Yo-kai Watch: plans for the anime/toys in France, potential in the West

France

On Thursday, Viz Media Europe and Hasbro held a press conference in order to detail their plans for the Yo-kai Watch anime series and toys in France. Hasbro (who believes Yo-kai Watch is the new Beyblade) announced that many toys, including the iconic Yo-kai Watch and medals (sold in packs of 3, sold for ~5€), would be launched in September in this country.

Mikael Berthou (from Hasbro) explained that the company was aiming for 10 million medals sold in France before the end of the year.

As for the Yo-kai Watch anime series, it will start airing on:

• April 11th on Boing, who will have a brand new episode every day at 18h15 / 6.15PM
• August 29th on Gulli, in the GulliGood corner. Gulli will also have Yo-kai Watch shown during its Summer tour across France, and will feature it in its Gulli le Mag.

In an interview with 20Minutes, Pascal Bonnet (Viz Media, directing the launch of the anime series) explains that the delay between the Japanese and French/European launch is actually pretty standard for a Japanese product. What’s more, delays due to dubbing for the anime series and the games make a simultaneous launch rather difficult.

Via: Les Echos

United Kingdom

In an interview with MCV UK, Aadil Tayouga (EMEA licensing manager at Viz Media Europe) explained that “Pokémon was created 20 years ago and we really hope that Yo-kai Watch is going to have the same awareness and longevity”.

Remy van Leeuwen (product manager at Nintendo UK) also talked about the potential of the Yo-kai Watch series in Europe:

It is difficult to say whether it will have the same impact in the West, but I definitely think that there is a lot of potential for it, especially working together with the likes of [toy company] Hasbro and [TV company] Turner

Remy van Leeuwen also expect Yo-kai Watch to have a pretty positive impact on the Nintendo 3DS, by attracting new players:

3DS has still got a big life ahead of it. There will be a lot of great experiences and Yo-kai Watch, particularly, will help expand it into the kids market. There’s more beyond this first title, So there’s hardware driving potential.

According to Nintendo, the marketing campaign for Yo-kai Watch is not all that different in scope to the launch of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, last year.

An interesting detail found in the MCV UK article is that the next major push for Yo-kai Watch in the West will be in early 2017, while in 2016, the focus is on launching the franchise:

For the moment, we are focusing on the launch of the franchise in the West.

2016 is all about laying the foundations to support Yo-kai Watch as it builds to become the strongest boys’ brand in the UK. Key launches from Hasbro, Nintendo and Cartoon Network will introduce the universe to an eager audience of young fans whilst retail right across the territory are very keen to build support programs for the wider merchandise program.

We are currently working with a large number of licensees to ensure a successful soft launch through publishing and soft lines in 2016 before, working with key retail partners to build in-store theatre to support footfall and sell-through as our core program launches fully in Q1 2017.

Yo-kai Watch (3DS) launches on April 29th in Europe.

Source: MCV UK