New Tribes in Yokai Watch 4?

The Yokai Watch Shadowside anime is currently airing in Japan, and recently we learned what many suspected: Yokai Watch 4 will indeed take place in that very same “Shadowside era”, too.

So, watching and paying attention to the Shadowside anime might give some early clues of what Yokai Watch 4 will be like.



And I believe there are strong indications that the old tribe system we’re familiar with could possibly be discarded in favor of a new, similiar system.

I will explain my thoughts and list evidence below the cut.









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The Old Tribes are Gone?





First of all, if there is indeed a new tribe system, it’s probably something thast wasn’t decided until somewhat recently. Early Shadowside merchandise and the like suggested the old tribe system was going to be retained.

For example, there was a playing card set released that portrayed all recurring yokai in M04 with updated symbols for the old tribes.





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Here we see Jibanyan’s card from that set, featuring an updated look for the Pretty (Charming) heart, both in Shadowside and Lightside form:







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The first images of the Yokai Arcs also had the old tribes, like here Fubuki-hime (Blizzaria) and Kyubi with the Pretty and Fushigi (Mysterious) symbols respectively:









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And most notably, the PV for the first two episodes featured an early image of Jibanyan’s Arc with the Pretty symbol:









But then, when the actual episode aired, the Arc had been edited to feature a completely different symbol:





Which, to me, is a strong indicator that the tribes are indeed being replaced.





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Another indicator that this might be a somewhat recent decision is the fact that so far, when yokai are summoned in this show, their light is always pink.









Which is the color associated with the Pretty Tribe, and all yokai she summoned in the first two episode are Pretty in the old games.

Meanwhile, the information on the upcoming merchandise actually indicates the light is supposed to be red or blue, depending on wether a Shadowside or Lightside is summoned:









So, if the old tribes are indeed getting replaced, this idea likely wasn’t finalized until shortly before the first episodes aired, hence the animation early on still reflecting the old system.









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What are the New Tribes?





Let me just say that, as of the writing of this post, nothing has been confirmed.

From what I have seen, the new symbols and the removal of the old ones hasn’t even been officially acknowledged. All we have are the symbols appearing on the Arcs in the show.



In case anyone is wondering, I feel these symbols are not just new symbols for the old tribes, because yokai who perviously were in the same tribes no longer match.

But they could also be not tribes at all, it could be a completely new system of categorizing yokai.





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Anyway, let me go over all new Symbols that have been seen so far. (Of course, they don’t have names, so I just gave them nicknames based on their looks.)





The “Yellow Foxy Guy” group:





So far, it contains Jibanyan and Kyubi.



Based on that, it might be a group featuring beast-like yokai.





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The “Light Green Wing Ears Guy” group:





So far, it contains Komasan, Bōrei Banchō, and Seiryū (Azure Dragon).

My best bet with only these is that it could possibly be yokai who act as guardian spirits, but that’s only a vague guess.





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The “Orange Square Guy” group:





So far, it contains Charlie, Zundōmaru, Jinta, and Robonyan 00.

This group has been pretty consistent in the fact that it exclusively contains inanimate object yokai.





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The “Dark Blue Ghost Guy” group:





So far it only contains Junior.





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The “ Purple Wisp Guy” group:





So far it only contains Pakkun.







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And that’s honestly all I know as of right now.



I’m sure that over the course of the year, we will learn more and more about this. Until then, we can only guess at the meaning of all this.

So for now, I’ll just continue to make note of which yokai has which symbol.





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