so... I'm just not sure if watching 140 episodes before that is worth that song.

It may be worth watching if you have some time to kill, or a slot in your day and want something .... relaxing to watch there, but that's about it. Check it out - maybe - if you have the time, but it is by no means a "must watch" anime. It can be quite addictive though... despite not being very good.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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