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* Toei notoriously won't release the fifth season of ''[[Sailor Moon (Manga)|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]].
** Toei in general tend to be infamous for licensing a series for the States, then pulling it on short notice. ADV was the victim of this in early 2004 shortly after they released the second season box.
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** 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(!)]
*** And in March 2011 [[Kodansha]] [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/press-release/2011-03-18/kodansha-usa-announces-the-return-of-sailor-moon announced] its plans to rerelease the manga, as well as the never-before-seen in English ''[[Codename: Sailor V]]'', starting the following September. Clearly more faithful than Tokyopop's attempt.
* 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 (Website)|E Bay]], 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 (Light Novel)|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 (Manga)|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.
* [[Viz Media]] did not release the first eight volumes of the ''[[Bobobo Bobobobo Bobobo]]'' manga; Americans only got a compiled volume of the Halekulani story arc. Some shady sources claim it's due to author Yoshio Sawai being ashamed of the [[Off-Model|poor artwork]] of those volumes, but even as the anime grew very popular stateside, there was still no release. Around a ''year'' after the anime ended its syndicated run, Viz finally decided to release more manga...starting from the ''middle'' of the Cyber City story arc, with little to no promotion. They decided to then stop releasing the manga abruptly after volume 15. One might argue that it was due to poor sales and a shaky translation, but the major facepalm-ing factor is the fact that it was in high demand once, and Viz ignored it until that demand died down. It's rather jarring if you consider that [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|numerous other countries (namely Spain and France)]] have full releases of both the manga ''and'' the anime.
** Given that it was unpopular to begin with, the sequel manga, ''Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo'', probably won't be exported at all.
** Spain isn't getting Shinsetsu despite the first series ending with a [[Sequel Hook]]. Combined with the [[Schedule Slip]] of nearly 2 years to finish the last 2 volumes, a lot of Spanish ''[[Bobobo Bobobobo Bobobo]]'' fans are angry and trying to crush Planeta DeAgostini with their nosehairs.
** 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.
** HOWEVER...A company known as S'more Entertainment has licensed the anime and will release the first set on March 2012, so there may still be hope. In the meantime, some of the US fanbase is [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|thrilled by these news]].
* Any anime and manga adaptations of the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' video game franchise, with the most noteworthy being the ''[[The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach]]'' OVA. While web users have made that particular film known to other fans, there are a bunch of others that never went past Japan, including three OVA videos of the Mario cast starring in three fairy tales and the ''Super Mario-kun'' manga (which is actually ongoing because of the fact that it draws from the games themselves).
* The KZB (KanZenBan) updated re-release of ''[[Shaman King]]'' took a year and half to start being published in Italy. That makes two countries/languages thus far. VIZ Media said they'd look into it but no word yet.
* Most later manga adaptations of ''[[Slayers]]'' were never exported, possibly because of their drastic state among the series' [[Alternate Continuity]]; in particular, one manga has all six protagonists (including the two that would replace Zelgadis and Amelia in the novel series) together, which would probably create some confusion among fans. The [[Light Novel]] series had eight of its fifteen books published in English (with no promotion, so they all went out of print rather quickly) with the other seven (and a crapton of prequel novels and a crossover book) not released. There were also five video games that were never exported, but they would probably have bombed anyway because the first game was on the [[Super Famicom]], making it outdated to audiences who would own the series in the states (the game came out in 1994, versus the anime coming out four years later), and only one (''Slayers Wonderful'') is on a mainstream console (the original [[Play Station]]; one was a computer game, while the other two were for the [[Sega Saturn]]).
* A [[Screwed Byby the Lawyers|large assortment of absolutely hideous legal snarls between Harmony Gold, Studio Nue/Satelight, Tatsunoko Production, and Big West]] - especially the last two - means that virtually nothing of the ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' series that wasn't incorporated into the original ''[[Robotech]]'' adaptation has seen the light of day <ref> and even then, the non-Robotech versions of ''[[Southern Cross]]'' or ''[[Genesis Climber Mospeada]]'' have never been dubbed either. Quite possibly because of this issue.</ref>. ''[[Macross Plus]]'' apparently got released only due to absolutely ''titanic'' pressure from fans, critics, and other distributors for the parties involved to not completely sit on triple-A-quality material needlessly; the same ''may'' happen to ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' (especially with the DVDs and soundtracks of that show pushing sales numbers not seen in at least a decade) but so far no plans for export have been announced (and as time grinds on, it begins to look less and less likely). ''[[Macross 7]]'', ''[[Macross Zero]]'' and various video-game projects and the like stalled out completely and will almost certainly never see release overseas.
** Although, with ''Macross Frontier'', its incredible popularity works against it. Even if all the parties to the legal morass were to agree to let it get licensed ''at all'', it would cost any licensor (especially an American one) several appendages and probably a few internal organs to get it, and that's before having to deal with Harmony Gold and their notorious price-gouging.
** It's gotten so bad that some people with dogs in the fight have said that it could be that ''nobody'' knows who has international rights for some bits of the ''Macross'' franchise, particularly "Do You Remember Love?"
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** As noted above, it's not specifically a ''Macross'' problem; it's an industry-wide phenomenon. ''Macross'' just takes the cake for being ensnarled not only inside Japan, but ''outside'' of it too.
*** For those readers who want to know how Harmony Gold (an American company) fits into the Japanese legal snarl, you can thank some nameless, dense California judge. Harmony Gold created the Frankenstein's monster that is ''[[Robotech]]'' (see its entry), and as the legal battles over international rights heated up in Japan, they got involved to try and keep from losing the series. The judge granted Harmony Gold not only exclusive control of the international distribution of the original Macross, but also inexplicably gave them ''permanent'' rights to license and distribute every Macross-related series that ''will ever exist''. In other words, HG holds the copyright on Macross outside Japan and there's nothing the original creators can do about it except just refuse to license it out (which is exactly what they do) as a middle finger to Harmony Gold.
** This legal snarl has caused some severe issues with the ''[[Battle TechBattleTech]]'' franchise. When that was new, much of the game was found to be copyright infingement of the ''Robotech'' franchise. Despite a massive redesign, they keep getting sued occasionally. The confusing part is that nobody knows if the entities suing them still have any rights to the IP whatsoever.
*** Not quite true. FASA had bought (or they believed they had bought) rights to the designs in good faith, and used the designs without molestation for 10 years. HG got pissy in the '90s when both they and FASA were negotiating with PlayMates for toylines -- that would have been based on the same designs (this was when the [[Battle TechBattleTech]] cartoon was about to be produced). Then, and only then, did HG's lawyers spring into action. In the end, HG was able to force FASA into not only stopping the use of the Macross designs but also those derived from ''[[Crusher Joe]]'' and ''[[Fang of the Sun Dougram]]'', neither of which HG had the least bit of ownership in. Only now, in 2009, does Catalyst, the successor to FASA, feel comfortable in resurrecting the ''Dougram'' and ''Crusher Joe'' mechs (realizing that the law is most likely on their side there) -- they were on the cusp of allowing the ''Macross'' mechs back in as well (in fact a trailer for an upcoming game used the Warhammer as the hero 'Mech -- derived from ''Macross''' Tomahawk Destroid), when Catalyst's lawyers said to leave those 11 alone.
** On a side note, Tommy Yune, representative for Harmony Gold, has stated that they're willing to license ''[[Macross Zero]]'' and sublicense it to whoever wants to pay their price, but Big West took the license off the market.
*** Harmony Gold may charge sublicensors out the nose, but it's actually in their interests to have as much of the Macross franchise licensed as possible, so they can earn royalties on it (they don't get squat from anything in Japan). As such, they'd no doubt also love to bring ''7'' and ''Frontier'' to North America. However, the Japanese rightsholders, especially Big West, are quick to jump in and stop progress from happening. Again, Big West holds a grudge on the company just because of Robotech.
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** 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.
** Finally, we'll get ''Frontier'' in the US, but the bad news is [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-08-17/jmanga-manga-site-launches-with-100-new-titles it will be limited to the manga versions only].
* ''[[Gundam]]'', on the other hand is all nice and clean, and free of legal snarls, if only because [[Namco Bandai|Bandai]] owns it lock, stock and barrel. They even have a corporate post with an utterly awesome name of "Chief Gundam Officer", who is THE head producer for the whole franchise and [[Executive Meddling|makes the calls]] where it should go and what should be done with it, and [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7029685.stm isn't affiliated with the Japanese Agriculture Ministry.] [[Sunrise]], while having the say in policy discussions and almost free hand in production, is only a contractor. This is why something like ''[[Dynasty Warriors: Gundam]]'' (a.k.a; ''Gundam Musou'') can see the light of day outside Japan, while something like ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' sees nothing but a few [[Original Generation]] games.
** 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 (Anime)|ZZ]]'', ''[[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (Anime)|V]]'' and ''[[After War Gundam X (Anime)|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 (Anime)|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 a Gundam (Anime)|Turn A's page]] (and are somewhat unlikely to be found anywhere else).
***** ''[[Turn a Gundam (Anime)|Turn a Gundam]]'' is getting a US release ([[And the Fandom Rejoiced]]), but sadly it won't be getting a dub. At least we're getting it, right?
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** 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]].
* ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', ''[[Slam Dunk]]'' and ''[[Digimon Adventure 02 (Anime)|Digimon Adventure 02]]'' though, the sub quality is such that it might be a non-issue.
** However, the ''Fist of the North Star'' movie was released in America, and so was its new video game.
* Licensing rumors have been silent for years, and now it seems all but official: despite the ''[[Galaxy Angel (Animeanime)|Galaxy Angel]]'' anime, the manga and even ''[[Galaxy Angel Rune]]'' getting English releases (the last one sub-only), [[Galaxy Angel (Videovideo Gamegame)|the games]] will probably never come out, even without a dub track.
* There are plenty, ''plenty'' of [[Doujinshi|doujin]] series that people outside of Japan can't import. There is at least one online seller that won't even accept your order unless they're able to confirm your credit card was issued to you ''in Japan''.
* Despite being available in animated form for close to twenty years, and the recent deluge of marginal manga titles hitting the shelves, ''[[Kimagure Orange Road]]'' has never been available in the US in printed form.
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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 (Anime)|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 ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos 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 (Manga)|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.
* 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.
* And then there's [[Light Novels]]. Did you know that ''[[Mariasama ga Miteru (Light Novel)|Mariasama ga Miteru]]'' was originally a book -- not a manga, but a primarily text filled book-book? [[Adaptation Displacement|No]]? Then how about ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]''? ''[[Crest of the Stars]]?'' ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'', perhaps? Probably not, because none of them have really been released in the US. Granted, the situation is slightly better than it was (for example, eight ''[[Slayers]]'' books have been released in the states so far... out of fifteen), but it definitely could be nicer seeing how most [[Light Novel]] releases get cancelled after about 3-6 volumes. Fan translators tend to lose interest in unlicensed projects after about the same amount of volumes with very few exceptions.
** That's probably because novels don't do so well in the US, much less when compared to manga and anime.
*** It doesn't help that many bookstores put light novels in the manga section anyway, simultaneously driving away otaku who aren't interested in books and bookworms who aren't interested in manga. Even the English translations of the ''[[Spice and Wolf]]'' novels, which attempted to combat this by replacing the original manga-style cover with [[Contemptible Cover|a more stereotypical one]] likely to draw in fantasy fans, is usually put in the manga section.
*** Another thing that doesn't help is that [[Light Novels]] from Japan often are at a low reading level and more wholesome than the original manga, making them uninteresting for some manga readers (such as the ''Fullmetal Alchemist'' and ''D. Gray-Man'' light novels). This troper wonders if this often matches the low end of the Japanese expected audience for a title, rather than the overseas one (many anime series have a lower-age mimimum for expected audience in Japan than in the States. For example, if a series' expected audience is 12 - 16 in the US, it may be rated for 8 - 18 in Japan. ''Sailor Moon'' did something like this).
** With the popularity of ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya (Light Novel)|Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', [[Light Novels]] could see the light of day Stateside more often than ever before.
*** Although, even if more light novels get released, they may still have [[Bad Export for You|problems]]. Case in point: the previously-well-selling Vampire Hunter D series, whose translations have become more garbled with each new release.
*** Still have yet to see the release of the third light novel for ''[[Shakugan no Shana]]''. It's been at least 3 years since the release of the second light novel and I have yet to hear a word on if it's going to continue or if it's been dropped...
*** Word has it that [[Tokyo Pop]] is finally going to release the 4th volume of "[[Full Metal Panic]]" after almost 2 years of no word on it even though an ISBN was assigned.
**** [[Tokyo Pop]] on the other hand after ten years since the last ''[[Good Witch Of The West]]'' novel have given no comment whether or not they will publish the rest. And now they're out of business, so that series - like all their others - is officially dead in North America until further notice.
*** At first it [[Hope Spot|''looked'']] like the ''[[Kara noKarano Kyoukai (Literature)|Kara no Kyoukai]]'' light novels were going to get released in the United States.[[Vaporware|That was in 2008]]. Fans will have to be content with a [[Bad Export for You|$400 box set with no dub that reduces a lot of the plot of some chapters]]<ref> Though Japanese fans have it worse, it costs over ''$600'' for them</ref>. To add insult to injury, the announcement that the light novels had been licensed stopped the fan translation which shows no signs of ever getting restarted.
*** Dragon Magazine is a potential kick in the crotch for an anime fan who wants to read the source material, as a lot of the light novel originated anime come from here: Sorcerer Stabber Orphen, Slayers, Slayers x Orphen (bet when Orphen was compared to Slayers in its western release, no one thought they came from the same place), Full Metal Panic, Mahurabo, Scrapped Princess and Kaze no Stigma are the notable ones. It also printed the Chrono Crusade manga. Out of those, which one got a complete western release? Chrono, because it's a manga. Crotch hurting yet?
* With Central Park Media dead in the water, America will never see most of the ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' sound tracks and the Tenth Anniversary stuff.
* The original ''[[Cutie Honey]]'' was never released outside Japan. Only the second series, ''[[Cutie Honey|New Cutie Honey]]'', and the live-action movie have made it to North America. ''New Cutie Honey'' was dark and very [[Ecchi]], so the few non-Japanese who know of the series tend to think it's a hentai franchise (it isn't). Despite being one of the most influential anime series ever and helping inspire the creation of the [[Magical Girl]] genre, as well as giving Japanese animation one if its first strong female leads, it's essentially unknown outside of its home country.
* ''[[Transformers]]'': ''[[Transformers Headmasters]]'', ''[[Transformers Super God Masterforce]]'', ''[[Transformers Victory]]'', ''[[Beast Wars II (Anime)|Beast Wars II]]'', ''[[Beast Wars Neo (Anime)|Beast Wars Neo]]'', and ''Kiss Players'' will probably not be released outside Japan, and there are no English dubs for them. In the case of KISS Players, that's probably a mercy...
** 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.
** Several episodes of ''[[Transformers Robots in Disguise]]'' were banned from the US [[Too Soon|due to the events of 9/11]], including one where Megatron smashes through a building resembling the World Trade Center.
* 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.
** Toei's Yu-Gi-Oh anime (also known as "Season 0") will probably never be licensed or dubbed.
** The 5D's OVA will probably be never dubbed, but its not a big deal since its non-canon and doesn't do anything besides show off the buster/assault modes of Stardust and Red Demon's.
** 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 (Mangamanga)|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 (Mangamanga)|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 (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 (Manga)|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.
* Are you a ''[[Ranma One Half]]'' fan? Living in the UK? Sucks to be you, doesn't it. The Manga is available, but the licence holder for the Anime is [[MVM Entertainment]] and the only thing they carry is the two movies.
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* Are you a North American fan of ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]''? Want to read the manga beyond the first couple dozen chapters (or unflipped at all)? Too bad. Viz never put out a 2nd edition of the manga - the only one of Takahashi's RomComs to be dropped before completion.
* ''[[Doraemon]]'' never had an official release in North America even though the series has been around since the 70s, ''[[Long Runners|and still going]]''.
** This is likely due to a combination of the insane length of the series (over 2000 TV episodes and more than 25 movies), and what is probably an insanely high license price for even a single season (the series is the second most popular anime in Japan, second only to [[Sazae San-san]]).
** There actually was an official English release of the ''Doraemon'' manga, but it was in Singapore.
* This trope has also hit the ''[[Ge Ge GeGeGeGe no Kitaro]]'' anime, although it's probably due to the fact that [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|the main character was born in a graveyard from his mother's corpse]]. Although, a very small amount of the manga was released in the US, but since then no one in the US has tried releasing it. Not even scanlation groups have touched it.
*** This is almost certainly because that series is very VERY weird and probably "too Japanese" for most foreign (or at least American) markets.
* Not only has ''[[Good Witch Of The West]]'' only had the first two (out of eight) light novels translated, but only the first six of the manga volumes have been done. The thirteen episode Anime doesn't go any further in the story so unless you know Japanese, at the rate it is going the series will never get fully translated.
* 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 (Light Novel)|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 (Anime)|Digimon Frontier]]'' has yet to be seen in the UK, Morocco, or Malaysia.
** Likewise, ''[[Digimon Savers (Anime)|Digimon Savers]]'' in Morocco.
*** While the series did have a presence on VHS back in the day, if you're expecting a DVD release of the dub or a sub of any ''[[Digimon (Franchise)|Digimon]]'' instalment besides ''Savers'', don't get your hopes up...[[And the Fandom Rejoiced|unless]] [[Digimon Adventure (Anime)|you happen]] [[Averted Trope|to be]] [http://www.madman.com.au/catalogue/view/15101/digimon-digital-monsters-1999-collection-1-eps-127 Australian].
* ''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.
* Only one volume of ''[[Koi Cupid]]'' was released in America due to the publisher, Broccoli Books, going out of business.
* Broccoli also screwed over the anime ''[[Tenshi Nini Narumon|I'm Gonna be an Angel]]''. They released half of the series - at a rate of one 4-episode volume ''every two years'' - then stopped due to low sales. People who worked on the American release said that they never dubbed the second half of the series at all.
* Toei has not done well when it comes to pricing ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' and ''[[DragonballDragon Ball]]'' for UK distribution. What should have been a simple change of rights from 4kids/AB Groupe to Funimation has become a five year clusterfuck that has had some truly baffling twists like the 4kids [[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]] airing on Cartoon Network Too for two weeks in 2009.
** One Piece has never had any home video release in the UK.
*** After a VERY brief release on VHS/DVD in the UK including a couple of the movies [[Cut and Paste Translation|with one of the single most GODAWFUL dubs ever known to man]], [[Dragonball Z]] [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|is finally going to be released uncut in the UK,]] using [[FUNimation]]'s [[Digital Destruction|remastered]] versions.
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* ''[[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.
** This is (again) due to the absurdly high cost of the licenses. ADV passed on the movies when they were first available because Gainax was asking for over a million dollars. Although they could've afforded it at the time, they decided their money would be better spent on several TV shows instead. [[Excel Saga (Animeanime)|It]] [[Azumanga Daioh (Manga)|was]] [[Saiyuki|a]] [[Full Metal Panic|smart]] [[D.N.Angel|move]].
*** Considering ADV's fortunes in recent years on account of having purchased bunches of unsuccessful TV shows and losing the rights to numerous hit series... was it?
* Despite the fact that both seasons of ''[[Ah! My Goddess (Manga)|Ah My Goddess]]'' were popular enough to get a second DVD print run each, the ''Fighting Wings'' episode pair made for the manga's [[Print Long Runners|20th anniversary]] has never been dubbed into English, or released subbed to Western markets. Further, an original 7-minute OVA and a new full-length episode to be included with volume 42 of the manga are under production, with no plans for an overseas release.
* 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.
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* 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.
** Why? Well, we have New World and their ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of Thethe Wind|Warriors of the Wind]]'' debacle to blame for it. The reason? Their [[Macekre|god-awful hackjob]] resulted in Ghibli's strict "no edits" policy, meaning Disney is legally barred from cutting even a single frame from the film.
*** Really, they shouldn't be too scared to release it nowadays, since they have already released seven PG-13-rated movies as of March 2012 (including a later Ghibli film, ''[[Gedo Senki]]''), not counting Touchstone or Hollywood releases.
* Much of the [http://www.crunchyroll.com Crunchyroll]'s catalogue, and almost everything licensed by other web simulcast companies, is available in North America (and sometimes UK) only. It may be for language issues, but many international fans would be happy enough to have English subtitles - but they can't, at least not legally.
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** 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 Nini]]'' 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.
** [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-12-30/siren-visual-announces-two-acquisitions Australia got lucky though], with a subtitled release for part 1 of ''Kai'' planned for May 2012.
* While the ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula (Anime)|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.
* While Puerto Rico usually averts this, notable anime have not been released there. Notables include ''[[K-On!]]'' (On Blu-Ray), ''[[Durarara (Literature)|Durarara]]'' (luckily, at least it's on TV) and the third season of ''[[Koihime Musou]]'' (despite releasing the first two seasons without a problem).
* ''[[Azumanga Daioh (Manga)|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.
* The ''No Mercy'' season of ''[[You're Under Arrest]]'' has yet to be licensed outside of Japan. It's an odd example. The original [[OVA|OVAs]], first season, mini-specials, second season, movie, and fourth season were licensed but not the third season.
* ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' has several:
** All three DS games have never been released in North America.
** The one-shot chapter has not been translated by Viz.
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** Also as-yet unreleased is the anime guidebook.
* Western releases of the [[Space Battleship Yamato]] TV series' in the original Japanese with English subtitles and uncut won't be seen soon in North America or anywhere else any time soon. Not so much because it's difficult to licence. It's really because no ones asking for them. [[Star Blazers]] fans already have the version that they like. They want to preserve their memories of rushing home from school to watch Derek Wildstar, Captain Avatar, Dr. Sane drinking his spring water, and the Desslock with the funny voice. If they're in the mood for the Japanese version with English subtitles, they have the Yamato movie collection which like the Star Blazers series, is also available from Voyager Entertainment. Star Blazers fans already feel like they've got the best of both worlds.
* None of the [[OVA|OVAs]] to ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'' have been released outside of Japan. Fortunately, the fans have translated them.
* Only 104 of the nearly 300 ''[[Hamtaro (Anime)|Hamtaro]]'' episodes were released outside of Japan. The four movies also stayed in Japan.
* Subverted with ''[[The Borrower Arrietty (Anime)|The Secret World of Arriety]]''; both the American English and the British English dubs will feature on Disney's DVD and Blu-ray release in the United States.
* First 5 volumes of Tsukihime have been released in America, however the publisher doesn't seem to plan on releasing more after the series has finally finished its run in Japan. What's weird is that the publisher's site is still up and running with no updates since 2009.
* America is stuck with the first 26 episodes of ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]]''. Why? Because Toei pulled 4Kids's ''[[One Piece (Manga)|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! Power PuffPowerpuff Girls Z]]''.
* ''Kodomo No Jikan'' was all set for an English release by Seven Seas, under the title "Nymphet", until the [http://www.gomanga.com/blog/01.php company president noticed] that later volumes in the series cannot be considered appropriate for the US market by any reasonable standard.
** 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).
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