Maaaaaassiiiii-faaaaaace!
While the series is known to make the concept of Japanese spirits Lighter and Softer so as to be more accessible for a younger audience, there are still many heaps of gasoline to fuel the fires of your nightmares, in the games, manga, and anime series.
Tread with caution, unmarked spoilers are below in this Infinite Inferno!
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Events and Gameplay
- Altering the date and/or time of the 3DS/2DS before continuing your game will result in Gargaros — with glowing, yellow eyes — berating you for messing with the 3DS/2DS clock. Stating that he will "never forgive tricksters". From that point forward, the chances of you encountering Terror Time are increased.
- This can be a very surprising Jumpscare for new or unsuspecting players. Especially for ones who just want to play the game again after a few years or after Daylight Savings Time.
- McKraken going off leading an invasion on humankind. Considering there was no indication he was around until the endgame missions, its scary to think of what he did to the Yo-kai world during its time under his power.
- The white Yo-kai are scarily dedicated to McKraken and occasionally cruel during the last mission. We never figure out how or where they come from or why they have such hatred against humanity and Yo-kai allied with it.
- The Infinite Inferno/Hell, an Eldritch Location prison for the worst of the worst, being thrown into a state of Chaos Architecture and reality warping, due to the seals being weakened.
- The abandoned Nocturne Hospital dungeon, wherein a few Leadoni give the player a free medical exam. Things start off relatively normal, with them giving proper medical testing and attacking you in outrage should you lie to them. Then comes the x-ray segment where the x-ray replaces the player's heart with a disgusting-looking, dripping face. If you answer that it looks weird the Leadoni attacks you. After that you meet with the ordinary-looking Director, who leads you into a dimly lit operating room, accessed via a self-propelled rolling bed. The Director then reveals himself to be Dr. Maddiman, who wants to cut out your heart.
- Terror Time puts players into a monochrome world with red treasure boxes containing all sorts of prizes. The catch? There is a gigantic red oni named Gargaros stalking the area, and he's more powerful than most of the bosses in the game. Add a couple smaller Yo-kai that alert Gargaros if they catch sight of the player, and you have a tense experience as you try to grab as many treasures as you can while also searching for the exit. And if players become powerful enough to actually take down Gargaros? Ogralus, a blue oni that's even stronger than Gargaros, will appear in the next Terror Time. Take him down, and the next oni to show up will be the black oni Orcanos, arguably the strongest boss in the entire game.
- When you catch your classmates during the hide and seek games, they just vanish into thin air.
- The "Wedding Fox Trot" event in 2. 2 features several hidden rhythm minigames, and while most of them are good clean fun, the Wedding Fox Trot is creepy. It can only be unlocked in Uptown Springdale when it's raining while the sun is shining, itself a rare and slightly strange experience. When this happens, you'll see an eerie, slow-moving procession of pale, inexpressive-faced people slowly and rhythmically marching down the street. Whisper tells you it's a fox's wedding procession, and that you should disguise yourself as one of them in the hopes of gaining some party favors... but much like in Japanese folklore, if they find out you're a human, the consequences will be dire. While most of the music used in the rhythm games is peppy and high-energy, this one uses a very slow and eerie traditional Japanese piece. And every so often, the music stops suddenly and goes silent as the entire procession turns around to stare at you, sure there must be something off about you...
- The "Hazy Lane" area in the third game. At first, it just seems like a strange road in the middle of the country side, but venturing into it proves it is anything but that. The trail ends up being some sort of Reality Warping Eldritch Location that changes how long it lasts, and can seemingly create strange events that can end up messing with the player, like the screen turning upside down, summoning characters from other locations to say strange dialog, in one case having Nate's entire class appear to applaud him, or even creating a train to block your path. It also leads to a variety of surreal areas, as well. All the while you find yourself being followed by a strange, many legged, one-eyed Yo-kai. This ends up being revealed to be the Bishagatsuku (Skulk in the English version), a variant of the more famous Betobeto-san yokai. While it's miniature form is otherwise non-threatening, aside from being creepy, it's true form is a massive blob of goo, with many limbs sticking out from it. Sometimes during a run, the thing chases you.
- In the third game's 7th chapter, Nate and Hailey explore what they believe is a haunted mansion. During their exploration, Dorothy appears and does a fast backwards crab-walk down the stairs, much like Regan in The Exorcist. It completely comes out of nowhere.
- The post-game Enma Note quest in Yo-kai Watch 3: Sukiyaki. An important treasure of the yo-kai royal family, the Enma family, was stolen. Said treasure is a notebook that instantly kills any yo-kai whose name is written in it. The whole situation is rife with Fridge Horror, such as why the Enma family would even have such a thing.
- Yo-kai "death" means that not only has their soul expired, but they have disappeared from legends and have been forgotten by everyone. Normally it can take hundreds of years for one to be forgotten after their soul expires, but the Enma Note triggers both effects instantly.
- The culprits. When the current Enma got the throne, a battle broke out between the many successor candidates. Ed Zoff, Frostail, and Eyellure lost the battle, and out of disagreement with the current Lord Enma's policies, stole the Enma Note with the intent to become kings themselves. They murdered Sproink, SV Snaggerjag, and Slimamander to lure Enma out and kill him so they could rule the yo-kai world. Oh, and Ed Zoff can use his right eye to see anyone's real name just by looking at them. Had Enma not Out-Gambitted them by giving Nate his medal earlier knowing that the book can't kill any yo-kai that has given their medal to a human, he would have died.
- The sequel quest is about Enma destroying the notebook and bringing all the victims Back from the Dead. Before he can, though, he's transported somewhere else and finds a few of the murdered yo-kai. The victims were not just killed, their souls were trapped, with no one knowing they're there and no way to escape until Enma freed them.
- One of the victims is Lucas, the only son of the previous Enma and one of Nate's classmates. An 11-year-old kid was killed with this thing.
- In the end, the book is destroyed and all the victims are saved. Sounds like a good thing, right? Well, yes, but it's stated that several of the murdered yo-kai had actually done bad things in the past, with some of them having been in the Infinite Inferno. What sort of horrors did Enma unleash upon the world?
Yo-kai Effects and Flavor-texts
- Despite being made lighter, the very fact that Yo-Kai exist is scary because they possess anyone, for any reason, and the people who have been inspirited have no idea whats going on, or worse never realize that they may have messed their lives up, or worse still have their entire personalities flipped around, possibly permanently (such as in the case of the Enefly/Enerfly mission) or at the worst possible time, in front of their loved ones and friends for seemingly no reason to the naked eye.
- Pandle can make people careless in various ways, like keeping doors unlocked and burglar-vulnerable.
- Snee makes people backstab each other.
- Snartle punishes misbehaving children by scaring them with brandished swords and slashing at them.
- Wazzat can make people forget anything, up to and including their own names.
- Lafalotta steals peoples ability to laugh and enjoy themselves.
- Coughkoff makes you ill with a flu.
- Tattletell makes a single person blab out their secrets, which is bad by itself. But its evolved form Tattlecast broadcasts scandalous secrets over a large radius.
- Mirapo is not very scary, being a goofy mirror that transports people to places and back in time. Mircle, on the other hand, rents itself out to evil Yo-Kai specifically so they can pop up anywhere. The slight upside is that Mircle apparently has high charges for doing so.
- Espy reads anyone's mind for kicks. Her counterpart Infour knows everyone's more personal information (name, gender, age, and birthday). (In the anime, Infour instead knows your name, birthday, favourite food, and fated partner.)
- Noway makes one reject everything, regardless as to whether you want to do something or not. Impass is the more intense version and is The Ghost.
- Blowkade is similar to the Noway family, except he physically blocks people's ways. You get to see it in action through a Yo-Kai spot you can discover completely by accident and a Mission where a mother refuses to let her child go and do anything outside. Ledballoon is even worse, as even a fucking dump truck can't move him.
- Flengu causes droughts in legend to teach humanity a lesson should the need arise.
- Dromp sounds a lot like a Gentle Giant in his flavor text, but in-game he immediately attacks you for paying respects at a shrine behind a waterfall, roaring at you like an enraged animal.
- The Goomba of the first game, Leadoni, is responsible for getting children lost.
- Payn supposedly causes back-pain and stiff shoulders.
- Agon is particularly because he causes disks in peoples backs to slip, with the elderly being more susceptible.
- Negatibuzz and Moskevil cause despair, with the latter's being worse than the former's.
- Scritchy causes uncontrolled itching which no amount of scratching can ever stop.
- Dimmy, Blandon and Nul can make their victims become glossed over by everyone around them like they don't exist.
- Nul's is so bad that it affects him the most; a Yokai-spot has him moving a whole T-rex skeleton in order to be noticed and escape soul-crushing loneliness.
- Negasus make people downright evil.
- Neighfarious is The Ghost, and has a supposedly more intense effect.
- Droplette's and Slush's families can make environments almost unbearably humid and frozen, respectively.
- Gush makes people's noses bleed uncontrollably, which of course can lead to death-by-bloodloss.
- Insomni gets into this trope with her ability to give people insomnia. While she only does it to people she thinks are interesting, the flavor texts reminds us that the only way to break free of her is to lose her interest, otherwise she can feasibly keep you awake until you die (which is a very real
possibility), or at least near death. Even if she only waits till you're near death, being awake for too long can still cause serious health and mental damage.- Her counterpart, Sandi, has the opposite effect: making people sleep so she can play with them in their dreams, with the implication that they're having so much fun together that they basically refuse to wake up. Unlike Insomni, however, it's said that this only lasts six months.
- Chummer's a Shark Man who makes kids loiter so he can eat them. One of the Yo-kai spots has him disguising himself as playground equipment.
- Grumples is a Yo-Kai ressembling an extremely old and wrinkled woman. Her evolution, Everfore, is a young, beautiful woman. To get her, you must fuse Grumples with a special face powder that makes you younger. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, according to the flavor text, the powder is made out of human souls.
- Ed Zoff, introduced in 3, steals the eyeballs of anyone who encounters them at night.
- Dr. E. Raser was a human who worked so hard on an experiment, he became a yo-kai, a.k.a., he worked himself to death. And the thing he literally died for? A chemical that can reduce all matter to nothing.
Boss Yo-Kai
- Slimamander is a slimy, fire breathing, three-headed... thing that literally shares a single eyeball among three heads. It's notable for trying to pull I'm a Humanitarian on Nate, as well as almost killing Nate directly after its first fight. That's right, without Venoct there to save him, Nate would've been burned to death and eaten as a surprise attack early on.
- Eyedra, Slimamander's Optional Boss counterpart, serves as this world's Cerberus, and paralyzes anyone in its gaze before eating them whole.
- Both of them lack their eyes when viewed in the Medallium.
- Hoggles his flavor text makes it sound like boiled his victims alive and ate them as a soup to gain his power.
- Massiface is stated to loom behind people on hazy nights. Those that give into temptation and turn around to look at him just disappear and fade from memory. This sheds some light on the cutscene where the heroes enter and Komasan states he feels someone watching them as Massiface is staring at them silently from a nearby window, disappearing just as they turn to continue up to the third floor of the construction site.
- Tarantutor, a detailed spider-ogre Yo-Kai is introduced posing as a ghostly human kid and whisking your friends away for a game of Hide-and-go-seek within the school while asking "play with me" in an eerie voice. Its weak spot is a clump of exposed guts on its abdomen.
- It also suffers from two unpleasant cases of Alternate Character Interpretation due to not having much dialogue. Judging from the story, it was possibly just a lonely yo-kai that wanted someone to play with, got brutally beaten for its efforts and is later played up as a vicious creature by the flavor text. The other interpretation is that it was an evil monster that was playing a deadly game with the group, attacked you when it feared losing the game and would have eaten the whole group if it had won.
- Dr. Maddiman of Nocturne Hospital, who appears as a human director of the hospital's staff. He assumes you need a heart transplant and explains he'll be waiting in the operation room. He proceeds to walk off in the direction of a hole in the wall that leads to the first floor. When you reach him (without Whisper and in a dimly-lit operating room), he sheds his disguise and does a complete turnaround from his facade, raving that he is going to cut out Nate's heart. Judging from all the beating hearts that appear in the background, he's possibly been doing this for a while. Keep in mind, the Medallium makes it a point to tell you he did this when he was alive as well.
- Dr. Nogut, his Infinite Inferno counterpart, is stated to have used his own innards in one experiment.
- McKraken's first form isn't very scary at first glance. A large bearded guy with a squid theme going on isn't entirely impressive. It's the little details, like the fact that he has leech-like mouths in his palms and that some tentacled monstrosity is sitting just behind his throne, acting like its apart of him. When he's vanquished the first time, these tentacles avert No Body Left Behind by falling limp around the throne and staying there for the rest of the game.
- His second form is far worse. His head swells so much that it becomes his whole body, his eyes become shifting technicolor rings, tentacles come out of his nostrils, he walks about on his hands while his legs become vestigial, and in addition to gaining a crazier Slasher Smile he has a gooey second mouth that hold his heart/core/uvula. And there's also the surrounding area where the battle takes place, which has been turned almost pure white. After seeing the area looking so gorgeous with the pink blossoms, it's unsettling seeing it nearly devoid of color in the next instant.
Anime
- The Content Warning show in the beginning of every episode. It's just an extreme close up of Jibanyan's face staring directly at the viewer while a scream and ominous sound is heard. While brief it's can catch a viewer off guard.
- #9. During a flashback where Robonyan explains how Jibanyan roboticized himself, there's a scene where Jibanyan is on a operating table and a series of mechanical knives and drills descend from above. A curtain lifts up and you hear him in pain, before the process finishes and he's now Robonyan.
- #10. Shogunyan actually attempts to kill Nate with his sharp sword because he didn't get treated respectfully.Shogunyan: Is that how you treat a legendary Yo-Kai with such disrespect and contempt? You have dishonored yourself, you didn't offer me anything, even though I'm a guest, even though I clearly cut it into three equal parts! Your penalty for this is betrayal is death! I will show you two fools why I am such a legend. (Brings out his sword) Farewell you insolent brat. I will make this painless!
- #12. The debut of Manjimutt's escaping from Alcatraz sub-series has Manjimutt explaining how he ended up in Alcatraz, and he tries to pin it on Nate and portrays him as a monster.
- #18 has the debut of Gargaros, a big and ruthless yokai that relentlessly hunts down those who misbehave and attacks them with his club. Yeah, you wouldn't want this thing chasing after you.
- #20. When Dandoodle inspirits Whisper and Jibanyan, he turns their faces into disturbingly realistic caricatures of Bruce Willis, Will Smith, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
- Robonyan's malfunctioning in #23 involves lots of electric sparks, Robonyan laughing like crazy, wrapping his tails around B3-NK1's arm, and extending his head towards him with his mouth gaping open.(Robonyan wraps both of his tails around B3-NK1's arm.)Robonyan: P-p-p-appears not e-everything's proceeding according to plaaaaaaaaaan...(Nate, Jibanyan, and Whisper scream in terror.)(With a puff of smoke, Robonyan suddenly pauses and drops to the floor.)
- Keep in mind that even B3-NK1 is scared when this happens.
- What would have happened to B3-NK1 had Robonyan not shorted out at that moment? From the looks of it, Robonyan looked like he was about to swallow him.note
- #25 reveals Jibanyan's past. While it's largely a tearjerker, a part of the episode does reveal something frightful: the truck that hit and killed Jibanyan (and almost hit his owner, Amy) appeared to be inspirited. Think about this from the driver's perspective. He could have been the most upstanding citizen around, but since he happened to be possessed by something while driving, he would probably be unaware of what was going on. Imagine what would have happened had he actually hit Amy and then later came off being inspirited only to realize he's being accused with hit-and-run charges, among other things. Yokai possession can be no joke sometimes.
- #28. The classic Yo-Kai scaring the living daylights out Bear and Eddie in their frightening, classical forms.
- #30, Nate getting death glares from his classmates is honestly unsettling.
- The Dracunyan invasion in #42. At the end, Nate was just dreaming, but when he leaves his room, Jibanyan is shown wearing a vampire cape and he turns towards the camera with glowing yellow eyes and vampire fangs...
- The way Whisper behaves after losing his Yokai Pad in episode 46 can be seen as a very disturbing representation of screen dependency and its withdrawal.
- The "Canine Time" segment from #66. Nate thinks being a dog is easy and wishes he were one. A couple of dogs glare at him with red glowing eyes and a guy approaches him, asking him to tak care of his box until he comes back to pick it up later and warns him not to open it. Thanks to some pestering from Jibanyan and Whisper, Nate opens the box, releases some smoke and when he wakes up, he becomes a dog. He tries getting Eddie, Bear, Jibanyan and Whisper's attention but they don't recognize or understand him. Manjimutt, Komasan and Dandoodle introduce him to the neighborhood dogs. The guy who gave him the box gives him a "I warned you" lecture. Nate begs to be turned back to normal and wakes up in his room, only to discover a pawprint after he put his hand on the window and his mom brings in a bowl of dog food for breakfast.
- #93 featured a Halloween festival with some classic Yo-kai participating as themselves, namely Pallysol, Lady Longnek, Boyclops, and Kappa. Two people then insult the classic quartet's "costumes". As for what happened next, let's just say the classic quartet didn't take the criticism well and decided to scare the humans for real, except for Nate.
- The horrific demise of Shiranpudding/Life-is-Parfait in #177, when she ignores Jerry's demand for her medal. Words can't do it justice. Not taking no for an answer, Jerry proceeds to thrust his entire fist into her back all the way up to the elbow and starts rummaging around for it, tearing off half of her face in the process. When he fails to locate the medal this way, he plucks out a gigantic straw and straight up eats her alive. Oh, and Parfait is heaving and screeching in excruciating agony through the whole thing, in case you were wondering. See for yourself◊. Even Hungramps is horrified.
- Terry seems to inspire a lot of this, considering the way he (mis)treats most Yokai, pretty much all of whom didn’t really do anything to deserve it. They may have insprited people, but most Yokai do that, and most Yokai simply cause minor inconvenience and annoyance to others, if anything, making the whole thing come off as Disproportionate Retribution.
- In the later parts of season 1 and on, Hungramps becomes terrifying. Whenever a Yo-kai that's based off food appears, he come and eats them alive while they scream in pain. The atmosphere of these scenes make him out to be a serial killer with the Scare Chords and screen tinting.
- The first time is happens is with the Yo-Kai Pride Shrimp. First Hungramps eats all of Pride Shrimp's shrimp tempura, then as Pride Shrimp gives up, Hungramps starts pouring green tea on him so he can eat the rice. Another rice bowl Yo-Kai (Wotchagot) tried to save him and Hungramps pours tea on it too. Whisper, Jibanyan and Nate all stare at this, horrified, and then cover their eyes. The episode irises out on two empty rice bowls showing the Yo-Kai had been Eaten Alive by Hungramps.
- The universe that the Dark Yo-kai watch resides in. The art-style is based off of old Japanese artwork, which, while nice-looking, is quite off-putting compared to the normal art-style. And that’s not even touching on the character designs…
- The 4th movie will have Shadowside forms of Jibanyan, Komasan and Whisper. Whisper looks very creepy[1].
