The characters of Yo-kai Watch.
Human characters
- Human Charactersnote
Yo-kai
- Prominent Yo-Kainote
- Brave Tribe to Charming Tribenote
- Heartful Tribe to Slippery Tribenote
- Yo-Kai Villainsnote
- Other Yo-Kainote
Yo-Kai Watch: Shadowside Characters
Yo-Kai Watch: Forever Friends Characters
Yo-Kai Watch Jam: Yo-Kai Academy Y Characters
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General Yo-kai tropes
- Celestial Bureaucracy: The second movie introduces the Yo-kai Registration Department; where the recently deceased are processed into a new form, assigned a new name, and have their picture taken for their medals. Medals themselves are described as like an ID or license for yo-kai.
- Dark Is Not Evil: You can befriend Yo-kai in every tribe except the boss tribe (though there are befriendable versions of some bosses) including Shady, Eerie, and Wicked, though the Wicked were not befriended in the first movie/Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls.
- Death Is Cheap: Almost every Yo-kai was once a normal living creature who died under mysterious circumstances and returned as a demonic spirit-like creature. Yo-kai themselves can still die, but their spirits can be returned to their bodies for quick resurrection.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Depending on the Yo-kai, if Nate fights them, they'll be friends with him and give their medal.
- Demonic Possession: Referred to as "inspiriting", something most Yo-Kai are capable of.
- Does Not Like Spam: Each Yo-kai has their least favorite food(s), which lowers the recovery effect of their food and makes them less likely to befriend you.
- Elemental Powers: In a type system known as Attributes employed in combat as Techniques. There are 8 in total, two for Life Drain and The Medic, and a yo-kai's personality determines how often they employ techniques. Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors is in play, to which the Drain attribute is exempt, and Soultimates deal attribute based damage.
- Fusion Dance: In the games at least, certain Yo-Kai are able to fuse together into a single entity. The second one tones down two yokai fusions and switches to item based fusions to distinguish the system from Shin Megami Tensei.
- Hu Mons: Yo-kai that resemble humans are common. Many of them are based on actual mythological Youkai who are said to resemble humans, such as Frostina and Blizzaria, who are based on the yuki-onna.
- Invisible to Normals:
- In the games this usually holds true, but in the anime some Yo-Kai are exempt from this for a variety of reasons.
- Whisper suggests that powerful Yo-kai can be seen without the watch. Though the accuracy of this statement is questionable, since this would mean Manjimutt (a Rank E Yo-kai) is powerful. But then again the anime works very differently in terms of Yo-kai power, with lower rank Yo-kai capable of beating up higher ranks.
- Some Yo-kai have developed ways to make themselves visible, such as Komasan and Komajiro using their Yo-kai leaves to disguise as humans, or Kyubi's shapeshifting ability.
- In addition, some humans, like Next HarMEOWny and the manga artist that Komasan loves, can see Yo-kai unaided.
- This seems to be forgotten in season 2, where Yo-kai only appear invisible when Nate and the Yo-kai Watch are around. Other Yo-kai who have stories unrelated to Nate (e.g. Komasan, Kyuubi) have no problem being seen by humans, and in Komasan's case no one even finds his appearance odd.
- Limit Break:
- Each Yo-kai has a "Soultimate Move" which serves as this. They are offensive, defensive, or supportive.
- Yo-kai Watch 2 introduces a upgrade mechanic to the Soultimate Moves, where two adjacent Yo-kai funnel their Soul Meters' contents to the center Yo-kai, which boosts that Yo-kai's Soultimate into a Moxie Soultimate move, which upgrades their potency.
- Mon: Of a sort. People can get the ability to summon them, but only if they befriend them first, and while The Power of Friendship is in full force, Defeat Means Friendship is still an option. These guys are also cognitive, and lead lives apart from being with the owner of the Yo-Kai Watch.
- Odd Job Gods: While not gods per say, they are extremely powerful in how they influence others through their emotions and urges like negativity, happiness, and the urge to jut out your stomach while there's a goofy face plastered on it.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Essentially what yokai are, spiritual incarnations of people, animals and even inanimate objects.
- Personality Powers: A yokai's inspirit ability is generally evoking their most prominent personality trait in others.
- Pokémon Speak: Zigzagged; few yokai play it straight, some can speak normally but downplay it as their names are both punny and meaningful and said as part of their Catchphrase.
- Power Incontinence: A lot of yokai have inspirit powers that can't be turned off who are apologetic about the negative effects their possession causes. They're mostly the ones Blessed with Suck but even the superficially positive ones can be problematic.
- Sizeshifter: Yokai come in all shapes and sizes but some are capable of changing their size at will to perform their jobs.
- Summon Magic: What yokai watch wielders can do as long as they have the yokai's medal. Also only if the medal is compatible to the model of the watch being used.
- Trademark Favorite Food: In the main games, in order to better befriend a Yo-kai, you can feed them some food that they like the most. Conversely, they also have food they dislike in correspondence to their favorites. This also nets your allies additional health/Soultimate Gauge recovery if you feed them their favorite food.
- Youkai: Obviously.
