There are a lot, I mean, a LOT of copycat anime and games of Pokemon. The most successful of those is certainly the Digimon series. If there's a second place for a good "Pokemon type" it would be it for sure.
But...what about the one for third place? That is quite debatable since there are quite a few good ones out there! We already talked about Monster Rancher, for example. Now, it's time to talk about another strong candidate, and it's Youkai Watch!
So, what is Youkai Watch? From Wiki: "Yo-kai Watch is a Japanese media franchise created and developed by Level-5. The franchise's main work is the role-playing video game series of the same name, the first of which was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. Three main sequels and several spinoffs, on both Nintendo and mobile platforms, have been released. In December 2019, the franchise expanded to PlayStation with the release of Yo-kai Watch 4++. An associated toy line is produced by Bandai for the Japanese market, while Hasbro formerly sold the toys under license in the Americas and Europe.
Six manga adaptations have also been produced; one, a series that began serialization in Shogakukan's CoroCoro Comic from December 2012 to December 2022, was an award winner. An anime television series produced by OLM, Inc. aired in Japan from January 8, 2014, to March 30, 2018, and was a ratings success, boosting the franchise in popularity, and began airing in North America from September 2015. An animated film, Yo-kai Watch: The Movie, was released on December 20, 2014, with seven more films being produced since then. As of 2022, the game series has sold over 17 million copies worldwide."
For the purposes of this review, we are going to talk only about the first series since Youkai Watch is MASSIVE! If we go by the sheer size of the franchise alone, I think it might even surpass Digimon “power” at least in the number of anime episodes, heh. It is a big franchise with many games, movies, manga, and of course, anime. A simple review talking about all of that stuff at once wouldn't do it justice. So, today we're only going to talk about the anime and only the first series, which is called only "Youkai Watch".
I never played the games, but from what I heard and saw, the games came first, and the anime does its own thing based on it. As new games came out, with new Youkai and stuff, they also showed up later in the anime, so it's very similar in this sense to what happened with Pokemon as well.
One thing to keep in mind is that the first series is already quite big. We're talking about 214 episodes in total, and that's only the first series, not counting the other series like Shadowside! So, yeah...it's a lot of episodes for a first series! However, not all of those episodes are subbed. Episodes 1 - 195 are, and for some bizarre reason, the subs jump to episodes 200 and 214 at the time of this review. That's a big shame for a reason I will mention later, and I don't know if the entire anime was dubbed. So keep that in mind if you decide to check this anime out. Most of it is available at least subbed, even if missing 16 episodes.
It will be easier to talk about it once we talk about our main characters sooo...
-Keita Amano/ Natham Adams in the dub: The MC of both the anime and at least some of the games. He's your very typical boy who likes to play games, stay up late at night, watch TV...very average stuff. Actually, that's his main trait since even his friends tease him with how average he is. That only changes after that fateful day when he frees Whispers from his prison inside a capsule machine. Not only does he get his "ghost butler," but he is also given the Youkai Watch! With it, he can not only see but also interact with other Youkai and befriend or fight them!
Despite being considered quite average by his friends, there is one thing that is quite unique to him, and it's how easily he can attract and befriend youkai! Because he has his sense of justice, being quite the righteous boy, if he sees some Youkai doing something he shouldn't do to a human, he will usually try to intervene in some way, and almost always he will befriend that Youkai as a result. While he can only do that because he has the watch that allows him to see them to begin with, it's up to him and how to deal with the situation that he faces each episode, which can depend on which Youkai to summon to each situation. Since he's almost always successful, he becomes a famous "Youkai Master" in the Youkai world.
-Kumashima Gorouta/Barnaby Bernstein in the dub and Imada Kanchi/ Edward Archer: both are Keita's best friends, they're always hanging out with him. It's funny since you see this entire class with many boys and girls but 90% of the time Keita only talks to those two, their teacher (which isn't important to even talk about in more detail here even if it's amazing since he's like the only teacher in his class haha), or another character I will mention right after this. Maybe that's the reason why so many times it's one of them that gets inspirited (or possessed) by a Youkai, and Keita helps them, and sometimes the Youkai as well. Despite that, they aren't that important for the anime and are mostly used as an excuse for Keita to meet new youkai.
-Kodama Fumika/Katie Forester in the dub: Fumi-chan is very playful, kind, and cheerful, and maybe that's why she's the most popular girl in Keita's class. No wonder he has a crush on her, but in the anime it never goes anywhere since she's totally oblivious to it. You know how in some series like Cheers it takes ages for the MC to either get it together with his crush or fail to? Yeah, imagine watching over 200 episodes of that and it never goes anywhere xP. But then again, YW isn't focused on romance. So this crush is treated more like a plot device or a reason for Keita to do stuff, and that's it.
Given we're talking about an anime with over 200 episodes, of course, there are more human characters. But aside from those four, the only other one I think can be considered part of the "human main cast" would be...
-Misora Inaho/Hailey Thomas in the dub: Inaho is introduced way later in the series, but oh boy, she's a much more fun character than Keita. She's a big otaku and loves anything space-related, including aliens! And also to investigate mysteries, despite having a short attention span, which can irritate a certain character often. In other words, she is not average at all, and that's a big part of why she's just more fun to see than Keita.
From my understanding, she's the other MC you can play with in the game Youkai Watch 3, which is why she's introduced way later in the anime.
While there are more human characters, most of them are only important for some episodes or small "arcs" if we can call that, such as, for example, Emi-chan's episodes that are related somewhat to Jibanyan. Those are the only ones that will show up a lot during the entire anime. And you know who shows up a lot more, even more than all of the human characters combined?
That's right! The youkai! And there are a LOT of them! Most of the episodes, like 95%, have one part in which they introduce at least one new youkai. So this means anime has around 200 youkai, though it takes a while to get there.
This means that obviously some youkai are more important than others or become quite popular over time, which makes them show up more later. A few even get those small segments or arcs about them or involve them to some extent. While there are many youkai that this happens to, let's talk about the five ones that I think most fans would agree are the "main youkai cast" since those are the ones that tend to show up in most episodes.
-Whisper: After being freed by Keita, he lives with him as his "youkai butler" and gives him the youkai watch. For that reason alone, he can be considered not only the most important youkai of the franchise but one of the most important mascots of the franchise too!
He tries to be useful to Keita, especially when they meet a new youkai, and he always tries to pretend he knows who that youkai is, but "secretly" is using his pad to check the youkai wiki for that info. That happens a lot despite him claiming he knows everything about other youkai. At least his fondness for the so-called "classic youkai" is genuine, and he's a big fanboy of those guys.
Whisper can be a bit arrogant and annoying given how he likes to lecture others about stuff and maybe that's why he's very often being "bullied" or used by other characters or even in the episode as the the butt of the joke. It can happen so much that you might feel bad for him! Sometimes this happens with other youkai too, like the next one I will talk about, but around 70% of the time, it's with him.
-Jibanyan: To most Jibanyan is "the" mascot of the entire franchise. That makes sense since he has it all. A very cute design. A nice personality. And a simple but good backstory, too, which I won't spoil.
After Whisper, he was the first Youkai that Keita met and befriended, so he's one with whom he has a strong bond, and no wonder he lives in Keita's home with him and Whisper. Sometimes that can be a problem since he's quite lazy and might not even listen to Keita's orders to fight someone when summoned by his watch. He prefers to sleep or eat his beloved chocobars more than anything else...except for his love for the music idol group called "NyaKB" or "Next HarMEOWny" in the dub. Jibanyan makes sure to get all the merchandise of those girls and go to all of their shows!
-Komasan and Komajiro: Probably the most popular characters aside from Jibanyan himself. Both are youkai komainu (at least in this series...) with komasan being the oldest! And maybe the youkai with stars in most segments in the anime aside Jibanyan!
Komasan is a shy and nice youkai who is a country bumpkin since he spent hundreds of years living as the guardian of a shrine until it was demolished so he decided to live in the city at the start of the anime. Komasan, getting used to life there, is one of the first segments of the anime.
He can be quite naive compared to Komajiro, which maybe it's why Komajiro is much faster to adapt to life in the city compared to his older brother, once he also decides to live in the city with him. Kojamiro is more curious and optimistic, and despite clearly being the smartest one of the two, still sees Komasan as a role model to look towards.
There are many others I could mention here in more detail, such as Tomnyan, but I think most fans would agree that if there's another one aside from those four that deserved to be talked about in detail the most, then it certainly should be...
-Usapyon: his backstory is among the best and most emotional of the anime! And he's quite a fun character to see on the screen as well!
The shortest way to describe him is to say he's the Jibanyan to Inaho, even if he has a different personality from our beloved cat Youkai. Despite the rabbit ears of his space suit, he's an otter youkai, and if you wanna see him without the suit, you better be ready to invest some time in this series, though I will show pics of that later...if you don't consider it a spoiler! xP
This cute otter is quite a serious Youkai and also quite smart. He's also quite persistent when he wants something, and it's part of how he befriended Inaho. Unfortunately for him, he's also easy to provoke or tease, which is a thing that Inaho just loves doing to him...even if she knows it's risky because of his dangerous invader mode! When that happens he's so pissed off he will chase and try to shoot the one that angered him which usually is Inaho~
He also got popular and has a lot of segments that he's somewhat involved in, since he always shows up with Inaho, and she has a lot of segments.
Speaking of which...what do I mean by segments or parts?
Now, this is one of the main ways that Youkai Watch (at least this series) is very different from those Pokemon clones. Youkai Watch (from now on, I will abbreviate it to YW and unless specified otherwise, I will always be referring to THIS series) isn't about a main plot. The characters aren't living adventures in a journey with a goal in mind, they don't fight against an antagonist or anything of this nature.
The episodes are divided into two or three parts or segments that usually don't even have anything to do with each other. They're all focused on humor or parodies of something. The biggest segment, of course, is about Keita and his daily life.
Most of the episodes have at least one segment that is about that, which can make the argument that YW is an anime about Slice of life with some other stuff here and there, too. I guess that's because not only is Keita the main character of the anime, but it's usually his segment that is used to introduce a new youkai. So, in a way, they use the Monster of the Week trope this way.
Keita is either just minding his own business when a youkai shows up and inspirit him and his youkai friends, such as Whisper or Jibanyan has to help him. Or someone close to Keita, like one of his friends or some random human character of the week, or a minor one, such as his teacher, is the one getting inspirited and he has to either defeat the youkai to get that person back to normal or befriend that youkai somehow by summoning previous youkai he already befriended by using his watch.
That happens a lot since he usually gets to show up once in the episode in his segment. And it's where most of the gags or jokes of the anime will show up, and they do tend to be childish and quite repetitive, but not always (oh, I so will talk more about this later!). The quality of those parts is all over the place, too. Some episodes are just way better than others, usually the few ones that have some drama in them or a good backstory for the youkai in question. Shame such episodes are quite few and far between, but they are good stuff.
Not that you will watch this one for the drama, this is an anime for fans of comedic and supernatural stuff with a bit of adventure and action. Only the Keita segments are very slice of life, though some others are as well, but his stuff is the biggest part of the anime anyway. So either you don't like slice of life, and by itself this might scare you off, or you will like it, and how they do it by mixing it with the monster of the week trope.
It's the comedy that is the main thing of this anime anyway, and it's what will define whether you will like it or not. It's full of repetitive gags, some better than others, and mostly they're harmless. Up to you if you like seeing stuff like Whisper being bullied by the new youkai of the week or Komasan being cute in his segments, or how Keita always somehow fails to defeat Hanahojin and always ends up being forced to pick his nose...and any youkai that had the misfortune to be summoned by him to fight Hanahojin too! Maybe the craziest part about Keita's life is how everything that happens to him or to someone around him is always a Youkai's fault. It even becomes a gag, and you can't blame him for seeing anyone acting out of character, and he's already looking for a Youkai, sure that there's one he hasn't met yet involved. And 99% of the time, he's right. When you think about it, this is very fucked up but the anime never really tries to answer the troublesome questions this sort of fact would bring to the table.
That being said, since we're talking about an anime with over 200 episodes and at the end of the day, Keita's stuff is only one segment of most of those episodes...what about the other segments?
They vary and a LOT. The comedy in them and the gags as well, which means you're sure to love some and hate others. Besides, while I said the comedy of the anime is quite childish, that doesn't mean that this is always the case. Sometimes they, uh...they just go full bonkers there! And the result is nothing less than amazing!! x3
As an example of that, check those images: https://imgbox.com/g/ffeVtd2Vns Just try to guess what the heck is going on in some of those! Even just looking at most of them should make you think "Uh, that is for kids...right?" xD
See? Sometimes they do stuff like that, haha! But do not expect it to happen in every episode. It's not that common. Maybe because if it were, they wouldn't be able to get away with it. So while those bits are amazing, I can't recommend watching the anime for them alone if you're hoping that the entire anime is like that.
There are a LOT of segments, no way I can talk about all of them. I will only talk about a few of my favorites:
-Komasan taxi: that's what the second video is about. I couldn't confirm if this really happened, but according to this segment, they started to get letters or phone calls from angry parents about the "crazy" stuff that can happen in the anime, complaining about that since their kids were watching. Komasan Taxi is when Komasan and his brother pick up the characters involved in those, uh...problematic situations and try to reform them! Let's just say it doesn't always work~
-Komasan Hokuto No Ken: YW loves to do many parodies of other anime and stuff, sometimes entire segments are about parodies. And this is my favorite of those. And, again, it's proof that not all the comedy they do is only for kids. How many kids in Japan in those days would even know what the heck Hokuto no Ken is? This is obviously made for their parents watching with them, and it's quite funny and cute! It makes fun of how Kenshiro can do whatever the heck he wants with Hokuto no Ken x3!
-Pretty much anything with Inaho: Despite showing quite late in the anime and maybe because she's one of the MCs in the games (one of them?), Inaho does have lots of segments. Most of them are good, at least for this anime's standards! The best one, though, is probably her meeting Usapyon and his backstory! I wish one of those segments or "little arcs" they have us do was her meeting with Keita, which was teased quite a bit for a while. In the end, they completely wasted it in the second movie, which is just a shame. But I will talk more about it when I review that movie one day.
-Indiana Jaws arc: most of the segments of this anime are divided into like six or so segments spread over the same number of episodes (sharing screentime with other segments that have nothing to do with each other) and together they tell a whole arc...or the closest thing this anime has for a "serious" arc. Of those, Indiana Jaws is probably the biggest one (if we ignore Keita and Inaho's segments) and maybe the most serious too!
In this anime, youkai are "born" when a person or some animals die. It's quite weird and convoluted, and they never elaborated on it, especially since we don't see the backstory of every youkai, and the more you think about it, the less it makes sense, heh. It's kinda of the case here, it's so weird that somehow both he and his sister turned into Youkai. But what's special about Indiana Jaws is that he's one of the few Youkai not in the main cast who somehow got his own arc! Maybe because of the games and his role in it, it's similar to how something or someone was introduced in the games and later showed up in the anime, like Inaho.
I can't talk much about it because not only is it one of the only arcs of the anime that has some stakes and stuff, but sadly, I don't know how it ends since...the entire anime isn't subbed yet and that includes the episodes which have the last segments of this arc. That sucks but what can you do...
-"Unique" episodes: There are some episodes that aren't divided into segments at all, so the entire episode is considered unique or special. Some of those are quite good and fan favorites like "Jibanyan's Secret". Of those, my favorite is episode 100. I wish we saw more of those feline Youkai introduced there, but sadly they only showed up there...
Aside from some minor details, mainly the introduction of new characters, the show's episodic nature allows you to almost start watching from any point. I think the only big exception to this is a few details like why Keita has some new models of the Youkai Watch and some characters that were introduced first in the movies such as Fuyunuan, who became so popular when he was introduced in the very first movie, he showed up a lot in the anime!
Before I talk a bit more about the anime and if I recommend it, think it's time we talk about the kemono in it! So...
KEMONO SCALE JUDGMENT:
Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!
Just like Monster Rancher and some other "Pokemon clones" such as Digimon, there is a lot of kemono in Youkai Watch. I mean, A LOT. It's probably the third one if we go by the numbers alone, since as far as I know, only Pokemon and Digimon have that many kemono. With the first series alone having over 200 Youkai characters, it already has more characters in it than, say, Monster Rancher in its entire run, though probably not if we count all the exclusive game monsters and variations.
The thing is...with stuff like Monster Rancher, one can easily say that most, if not all monsters from there are kemono. But can we really say that of the characters from Youkai Watch? All of them are based on youkai legends and tales, and many of them aren't furry or designed as kemono in the anime/games. So, even if the anime has over 200 youkai doesn't mean we have over 200 kemono. Many of them are clearly "human" and others are things that might be up for debate if they would even count as kemono xP.
Not only that, but this isn't Buddyfight, which somehow managed to have 99% of its kemono characters very hot or cute. Or like Monster Rancher, which has many good one,s though most of them are just variations of a base monster. The quality of the designs of the kemono here is all over the damn place. And maybe they know that since Jibanyan has one of the best designs, which is probably why so many other "cat" youkai are basically Jibanyan color swaps.
Pokemon and Digimon have a similar issue, but it's worse in Pokemon, and I think even worse here. But then again, that's more because since the characters are based on "real" Youkai, it's normal that there would be many that wouldn't become kemono in the anime/game or even good-looking ones.
Those are what I think are the best Youkai from the anime, at least the kemono ones, or characters that I think we can consider kemono:
Jibanyan friends from episode 100 reference (one of the best unique episodes of the anime! I wish we saw a lot more of those guys, but sadly they only showed up here): https://imgbox.com/g/wtJw6P2QwI
Lot of kemono characters and many of their designs aren't half-bad, right? But do keep in mind most of those will only have one episode about them, and either will never show up again or will be, at most, cameos showing up in another episode. That sucks if those that only show up once become your favorites.
Besides, even if all of them had stellar designs and all episodes had at least one new kemono character, it's very hard to ignore the episodic and "childish" comedic nature of the anime. If you don't like seeing the same silly gags being repeated over and over across the episodes, this might be enough to turn you off from wanting to watch the rest of the anime for good. And the good episodes or little arcs/segments are few and far between the others.
The anime doesn't change by suddenly getting a plot with stakes or something as Shadowside did, so it's a matter of whether you like when your anime is episodic, full of gags, or if you like the youkai just enough to keep watching. That's why my recommendation for this one is that you watch like ten episodes. If you feel like stopping or that it's not for you, then try what I think it's the first very good, unique episode, which is a fan favorite and I already mentioned it: Jibanyan's Secret, which is episode 25. If you watched it and it didn't do anything for you, then I'm afraid you won't enjoy the rest of the anime or the other unique episodes, since this is one of the best ones.
So, for those reasons, I believe that the first anime of Youkai Watch deserves a...*turns around and points dramatically at the anime* A THREE OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!! Even if not all of the Youkai are kemono, there are still a lot of them, and all of them have at least one episode about them. Plus, some like Jibanyan show up a lot and are good kemono characters. If there were more good, unique episodes or more crazy "adult" jokes that could be appreciated more by the non-Japanese kids in the audience, maybe this one could get a four. But as it is...a three sounds right.
I mean, the last episode it's just a one giant terrible gag entirely, which makes it one of the worst episodes of the whole anime...and that's how they chose to end an anime that has over 200 episodes. If they wanted, we could have had a very good ending. For this terrible episode alone, I can't give more than a three to this anime in our scale xP. If anything, stuff like this almost put it on a two on the scale!
Commissions based on this cartoon so far: an image set, but I do want to get more commissions with those Youkai! If you wanna see more art of those characters and wanna help commission that art with me, just contact me please~
The best furry character this time is...Tomnyan! I know, I didn't mention him before, but he's like the superior version of Jibanyan. What, don't agree with me? Can Jibanyan do...THIS? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yanyy8GV8ew I thought so~
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about the (first) anime of Youkai Watch if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
