Youkai Watch

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 grabbedthe 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.