The human characters for the sequel to the original Yo-Kai Watch anime series, Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside
Main Protagonists
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Natsume Amano
Voiced by: Mone Kamishiraishi (Japanese, movie), Aoi Yūki (Japanese, series)
The new protagonist for the Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside movie and series. She is the daughter of Nate and wields the new Yo-Kai Watch: The Yo-Kai Watch Elder. She is, according to Shutendoji, the reincarnation of the oni princess the villains are looking for.
- Action Girl: She is more than capable of battling mischievous Yo-Kai.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: It's very well established that she's unable to ignore anyone who needs help, such as being late for school due to having saved a child from drowning.
- Cool Big Sis: Is this to Keisuke in the anime, and later Ayame.
- Deadpan Snarker: She can be quite sarcastic at times, especially towards Akinori and Micchy, not unlike her father.
- Kid Hero: She's a thirteen year old who owns a Yo-Kai Watch.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Had these in SS020 as a result of the Yo-Kai of the episode.
- Naginatas Are Feminine: Her starting weapon in 4 is a naginata.
- Only Sane Woman: At least when compared to the rest of her friends, she's a lot more grounded and less quirky.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When the powerful oni princess awakens in her, her eyes turn red.
- Shared Family Quirks: Like Nate once did, she often summons Jibanyan to help her. At least until Ayame joins. She's in general more like Nate personality-wise compared to her brother.
- The Smurfette Principle: She is the only main character who is female out of the four.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Aside from resembling both her parents, she wears her hair similarly to her paternal great-grandmother in her youth.
- Temporal Theme Naming: Natsume. "Natsu" means "summer". In the localized version of the manga, her name is just flat out "Summer".
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to Ayame's girly girl.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: While she has an affinity for cute things and dresses feminine, she's very active, sometimes aggressive and always speaks her mind.
- Walking Spoiler: Not much can be talked about her without revealing that she is the daughter of Nate & Katie
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: According to Keisuke and confirmed by Ayame. When Keisuke is kidnapped by Shutendoji, AND her life was endangered in Episode 37, the "princess" awakens in her, or so, that's what Shutendoji states.
Keisuke Amano
Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu (Japanese)
The new protagonist for the Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside series. He is the son of Nate and is Natsume's younger brother.
- Adaptation Personality Change: In the manga, because he has the watch after Natsume lets him have it, he's a lot more confident and more willing to find Yokai.
- Agent Scully: Refuses to believe that supernatural events exists in front of his eyes. Too bad he's also a Weirdness Magnet.
- Ascended Extra: He was a minor character in the Shadowside film after being turned into a Kaodeka Oni, but in the anime series he becomes a main character as well as being confirmed to play a role in Yo-Kai Watch 4.
- Deuteragonist: He gets the second amount of focus in the anime and even sometimes uses Natsume's Yo-Kai Watch.
- Distressed Dude: He is the one who usually gets himself captured by Yo-kai, such as Shutendoji
- Lovable Coward: He's much, much more prone to panic than the rest of the cast and is often put as the target in the show's more creepy scenes.
- Odd Name Out: He's the only one of the four protagonists whose name doesn't reference a season of the year.
- Sixth Ranger: Joins the other 3 protagonists of the Shadowside film as a main character in the anime series.
- Strong Family Resemblance: He looks a lot like his father aside from a different bang style and neater hair overall. Lampshaded by Whisper who states that Keisuke looks familiar when they first meet.
- Family Theme Naming: His name starts with "Kei-", like all named male members of the Amano family are in the Japanese version.
- Walking Spoiler: His very existence is a spoiler since its revealed he's Natsume's brother and the new protagonist of Shadowside.
- Weirdness Magnet: No matter what he does, Keisuke seems to always get into run-ins with the supernatural, just like his father.
Touma Tsukinami
Voiced by: Yudai Chiba (Japanese, movie), Yoshiaki Hasegawa (Japanese, series)
One of the new protagonists of the Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside series. He wields the Yo-Kai Watch Ogre that allows him to transform into various Genma Yo-Kai.
- Alliterative Name: Downplayed. Touma and Tsukinami start with the same letter, but not with the same sound.
- Aloof Ally: He's the most calm and reserved of the group, rarely losing his cool.
- Attack on the Heart: He was stabbed in the heart by the Oni King.
- Chaste Hero: The only boy in the series that doesn't feel attracted to Ayame, as well as being completely ignorant at Rei's attempts to seduce him.
- Demonic Possession: Of a sort. His Yo-Kai Watch Ogre allows him to transform into one of the four Genma Yo-kai by being possessed by them. He's still in control though. Played straight in the movie, where he's possessed by the the Onimarou manipulating his feelings of loneliness.
- Disney Death: He technically died in the Shadowside Movie after impaled in his heart by the Oni King, though Ogu, Togu, and Mogu, Onimaro that Touma befriended, managed to bring him back from the dead.
- Family Theme Naming: His mother is called Mafuyu, and fuyu is another way to spell "winter" in Japanese.
- Forgotten Friend, New Foe: To a certain degree while he was an antagonist It was revealed that Natsume and Touma used to play with each other when they were in elementary school, they weren't best friends, but they considered each other friends.
- Friendless Background: He never had many friends as a child and was generally isolated from other people. As he realizes when Natsume enters his soul, his own belief no one cared about him lead him to miss his chances to not be alone, mistaking Natsume's attempts to visit him as the mailman.
- Gender Bender: Not exactly, but he can be possessed by Omatsu, who is a woman. Being a guy doesn't change anything of the transformation, though Touma does technically become a woman for the duration of the possession.
- Hates Being Alone: Touma's greatest fear. In an episode of the show, when he was trapped in an illusion, his greatest nightmare was seeing the dead body of all his friends and a voice taunting him, telling him that he was alone now.
- Heel–Face Turn: He was originally an antagonist for the first forty minutes of the movie, technically responsible for the main conflict, but became a protagonist later on in the film.
- It Has Been an Honor / Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: Prior to his short-lived death in the movie, Touma tells Natsume and Akinori that he was glad to have been their friend and that he hoped that he had made up for his mistakes.
- Kid Hero: He's a thirteen year old who uses the Yo-Kai Watch.
- Nice Guy: Despite his quiet nature, he is shown to be very kind-hearted. Natsume has always described him to be so kind when he was young. He lost a bit of it growing up, but seemed to have regained it when he became friends with Akinori and Natsume.
- Not So Above It All: In the third episode, he shown to be a fan of the popular trading card game. He even gets annoyed along with Keisuke about Natsume using the ultra rare Blizzard Wolf card as a bookmark.
- Oblivious to Love: He generally doesn't seem to openly express any attraction to anyone, and any attempts at romancing usually end up with him missing the point.
- Parental Neglect: Suffered from this growing up, due to his parents being involved in breakthrough scientific research in disease, making him feel unwanted and isolated.Unfortunately, Touma's bitterness from when they broke their promise to spend his birthday with him lead him to miss an important conversation where they wanted to explain and apologize to him for doing so.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When under the influence of the Onimarou, whenever his eyes were red, he was serious.
- Taking You with Me: Despite being impaled by the Oni King's blood and was currently dying, he resolves to destroy the Oni King's head before he could kill Natsume, declaring this trope by name.
- Temporal Theme Naming: Touma. "Tou" means "winter".
- Transformation Trinket: How his Yo-Kai Watch Ogre works compared to the Elder and the Animus. In addition he can insert Youseikens into it to turn into some of the 5 Holy Swordsmen Yo-kai.
- Tritagonist: Shares this role with Akinori.
- When He Smiles: While generally keeping a deadpan expression, whenever he smiles is just adorable.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: His parents are often busy with work.
Akinori Arihoshi
Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura (Japanese)
One of the four main protagonists for the Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside series. Unlike the other three, he does not use a Yo-Kai Watch of any kind but instead uses Yo-Kai Energy to perform sorcery. Eventually after proving himself to Suzaku, he gains the Yo-kai Watch Animus, allowing him to summon Genjuu Yo-kai with Genjuu discs.
- Acrofatic: Despite his appearance he's more than capable of running fast and keeping up with the others.
- Alliterative Name: Akinori Arihoshi.
- Cast from Calories: Summoning and maintaining Genjuu Yo-kai requires his own body's calories, and causes him to grow thin the longer they're used.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While he is somewhat perverted and expresses an interest in girls that Keisuke and Touma lack, he's still very respectful and protective of Natsume and Ayame and treats them as equals.
- Geometric Magic: Draws a pentagram when using his sorcery.
- Kid Hero: Like Natume and Touma, he is 13.
- Ki Manipulation: Yo-ki manipulation, that is.
- Out of Focus: He seems to get the least amount of focus out of the 4 main characters and he's yet to use his sorcery effectively in the Shadowside anime. Subverted in episode 13 when he gains the Yo-kai Watch Animus, after this, there are noticeably more episodes, resolving around him.
- Plucky Comic Relief: He's got a big sense of humor and always lightens the mood around him, though he does end up being the butt of some jokes.
- Temporal Theme Naming: Akinori. "Aki" means "autumn".
- Tritagonist: Shares this role with Touma.
- Took a Level in Badass: He begins to use his magic a lot more after episode 16 ironically when Ayame, the girl he has a crush on, joins the detective agency Gains the Yo-kai Watch Animus in episode 13, allowing him to summon Genjuu Yo-kai.
- Unrequited Love: Akinori has a very obvious crush on Touma's class's New Transfer Student, Ayame Himeno, she seems to see him only as a really good friend.
Ayame Himeno
Voiced by: Rie Murakawa (Japanese)
A side protagonist of Shadowside, she's a girl who is new to Touma's class who has the ability to see Yokai. She doesn't appear in every episode, even after her debut She's also the vessel for a Yo-kai named Jorogumo who played Haruya as a fool, and pretended to be the princess.
- Ambiguously Evil: Subverted, as she herself wasn't evil while Jorogumo was.
- Ambiguously Human: Subverted. As she was actually possessed.
- Animal Motifs: Butterflies and spiders.
- Dude Magnet: Excluding Touma, all of the boys she meet instantly fall in love with her, or at least acknowledge how cute she is.
- Instant Expert: She somehow learns how to perform Akinori's magic just from watching him. The reason behind this is because she is the descendent of a powerful shrine man.
- Friend to All Living Things: She's very kind and altruistic, and it would be hard to find anyone (or well, anything) that dislikes her.
- Geometric Magic: Learns this after taking magic lessons from Akinori.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Is shown to be skilled in sports
- Kid Hero: Like Natsume, Akinori and Touma, she is 13.
- Loved by All: She quickly becomes popular after her arrival at school and is just generally adored by anyone who meets her.
- Nightmare Fetishist: She was the only one who liked Filmlin’s movie. The one that was so horrifying that both people and Yokai ran out of the house screaming.
- The Power of Love: According to Jorogumo, only the love of a human man can set her true self free.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Natsume's tomboy.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Whenever Jorogumo takes control, her eyes turn red
- Sixth Ranger: She sometimes tags along with the others. However, her role rapidly decreases. She's Jorogumo. To ensure she doesn't give herself away, she erases her vessel's memory of any encounter with the men she consumes.
- Unrequited Love: Akinori has a very obvious crush on her, but she seems to see him only as a really good friend.
