No Export for You/Toys

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • LEGO.
    • LEGO Space Police 3 came to the US, Canada and Europe... but not the UK or Ireland.
    • In most cases of regular product lines such as Space Police, the reason behind it is explained as such. The lines are presented in advance to the biggest retailers who decide whether they want to stock a particular line or not. When that's the case, most of the time it means you won't find them in regular retail outlets, but you can still buy them online or in LEGO shops. At least when something is available on one of the european submarkets, it's likely it will be available online for the others; but some sets just don't cross the ocean at all. Latest example, the Castle Advent Calendar wasn't meant to be distributed in the US, but they shipped some there by mistake, then ultimately decided to sell them there anyway (after some fan uproar). If they hadn't, the shipment would have been destroyed, which would have cost less than being sent back to Europe.
      • This particular instance ended up being averted, as LEGO Space Police was sold in LEGO's own shops, just not at other major retailers.
    • Brickmaster Magazine is only available to American LEGO fans, along with its myriad exclusive sets.
    • Several promotional sets are/were only available in certain countries, such as the Maersk Line and Shell promotional sets.
    • BrickArms, a company that sells custom weapons and accessories for LEGO minifigures, has ceased international shipping. Fortunately, there are official international resellers, but custom minifigs, and highly coveted Forum Member Exclusives are only available to Americans.
    • The Tohunga were given away in McDonalds Happy Meals in the US and later Australia. They never came to the UK.
      • Also there are apparently a small few BIONICLE sets that were Japan-exclusive.
    • What were Bionicle store exclusives in the US were a complete gamble in mainland Europe. Even some main-line toys were hard or impossible to come by. For instance in Hungary, sets like Mazeka, the Baranus V7 and the Titan-sized Toa Mata Nui were never released (though one on-line shop did offer them for a short period of time, and for staggering prices). Karzahni was sold only in a certain kind of department store. Toa Lhikan & Kikanalo were obtainable through a very short-lived give-away deal in a combo pack with Sidorak. Takutanuva was released a year after the set's overseas release. Yet some spec-ed sets received a country-wide release.
    • I don't know about other countries, but the SpongeBob SquarePants sets were never officially released in shops in Poland (had to buy them from online shops or Germany).
  • The reissue of Transformers G1 Megatron, as well as Masterpiece Megatron, which are realistic gun replicas, are illegal to even possess in the US unless fitted with the obligatory orange plug. And there are countless other Transformers that weren't exported here either, especially those from the Japanese-only TV series, such as Trainbots, Soundblaster and most Beast Wars Neo, Transformers Victory, Transformers Zone and Kiss Players toys. And Masterpiece Ultra Magnus.
    • However, some of the above, like Saberback and Guiledart were redecoed and released in the US.
    • The Dinobot Swoop was not released in the United Kingdom despite his prominence in UK-original stories and the other Dinobots' availability.
      • Add to that Shockwave, Sky Lynx, Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, Omega Supreme, Roadbuster and Whirl, the Deluxe Insecticons, Blaster (and co.), Perceptor, Sixshot, Gnaw, the Constructicons, the Predacons... and that's just for the first three years. That said, there's also stuff that we got that the US didn't (most notably Overlord).
    • In Italy, the recent N.E.S.T. Global Alliance subline never got released... but they aired the commercials for it on TV.
    • The South Korean releases are a bit of a mixed bag, especially when Sunwoo (through their Mocom Toy division) took over distribution. Animated's toyline got the brunt of it though, with only the first two waves released.
      • Same thing in a lot of Middle and Eastern European countries. And since the toys that do come out can cost up to four times as much as in the US, fans have a tendency to just import everything, even what they could easily buy at the nearest toy store.
    • The Transformers Prime First Edition line saw a limited release in Canada, some Asian countries and in the US (though only the Deluxe-sized figs were sold here). Rest of the world? Nada. This line was originally intended for a wider release, to be then replaced by the gimmick-heavy and down-sized toys from the Robots in Disguise sub-line. Instead, it turned out to be kind of a "come and gone" deal. What makes this irritating is that the people were anticipating the toys' release in their areas, as no one ever said anything about them being part of an exclusive line. So it came as a surprise that the distribution just... stopped. And in most parts of the globe, never even began.
  • Due to brand mis-management and falling sales, a good chunk of the end of the Power Rangers RPM toyline never reached American shores. This includes some of the neatest non-Megazord figures, which were even advertised on American packaging.
  • A more vintage example is the large Rodan action figure released by Mattel in 1979; it was only sold in America, and not in Japan. It is now a collector's item in both countries, although particularly in the latter.
  • Pokémon is a BIG offender of this for the vast majority of merchandise. Sure, the trading card game is still going strong and the games are almost invariably imported (with few exceptions seen in the Video Games section of this trope), but if you want a plush or figure version of your favorite critter, good luck finding anything outside of import stores. Most of the merchandise for the franchise is kept to stores called Pokémon Centers that are exclusive to Japan - after the NYC one closed down to become the Nintendo Store anyway, but even the Pokémon area in said store doesn't have the sheer variety of items found in Japanese Pokémon Centers, much less any themed merchandise they'll sell in Japan from time to time. There's a reason anyone who collects Pokémon merchandise of any kind (type or specific Pokémon) will tell you it is EXPENSIVE to do so.
  • Many online stores will not ship toys to addresses outside of the country the store is in, and some will even refuse foreign credit cards even if your shipping address is in the country of the very same store. Yeah, forwarding services can alleviate the issues of the former, but the latter... Planning to live in the US for a few months due to a long project from your company? Sorry, you still can't buy from Toys R Us online, among many other online stores.
  • Good Smile Company, producers of the Figma and Nendoroid figure lines, has yet to distribute their products outside of Japan in any major way, shape, or form, despite the rapidly-growing international fandom for the products.
    • The trope comes into effect harder for the Wonder Festival releases, which aren't stocked on any import sites short of middlemen. No life-sized Kyubey figure for you!
      • Recently subverted in that GSC decided to allow international customers to order their summer 2011 WF exclusives (including the aforementioned Kyubey) directly from them, albeit for one week only.
  • The Banpresto MOTHER and MOTHER 2 replica figures of the series' clay-model official art. Not at all surprising, considering how the series is traditionally treated outside of Japan. That, and the fact that they came from those UFO crane games. MOTHER fans who aren't living in Japan and who want them are pretty much forced to import them from eBay, and they're already approaching the point of being just as expensive as EarthBound itself.
  • Most of Bandai's collector's toylines (SH Figuarts, Robot Spirits, Myth Cloth, etc.) outside of Asia are this, including the dreaded Tamashii Web Shop exclusive sets, or the Tamashii Festival Expo exclusives. Both require a middleman or an online shop to ship to the US/Europe to buy them.
    • Subverted recently with Bluefin Distribution, who has made a deal with Bandai to distribute their collector products to Amazon and US hobby shops. The Tamashii Web exclusives still apply, though.
  • As of 2011, some North American webstores are blocking Non-US IP addresses from accessing their websites, instead landing them on a cryptic Access Denied page. The latest one to join the fray is Target, who started the blocking in August 2011. Understandable that these stores won't ship overseas in the first place, but still...
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/No_Export_for_You/Toys?oldid=1885700"