![[Youth O Youth-1749847038549.png]] At the beginning of fourth grade we were given a fitness test to determine where we benchmarked after a few years of Physical Education. With vigorous effort, I was able to do 2 push-ups, 10 crunches, and zero pull-ups. During the running segment I was in last place, but just to cement it I decided to trip over my own two feet and have an asthma attack. Some part of 8 y/o me knew this was coming, as my inhaler was already in my pocket. I don’t miss much of my childhood. But much how I lament the person I could have been if my [[ADHD]] diagnosis was caught early, so too do I wonder what I’ve lost becoming the person that I was — namely, an almost complete and total shut-in. I’ve been reminded of this in a very strange way. --- **Yo-kai Watch** is probably something that you’ve heard of — it was everywhere for a few years, before Level-5 decided to bury it in the dirt with poor marketing decisions. But if you haven’t: it’s a franchise about kids who befriend yōkai, ghosts from Japanese folklore. It was originally conceptualized by Akihiro Hino, Level-5’s CEO, as a “Doraemon-level IP” — something that could last an eternity as a multi-media entity. Hence me calling it a “franchise.” I only had brief experience with the first **Yo-kai Watch** game, but there’s been 18 games[^1], 6 manga adaptations, 8 movies, 5 TV shows, and 55.2 billion yen in revenue from toy sales alone. Like I said, it then died a sudden, abrupt death, and we could talk about the why on that forever. But instead I’d like to get into **Yo-kai Watch 3** specifically, having recently put 100 hours into it.[^2] **Yo-kai Watch 3**, much like **Natsu-Mon**, is the perfect summer game. It captures the vibes of a kid on vacation with plenty of free-time extremely well. The game’s prologue opens with main character Nathan having a BBQ on the front lawn, to give you an idea. There’s also a meticulous sense of exploration that’s hard to put into words but easy to appreciate. The town of St. Peanutsburg[^3] feels like if the American midwest was condensed into a gorgeous little diorama and slapped into my 3DS. Every street, park, and river could have easily fit into the ones I’d see in my own hometown. ![[Youth O Youth-1749846748922.png]] At least, I think so. --- In case you couldn’t tell both from the first paragraph, and also by…literally everything about this website: I’m a bit of a nerd! Been like that since I first learned what a book was. I was indoors-y from the start. My elementary school teachers would often let me stay in class during recess so I could read or play **Dragon Warrior Monsters** at my desk instead of go outside. Besides my constant craving for adventure in the realm of literature et. al., I’ve also come to realize that I was always deeply uncomfortable with the way physical activity made me feel. I hated sweating, I hated getting dirty, and I hated being out of breath. This has been a very strange realization! I don’t know why I was like that, and I definitely didn’t have the words to describe it to anyone who could have helped me get past that barrier when I was a kid. I wonder if it was the body dysmorphia — I’ve always felt like I’m just too *big*, too unwieldy and lumpy and taking up too much space. Maybe those two things were connected. Regardless, it meant that I was not doing much in the way of suburban exploration, alone or with a friend. --- ![[Youth O Youth-1749846806675.png]] You don’t “catch” yo-kai in **Yo-kai Watch**. You befriend them. Give them their favorite foods, or bring a yo-kai with the “Popular” skill along with you, and they *might* join you, giving you their medallion as proof of your friendship. Yo-kai have their own personalities and shit that they’re doing when they’re not hanging out with you. You can even find them hanging out on the world-map, chilling in shops or surfing the net in the depths of your closet. Whisper the ghost has an idle animation where he pulls out his phone and posts on Twitter. This is an interesting distinction from games like **Pokémon**, where the creatures live in pokéballs attached to your belt and basically exist to do your bidding from a mechanical perspective — no matter how much Professor Oak harps on about how humans and pokémon are totally friends. You can influence your yo-kai pals in combat, but if they feel like loafing around there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it. The low RNG rate makes “collecting” the yo-kai an impossible challenge for all but the most impassioned players, and as it well should be: becoming friends with the whole world seems tough. Subsequently, the yo-kai that *do* decide to be your friends feel special and unique in a way I wasn’t prepared for. --- It got me wondering. I had almost a complete lack of social circle in my youth. Obviously I had *friends*, but not a full friend group. We didn’t all know each other, I knew them each separately. Plus half of them were also nerds that wanted to chill indoors.[^4] But maybe if I were a bit more outgoing, a bit more proactive, would I have done more outdoor, regular “kid things?” Would I have been less sensitive about my asthma and allergies and gone on adventures that I could be nostalgic about now, twenty years later? --- One thing that’s very interesting about **Yo-kai Watch 3**, as a game that came out in 2016, is how idyllic its setting is. It’s a game where everyone is nice and you’re free to wander pretty much anywhere and everywhere without fear. Problems are almost always misunderstandings, and friendship is power. This is particularly interesting to me because in 2016, the isolation amongst kids that was beginning at the tail-end of my childhood was now kicking into full gear. **Fortnite** would come out only a few months after its release — technically two years *before* **YW3**’s North American release. By 2019 third-spaces for kids and teens were effectively being wiped off US map, so everyone just hung out online. And I don’t have to tell you what happened after *that*… If I found it hard to be a regular kid in *my* time, I can only imagine how tough it is now. --- Call it overthinking, call it the big Three Oh slump, or just call it plain-old overreacting: but I can’t stop thinking about the difference between the person I was, the person that I *think* I am, and the person I *want to be*. Was I meant to stay indoors, or did I choose to be? I wonder if I would be happier as the Mint that didn’t care about getting grass stains on his shirt, and said hi to the kid sitting at the desk next to him instead of clamming up. There’s a lot more to this than can be hashed out in a single essay — socioeconomic background, location, upbringing, and trauma that I’m unwilling to share with the internet certainly all play a part. But I’d like to think that identities don’t have to be as solidified as I sometimes think they are. A year ago if you told me that I would be going to the gym regularly, I would have laughed in your face. Despite that regret, it feels good to know that I can always change who I am *now* to better reflect the things that I think would be good and healthy for me. The only thing that’s set in stone is my ability to do whatever the fuck I want. Something about **Yo-kai Watch 3**’s sincerity reminded me of that. It’s unyielding in its belief that every day can be an adventure, and as saccharine as that might sound, it’s also true with the right mindset. ![[Youth O Youth-1749846988699.png]] [^1]: Not including alternate versions, but including the very real [Just Dance Spinoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-kai_Watch_Dance:_Just_Dance_Special_Version) [^2]: This after another 100 hours of **Dragon Quest Monsters 2** and somewhere around 300 hours of the [[Mega Man Battle Network 3|Battle Network]] and [[Mega Man Star Force|Star Force]] series of games. I’m normal. [^3]: [Long story.](https://tcrf.net/Yo-kai_Watch_3/Regional_Differences) [^4]: If you’re one of them and reading this — that isn’t a diss, thanks for trading pokémon with me