ANIME REVIEW - Yo-Kai Watch

In April of 2015, I went to Japan with my husband.  A lot of awesome stuff happened on that trip, but one thing I noticed was this new anime franchise that was super popular and positively everywhere:  in the gachapon, in the arcades, in the kids' clothing section, in train station advertisements, and even in the Nintendo 3DS Streetpasses.  Yo-Kai Watch was, and is, Japan's latest fad, and it looks like it might grow to be just as big as Pokemon.

Needless to say, when Yo-Kai Watch was made available to American audiences via Netflix, I was super stoked!  I couldn't wait to see what all the fuss was about, and I was really excited to hear that adorable theme song ("Gera gera po!  Gera gera po!")!

Unfortunately, the Netflix USA edition only has English voice acting as an option, but rest assured, it is a very nicely done adaption, and the "Gera gera po!" theme song is unscathed (though let's not talk about that second opening...).  Yo-Kai Watch turns out to be one of those really nicely written kids' shows with plenty of humour that even an older audience can get a lot of enjoyment from.

Yo-Kai Watch starts Nate, a perfectly average elementary student, who is looking for an above-average bug in the woods to show off to his friends.  Instead, he stumbles across an ancient and mysterious gachapon machine, and out of Nate's gachapon comes the ghost Yo-Kai, Whisper.  Whisper declares himself Nate's faithful Yo-Kai butler and gives Nate a Yo-Kai Watch, so that he can see and interact with other Yo-Kai.

From then on, Yo-Kai Watch follows the formula of something strange happening in his everyday life (such as everyone in his class falling asleep, a friend suddenly becoming a huge blabbermouth, all the boys in class having to go pee at the same time, etc.), and Nate having to use the watch to find out which Yo-Kai is causing the bizarre behaviour.  Whisper helps him out by providing him additional information about the Yo-Kai, which he knows off the top of his head (Just kidding!  It's a running gag that Whisper always forgets information about the various Yo-Kai and tries to hide this by secretly looking it up on the Yo-Kai Wiki on a tablet he hides behind his back.).  Then Nate summons a Yo-Kai that he has made friends with (represented by a Yo-Kai medal) using his Yo-Kai watch, and then the Yo-Kai hilariously negotiate the benefits of giving up their mischief and leaving the poor humans alone.  Usually this results in Nate gaining another Yo-Kai friend (and medal) to add to his collection, and so on and so forth.

Yo-Kai Watch clearly has an easy-to-follow formula, but I find the scenarios, the designs, and the powers of the Yo-Kai to be very humourous and creative!  Many of the Yo-Kai are based off of actual Japanese legends, like the baku.  Also the formula is broken up by having multiple-part segments from the perspective of the Yo-Kai; for example, country-born Yo-Kai Komasan tries to journey around the city without getting lost.

Ultimately, Yo-Kai Watch is like a funnier cousin to the Pokemon franchise.  If you are in the mood for a clever, funny, monster-collecting show, then I can't recommend it enough.  As of the date of this review, there are no DVD releases for Yo-Kai Watch in the USA, but the first 26 episodes are available on Netflix streaming.