Talking About: Youkai Watch - A Bunch of Things

I've been a fan of Youkai Watch for a while, but I didn't start watching the anime intensively until about this week or last week. I already liked it, dude "Gera Gera Pō" is a awesome opening song. And now I'm enjoying it way more than before. Watching the Japanese version since the Canadian dub is unavailable on Netflix (fuck you Disney) but I love the Japanese version. My buddy and I even ended up staying up all night earlier this week because we were watching about 10 episodes straight.
Real quick, the Canadian version is just a really good and faithful dub with all the original names intact, like Keita not being called "Nate." The anime is funny, Jimenken always gets sent to jail because the police mistake him for a person despite being a man-faced dog. Like one episode where he got caught peeing on the sidewalk (like a dog) and got arrested for the 3rd time. I appreciate how the tone changes sometimes. Like they had an part in an episode where Keita's parents were fighting because of the Youkai Sunesnake, and it was becoming a legit argument and looked like his mom was gonna fight his dad. It got resolved thanks to Honobōno, the heartwarming Youkai.

I really like how good the puns are in the anime, at least in the Japanese & Canadian version (counting that dub mainly for not having the name changes.) Like the Youkai ヒキコオモリ (Hikikōmori)  which is a pun of hikkikomori and portmanteau of the words "hikkikomori" shut-in and "Kōmori" which is bat. And it shows since it's a bat that secludes itself in a closet all the time. When the new Youkai Watch Type 0 was releasing in the Youkai World, Hikikōmori was still hiding in Keita's closet while in line. I thought ムリカベ (Murikabe) was good too because it uses "muri" meaning impossible and "kabe" which is wall, and he's basically a wall with hands blocking the way. The puns feel a bit lost in the English version. They are okay, but don't exactly fuse both words together, which I guess is because these are Japanese puns. Like Murikabe being "Noway" in English. Since the word "kabe" is in his name, it's easy to guess that he is a wall. But in English, it could be anything, I feel doesn't make it as obvious in the Japanese version.

With the localization I feel if you're gonna change and "localize" the names why bother keeping some of the Japanese names like Jibanyan and Komasan. Level-5 probably kept their names since they are basically the mascots of the series and show up in pretty much every episode. And in Youkai Watch Busters, they are even the 2 version mascots. Another thing that went wrong in the Youkai Watch localization, at least for me, is that they make it sound like Youkai is a thing they made up. Like how in the English dub it's spelled "Yo-Kai" instead of Youkai. Kinda like how Pokémon is short for Pocket Monsters, they just say "Youkai are Youkai, duh!" Like they don't even expect you to know what that is. Youkai are part of Japanese mythology and the Youkai, their stories and Ukiyo-e art have existed for centuries, so making it sound like they just made it up for the game is even more silly. Which kind relates to the part where I talked about puns and names. The Youkai have actual names and in Youkai Watch, they use those names, but in the dub, they changed them to try and make sense. But I feel that only makes it more confusing, Gashadokuro is a real Youkai, and got his name changed to "Gutsy Bones," whatever that means. A small thing to note is that ATLUS keep the names of Youkai and other demons the same in Shin Megami Tensei, so this is mainly just Level-5's fault. Whether it was done by whoever was helping with the anime dub or the original games (either Disney, NOA, etc) or just Level-5 feeling the need to westernize, I'll never know.

The English version of the anime actually got the 4Kids treatment, where almost all Japanese references and text were either altered or removed, and a some stuff is censored too, I guess so they can continue to "westernize" the series. And it's kind of inconsistent. The games and anime take place in Japan but in the English dub, it's in Springdale, somewhere in the US. And that'll be a problem for Youkai Watch 3 because Keita goes to America. And that fucks up the continuity with the American dub. With the censorship, in the early episodes it involved Jimenken going from a drunk businessman walking around late at night and getting crushed by boards next to a dog, to being a businessman who was dancing around all "dizzy" and dying the same way. Jibanyan's death where he got ran over by a car was changed so it doesn't show him at all and implied that it was like a bump in the road instead of a being actually hit. And Jibanyan's favorite idol group NyanKB being covered up in that one swimsuit scene.

One more weird thing is how the series seems to get a lot of shit for no reason. The anime specifically doesn't seem to get any flack, but the series in general gets shit on because it's a "Pokémon Ripoff," which is retarded since it doesn't even copy Pokémon. Yes, Youkai Watch is a "Monster catching" RPG but just it has similarities to Pokémon, doesn't mean it a ripoff or clone. People just see it and go "get this shit away from me," making it seem like we can't like other monster catching games. I love Pokémon, I like Digimon, I like Puzzle & Dragons, and Youkai Watch. Megami Tensei kinda popularized monster catching because of demon recruiting but that's a different topic.

I really like Youkai Watch and I think the way it's been handled in the west is not that good. Probably better than nothing, but especially since it ain't the 90's where things got changed no matter what, Youkai Watch should've been treated better. People are aware of Japanese culture nowadays and have an interest in stuff from Japan and learning about Youkai and using their actual makes would make sense and would teach people stuff. Also, go listen to the Japanese versions of Gera Gera Pō and the Youkai Taiso.