

Dentsu Entertainment USA, Inc. and TV TOKYO Corporation have announced they have teamed up with leading global play company Hasbro, Inc to bring the hugely popular multimedia franchise YO-KAI WATCH to new markets. In 2016, Hasbro will introduce an innovative toy line for the franchise. The YO-KAI WATCH cross-platform experience will also include additional broadcasting, video game and merchandising relationships to be announced later this year.

“The YO-KAI WATCH franchise has been hugely successful and we are ready to bring the brand to new markets across multiple platforms”

YO-KAI WATCH is an original concept created by renowned Japanese game company LEVEL-5, Inc. and the Nintendo 3DS video games have sold 6.5 million units in Japan. With an imaginative plot, great characters, comedy and adventure, YO-KAI WATCH has become one of the most popular franchises of all time in Japan. The story centers around a young boy who gets a special watch empowering him to discover and summon mysterious Yo-kai that help him solve problems in his daily life usually caused by other trouble-making Yo-kai. The YO-KAI WATCH animated series, a joint production effort of LEVEL-5, Inc., Dentsu Inc., and TV TOKYO Corporation, is the top-rated show for kids 4-12 across all genres on TV TOKYO and has the highest average household ratings among all regularly scheduled animated programs on the network.

In addition to the TV series, the YO-KAI WATCH franchise has enjoyed tremendous success across several product categories since it began in Japan including selling millions of copies of YO-KAI WATCH manga and related books and generating hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in retail sales of toys and other merchandise, not including games, music CDs, and publishing.