Yo-kai Watch the Movie: Lord Enma and the Five Tales, Meow! (映画 妖怪ウォッチ エンマ大王と５つの物語だニャン！, Eiga Yōkai Wotchi: Enma-daiō to Itsutsu no Monogatari da-nyan!) is the second film of the Yo-kai Watch animated film series. The plot of this movie is divided into five stories, with each of them seemingly separate, until the final one combines all of them together for the climax of the movie. The movie was theatrically released in Japan on December 19, 2015.
This film most notably marks the debut of Lord Enma and Nurarihyon, who would later become major characters in the Yo-kai Watch franchise. In the film, many different events unfold in each of the five stories, while a mysterious human figure watches them happen. The stories all lead up to the main event, as the infamous Nurarihyon plots his revenge to sever ties between Yo-kai and humans. The five stories are titled as follows; "Keita Turned Into a Yo-kai", "Jibanyan's Brilliant Strategy", " Komasan Returns Home", "USApyon's Merry Christmas", and "Let's Go to the Yo-kai World".
Release[]
Before the first film in the franchise was officially released in Japanese theaters, a sequel was confirmed to be in production on November 3, 2014 during broadcast of the children's variety program Ohasuta, due to the enormous amount of tickets that were pre-ordered for the first movie.
One the first ideas of this movie was to a create a story that "he wouldn't watch on TV", so series director, Akihiro Hino, thought of unexpected possibilities like Komasan and Komajiro meeting their unseen mother, and Keita becoming a Yo-kai like Whisper. The reasoning was to capture the threshold of an unusual event being viewed on a theatrical screen.
A teaser of the character silhouettes were shown in the LEVEL-5 Vision 2015 event, where Keita's Yo-kai form, Fuu 2, was first revealed next to some then-unidentified Yo-kai characters.
The movie was officially announced in the July 2015 issue of the Shogakukan monthly magazine, Coro Coro Comics, as well as the issue containing more information of the film. The movie was described as an "omnibus-styled" format by series director Akihiro Hino.
The movie stayed at #1 at the box office in Japan during its opening week, with 975,000 tickets sold in its first two days. It had outperformed Star Wars: The Force Awakens on its opening week. Although Star Wars: The Force Awakens eventually grossed higher, during the upcoming weeks before the movie’s release, its tickets were more expensive than this movie. The film was number-one in admissions again on its second weekend, with 450,000, and grossed ¥513 million (US$4.1 million).
International versions[]
| Language | Title | |
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Cantonese | 電影版妖怪手錶：閻魔大王與5個故事喵！ |
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English (Hong Kong) | Yo-kai Watch The Movie: Five Tales From The Beyond... Meow! |
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Korean | 극장판 요괴워치: 염라대왕과 5개의 이야기다냥! |
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Malay | Yo-kai Watch The Movie: Five Tales From The Beyond... Meow![1] |
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Mandarin | 電影版妖怪手錶：閻魔大王與5個故事喵！ |
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Portuguese (Brazil) | Yo-kai Watch: O Grande Rei Enma e as 5 Aventuras! |
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Spanish (Latin America) | Yo-kai Watch, La Película 2 ¡El Gran Rey Enma y las 5 Historias, Nya! |
Cancelled version[]
| Language | Title | |
|---|---|---|
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English (United States) | Yo-kai Watch the Movie: Five Tales From Beyond |
Notes[]
- This is the first piece of Yo-kai Watch media to be animated by a different division of OLM, that being Team Koitabashi.
- It is possible that Indonesian and Thai dubs, as well as a Vietnamese voice-over, could exist because of the movie's broadcast on Cartoon Network (Southeast Asia), but it cannot be confirmed unless broadcasts of this movie surface in any of these languages, as well as in English, as the broadcast as a whole is currently lost to the public.
- The film, despite having no American English equivalent produced, was eventually dubbed into Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese with a release on December 7, 2019 on Disney XD in both Latin America and Brazil respectively. Though the movie was left mostly intact in the Disney XD broadcast, some of the scenes relating to Yuto's sacrifice were removed and the end credits were sped up.
- Unlike dubs of the original Yo-kai Watch anime for Latin America and Brazil, these dubs were based directly off the Japanese version rather than the Sprite Animation Studios English dub.
- This movie was likely dubbed to conclude the cliffhanger left in the episode, "Christmas Blackout! Time for a Yo-Kai Watch Update!".
- MarVista Entertainment, the local license-holder for Yo-kai Watch in Latin America and Brazil, lists the movie in their catalogue under a similar title to the Hong Kong English dub, being "Yo-kai Watch The Movie: Five Tales From Beyond", meaning that this was likely the intended title for a North American release of the film.
- The third season of the American English dub skipped many episodes, but notably included "Christmas Blackout! Time for a Yo-Kai Watch Update!", which contains a teaser for the film via Lord Enma’s human form being present at the end of the episode, as well as Whisper teasing the events of this film. A possible reason for the dub of this film not being produced is due to budgetary constraints with production of this season which came as a result of the series declining in popularity in the West, which had infamously led to most of the cast from the first two seasons being replaced with a cheaper, non-union cast, despite both season 3 and this film initially being planned to use the original cast[2].
- In the North American localizations of Yo-kai Watch 3 and Yo-kai Watch Blasters, the original cast is retained with the exception of Johnny Yong Bosch, likely due to similar contractual issues.
- In April of 2024, a prototype of Hasbro's Yo-kai Watch Model U toy with English audio had surfaced, containing both English-dubbed songs and localized character names that were exclusive to this movie, particularly the summoning song for Lord Enma, Koma Kaachan being renamed to "Mamakoma", and Kyodai Santa (Giant Santa) being renamed to "Santa Colossus". Hasbro planned future releases for the Yo-kai Watch franchise around 2 to 4 years in advance, so having this audio already prepared in 2016 (judging by the copyright year on the prototype) means that the dub for this movie was being planned before Season 3 had premiered.
- Note that this toy was released in Spanish, French, and Italian in spring 2018, with the English version being scrapped prior to retail release.
- Voice actors such as Johnny Yong Bosch, Joey D'Auria, and Alicyn Packard are also present in the toy's audio as opposed to their replacements for the English dub's Season 3.
- Viz Media Europe, the license holder for the franchise in Europe, intentionally skipped over the aforementioned episode in the European Spanish and Italian dubs, albeit not the French dub and the Miami-based English dub derived from it, despite otherwise following the original episode order in these dubs. This likely means that the American English dub of the film was scrapped before any plans were made in European territories to license it.
- This is further evidenced by the fact that a Viz Media Europe licensing pamphlet for the franchise divided the 214 episodes of the series into 5 seasons, but noting they only licensed one movie, being Yo-kai Watch: The Movie.
- Before the Nurarihyon boss fight in the 2018 localization of the Moon Rabbit Crew expansion for Yo-kai Watch Blasters, Netaballerina breaks the fourth wall by warning players that the next mission will "contain spoilers for the next movie", despite the movie never receiving an American English dub. This line is also fully translated in all European localizations of the game.
- When asked about making potential English dubs of the other Yo-kai Watch movies at the Anime Expo LEVEL-5 Panel in 2019, Level-5 staff said they were interested in doing so, as some of the movies (particularly the fourth in the franchise, Yo-kai Watch Shadowside the Movie: The Return of the Oni King) are necessary to understand the story of the series.
- An early promotional short film for another LEVEL-5 property, Snack World, screened with this movie in theaters in Japan.
References[]
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