VIZ Media: Yo-kai Watch doing better than expected

Yo-kai Watch was launched last year in North America, with the manga, the video game, and the anime series (not to mention the toys). Unfortunately, we never got any proper sales data for the game, but it’s clear it didn’t do nearly as well as Nintendo expected. But for VIZ Media, it looks like the Yo-kai Watch franchise is doing quite well.

According to Beth Kawasaki, Yo-kai Watch is doing better than expected, and is one of the two biggest sellers for VIZ Media (with Pokémon). Here’s what she said to ICv2:

We’ve had great success with Yo-kai Watch. We thought it would do well, but it’s really gone above expectations. We’ve seen a lot of support in all channels for that property. […] We have seen a lot of pick-up on that across all channels. We’re seeing a lot of support through our regular retail channels, as well as Diamond has been supporting it (we’ve seen some reorders there), and with Scholastic also, so we’re really getting a nice reach with that property. There was some placement at Walmart when we launched the property.

According to her, it’s both the anime series and the video games which are driving the good performance of Yo-kai Watch for VIZ Media. And it looks like those who decided to bet on that franchise made the right choice in the end.

Of course, VIZ Media has more Yo-kai Watch content on the way. They have released everything up to Volume 5 for the manga, and they’re currently trying to secure more content (such as the volumes already released in Japan).

Source: ICv2