Yo-kai Watch (manga)
Multiple other manga series also based on the "Yo-kai Watch" franchise have been released, such as one focusing on Nate's love interest, Katie Forester, one based on the "Yo-kai Watch Blasters" video game, and one based on the "" TV-series. Main characters. – An 11-year-old 5th grader who acquires a Yo-kai Watch while bug hunting in the Mount Wildwood forest. He's portrayed as a relatively average and straightforward character. Background and release. "Yo-kai Watch" was written and illustrated by Noriyuki Konishi, a Japanese writer from Nagasaki Prefecture, previously known  for his work on manga adaptations of series such as "AM Driver" and "". At the time of the "Yo-kai Watch" franchise's announcement, the manga, among other media, had already been planned in an attempt to make the franchise long-lasting. The series first began serialization in "CoroCoro Comic", published by Shogakukan, on December 15, 2012, over 5 months before the release of the first "Yo-kai Watch" video game. In April 2015, Viz Media announced that they would start publishing "Yo-kai Watch" in English under their Perfect Square imprint, starting September later the same year, in conjunction  with the release of other "Yo-kai Watch" media and merchandise. A trailer for the English series was uploaded to the official "Yo-kai Watch" YouTube channel later on October 5. As a teaser to the series' release, Viz Media distributed samples of the series' first volume through some retailers as a part of Halloween ComicFest 2015. In North America, the first two volumes of the series were released on November 2, after pre-orders were made available on October 27. Reception and sales. Rebecca Silverman of "Anime News Network" rated the series' first two English volumes a B−, praising  the book's "comfortable narrative patterns for kids [and] nice humor", while criticizing its localization for being "highly formulaic". Silverman was also positive towards the series' art, rating it a B and calling it "deceptively simple and very expressive". Silverman also noted that Konishi would frequently illustrate "grotesquely bulging eyeballs", among other "icky imagery", which she felt made it "thrillingly disgusting" for child readers. The series won the award for Best Children's Manga at both the 38th Kodansha Manga Awards and the 60th Shogakukan Manga Awards. Throughout 2014, "Yo-kai Watch" sold over 2.58 million copies in Japan across  its different volumes, ranking it as the 20th best-selling manga series on Oricon's Annual Book Ranking that year.