Yo-kai Watch Franchise Reveals 6th Film, Release Date for Yo-kai Watch 4 Game

The official website for the Yōkai Watch franchise's films and games announced a new anime film and the full title, release date, and a new promotional video for the Yōkai Watch 4 Nintendo Switch game on Thursday.

The new film, which will be the sixth film in the franchise, is titled Eiga Yōkai Watch Jam: Yo-Kai Gakuen Y – Neko wa Hero ni Nareru ka (Yo-kai Watch Jam the Movie: Yo-Kai Academy Y – Can a Cat be a Hero?). The film is slated to open in Japan this winter.

Eiga Yōkai Watch: Forever Friends, the franchise's fifth anime film, opened in Japan on December 14. The film eventually earned 1,043,725,500 yen (about US$9,615,164), and sold 930,000 tickets.

The full title of the Yōkai Watch 4 game is Yōkai Watch 4: Bokura wa Onaji Sora o Miageteiru (We Look Up Toward the Same Sky), and it is slated to ship on June 6 in Japan. Level 5 is streaming a new promotional video for the game.

The game was originally slated to launch in winter 2018, but Level 5 delayed the game to this spring to further improve its quality.

The game will "connect" the three "worlds" of original franchise protagonist Keita, Yo-kai Watch Shadowside: Oni-ō no Fukkatsu film protagonist and Keita's daughter Natsume, and the protagonist of the Yōkai Watch: Forever Friends film Shin.

Level 5 announced the Yōkai Watch franchise in 2011 with a game, manga, and anime already planned. The first game launched in July 2013 and the first anime launched in January 2014. The franchise is Level 5's third cross-media project after Inazuma Eleven and Little Battlers eXperience.

Yōkai Watch 3 launched for Nintendo 3DS in two versions — Yōkai Watch 3: Sushi and Yōkai Watch 3: Tempura — in July 2016. The company later released a Yōkai Watch 3: Sukiyaki version in December 2016. Yōkai Watch 3 launched in Europe on December 7, and launched in North America on February 8.