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No Export for You/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions
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** 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.
**** Well, the second one seemingly not so much anymore, what with the introduction of a fair number of new toys for Turn-A lately, including the honorary position of making the Turn-A itself the 100th Master Grade model kit produced, and the recent release of some toys from Victory Gundam as well. Mind you, it may still not be worth it to them, but hell, [[ADV Films]] brought over ''[[Aura Battler Dunbine]]'' (which apparently -also- was virtually unknown in Japan), and we've got other weird/failed Tomino stuff like ''[[Brain Powered]]'', so really anything is possible. It might require the industry to, you know, recover first. On top of that, Bandai recently made an [http://img706.imageshack.us/f/1279306100396.jpg/ announcement] on it's Facebook page: An apparently random selection of Tropes that happen to be all on [[Turn
***** ''[[Turn
*** Nope, nevermind, the NA release has been cancelled ([[Angrish]]).
** With [[Mobile Suit Gundam
* The TV series ''[[Armored Trooper VOTOMS]]'' originally via [[Central Park Media]], but when they went under nobody picked it up again leaving it to fall out of print. None of the OVAs have been released in the States either.
* [[ADV Films]] ''did'' license the ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' anime at one point, sat on the license for a year, and then dropped it without a single release. The official reason given was that a 52-episode [[Magical Girl]] [[Widget Series]] needed a TV deal to not be a marketing disaster, and getting any TV network to pick something like that up -- or, really, any [[Shojo|girls' series]] -- is ''hard''.
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*** The problem with Pretty Cure is that it's too violent for TV-Y7-FV level, but it's too kiddy for most older children. In that case, Why can't they just make a TV-G-FV rating, air it like that, and call it a day?
*** Nope, the true reason is that it falls on the fact that its a [[Magical Girl]] show and And executives are very queasy about shows aimed at girls. The Naked Transformations MIGHT be a bit too much for American Sensibilities, though. 4kids Licensed the show but gave it back to Toei because they couldnt get a TV deal (In Spite of already owning a [[Sat AM]] block all to themselves.)
** It's also region locked to America, making this a double NEFY for anyone who dares to darken Toei's doors with British money. This also applies to
** The gods must have heard you, the [[Pretty Cure]] dub is available in the UK on cable satellite channel Pop Girl! And its actually one of the highest rated shows the channel has! But still no word on America airing the show.
** In full effect with the sequel, ''Futari Wa Pretty Cure Max Heart'', which has not been dubbed at all. Effectively making the English dub of the show end in a [[Downer Ending]].
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*** At this point it's also "old" by anime standards; try getting young fans to buy something that began in 1989 that doesn't have the word "Dragonball" in it. Nevermind how good it is...
** Fan scuttlebutt posits that the main reason for LoGH not being brought over is that the Japanese owners are demanding exorbitant licensing fees for it.
* 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.
* VIZ media notoriously refuses to release [[Sequel First|the first two arcs]] of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]''--supposedly [[Creator Backlash|at the request of the author]]-- and will not go any further than the end of the third arc. Then there was the [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-22/jojo-anime-manga-sales-halted-due-to-islamic-images Islam controversy] which caused the series to be pulled from the US market for a whole year.<br /><br />Not releasing the first two parts may have been a smart business move by Araki. They greatly resemble ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' stylistically and it's only in Part 3 where the series became a more unique one. Also the reason the latter arcs won't be released is most likely due to the amount of music-references causing copyright issues. So aside of the release of Rohan at the Louvre short story in 2012 it's unlikely there will be any more official English releases for the series.
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** It was feared that this would happen to future ''Yu-Gi-Oh'' series when 4Kids got into a court case, but they ended up keeping the licenses and releasing the ''Bonds Beyond Time'' movie and ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Ze Xal]]''.
* A [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Category:Manga majority] of ''[[Pokémon (manga)|Pokémon]]'' manga are never exported outside of Japan and occasionally Singapore, to the point where people only know of [[Pokémon Special|"Adventures".]] This can be due to licensing problems, such as "[[How I Became a Pokémon Card]]" or censorship problems, such as what happened with ''[[Pocket Monsters (manga)|Pocket Monsters]]'', but usually it's not.
** Most of the older series don't go for the typical shonen tone, making them unlikely to sell much in America, while most of the newer ones are too short (some even being only a volume long), meaning that there isn't much point in licensing them. Other than ''Pocket Monsters'' (a gag manga), ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' is the only long-running Pokemon manga with no forseeable end, meaning that only that one has incentive to keep around.
** However, it is worth noting that ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure]]'' did relatively well in America, it being eight volumes long and having a fairly engaging plot outside the games it was based on, making it a bit of an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] in the Pokemon fandom. Also, the manga based on the anime movies also continue to sell.
** However, ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' has had its annoying run with this trope. Its initial run in America didn't go too well as the volumes were overpriced during a non-friendly manga age, leading it to being canceled after 7 volumes. Years later, the manga was re-released in America with a more reasonable price tag, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]] when it went the GS arc reached American shores for the first time...and then the fandom cried when Viz announced that they had no plans to release the third generation arcs. The fourth and fifth gen arcs have been skipped ahead to, meaning many plot holes and spoilers are sure to come for any new readers.
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* Japan is notorious for not releasing products for the international market, due to the belief that they wouldn't be understood well enough outside Japan, and therefore wouldn't sell. The producers originally considered ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' to be "too Japanese" for the international market, and had no intentions of licensing it anywhere else. They directly credited the huge cult following resulting from bootleg fansubs of the show as a major reason for the official US release (although these same fansubs no doubt crippled its sales potential). Other companies - particularly those producing licensed figures and similar toys - have stated that they're simply not interested in offering their products to the non-Japanese market.
** Even the great [[Hayao Miyazaki]] has gone on record saying that, while he appreciates that his films are enjoyed by non-Japanese fans, he is surprised and baffled that non-Japanese can 'understand' them.
* It doesn't look like ''[[Dennou Coil]]'' will be released outside Japan anytime soon, despite its high production values, which led to much critical acclaim. Of course, it may be hard to market a show in the West that's filled with bad-ass high-tech virtual reality action, but which at its core is still a [[Shojo|girl's series]].
** ''[[Dennou Coil]]'' has been slated for release in Australia in September 2011
* Neither the manga nor the anime of ''[[Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou]]'' have ever been officially released in the west--and they will likely never be.
* ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'' has yet to be seen in the UK, Morocco, or Malaysia.
** Likewise, ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' in Morocco.
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* While the first two ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' series were released in the west, it seems that it was unusually unpopular and so the other seasons aren't going to be released.
** This was due in large part to original licensor [[Geneon]] going belly-up before the show could even be dubbed, let alone released. [[FUNimation]] released it as part of their distribution deal with Geneon (that included several other, far more popular, shows), but gave the show next to no advertisement of any kind. In addition, there were some issues with the dub that probably hurt sales. The two seasons sold badly and quietly went out of print.
*** 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.
** Funimation's license [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com.au/news/2011-06-11/funimation-higurashi-familiar-of-zero-licenses-expire has expired], meaning there's no import of ''Kai'', ''Umineko'' etc on the way. Looks like it's back to the fansubs.
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