No Export for You/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

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* Toei notoriously won't release the fifth season of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', ''Sailor Stars'', in the United States, or ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'' outside Japan and Latin America. For some reason, a Mexican company (Inter-track) got to make a pretty decent dub of all of ''Sailor Moon'''s seasons. Indeed, more recently, they've refused to license ''any'' of their ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' properties and have offered no explanation as to why, despite multiple licensees like Cloverway (who handled the dub), [[Geneon]] (before they went under) and [[ADV Films]] expressing open interest in licensing the entire series including ''Sailor Stars''.

** Also, for whatever random reason, Toei didn't give [[Geneon]] (then known as Pioneer) or [[ADV Films]] the next episode previews for the seasons they ''did'' license, and left one episode out of ''[[Sailor Moon]] R''. The episode was simply a filler [[Beach Episode]], but it apparently took Geneon by such surprise that they had to revise their boxart and packaging at the last minute to get rid of references to it. They were given a vague explanation that the creator didn't like it, though the episode was released for the later Japanese DVD. [[Bad Export for You|It's also well-known by now that the masters ADV got were the original masters DiC used to make their dub almost a decade earlier, and time had not been kind to those tapes. Needless to say, the video quality on the ADV release was generally quite poor and showed significant age and coloration loss. One recalled disc even had an episode with about 10 seconds of DiC's audio mistakenly spliced in. Plus, ADV was forced to use Toei's pre-made subtitles rather than doing their own, resulting in an extremely wonky translation]].

** The manga went out of print in 2005, according to rumour [[Naoko Takeuchi]] herself didn't really like [[Bowdlerise|what other countries did with her series]], both anime and manga-wise. This apparently meant that the ''Sailor Moon'' manga couldn't be exported to any other country anymore, and Nakayoshi had troubles with the author herself, making the woman almost give up shoujo altogether. Perhaps it has a bit to do with the situation. However...

*** [http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/16792.html NOT SO FAST! Italy will see a rebroadcast and new merchandise to go with it in 2010(!)]

* A brain-breakingly moronic version of this trope is the state of [[Go Nagai]]'s [[Super Robot]] anime ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer|Grendizer]]'' in the French-speaking world. When [[Toei Animation]] exported it to France in [[The Seventies]], they conveniently "forgot" to notify Go Nagai of the fact and proceeded to reap a colossal fortune from merchandising without giving him one aluminum yen in royalties; since the series was only marginally popular in Japan, he only found out '''ten years''' later, which led to a long legal spat between Toei and Dynamic Planning (Nagai's personal publishing company), meaning rebroadcasts and video releases simply couldn't happen after 1985, to the chagrin of millions of fans (yes, it was ''[[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|that big]]''). When they finally reconciled, it seemed that a DVD release would finally see the light of day... and then a French company issued an unauthorized box set, Toei and Dynamic sued the company, [[EBay]], and even ''individual buyers'' for copyright violation, and it's been in limbo ever since. The entire fiasco has the French fanbase in tears.

* Because of Tokyopop closing down its North American division, many series will be left unfinished or not even started (including ''[[Kämpfer]]'') and thus this trope will be invoked unless Tokyopop manages to outsource some of its titles to another company like [[Geneon]] did for [[FUNimation]] when the former shut down its American operations. However, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel for some lucky titles, as ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' may get a limited release for its third and fourth volumes, and if they sell well then other companies might make similar arrangements.

* While the 62-Episode TV Anime adaptation of [[Hunter X Hunter]] got an Ocean Group dub (a pretty good one too) and even a nice 4-piece DVD box set, the 3 OVA's have not been dubbed and there appear to be no plans to do so.

** Given that it was unpopular to begin with, the sequel manga, ''Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo'', probably won't be exported at all.

** Similarly, the anime only got two volumes released (the first eight episodes); the small company that was releasing it went kaput rather abruptly, and for whatever reason, Viz themselves won't take in the license. The only way to obtain all of the other episodes is via [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]] if someone else taped the episodes and uploaded them on the internet.

*** A third dvd volume was actually released but is extremely rare.

*** Answer: Oh my yes they do.

** And none of the above paragraphs even begin to cover the ''other'' nasty mess the franchise is known for: music rights. It has been said that clearing all the music rights in ''[[Macross Zero]]'' would cost more than the license fee for the entire rest of the show. This goes double for the even more popular (and pop-heavy) ''[[Macross Frontier]]''. Even ''[[Macross 7]]'' had it too when the fictional [[Show Within a Show|Band within a show]] Fire Bomber got popular in Japan.

** Not ''entirely''. <s>The original ''Gundam'' has never seen a bilingual DVD release outside of Japan</s> A bilingual release of the original series was announced for 2011. However, there is one [[Missing Episode]] because [[Yoshiyuki Tomino]] specifically asked it be removed from circulation (mainly because it's horrendously [[Off-Model]]).

** Also, Bandai has yet to export at least <s>four</s> three ''Gundam ''series (''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|ZZ]]'', ''[[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam|V]]'' and ''[[After War Gundam X|X]]'').

*** Except that Bandai's ownership of ''Gundam'' isn't "nice and clean" at all. For starters, beginning around the mid-2000s, most ''Gundam'' games became [[Bad Export for You]] since Bandai Namco couldn't/didn't bother to license the official music, meaning that they have to make due with a pool of generic tunes instead of the iconic theme songs and background tracks. Further, those three shows will probably never see any foreign release since 1) they flopped in Japan, and Sunrise would consider it a waste of time and money to try exporting them, 2) Sunrise seems to be trying their damnedest to forget that those failed shows even exist except for compilations and retrospectives (seriously, TRY to find decent merchandise for ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]''), and 3) after their attempt to sell the West on the One Year War failed, they stopped caring, especially since Japanese merchandise sales are more than the entire rest of the world combined.

*** Nope, nevermind, the NA release has been cancelled ([[Angrish]]).

** With [[Mobile Suit Gundam AGE]] on the way, we'll see if this will be going with the trope or not. The fact that Bandai Entertainment is not releasing simulcasts with English subtitles in the United States or Canada, however, is not a good sign. Add to the injury that the company will soon end North America operations after all their licenses expire, AGE is unlikely to be seen by US/Canada viewers legally.

*** Except for the above paragraph's very last sentence, ADV had the same situation with ''[[Keroro Gunsou|Sergeant Frog]]''. They dubbed the first few episodes three different ways and shopped the show around to several different kids networks, but nobody was willing to air it. The show sat in effective [[Development Hell]] for nearly 3 years, until [[FUNimation]] got the series and was able to give it a proper DVD release.

* [[4Kids! Entertainment|4Kids]] reportedly had the same problem with ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure]]'', with the same results, despite the ''[[Pretty Cure]]'' franchise being much less "weird" than ''Pichi Pichi Pitch''. Considering this company and their [[Macekre|dub jobs]] with ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' and ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]]'', the fandom was thankful. This seemed to be the last that we would hear of an English-licensed Precure, but recently, Toei ''has'' released the first season in North America... but direct download is the only way to get it.

*** On the other hand, you can watch a free sub version of ''Pretty Cure'' on [[FUNimation]]'s website--but only in America. And it looks like an old VHS Tape.

*** Even so, most fans do wish for the YTV dub to make it south of the 49th parallel. Though it's highly unlikely.

* It's not just anime and manga themselves: In Japan, EVERY, and I mean EVERY, franchise gets at least one line of collectible statues; then there's additionally one line of candy, jewelery, cosplay accessories, [[Transformation Trinket]] toys, etc., etc., etc. Also, there are countless untranslated manga to popular [[Video Game]] series. (Did you ever know that there were ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' and ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' manga? Well, now you know!) Most of this merchandise usually wouldn't leave Japan in a million years. But luckily, there are some export stores for otaku like us, who buy as much of this stuff as they can and sell it to us poor, merchandise-obsessed souls.

* Subverted with the ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' movies; they're being released, but because of the lack of network-airing demands, the company that distributed them doesn't want to bother with dubbing them in English.

* Speaking of Viz, they are unable to release the last 7 volumes of the ''[[Zatch Bell]]'' manga due to the nasty legal fight between creator Makoto Raiku and Shueisha, which ended with Raiku having complete ownership and control of the series (and no desire to see it republished anywhere, including Japan). The side effect of this was that all international contracts immediately became null and void. Since Viz is partly owned by Raiku's enemy Shueisha, he probably would not even bother to return their calls.

* ''[[Animal Crossing]]''. The anime movie adaption of Wild World may never be dubbed.

** Headmasters, Super God Masterforce and Victory were released in the UK as part of the Takara Collection. All three series received a English dub for a Singapore TV station. The Headmasters featured the dub as an extra...Masterforce and Victory thankfully decided not to bother

*** Shout!Factory has [http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Transformers-Headmasters-DVDs-Announced/15225 announced] that they'll be releasing ''The Headmasters'' in the US (Masterforce and Victory is next in line for release). The only thing that's looking "No Export" is the hilariously awful English dub by [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Omni_Productions Omni Productions] years ago, and Hasbro's not too keen on using the dub for several reasons according to one of the guys working on Shout's release.

* 4Kids were forced to drop plans to release the uncut subtitled version of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]: Duel Monsters'' online (both Hulu and their own Toonzaki channel) when Yugi's seiyuu refused to clear the use of his voice (or something, it's rather unclear). 5D's was released uncut on YouTube (along with uncut [[Sonic X]] on Hulu) but the first series of Duel Monsters will never get an unedited translation unless Shunsuke Kazama pulls his head out of his ass, which is highly unlikely. And while 4Kids announced plans to sub GX, nothing has come of it yet.

** GX's last season was never dubbed; 4Kids skipped straight to ''5Ds'' instead.

* ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'' has yet to be seen in the UK, Morocco, or Malaysia.

** Likewise, ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' in Morocco.

* ''The Legends of the True Savior'' movies and OVAs based on ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' have yet to be licensed for an official English release, even though all five installments had already been dubbed in French and Italian. This may change in the future with Sentai Filmworks working on dubbing the Raoh-centric spinoff ''Legends of the Dark King'' (having already released a subbed-only DVD collection of the anime). Chances are that they may work on the ''True Savior'' movies too, but this remains to be seen.

** In fact, "Fist of the North Star" in general seems to have gotten screwed out of dubbing. Let's see, only the first nine volumes of the manga were published in America, we only got the first 36 episodes dubbed (it's taken us until 2010 when Discotec had announced that they will finally finish it), and let's not forget "The Legends of the True Savior." You know, it's ironic that of all animes, "Fist of the North Star" was one of the first to get an American live action adaptation.

** A little background: The first five volumes were released by [[Dark Horse Comics]] to generally positive reviews, with a brilliant translation and few if any edits to manga; it sometimes had, though never really gratuitous, level of sex and violence. There was even surprisingly little bitching about the fact Dark Horse had chosen to release the English version mirrored, a practice that was already falling out of favour when they began releasing in the early '00s. Then came Volume Five, featuring a sex scene between the hero and his girlfriend that had to be trimmed down for various reasons, mostly out of fear that since not only were both of them highschool-aged, but Hoichi was considerably more mature-looking than the childlike, [[Moe]] Akane, it would open Dark Horse up to [[Paedo Hunt|the depredations of increasingly fascistic law enforcement agencies trying to stamp out depictions of underage sex in the media]]. While nothing important to the story was cut, and some say the edits even improved the overall flow of the story, as the sex scene was a bit overlong and gratuitous, the fans still went ballistic. Dark Horse was flooded with hatemail. Frustrated by the fans turning on them after going to so much trouble to get the thing published in America in the first place, they dropped the entire series out of spite. While scanslations of the remaining chapters are available, the [[Woolseyism]], sadly, is not. Depending on the chapter, the fan translations range in quality from [[So Okay It's Average]] to [[Translation Train Wreck|Translation Trainwrecks]] that make you wonder just ''what'' the translator's first language actually was.

* The M.U.S.C.L.E. toys and the NES game of the same name, both based on ''[[Kinnikuman]]'', were exported to the US, but the anime was not. Its sequel series ''[[Kinnikuman Nisei]]'' was released stateside as ''Ultimate Muscle'', after the toy line.

* ''[[Blue Comet SPT Layzner]]'' was actually licensed by Bandai Entertainment for a North American release, but Bandai received damaged, blue-tinted masters from Sunrise and didn't acquire replacements or put out any [[DVD|DVDs]] before their license expired in 2005.

* The "Renewal" edition of the ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' TV series, which featured greatly improved audio and video quality over the original DVD release, was distributed outside of Japan as the "Platinum Edition." The remastered versions of the movies ''Evangelion: Death and Rebirth'' and ''The End of Evangelion'', however, have yet to be exported. Even worse, the rights to the movies themselves, originally held by [[Manga Entertainment]], have now expired, meaning there is currently no legal way for ''Evangelion'' fans in the Western world to obtain the movies apart from tracking down old DVDs. Some fans are still holding out hope for [[FUNimation]] (the distributor of the [[Rebuild of Evangelion|new movies]]) to rescue the license, as they have done with many other properties, but currently most are waiting for an eventual [[Blu-Ray]] release of the series before seeing the original ''Eva'' movies in the West again.

* The ''[[Peacemaker Kurogane]]'' manga is now released through Japan-only mobile service, making scanslation pretty much impossible. This, after a four-year hiatus. *headdesk*

** This also applies to the traditional manga release. ADV released the series started where the anime did (Volume 4) and printed 3 volumes before stopping. Tokyopop eventually picked up the license and printed the first 3 volumes, but nothing beyond Volume 6 has ever seen the light of day in North America.

* A potential example are the Ginga-series manga and anime. Despite gathering a huge popularity in Japan and in Scandinavia, the series' chances making it to US are slim. The reason for this is, sadly, fairly sensible, the series is almost all about bloody violence directed towards animals, includes scenes of animal abuse by the ''heroes'' and promotes (Japanese) dogfighting.

* ''[[Only Yesterday]]'' has only been shown a few times on Turner Classic Movies. Disney holds the license for the foreseeable future and refuses to release the film on home video at all. They won't even allow other North American companies to sublicense it. The only legal way for Americans and Canadians to see it - outside of the occasional TCM airing - is to region-hack their DVD players (or get a region-free one) and import the subtitled PAL-DVD from Australia or the UK.

*** It also seems its due to the series premise. It's geared [[Seinen|at men]], yet the covers show a cute anime full of girls (and the protagonist is young) that happens to be a [[Magical Girl]] series. That'd work well in Japan, but in the west that'd make most men put the box back on the shelf.

* Despite the sound novel and manga popularity, along with the popularity of the [[When They Cry|series]] among the anime community as a whole, anything besides the first season of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' doesn't seem to be coming out anytime soon. Even with that, the first season -- another late-era [[Geneon]] release it must be noted -- is becoming increasingly hard to buy or find online.

* While the ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'' TV series have been licensed in the US, the OVA sequels and most of the video games based on the series are not. And the poor sales of the DVD box set in the US and it quietly went out of print ensures that the OVAs will never make it to US shores.

* ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' is one of the most popular anime ever, yet the only other notable language version that isn't English? Just German.

* Any of the ''[[Battle Spirits]]'' anime. The card game has been discontinued in America. Worse, the game came out before releasing the anime in America. So most likely because of that, no one ever really heard of it. That's why it might have tanked.

* America is stuck with the first 26 episodes of ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]]''. Why? Because Toei pulled 4Kids's ''[[One Piece]]'' license as punishment for doing to it the one truly Godawful dub they've ever done, and given that ''Ojamajo Doremi'' (as well as another Toei show, ''[[Ultimate Muscle]]'') was part of the package...

* The American ''[[Cartoon Network]]'' has yet to air ''[[Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z]]''.

** To be fair to Seven Seas (and they were very open about the whole situation), they licensed the series after only a single volume had been published in Japan. The first volume isn't nearly as bad content-wise as what comes later. However, Barnes & Noble and Borders refused to carry it (the latter openly sold [[Yaoi]]) and - it was implied - threatened to blacklist Seven Seas if they published it at all. It was at that point that they finally got a look at later volumes and saw how inappropriate it got. Seven Seas has a staunch "no censorship" policy, so they decided they'd rather just drop the license and eat those costs rather than deal with the mountains of bad PR from either compromising their principles (the fans) or from publishing an openly lolicon book (everybody else in the world).