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Level-5 Teaming Up With Hasbro To Bring The Popular In Japan Yo-Kai Watch To North America
We probably won't see the results of this partnership until 2016, but plans are in motion to bring the hugely popular in Japan Yo-Kai Watch to North America.
Yo-Kai Watch is somewhat similar to Pokémon in both concept and popularity. Level-5's 3DS Yo-Kai Watch games have sold more than 6.5 millions copies in Japan. There is also an affiliated anime TV series as well as manga and toys. The single-sentence press-release summary of show reads, "The story centers around a young boy who gets a special watch empowering him to discover and summon mysterious Yo-kai that help him solve problems in his daily life usually caused by other trouble-making Yo-kai."
The partnership with Hasbro intends to bring all elements of the franchise over to North America, including the show, games, and toys. Hasbro has not set any release dates or windows for Yo-Kai Watch products to come to North America other than the ambiguous 2016.
[Source: Businesswire]
Our Take
Pokémon seems to be Yo-Kai Watch's biggest competition, and while it a is a massive giant to take on, there's no reason two two can't exist simultaneously. I am admittedly interested in learning the appeal of Yo-Kai Watch. Not everything that is huge in Japan finds a huge audience in America (e.g. Yakuza and Monster Hunter), but there are plenty of franchises that have.
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