What went wrong?

What went wrong?

Attached: rise and fall.png (766x680, 559.95K)

>2020
>He doesn’t speak Japanese
It’s the future you chosen

They tried too hard to win against pokemon in the international market with an idea and design that was very successful in japan but not everywhere else

Pretty much tried to take on way too much instead of cementing themselves as a decent Pokemon rival in Japán first.

the entire company's identity in the west is just ripoffs of other ideas, maybe I shouldn't say ripoffs since alot of them are actually great, but I can't think of a single game they've made that is a 100% original concept
specifically when it comes to yokai watch they blew their load way too fucking early by doing a worldwide release, pokemon went through a 2 year period from 1996 to 1998 to refine the games for the international markets, while only being sold in japan

also to add to this, the anime and toys associated with the IP failed massively in US/Europe/south america, far moreso than the games themselves, which had a decent run at the very least

None of the character name puns or references work in english. Youkai are very ingrained into japanese culture. Also the anime bombed in the us cause it had awful voice acting.

Their milked their cash cow yokai watch too hard and now it's dead.

Pokemon just has more universal appeal than something like Yokai Watch which is much more rooted in Japanese culture
The thing is pokemon kind of is too but in a universal and subtle way

>throw shit at the wall until something sticks then milk it dry until no one cares rapidly
maybe that business model wasnt working well anymore

The American branch was a fucking mess led by a woman who doesn’t know what she’s doing. Look up the reviews in glassdoor or the archive for v for “hayakwa”

That didn't really matter because the western edition came up with plenty of puns of their own and also the yokai from traditional japanese folklore only represent a small fraction of the total yokai in YW. Second game literally had plot events based on Star Wars and Batman. Over half of the third game was set in America itself

The anime is what made the games super famous in japan though, and the west butchered that show. It's actually pretty good, and I honestly preferred it to modern pokemon but the dub killed all of the humor

Pokemon has plenty of distinctly Japanese stuff but most of the ideas and concepts are still recognizable to people who aren't Japanese.

Something like Froslass is just a kimono monster to a westerner despite being based off a Yuki-onna. But in Yo-kai Watch's case the Yuki-onna is literally just a Yuki-onna but it's a cute girl.

It's not even necessarily the unoriginality, but rather they put so much effort into trying to make everything a multimedia sensation without giving enough polish to the actual games. If they stopped with all the god damn horseshit of lining up animes and toys and breakfast cereals alongside an IP and instead just took the fucking game and invested all of their resources into it they would consistently be landing home runs.

They keep putting the cart before the horse and trying to brute force popularity with 7/10 games when they very well could be making 9 and 10/10s if they had more focus. The company feels like such a weird juxtaposition of genuine creativity and ability to do something great mixed with a comical and incompetent corporate greed and impatience.

Tried to be a Pokemon killer and failed like so many others.

Honestly the original anime was the best part about yo-kai watch. It was legitimately better than pokemon at the time.

I mean, it does work for a limited time, doesn't it? All of their franchises were at least on the radar for awhile, other than maybe Rogue Galaxy.

Everyone's heard of YW, Layton, Inazuma Eleven, etc. It's just that all of those kind of fizzled out after awhile

LBX was okay, but it didn't scratch the Custom Robo itch like I hoped it would.

Not even just the monsters the whole pokemon world was obviously based on Japan at least the first four games were but at the same time it always felt unique and fantastical in it's own way
I actually think moving to more recognizable copies of real world locations like France, Hawaii, England etc... was also something that made Pokemon worse it's just too obvious now and takes away from that uniqueness and immersive quality the pokemon world originally had

>as a decent Pokemon rival in Japán first.
user, has there been any credible rival to Pokemon in Japan at all &/or left?

I hope Microsoft will buy them.

The anime did better than pokemon in terms of BD sales and ratings at first.

And then they all crashed and burn while Pokemon still somehow remains.

Yo-kai Watch when nobody but Japan knows what a Yo-kai is.

Reminder that the anime for the new inazuma eleven came and went without the game being released. They basically had a seasons long commercial for a non-existent product

There was an interesting thread here yesterday from an insider

>combat isnt very responsive
>aesthetic appeals mostly to children

this is basically every nintendo game and they are massively popular user

Link?

Digimon

Shotas just don't sell anymore, sadly.

I spent a year in japan back in 2016 and Yokai Watch was huge. Every combini had a promotion or you will find toys and gatchas along every corner of Akihabara and Nakano Broadway

They milked it to the point where people stopped buying the toys even in its native Japan.

Nothing. they just wont localize games anymore. Their NA games were niche and no one bought them.