History Trivia / YokaiWatch

** The first trailer for the game shown in 2011 was originally run on the UsefulNotes/Playstation3 and not the 3DS.

* CashCowFranchise: Predominantly in Japan, where you can find a lot of merchandise featuring Jibanyan. The franchise has even gotten deals with Subway in Japan, at one pizza shop, and with UsefulNotes/McDonalds Japanese branch, decorating some establishments to look like Nom Burgers!

** In Europe, the anime premiered on April 23rd, 2016, three days before the first game's European release.

* IKnewIt: A lot of people correctly predicted that Netaballerina's English name would be Spoilerina. Makes sense, as the [[IncidentalMultilingualWordplay wordplay works well in both languages]].

* TheOtherDarrin: By 2019, [=USApyon=]'s original VA, Kotori Shigemoto retired from the showbiz industry. All future appearances of [=USApyon=] (from Yo-kai Watch 4 onwards) have him voiced by Hana Satou instead.

* TheOtherDarrin: By 2019, Usapyon's original VA, Kotori Shigemoto retired from the showbiz industry. All future appearances of Usapyon (from Yo-kai Watch 4 onwards) have him voiced by Hana Satou instead.

** The Disney XD English dub only made it three seasons in before being cancelled due to low ratings.

* ReleaseDateChange: Snartle's debut story in the Disney dub was skipped over a few episodes due to being based around April Fools. This is jarring for the recaps, as his medal was shown before.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: In America, the anime was AdoredByTheNetwork for a few months and even got its first movie aired on TV quickly. However, the anime never picked up much steam and the most viewed episode had only 500k viewers (less than half of what an average episode got in Japan). Things got worse when the more popular ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' was given a ChannelHop to Creator/DisneyXD. A combination of InvisibleAdvertising, competition with other shows on the network, and long periods of no new episodes led to the anime being dropped midway through season 3 and replaced with ''Anime/InazumaElevenAres'' in April 2019.

** The anime didn't get a physical release in the UK due to licensing issues.

** ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch3'' narrowly avoided this fate. Due to middling sales and the 3DS being all-but dead, there were issues with localizing the game. The localizers instead opted to release one version of the game instead of three like the previous titles (and Japanese version).

** If the aforementioned examples weren't bad enough, [[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-10-09-level-5-has-virtually-halted-operations-in-north-america Level-5 all but shutting down its American branch]] has basically sealed the franchise's fate in the West. No new Yo-Kai Watch games have been released outside of Japan since ''3'', including ''Yo-Kai Watch 4'', ''Yo-kai Watch 1 for Nintendo Switch''[[note]]An HD remaster of the first game[[/note]], and ''Yo-Kai Watch Jam - Yo-Kai Gakuen Y: Wai Wai Gakuen Seikatsu''[[note]]Known officially in English as ''Y School Heroes: Bustlin' School Life''.[[/note]].

** Creator/DisneyXD loved showing marathons of the show every week, and they would play promos for the show on every show that's not Yo-Kai Watch. It was also the only third party series that aired on the now-defunct "Disney XD on Disney Channel" animation block. All seemed to do well for the series in the US... but not for long. ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}'' debuted on the same channel in 2017, and immediately became more popular among viewers of the network, which was helped by the fact that ''Pokémon'' was already an established franchise with universal appeal compared to ''Yo-Kai Watch'', which had Japanese references that many people outside of otaku and hardcore video game fans wouldn't be able to understand. As of that year, this status has been [[ScrewedByTheNetwork averted dramatically]].

** The United Kingdom version of Creator/CartoonNetwork has only shown "The Sleepover" and "Yo-Kai Fidgephant" once due to their subject matter [[note]] The former was due to the plotline involving Nate, Bear and Eddie trying to watch The Next Harmeowny All-Night Party, a show in which the members of said group wear sexy swimsuits. The case of the latter episode is even stranger: for some odd reason, the UK feed of Cartoon Network seems to have a thing against episodes of TV shows where characters have [[PottyEmergency potty emergencies]].[[/note]] and the amount of censorship needed to make the episodes acceptable.

* TheWikiRule: The [[http://yokaiwatch.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Yo-Kai Watch Wikia]].

[[folder:Video Games]]
* FollowTheLeader: ''Yo-Kai Watch Blasters'' finally uses the real-time 3D "Musou" combat system from ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' and a dozen others.
* GodNeverSaidThat: Despite what video game news media may be telling you, Nintendo and Level-5 were ''not'' trying to set up the franchise to be "the next ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''," but they ''were'' trying to bring similar success as it had in Japan. However, the franchise didn't catch on, and was quickly eclipsed by the one-two punch of ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon''.
* IKnewIt: A lot of people correctly predicted that Netaballerina's English name would be Spoilerina. Makes sense, as the [[IncidentalMultilingualWordplay wordplay works well in both languages]].
* MarthDebutedInSmashBros:
** Many Yo-Kai from the sequels were first introduced to the U.S. in the mobile app ''VideoGame/YokaiWatchWibbleWobble'' before the video game or the anime.
** [=USApyon=] was first officially introduced to the U.S. in the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' collaboration event. A few others that also appeared in the crossover promotion are Hovernyan and Robonyan F.
*** [=USApyon=] himself plays it straight, having appeared in ''VideoGame/YokaiWatchBlasters'' first. His inclusion was meant to be an EarlyBirdCameo, but ''Yo-Kai Watch 3'' got delayed, turning it into this trope.
** Some ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch2'' Yo-Kai have showed up in the localized manga before the actual game or an anime appearance.
** Tsubaki-hime (a Brave tribe recolor of Blizzaria with flower motifs) plays it straighter, having appeared in ''Wibble Wobble'' first before appearing in ''Yo-Kai Watch 3'', and so far is the only Wibble Wobble-originating Yo-Kai[[note]]That's not Puninyan or Punikoma[[/note]] to do so. She also appeared in the states as part of a special event with the California-based sushi chain Kula as part of a ''Wibble Wobble'' magnet promotion that ran through September 2016, where her English name is revealed to be "Camellia"[[note]]After the flower she was born from[[/note]].
*** Like Camellia, the Yo-Kai Cornfused first appeared in an event for Kula. Long before his debut in ''Yo-Kai Watch 3'' and the anime.
** Before the International version's shut down, a multitude of Yo-Kai introduced after the second game were brought into ''Wibble Wobble''. Including Koalanyan and Whaleman from the third movie (before we even got Enma and Zazel from the second movie)
** As ''Yo-Kai Sangokushi'' was never released westward, ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch3'' marks the first appearance of several "Commander" Yo-Kai from the game. Specifically Jibanyan Liu Bei, Komasan Sun Ce, Usapyon Zhongda, Hovernyan Cao Cao, Orcanos Lu Bu, and Whisper Kongming.
** The 15th volume of the manga saw the official American debut of ''Blasters 2'' boss Boogiemum (Miiraball in Japanese) and special legendary Crystal Shogunyan.
* NoExportForYou:
** Several games have only stayed in Japan: the arcade game ''Yo-kai Watch Busters: Iron Oni Army'', the Wii U game ''VideoGame/JustDance: Yo-kai Watch Edition'', the 3DS game ''Yo-kai [[VideoGame/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Sangokushi]]'', and the mobile game ''VideoGame/YokaiWatchWorld''.
** ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch3'' narrowly avoided this fate. Due to middling sales and the 3DS being all-but dead, there were issues with localizing the game. The localizers instead opted to release one version of the game instead of three like the previous titles (and Japanese version).
** This was also the case with ''Yo-kai Watch Blasters 2'', as the 3DS is long dead in 2019/2020 and Level-5 has noted they're working on bringing over ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch4'' instead. It doesn't help that ''Blasters 2'' was notoriously buggy and broken in several aspects.
** If the aforementioned examples weren't bad enough, [[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-10-09-level-5-has-virtually-halted-operations-in-north-america Level-5 all but shutting down its American branch]] has basically sealed the franchise's fate in the West. No new Yo-Kai Watch games have been released outside of Japan since ''3'', including ''Yo-Kai Watch 4'', ''Yo-kai Watch 1 for Nintendo Switch''[[note]]An HD remaster of the first game[[/note]], and ''Yo-Kai Watch Jam - Yo-Kai Gakuen Y: Wai Wai Gakuen Seikatsu''[[note]]Known officially in English as ''Y School Heroes: Bustlin' School Life''.[[/note]].
* RealitySubtext: ''Yo-kai Watch 3'' is set in the USA, with the news being released in Japan the same year the series finally gets exported to North America.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibv9H-nPlL4 This trailer]] shows how the first game would've originally turned out to be.
** The first trailer for the game shown in 2011 was originally run on the UsefulNotes/Playstation3 and not the 3DS.
** [[https://tcrf.net/Yo-kai_Watch Unused stuff]] from the first game included Food items like coffee and rice bowls.
** A few games, like the fourth game, had schedule slips and their releases were pushed back a few months.
** An early Jibanyan design, as seen in the 2011 trailer and later shown off more in-depth prior to ''4'''s release, was less cute and more chubby; he looked more like Doraemon. Jibanyan originally had the ability to transform into people using a Transform Orb, which explains why his collar has an orb on it. Both of Jibanyan's ears had notches and they wre originally from mouse bites (referencing ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}''), instead of getting hit by a car. His haramaki was originally made of cursed seals that could be peeled off like sticky notes. Jibayan using seals was scrapped, but his Japanese inspirit still mentions him using paralyzing seals.
** Jibanyan's oldest known design resembles his 2011 one except that he didn't have a yellow haramaki. It was originally a rope with seals on it.
** Jibanyan's owner was originally named "Sae", not "Emi".
** Walkappa originally had a larger bag.
** Noko's proportions were different, its tail was thicker, it had green BlushStickers instead of red, and it had a leaf marking on its head.
** Usapyon wore a yellow suit and a yellow hat with rabbit ears.
** Spewart was originally humanoid.
** Han Sode is a scrapped yokai that was a boy who wore short sleeves [[ExposedToTheElements even in winter]].
** Dekin-chan is a scrapped yokai who would get people banned from places.
** Tatoe-chan is a scrapped yokai who caused parables to go on infinitely.
** Shigakunyan was originally Jibanyan with different clothes.
[[/folder]]

* TalkingToHimself:
** With the relatively small voice cast, this is bound to happen with the large number of characters. It's especially noticeable in the Insomni episode, where Alicyn Packard winds up voicing Jibanyan, Baku, ''and'' Insomni at the same time.
** Kyubi winds up dating himself, as both he and Katie are voiced by Creator/MelissaHutchison.
** Alicyn Packard voices both Rudy and his owner Amy.
** Aya Endo voices both Komasan and Komajiro in the original Japanese version.

* {{Cancellation}}: The Disney XD English dub only made it three seasons in before being cancelled due to low ratings.