Bulldog Licensing has announced a new deal for brand new anime YO-KAI WATCH – with Centum Books on board for a wide-ranging publishing programme.

Already generating massive interest across UK licensees and retailers, YO-KAI WATCH follows an average boy, Nate, who gets a special watch empowering him to discover mysterious beings called “Yo-kai.”  Yo-kai  are everywhere, causing little nuisances in our daily lives.  Nate’s ongoing quest is to discover the reason for the Yo-kai’s mischievous behaviour, with hopes of talking them out of it.  Each time Nate needs to solve a problem – a problem often caused by another troublesome Yo-kai – he uses his watch to call upon a friendly Yo-kai to aid him.  Adventure and high jinks ensue, to the great delight and amusement of the millions of YO-KAI WATCH fans around the world.

The anime series has already enjoyed huge success in Japan, where it dominates the television, merchandise, gaming and toy markets, generating retail sales of over €2 billion in less than two years. In the UK, kids’ powerhouse broadcaster Cartoon Network will debut the show this April with partners Hasbro and Nintendo coming to market shortly thereafter with an amazing toy line and interactive offering respectively.UK representatives, Bulldog, are working closely with master European brand heads Viz Media Europe to deliver a full, cross-category programme to a very receptive retail environment.

Centum is set to release a full publishing offering including storybooks, sticker books, chapter books, joke books, annuals and more.

“Working with Centum on a wide range of publishing product for such a hot property is hugely exciting,” says Bulldog’s Licensing Manager, Vicky Hill. “Their reputation for marketing support and strong product lines is driving a real point of difference in the sector and there’s lots more to come from the brand. We are dealing with huge amounts of interest across many different categories and expect to be announcing other deals very soon.”