Yo-kai Watch Announces Shock Rent-A-Girlfriend Collaboration
Level-5 has revealed an unexpected new Yo-kai Watch collaboration with Rent-A-Girlfriend, bringing Chizuru Mizuhara into the long-running mobile puzzle game Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni for a limited-time event beginning later this month.
Rent-A-Girlfriend follows college student Kazuya Kinoshita after a breakup leads him to use a rental girlfriend service, where he meets Chizuru and begins a complicated relationship that gradually pulls their families and friends into the situation.
Reiji Miyajima’s original manga has now passed 15 million copies in circulation worldwide, while the anime has reached its fifth season, and a sixth season covering the Cohabitation Arc has already been confirmed.
The new crossover takes place inside Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni, the Japanese mobile spin-off that transforms familiar Yo-kai into small rounded characters that players connect and pop to attack enemies while building teams and collecting new allies.
Chizuru receives the same treatment for the collaboration, appearing in a new Puni-style form that adapts the Rent-A-Girlfriend heroine to the exaggerated appearance used throughout the game.
Players will be able to add Chizuru to their collection by taking part in the Mini-Collab Bingo event, where completing missions unlocks rewards and fills spaces across a dedicated bingo card.
Those rewards include special Date Tickets, which can then be collected and used to make attempts on the collaboration gacha featuring Chizuru.
The choice of Date Tickets fits naturally with Rent-A-Girlfriend’s central premise while giving the crossover its own event currency rather than simply dropping Chizuru into one of Puni Puni’s regular gachas.
Level-5 has also released a collaboration promotional video featuring the two franchises together, with Jibanyan appearing particularly taken with Chizuru while Yo-kai Watch protagonist Nate reacts considerably less enthusiastically to her arrival.
A related social media campaign is running through August 16, with players who follow the official Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni account and repost the collaboration video entered into a drawing where 10 winners can choose one Yo-kai Puni as a prize.
Puni Puni has built much of its longevity around crossover events and is wrapping up a Sword Art Online collaboration immediately before Rent-A-Girlfriend arrives, making Chizuru the latest in a long line of characters from outside the Yo-kai Watch universe to enter the game.
For US fans, there is one major catch, as Puni Puni itself is currently available only in Japan after its international counterpart, Yo-kai Watch: Wibble Wobble, ended service outside the country in May 2018.
The Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni x Rent-A-Girlfriend mini collaboration will run in Japan from August 17 through August 31, 2026, with the game available as a free-to-play release for iOS and Android with optional in-app purchases.
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