been thinkin about anime adaptations of video games a bit recently and the way yo-kai watch interacts with its anime adaptation irks me.
while most franchises have their anime adaptations separate from their games (pokemon is the first that comes to mind but i’m sure there’s a ton of other things too), after the first game, the yo-kai watch games tried so hard to fit itself into the anime’s canon. the longer the series has gone on for, the more it tried to do that. it’s so different from what’s usual from anime adaptations of video games.
that’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. in concept, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea. it’s the execution that bothers me. it really doesn’t seem like there was any communication between the makers of the games and the makers of the anime. things have gotten retconned, and things have gotten real messy with the lore (seriously, what is going on with the enmas).
yo-kai watch 4, i like the concept of a lot!! plots with time travel always tend to be favourites of mine, and i like shadowside and forever friends a lot too. but i feel like that only came about because of the anime’s messy state and the games trying to work with that. i guess it’s a bit of a you win some, you lose some situation here.
tl;dr - yo-kai watch has a messy canon due to it trying desperately to work itself into the anime’s canon, a rare occurrence when it comes to video games.
Just split the two canons in half into VG and A canon with VG being the main one since Level 5 is a video game company, while the staff for A comes from OLM, with M canon being below that. The only thing missing on my canon tier list is H canon, H stands for Hino
Poster for the Level Complex that I forgot to promote.
It’s honestly surreal seeing people simultaneously shittalk Bethsheda and Blizzard over the quality of games and laziness with design and then turning around and saying it’s problematic to criticize GameFreak for lazy design because by doing so you are literally cracking whip at the backs of GF employees.
Like I saw one post right above the other and it’s like, the same fucking criticism being levied wtf makes it ethical in one case but not the other
It’s kind of incredible, I’m not even trying to look up the subject and I keep seeing people coming up with convoluted and stupid takes attempting to make people feel guilty about criticizing big companies and a giant franchise:
Reducing Game Freak or Nintendo to just the overworked and underpaid workers any time these companies are criticized, so any criticism towards them are equated to direct attacks to the biggest victims of this mess
Somehow believing the responsibility for the crunch doesn’t lie on companies being greedy or the fact that overworking employees is normalized, but instead thinking fans are to blame for beeing “too demanding and excited for new releases”
“If we don’t mindlessly consume this piece of media the overworked employees at the bottom are the ones who will get hurt ://”
Game Freak being understaffed for decades despite pokemon being an inexhaustible cash cow is somehow not their/Nintendo’s fault and there’s nothing they can do about it
The 100% delusional idea that kids don’t care about any of the cut content or flaws, so the game can’t be criticized since they are the main public
Equating people’s willingness to play/buy the new game to satisfaction and the game being worth its price, or acting like buyers can’t criticize the media they consume
“Critics Are Genwunners™”
“You are going to make people feel bad for buying/enjoying it ://”
There are probably a thousand other excuses people are using to suck Game Freak’s dick, but these are the ones I remember from the top of my head. In the end it all boils down to the fact that among the countless game fanbases, Pokemon’s is probably the absolute worst when it comes to accepting criticism towards their game
Nintendo doesn’t have much control over gamefreak
.People are puzzled and not accepting of criticism because they either deny it or the ones giving it are a bit too whiny. (even legit criticism will be ignored if one comes off too aggressive.)
.The fact “let’s go” was actually decent quality and this is very lacking is extremely jarring to say. either different dev teams or something but huge difference makes one go “what happened between this?”
.I remember hearing gamefreak saying the didn’t think the switch would be successful at first. So gen 8 was put together at the last minute or this was for 3ds again and they just didn’t feel like adjusting after the move.(which shows with the cut content)
.Japanese businessmen are known extremely stubborn in changing tactics, so there’s speculation of in house fighting between new staff and old.
.Japanese fans were not told about the dex cut and didn’t find out until A FEW WEEKS UNTIL LAUNCH. They’re extremely pissed.
.Holiday rush development is still somehow still a thing, nobody learns.
Something definitely happened behind the scenes.
If you really want Pokémon to get a wake up call, import Yo-Kai Watch++ and support other monster collecting genres.
Because unlike Pokémon we expected that not all Yo-kai are gonna be in there cause most are recolurs and even the same Yo-kai big in a different costume. It has a meatier plot, more developed characters, and are slowly adding in new content like Blasters, new areas and Yo-kai.
This is the time for Yo-Kai Watch to be heard overseas, this is the time for it’s comeback, this is the time for it to rise from the ashes.
Why I love Yo-kai Watch and how Kodomo anime is treated like garbage.
Yo-kai Watch is a breath of fresh air to the Mon genre or at least the children’s side of it, where it was always dominated by Pokemon, I love the world building of the games making the towns of Springdale, Harrisville, San Fantastico, St. Peanutsburg, and especially the Yo-kai World, like you can kick cans, help old ladies and chicks, the NPCs change location depending on the time of day and the whether.
The many mini games they throw you to play, you can eat your dinner, play rhythm games, Zombie Night, the infamous Terror Time, Blasters, and getting achievements, that’s more content then the Pokemon games ever got (the most they got content wise is BW2), and the designs are a mix of cute, cool, and the creepy.
As for the anime the reason, well let me tell you why the anime stand out. Before the Yo-kai Watch hit the airwaves many Kodomo anime mostly focused on the action and story. Shows like Inazuma Eleven, LBX, and Pokemon are all great shows because of that, but as far as the jokes are concerned they are few and far between and even if they do jokes they’re extremely safe ones that only a toddler can only chuckle at.
Yo-kai Watch is a master when it comes to meta jokes with Chilled Cacao being the ultimate example of that, which most anime, let alone Kodomo anime barley gets right (correct me if I’m wrong). the pop culture references that blend in to the show which makes you feel smart for noticing. References found in dialogue is ones you have to pay attention to the most (that’s where Shadowside got you covered) They even have heartwarming segments like the majority of the Komasan ones, and even a little education on the side (thanks Koma Brothers for teaching me on what Japan has to offer) even the main segments have these emotional moments from time to time (Sandmeh, Tiered, the Riku/Josh focused episode, and more).
The most controversial part of Yo-kai Watch is the adult humor, even getting complaints from BPOA and that’s what made Yo-kai Watch stand out to me. There not afraid to show these kind of things and go OMG they did not just get away with that, like when the boys wanted to watch a late Next Harmoweny Show, Robonyan likes getting rubbed with B3-NK1’s spear, Sproink on how to not eat a banana and the graphic death of Manjimutts teddy bear, which leads me to my favorite segments of all of Yo-kai Watch (Komasan Taxi), and it paved a way for Kodomo anime to get away with stuff that even Yo-kai Watch found crass like the main boy from Pascal Sensei pee pees being pixelated this move from Hero Bank the entirety of Heybot! to even Time Bokan 24 (Level 5 helped with the Mecha and maybe character designs)
Which brings me to this question when is going to far, well going to far, I mean back in the day, Kodomo anime used to get away with much worse nowadays with boys around Nates age not only naked but we get a full frontal view of their pee pees even around the mid 90’s heck even the main Yo-kai Watch manga can get away with stuff more than the anime (Gush’s nose bleed ability was changed to dripping in the anime due to nosebleeds association with erections) not to mention the majority of CoroCoro Manga , and let’s not get even started with the kind of perverted jokes from kids entertainment from the 60s-80s with Go Nagai’s Shameless School being a prime example.
Each Yokai movie is different than the last one and takes risks unlike the Pokemon films until I Choose You. One is a standard film, one is an anthology/package film, one is half live action, one is a pilot to the greatest Yokai Watch anime ever with Shadowside with most Yokai having a backstory, awesome action scenes, and the best human characters Yokai Watch has, one focuses on a new cast of characters, and the upcoming one humanizing the Yokai.
Well if you read for this long it’s time for my rant on how Yo-kai Watch and Kodomo anime in general is treated
Kodomo Anime is treated like Garbage
We all heard the complaints on how Yo-kai Watch is treated in America so I’ll keep it brief, Nintendo decided to release it two years late instead of just one year maximum leading the 3ds games to play catch up before the system discontinued thanks to the Switch. Hasbro made bad plushies and watches and while the first series of medals are fine by me, the zero medals have the yo-motion feature which ruins the art of the medal. Putting it on Disney XD, while better than Nicktoons and what they did to LBX, XD is mostly not available in some households and being put in a morning time slot leads Yo-kai Watch to be one of the most censored anime of all time (did I over exaggerate?), releasing Yo-kai Watch 3 as only one game instead of all three, and N Circle finally releasing the first half of Yo-kai Watch just this year. to be honest I’m fine with Manjuu being changed to Donuts cause they look like donuts and IDK where to find Manjuu in the state I live in?
The thing is that Kodomo Anime like Yo-kai Watch are often treated like trash in the anime community and the anime dubbing industry. Companies with lots of money like Funimation, Sentai Filmworks, Aniplex, Viz Media (which licensed the manga), Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, and Netflix will rather pick up Isekai #999, Ecchi #6666, Harem #479890 and whatever Seinen and Josei is available because they rather retain that image of anime being cartoons for big boys than for actual good content like Inazuma, Layton, LBX, the Snack World, and Yo-kai Watch, throwing them to the studios who don’t have the budget of multiple episode shows like Blue Water (Oceans budget studio), Bang Zoom maybe and SDI, where lucky Yokai and Inazuma still have the Japanese score and Pokemon couldn’t even have that.
It even extends to physical media with anime like DBZ have all the special features like audio commentary and behind the scene secrets, uncut and uncensored, while Kodomo anime they get a vanilla release and Pokemon didn’t fully adopt Blu Ray until Ultra Adventures (and the Yo-kai dvd at least have adverts before the dvd menu, there’s that).
Well that’s all I have to say, hope you enjoy blog post, and have a good day.
Today is my Birthday
I have my own Discord server for sometime called the the L5 Project. Dedicated translating everything from Level 5 (Manga, Novels, Drama CD’s, Magazine stuff).
If anyone is a JP to ENG translator and are interested in helping me, or just to hang-out click on this link https://discord.gg/WgcP9eb
Have fun
L5 Project Wishlist
This is a wishlist for stuff that I need for my L5 Project and stuff that I want
White Knight Chronicles
Art Book
Rogue Galaxy
Rogue Galaxy 4-Koma
Dark Chronicle
Art book
Mobile Suit Gundam Age
Unknown Soldiers
Special Edition Blu Rays
Memories of Eden Japanese Blu-Ray
Danball Senki
Retsiden of Justice
Warriors Vacation Drama CD
WARS single DVDs (Just for the Mini Books that come with it)
Boxsets
Inazuma Eleven
Boxsets
Movies
4koma
Inazuma Special
Education Books
Professor Layton
DVD (It contains commentary Hino himself)
Novel
Manga
Education Books
Yo-kai Watch
Movies
Novels
Ushiro
(It contains the second version of the Hero’s version of Ushiro before hiatus)
and that’s it more updates to come
your blog inspired me to play yokai watch and i'm really glad i did
Anonymous
I’m so glad to hear that anon, that means so much to me. With the uncertain future Yo-kai Watch has in America, and maybe the west as a whole. This franchise needs all the new players it can get.
I bet the only reason Shadowside Whisper wears a suit is because Enma forced him to. Whisper was cool with floating around nude, but Enma was having none of it.
Actually it was Zazel/Nurarihyon’s idea cause Enma would be totally cool with naked Whisper. (maybe Enma wouldn’t mind being naked himself sometimes)
Hello I'm Emi-San: Animation Connoisseur and I like to research, analyze, and dissect every bit of info Layton has to offer. I'm also the ultimate Last Specter fan, and I also do rants, reviews, feature Layton products, Japanese Layton games, and Azran Legacy is my favorite Layton game. I also will post LBX and Yokai Watch and Inazuma Eleven here and there. As i'm a huge fan of them. If you have any questions just answer in the ask-box or message me directly. Have Fun
Anonymous
