Interest
Yo-kai Watch Characters Lose Their Smartphone App Popularity Poll to 3 Trillion Yen
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The iOS and Android smartphone puzzle game Yōkai Watch Puni Puni opened a popularity poll on November 9 to commemorate the first anniversary of its launch. The game closed the poll and announced the results on Monday, but the promotional campaign may not have created as much cause for celebration as it had hoped.
The poll pitted the app's Yōkai Watch characters against "other" objects, concepts, and living beings from the real world. Respondents to the poll could vote for popular characters like Jibanyan, USApyon, or Komasan, as well as random things like a rice ball, Wi-Fi, or a crab. Although the app may have sought to crown one of its own cute creations in the popularity poll, the results speak volumes about fans' priorities.
Earning the most of 1,609,292 votes, 3 trillion yen (about US$26 billion) took first place. Yōkai Watch character Orochi (Venoct in English) came in second, and Bushinyan (Shogunyan in English) ranked third. In the words of one net commenter, "Con... grats?"
Here are the top ten results:
- 3 trillion yen
- Orochi
- Bushinyan
- Fubuki-hime (Blizzaria in English)
- Komasan
- 800,000,000 yen (about US$6.94 million)
- Karaage (Japanese-style fried chicken)
- Hiragana Japanese syllabary character "nu"
- Komajiro
- Law
Sadly, the franchise's surrogate Pikachu, Jibanyan, did not rank on the list.
These results may point to materialistic app game players or provide more evidence that the popularity of Yōkai Watch is dwindling. Although the children's empire overtook longtime favorite Anpanman in a poll last year and displaced Pokémon at McDonald's, the fervor surrounding the series seems to have died down in the past couple of years.
But all is not lost for the franchise, as its Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double no Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan! film with live-action characters will open on December 17, and its fourth anime film is slated to open in Japan in winter 2017. The Yōkai Watch 3: Sukiyaki Nintendo 3DS game will ship in Japan on December 15. Level-5 delayed its YO-KAI WATCH for Smartphones game to 2017.
[Via Nijimen]
