Yokai Watch is a huge media franchise that's generated $2 billion... but I think it's pretty much over now. The anime ran from 2014 to 2023. Here, in 2017, it had had successful three TV series, but their popularity was starting to fall and the producers wanted to refresh the franchise. What they did was "Shadowside", set thirty years later. This movie was its beginning, followed by a 49-episode TV series. It's darker and less comedic... but this new direction didn't take. After that came a fifth season that dialed up the comedy again and returned to the original series era.

This movie is also a GeGeGe no Kitarou crossover... technically, if you don't blink and miss it. They're present for about ten minutes and they sit out the finale, saying "your enemy is for you to defeat". I still enjoyed seeing them, though. There's amusing business when our heroes try to guess which yokai is Kitarou, then there's a GeGeGe-style version of the Yokai Watch end credits.

Was this Eyeball Dad's first appearance after the death of his long-time voice actor, Tanonaka Isamu? Answer: not quite, but very nearly. He's also in a documentary TV special in 2010.

The film's almost entirely Yokai Watch, although any familiar characters from that franchise might look very different. Whisper's turned into a ghost butler (and is less funny), while Jibanyan has a muscular form that can punch trucks. None of the original series's human characters appear, though. Instead, we're following a nice schoolgirl who rescues children from rivers but isn't interested in yokai. She'll have no choice but to get involved, obviously, but she'll still have a habit of mispronouncing yokai names when ostensibly trying to summon them.

There's a yokai virus that transforms people. There's a depressing boy who wonders if he's ever had a discernible existence and is assessed by baddies as having "darkness with potential". There's some effective spookiness, like the sun moving around at high speed as people fade away. There's also a giant purple hydra.

Is this a good film? No, not particularly. It's trying to be darker and more serious, but it's still a children's cartoon. They don't even do anything with the fact that Lord Enma and Nurarihyon exist in both franchises (Yokai Watch and GeGeGe no Kitarou) and both appear here. I certainly didn't dislike this film and I enjoyed Kitarou's cameos, but it didn't feel much like the Yokai Watch I know and it certainly didn't tempt me to watch the Shadowside TV series. It's energetic, weird and has yokai. You could do worse, but it's the weakest Yokai Watch movie I've seen... well, on reflection, that's either this or the first one.

That said, though, this is the 4th Yokai Watch movie and I've also watched the first two. I've got to do the 3rd now, haven't I?