Snartle has long light beige spiky hair and brown slender horns. He wears an teardrop shaped Oni mask that functions as his face, with the tip, eyebrows, and lips tidal blue and also the eyes and teeth in shades of yellow, a dirty green robe with brown armor, a dirty green hakama, and zori. Snartle carries two katana swords in both of his hands.
Snartle is a strict Yo-kai who comes after misbehaving kids. In Yo-kai Watch, if the player crosses the street 5 times (only at areas with a crosswalk sign) without changing the signal beforehand, Snartle will attack them to teach them a lesson.
In the anime, Snartle wants to teach city kids how to behave, but he finds that he cannot do so due to modern laws prohibiting the usage of his swords, making him depressed. As such, he desires to find a new form of being useful.
In the games, Snartle is very powerful even by S-rank Yo-kai standards, as he can single-handily wipe out an ill-prepared team of six Yo-kai. It should be noted that the Traffic Light-event Snartle's power is influenced by the Watch Rank of the player's Yo-kai Watch.
In the anime, he can be seen by people without a Yo-kai Watch due to him being a renowned Yo-kai, being a living parallel of the bogeyman.
Snartle will attack the player if they go past crosswalks without pressing the button and waiting for the green signal five times in a row. Snartle can be befriended through normal means this way, but the player can't escape from this battle with the Getaway Plush. Snartle's strength will scale to your current Yo-kai Watch rank, so it is recommended that the player should try to fight him early on with good pulls from the Crank-a-kai.
Alternatively, Snartle appears in empty apartments and under cars in Tranquillity Apartments in Shopper's Row.
Snartle will appear the same way as in Yo-kai Watch. If the player go past crosswalks without pressing the button and waiting for the green signal five times in a row, Snartle will attack them. However, on the second attempt, the dialogue will be slightly different. On the third attempt, Gargaros will attack instead, restarting the cycle.
Snartle will appear the same way as in Yo-kai Watch and Yo-kai Watch 2. If the player goes past crosswalks without pressing the button and waiting for the green signal five times in a row, Snartle will attack them. On the third attempt, Gargaros will attack instead, restarting the cycle. Unlike, Yo-kai Watch 2, there is no different dialogue to indicate this. However, Snartle will only show up in Springdale, as doing it in BBQ simply starts a quiz instead.
The player can also befriend Snartle in a Blasters T Dungeon.
Unlike the previous game, you can only get Snartle by crossing the road correctly 10 times, then pressing a button at specific street junction, for example near Triangle Park in Uptown Springdale and Tate's school in Tatsumi-kawabata - North. This can be done an infinite amount of times.
Doing the reverse gives either Gargaros or Ogralus instead (both are befriendable).
Snartle can rarely be befriended after beating him in the Chapter 10 mission, Red Light Blasters; alternatively, he can be freed from the Crank-a-kai with a Snartle Coin.
Snartle appears in Yo-kai Snartle when he is seen terrorizing a crosswalk, looking for naughty children. He got arrested by the police for brandishing his swords, and was eventually released on bail. The experience, combined with his recent inability to scare kids into behaving like he used to, leaves him surly and depressed. With the help of Nate, Snartle initially uses his swords to make juice for children, but this idea is quickly abandoned as it failed to encourage good behaviour.
Nate then summons Toiletta to help remake Snartle's image. Toiletta decides to give the Yo-kai a makeover by dressing him up similar to a mob boss, reinventing him as Boogey Woogey (NAMAHAGE in the original), and repurposing his sword motif to a golden trinket on a necklace. With the help of Toiletta, Snartle pulls off a wildly successful publicity campaign that lands him major roles in advertising and film, culminating in the two Yo-kai enjoying life in a swanky downtown office, and Snartle being the most popular Yo-kai on the planet.
However, Snartle's pride is shattered when Nate points out that Snartle isn't scary anymore, causing him to burst into tears and beg Toiletta for another image makeover, which she agrees to. The two Yo-kai are then abruptly arrested by the IRS for tax evasion (which is the not paying or underpaying of taxes) and make the headlines.
"Sacoco" may be a combination of "sable" and "Coco" (Boogeyman's latinamerican name).
"Butzemon" is likely derived from Butzemann, a German word for demons and ghosts often used to scare children, possibly combined with "Dämon" (demon).
"Homblu" is a combination of "uomo" (man) and blu (blue).
Origin[]
Snartle is based on the Namahage (Japanese: 生剥,Namahage) (also his Japanese name), a boogeyman from the Oga peninsula in the Tōhoku region. During New Year's, unmarried men of Oga dress up with oni masks and straw coats, and go around scaring girls and children brandishing a large kitchen knife and a wooden bucket, while chanting "Any crybabies in here? Are there any naughty brats?" (Japanese: 泣く子はいねがぁ? 悪い子はいねえか,Nakuko wa inee gā? Waruiko wa inee ka?).
The creature's name derives from namomi, the heat blisters one gets from sitting by a heat source for too long and often, and "(to) peel off" (Japanese: 剝げる,Hageru). The kitchen knife signifies the threat they'll peel the namomi off of any lazy bum who spends all winter in front of the fireplace doing nothing.
People of Akita developed an origin myth for the Namahage about demons coming from China to invade the region, but some folklorists believe it was originally a kami visiting from the sacred mountains, to admonish villagers and warn them to prepare for the rigors of winter.
Trivia[]
Snartle gives a Fruit Milk when encountered via Streetpass.
Snartle is the first Yo-kai from the English Recap Time to be skipped over and pushed to a later date, due to the episode being based around April Fools.
As of Yo-kai Watch 3, Snartle is the only Rank S Yo-kai to evolve into another form.
Despite being introduced in the original game, he's often been grouped with Classic Yo-kai, such as in the IDW Comics, where he is shown in a scroll during the Sengoku period, and being used by Mera Raido to become an AncientYo-kai Hero (mostly classic Yo-kai) in the Jam time period. He may be grouped with them due to him being possibly from an even older time period.
Snartle can be acquired at the very beginning of the first game with 100% chance if the player exploits the Yo-kai Cam to get a bunch of Holy EXPorbs as soon as the second chapter Enter Jibanyan! starts (this can be done by changing the Nintendo 3DS's system clock until they get the "Snap Rare Yo-kai!" or "Snap Legend Yo-kai!" missions - which reward the player with either 3 Holy EXPorbs or 5 Holy EXPorbs respectively-, getting the rewards and moving the system clock 64 days ahead to get the same mission, rinse and repeat until desired); if they level up Cadin and Buhu enough and avoid any other encounter, they can simply cross the road a bunch of times and encounter Snartle at its lowest possible level. If they didn't battle any other Yo-kai in the current chapter, they just need to defeat Snartle in battle in order to add him to the team, since the first Yo-kai defeated in the game outside Chapter 1 is automatically befriended.
Snartle's random nicknames are: Bogeyman, Matt, Bluemask, and Porcupin
In other languages[]
Language
Name
Meaning
Japanese
なまはげ Namahage
Spanish
Sacoco
French
Fouétar
From "Père Fouettard", gives coal to naughty kids on Christmas
Japanese
Spanish
French
Italian
German
Dutch
Korean
Russian
Portuguese (Brazilian)