entertainment

Yo-kai Watch’s Jibanyan meets governor of Hawaii

6 Comments
By Evie Lund, RocketNews24

Monster-hunting game "Yo-kai Watch" has overtaken Pokémon as the phenomenally popular kids’ franchise of choice, and a lot of it is down to its loveable orange ghost-kitty mascot, Jibanyan. With the people behind "Yo-kai Watch" gearing up to bring the insanely popular series to the West (and believe us, there will be no escape), Jibanyan’s starting to get even busier lately.

Recently, he met up with the governor of Hawaii for a promotional campaign to get Japanese kids excited about having a holiday in Hawaii.

As the newly appointed Kids’ Ambassador for Tourism to Hawaii, Jibanyan’s first duty was a meet and greet with Hawaiian Gov David Ige, who, like many Hawaiians, is himself of Japanese descent. Ige said of their meeting: “I am very happy to have Jibanyan, who is so popular with the children of Japan, perform promotional duties for tourism to Hawaii. It is my hope that through Jibanyan they will come to learn about Hawaii and, hopefully, visit Hawaii themselves some day.”

The “Aloha! Yo-kai Watch Paradise Hawaii de Geragerapoh!” Hawaii tourism promotional campaign, in collaboration with Level 5 (the game company responsible for the creation of "Yo-kai Watch") is running for two years from this month. There’s also a website full of lots of Yo-kai goodness.

Hawaiians can count themselves lucky. Not only do they have the most famous cat in Japan promoting them, they also get to be in on the ground floor when "Yo-kai Watch" makes its debut in the United States and the rest of the world. It might be time for us all to welcome our new Yo-kai overlords before the new regime gets under way.

Source: NariNari

Read more stories form RocketNews24. -- Why Twitter is awesome: Yo-kai Watch in different art styles -- Jibanyan, Japan chooses you! Pikachu trampled beneath paws of Youkai Watch mascot -- Pikachu gets hauled away, hopefully to a farm with lots of room to run around in

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6 Comments
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@NeoJamal: maybe his sad story will make the kids more compassionate towards their pets. Everything must be seen like troublesome?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

How will they market a vengeful revenant of a dead cat that was run over by a truck, embittered by the apparent lack of care for its demise by its previous owner.. to kids?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

My son loves Yokai Watch, but I think Pokemon (which I had never watched until he started to, before the Yokai Watch thing came along) is much better. The Yokai Watch song is catchy, though way overdone.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

If Americans start doing the Yokai Taiso, I may consider it unreturnable lol

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Jesus. Wasn't it enough that the media just covered Funashi in NYC?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

The number of these mascots is always a bit puzzling to me. and so popular. and make so much money........ true in most of East Asia,

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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