Yo-Kai Watch

Something I felt needed a post of its own as it's pretty relevant to what I've been working on recently - Level 5's new* game, Yo-Kai Watch.

*I say new but it's been out in Japan for a while, though we only recently got the localised version in the UK

Yo-Kai Watch is a game in which the player befriends various 'Yokai' - spirits who cause trouble and various events within the real world while remaining unseen (for example hunger, negative emotions or embarassing tendencies). 

The reason I felt the need to write about Yo-Kai Watch is because of the way in which the inspiration is taken from the Japanese Folklore 'Yōkai' - "a class of supernatural monsters, spirits and demons in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "bewitching; attractive; calamity;" and "spectre; apparition; mystery; suspicious".^[1] They can also be called ayakashi (妖), mononoke (物の怪^?), or mamono (魔物^?). Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them." (Thank you Wikipedia for that lovely description)

Here are some images of various Yokai, along with a trailer for the game: