bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

quizIds

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

paywallTypes

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Move over Pokemon, a legion of new cutesy monsters is haunting Japan and set to break out all over the world after trampling the competition at home.
YO-Kai Watch is a nexus of manga comics, anime cartoons and computer games that revolve around the life of a schoolboy and the monsters - "Yokai" - that he summons with his wrist strap.
While the name is unfamiliar in the West, it is already very big business in Japan.
"We bought a lot - about 20 items - as we can rarely buy them," Shoji Takayama said as he came out of a store with his wife, two children and a big plastic bag full of toys.
The family spent about 30,000 yen (HK$2,170) at YO-Kai Watch Town in Tokyo.
"It's fun to catch Yokai and become friends," nine-year-old Naoya said of the video games.
Such is the demand that tickets to get into the store were distributed in online lotteries, allowing up to 432 people to visit every day.
Yuuichi Ishii, who runs the Toy Cats toy store in Tokyo, said the demographic spread of fans was indicative of how popular the monster-collecting phenomenon had become.
The secret to its success, he says, is its cute characters and the non-violent way the main character interacts with monsters - defeated ones are not killed, but become friends.
"It's becoming like a second Pokemon," he said.
Matt Alt, a pop-culture commentator who co-authored Yokai Attack!, a book detailing the monsters and spooks of Japanese popular culture, says the series draws heavily on folklore archetypes.
"These have been around for hundreds of years as folk tales. And now this series has woven them together to make a new sort of content out of them," Alt said.
Protagonist Keita Amano is an "average" schoolboy about 10 years old who happens to get a watch that he can use to summon monsters.
With the assistance of a "butler" monster and friends, he fights beings that trouble humans, beats them and befriends them.
YO-Kai Watch shared with its predecessor Pokemon "a very similar sort of collecting mechanism" said Alt, where the main character battles monsters and then owns them.
Replica versions of the watch worn by little Keita - which allow the wearer to insert different medals to produce different sound effects - are in such short supply that their price has rocketed on online auction sites.


Monsters called Yokai move in on Pokemon's turf in Japan

One of the Yokai characters that are sweeping Japan. Photo: AFP

News

Asia

Move over Pokemon, a legion of new cutesy monsters is haunting Japan and set to break out all over the world after trampling the competition at home.
