The massively popular new Level 5 franchise Yo-Kai Watch, which has so far only released in Japan, is now expanding to new markets in North America, Europe, Latin America, Australia and even New Zealand. While those regions have yet to receive a Yo-Kai Watch video game, they are all getting some love in the form of toys via a deal with Hasbro. Come 2016, it is said that “The YO-KAI WATCH cross-platform experience will also include additional broadcasting, video game and merchandising relationships to be announced later this year.” Given that Level-5 has had so much success with such games as the Professor Layton series, I can only hope these new deals will spur them to bring Yo-Kai Watch overseas sooner rather than later. Toys are well and good, but they are known for their games.
That said, it will be interesting to see if the broadcasting that was mentioned earlier is a subtitled or translated version of the Yo-Kai Watch animated series, which is apparently doing gangbusters in Japan. I can only hope Level-5 has similar success once they bring Yo-Kai Watch to other markets, as I’ve been anticipating the game ever since the original Yo-Kai Watch was announced for Japan quite a while ago. Now that Japan is also looking at a sequel, it seems confidence in the franchise is at its peak.
