Yo-kai Watch in United Kingdom

***Yo-kai Watch*** first made it's debut **in the United Kingdom** in spring 2016, with the first episode airing on April 23, 2016, and the release of the video game around that time, both in English.

Compared to other English-speaking countries, Yo-kai Watch had little promotion for unknown reasons despite some of the games selling a lot of copies in the charts.

## Anime

The Yo-kai Watch anime first aired on Cartoon Network on April 23, 2016 at 6am GMT, after it was announced on February 22, 2016. The first thirteen episodes of the Season 1 English dub were broadcast throughout the spring while the rest aired later on in the year. Even though episodes were reran, they were broadcast at times like 1pm during weekdays or 9pm on weekends, with the exception of breaks.

Due to Cartoon Network UK targeting a younger demographic compared to the original channel in the United States, several scenes were cut, such as the suggestiveness of Next HarMEOWny in *The Sleepover* (even though the swimsuits were already edited) and the when Nate pulls his pants up and down in *Yo-kai Espy*.

Also in 2016, Nintendo UK released the full Season 1 episodes into YouTube, even though all of the episodes were region-free compared to other uploads. As of now, EP001 and EP026 is still available to watch.

The English dub of Season 2 would finally make it's debut on March 11, 2017, even though the rerun times still stayed the same. For unknown reasons, broadcast of the series stopped at EP033 and no reruns of the anime were ever shown again. In the summer of that year, the Season 2 English dub episodes were eventually uploaded to YouTube by Cartoon Network UK for an limited time, up to EP052 where it was called the "complete second season". As the rest of the Season 2 English dub episodes weren't broadcast, this makes it the only English-speaking country to not get it.

*Yo-kai Watch: The Movie* has yet to be officially broadcast or released on home media in the United Kingdom, compared to other countries that have gotten the official English dubs of it.

The first English dub season of Yo-kai Watch anime is digitally distributed on Netflix, just like in the United States.

## Merchandise

Just like in other western countries, Hasbro-manufactured merchandise was released in the United Kingdom at the time of the franchise's debut. However, they started to become discontinued at around 2017, with unsold merchandise appearing in budget stores. A release for the Yo-kai Watch Model Zero watch was planned in a question asked by the official UK Twitter account and found in the Media Licensing Expo in London later in the year, but it was never released.

Compared to several other countries, promotion of the franchise in the United Kingdom was rather minimal. Only two issues of the Yo-kai Watch Showcase magazines were released, and had a minor feature in Toxic magazine.

## Events

In promotion of the video game being released in Europe, there was a Nintendo Gaming event held at Hyper Japan 2016 at the Olympia in London that had a section dedicated to Yo-kai Watch. People could play the demo of the video game, coloring activities, watch the first episode in the "Yo-kai Theatre" and look at the winning entries for the art contest that was held prior.

A second event was held at the National Media Museum in Bradford, from February 18-26 2017, which was called the "Yo-kai Watch Half Term Take Over". Almost like the previous event, it had demos of the game and activities, except now that every child who completed the "Yo-kai trail" would have the chance to win a free Yo-kai Watch toy, and there was a shop that sold some of the merchandise. It was featured on an episode of *Made In Leeds*.

## Trivia

* The European-English versions of the *Yo-kai Watch* and *Yo-kai Watch 2* video games has the currency as Pounds (£) for unknown reasons, compared to dollars in the Australian version. This was changed back to dollars in *Yo-kai Watch 3*.
* There was originally going to be a DVD release in the United Kingdom featuring the full first season, which would have had dual audio, as Aya Endo, the Japanese voice of Komasan is credited in the product description. It was later confirmed on by Manga UK's official Twitter that it was cancelled, due to licensing issues.