Youkai Watch (Yo-kai 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.

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Background

Youkai Watch was awarded the Best Film Award for a TV Series at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival in 2015. It also won the grand prize for Digital Content of the Year in 2014 at Japan’s 20th annual Association of Media in Digital Awards.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Youkai Watch
Side story:	Youkai Watch Movie 1: Tanjou no Himitsu da Nyan!, Youkai Watch Movie 2: Enma Daiou to Itsutsu no Monogatari da Nyan!, Youkai Watch Movie 3: Soratobu Kujira to Double Sekai no Daibouken da Nyan!, Youkai Watch: Planetarium wa Hoshi to Youkai ga Ippai!
Summary:	Youkai Watch: Best 10
Character:	40-shuunen da yo!! CoroCoro All-Star Shougakkou
Other:	Youkai Watch Movie 5: Forever Friends, Youkai Watch Jam: Youkai Gakuen Y - N to no Souguu
Sequel:	Youkai Watch!

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

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

Jimenken

Supporting

Komajirou

Supporting

Endou, Aya
Japanese

Imada, Kanchi

Supporting

Satou, Chie
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Lee, Sang-jun

Producer

Beniya, Yoshikazu

Producer

Inoue, Takashi

Producer

Ushiro, Shinji

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

	1: "Geragerapou no Uta (ゲラゲラポーのうた)" by King Creamsoda (eps 1-36, 51)
	2: "Matsuri Hayashi de Geragerapou (祭り囃子でゲラゲラポー)" by King Creamsoda (eps 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62)
	3: "Hatsukoi-touge de Geragerapou (初恋峠でゲラゲラポー)" by King Creamsoda (eps 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61)
	4: "Kerappo Dance Train (ゲラッポ・ダンストレイン)" by King Creamsoda (eps 63-76)
	5: "Jinsei Dramatic (人生ドラマチック)" by King Creamsoda (eps 77-101)
	6: "Terukuni Jinja no Kumade (照國神社の熊手)" by King Creamsoda (eps 102-129)
	7: "Yuugara Otomodachi (ゆーがらお友達)" by King Creamsoda (eps 130-150)
	8: "Banzai! Ai Zenkai (ばんざい!愛全開)" by King Creamsoda (eps 151-178)
	9: "Gold...Nanchatte! (ゴールド…なんちゃって!)" by King Creamsoda (eps 179-)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Youkai Taisou Daiichi (ようかい体操第一)" by Dream5 (eps 1-24)
	2: "Dan Dan Dubi Zubaa! (ダン・ダンドゥビ・ズバー！)" by Dream5 + Burii Taichou (ブリー隊長) (eps 25-50)
	3: "Idol wa Unyanya no Ken (アイドルはウーニャニャの件)" by NyaKB with Tsuchinoko Panda (ニャーKB with ツチノコパンダ) (eps 51-67)
	4: "Youkai Taisou Daini (ようかい体操第二)" by Dream5 (eps 68-76)
	5: "Uchuu Dance! (宇宙ダンス！)" by Cotori with Stitchbird (eps 77-101)
	6: "Chikyuujin (地球人)" by Cotori with Stitchbird (eps 102-129)
	7: "Furusato Japon (ふるさとジャポン)" by LinQ (eps 130-150)
	8: "Treasure (トレジャー)" by LinQ (eps 151-178)
	9: "Hello Chri-Dance (ハロ・クリダンス)" by You-bex Rengougun (妖ベックス連合軍) (eps 179-)

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.

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Gift

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 ...

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Gift

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, ...

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Youkai Watch

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Characters & Voice Actors

Jibanyan

Komasan

Whisper

Amano, Keita

USApyon

Misora, Inaho

Kyuubi

Jimenken

Komajirou

Imada, Kanchi

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Youkai Watch

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

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Visit MALxJapan
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