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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''[[Jackie Chan]] made a movie called ''Armour of God'', and the sequel was called ''Armour of God 2: Operation Condor''. Well, when that came out in the US, there was a little difficulty. ''Armour of God'' wasn't out yet, so they decided to release the sequel here first, and change the title to just ''Operation Condor''. Well, after that, ''Armour of God'' actually did make an American release, and it was called ''Operation Condor 2: Armour of God''! A complete reversal!''"|''[[
A later installment of a series gets released somewhere (in another country, or in a group of [[Compilation Rerelease]], etc.) before its original installments. A series is finally localized, thus averting [[No Export for You]], but for whatever reason the company decides to begin with the latest title in the series rather than start from the beginning.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* Technically speaking, the [[FUNimation]] dub of the original ''[[
** An even earlier dub attempt by Harmony Gold aired sometime around '87-89, but only lasted five episodes along with movies 1 and 3 due to poor network reception. Not too surprisingly, you rarely hear of this version.
* 1995's ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' was the first part of the venerable ''[[Gundam]]'' franchise to make it big in other countries; this, among other factors, gave the 1979 [[Mobile Suit Gundam|original series]] an uphill battle when it was also aired on [[Cartoon Network]].
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** And because of this some viewers there have mistaken ''Combattler V'' as either a strange sequel or a cheap knockoff.
* The FUNimation dub of ''[[One Piece]]'' falls into this trope. When FUNimation picked up the series from 4kids, they also optioned the rights to dub movies. At the request of Toei Animation, FUNimation started on Movie 8, skipping all of the other movies in the One Piece film series. However, the stickers on the DVD identify it as "#8", so they don't appear to be reordering them number-wise.
* ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure
* When ''[[Lupin the Third]]'' was allowed to air on [[Adult Swim]]. Pioneer, the company dubbing it, aired the second season rather then the first.
* In France, the second ''[[Tamagotchi]]'' film came first instead of the first film!
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** The New Zealand release is especially noteworthy, as #1 was banned due to [[Too Soon|Goose's death resembling an incident on the North Island]].
* The movie ''A Shot in the Dark'' was filmed a year before ''[[The Pink Panther]]'', but was shelved. It was only released because of the success of ''The Pink Panther''.
* Fulci's ''Zombi 2'' was titled as such to capitalize off the success of Zombi, which was actually the Italian recut of George A. Romero's ''[[Dawn of the Dead (
** The Italian cut (which removes humor) of ''Dawn of the Dead'' is now out in America as ''Zombie: Dawn of the Dead''. Whether this makes things more or less confusing is up for debate.
* In Italy the ''[[
* Film fans who pay attention to the credits must have wondered why the poster for ''[[Missing in Action]]'' has the credit "Based on characters created by Arthur Silver and Larry Levinson and Steve Bing." Cannon filmed ''Missing In Action 2: The Beginning'' FIRST (as ''Battlerage'') but it was decided the actual sequel, in which Braddock ([[Chuck Norris]]) goes back to Vietnam, was the stronger of the two and hence Cannon released that first.
* The fourth and eleventh of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt adventures, ''Raise the Titanic'' and ''Sahara'', received film adaptations first.
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* The ''[[Power Rangers]]'' series began with footage from the 16th ''[[Super Sentai]]'' series. Although there was a [[Gag Dub]] of ''Dynaman'', and some countries had dubs of series as far back as ''Bioman''.
* ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' meanwhile had adapted both footage from the [[Kamen Rider Black RX|last Showa Era Kamen Rider show]] and from its [[Kamen Rider Ryuki|third Heisei era Kamen Rider Show]].
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[The Ark of Truth]]'' on DVD are still MIA in Russia, even after all 10 seasons and the movie finished airing. However, ''Continuum'' was recently released. Apparently, the DVD retailers decided to skip from the original ''[[Stargate (
* Only the last season of ''[[8 Simple Rules]]'' is shown in Ukraine, presumably in order to skip [[Tear Jerker|the part where the family copes with Paul's death]] and being able to air the episodes in any order without making the fans ask questions like [[What Happened to
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* [[Elton John]]'s first album to be released in North America was his self-titled second album in 1970. [[Sequel Displacement|He had released an album before that]] in Britain, ''Empty Sky'', which was not released in the US until 1975.
* The second album by [[The Move]] was released in the US before their debut album.
* In 1999, [[Muse (
* [[Within Temptation]]'s ''fourth'' studio album, ''The Heart of Everything'', was the band's first album to be released in the United States in 2007. Their first album, ''Enter'', and the EP ''The Dance'' followed a few months later. Their second and third albums (''Mother Earth'' and ''The Silent Force'') didn't see a stateside release until 2008.
* For some reason, the American leg of the [[Genesis (
* [[Nirvana]]'s debut album ''Bleach'' only saw a wide international release after the success of follow-up ''Nevermind''.
* [[The Clash]]'s first album wasn't released in the US because the record company over there thought it was too controversial. Their second album "Give Em Enough Rope" was their first released in the US, albeit with the cover text in a different font and the title of the last track changed. After the "I Fought The Law" from The Cost Of Living EP was a hit, the record company wanted to capitalise on its success so they put out a butchered version of [[The Clash]]'s first album in the US including the track and several of their recent singles replacing some of the songs they had deemed controversial. This caused an odd situation where stuff released after their second album was included on a rerelease of their first.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Earthbound]]'' (''Mother 2''), the second in the ''Mother'' series, and the first [[No Export for You|(and only)]] one to be released in the US. The original ''Mother'' was originally slated for a North American release under the title ''Earthbound'', but was scrapped after being completed; when the prototype surfaced years later, the hackers that made the game playable in emulators also changed the title to ''[[
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' was the first one to be released in PAL regions, and at that time only three of the first six (''[[Final Fantasy I
** Squaresoft tried to cover this by retitling the American versions of ''[[
** On the subject of Final Fantasy, there's Chocobo's Dungeon 2, an iteration in the Mystery Dungeon series. The US got 2 first, but it ''wasn't re-numbered.''
* ''Growlanser Generations'' is a compilation of second and third game in the ''Growlanser'' series. ''Growlanser: Heritage of War'' is the fifth.
* ''Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken'' (''The Sword of Flame'') was the first ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' game officially released in English, leading to the confusing retitling of the game to simply ''Fire Emblem'' (no subtitle). This is noteworthy considering the original game for the Famicom, ''Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Ken'' (''The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light''), was released in 1990, 13 years before the series' English debut in 2003. ''The Sword of Flame'' is actually the second GBA game in the series and the seventh installment overall. Adding further confusion, ''The Sword of Flame'' is actually a prequel to the previous GBA game, ''Fuuin no Tsurugi'' (''The Sword of Seal''), which was never released internationally (despite the appearance of that game's protagonist, Roy, in ''[[Super Smash Bros]]. Melee'').
* ''[[
* ''[[
* The first ''[[Pokémon]] Stadium'' game released internationally was actually the second released in Japan. The first was skipped over entirely because it actually did not have the full roster of Pokémon at the time.
* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', although that's for a very good reason (specifically, straightening up all the licencing rights for the games which aren't [[Original Generation]] would be a nightmare).
* Europe never got ''[[Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere]]'' ([[Macekre|not that anyone outside Japan has ever gotten the original game]]), so installments ''[[Ace Combat 04 Shattered Skies|04]]'', ''[[Ace Combat 5 The Unsung War|5]]'', and ''[[Ace Combat Zero]]'' had the numbers dropped from the PAL release. ''4'' and ''5'' also [[Publisher Chosen Title|had their subtitles changed]] into absolutely awful ones for no apparent reason.
* The ''[[Front Mission]]'' series debuted internationally with its third game (which remains the only one ever released in Europe).
* ''Advance Wars'', released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001, is actually part of the [[Nintendo Wars|long-running series]] which dates back to 1988 with the release of ''Famicom Wars''. Ironically enough, the Japanese version of ''Advance Wars'', ''Game Boy Wars Advance'', was not released in Japan until 2004 when it was included in a two-in-one cartridge with its sequel.
* PAL countries got ''We ♥ Katamari'' but not the original ''[[Katamari Damacy]]''.
* Similiarly, Europe only got ''[[
* In Europe, ''Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney'' came out before ''[[Ace Attorney|Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]: Trials and Tribulations''.
* Though not necessarily a true example, it is worth noting that ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic Adventure 2: Battle]]'', a remake of ''Sonic Adventure 2'', came out before ''Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut'', a remake of ''Sonic Adventure''.
* ''[[Lufia]] 2: Rise of the Sinistrals'' was released in Germany as simply ''Lufia'' because the original never made it to Europe. The name "Lufia" is mentioned only in the secret epilogue which appears after playing though the game for a second time. The solution for this problem? Renaming the Dual Blade "Lufiasword". Then they kept this up in the sequel, leading to a [[Dub Induced Plot Hole]] in the prologue of ''Lufia 3''.
* ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story
* ''[[
* Again in the PAL territories, ''[[Digimon]] World 3'' was renamed ''Digimon World 2003'' because Bandai skipped ''Digimon World 2''. Strangely enough, despite Japan dropping the number after ''3'', the PAL release of the next game was given the American title, ''Digimon World 4''.
* North America is the last of the three major regions to get ''[[Gradius]] II'' in some form, having been officially introduced to it 2006, 18 years after its initial Japanese release and long after the North American releases of ''III'', ''IV'', and ''V''.
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*** The first ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' game to even get a US release was a [[Gaiden Game]] on a very unpopular console-that being ''Jack Bros.'' on the [[Virtual Boy]].
* The first ''[[Thunder Force]]'' game to be released outside of Japan was ''[[Thunder Force]] 2''. In fact, the first [[Thunder Force]] (which was a rather dull ''Xevious'' clone released on three Japanese microcomputers) is so obscure that there's a review out there calling ''[[Thunder Force]] 2'' the first game in the series.
* Three games in the [[
* ''[[
** In addition to this, Twisted unlocks a secret video in Touched when Touched is played with Twisted in the GBA slot, thus meaning that the ''[[
** ''Twisted'' was skipped entirely in Europe, meaning the above character had no introduction.
* The fifth game in the ''Densetsu no Sutafī'' series, ''Densetsu no Sutafī Taiketsu! Daiiru Kaizokudan'', was the first to be released outside of Japan as ''[[The Legendary Starfy]]''.
** But of course, [[Marth Debuted in Smash Bros|Starfy Debuted In Smash Bros]]
* The Game Boy Advance rhythm game ''Rhythm Tengoku'' was never released outside of Japan. However, its Nintendo DS sequel, ''Rhythm Tengoku Gold'', was released in North America as ''[[
* The very first game in the ''[[
* The first ''[[Ganbare Goemon]]'' game released outside Japan was ''Legend of the Mystical Ninja'' for the [[SNES]] (the series had previous installments for the [[NES|Famicom]]), in which for no reason Goemon and Ebisumaru [[Dub Name Change|were renamed]] "Kid Ying" and "Dr. Yang". The two [[Nintendo 64]] games that were later localized kept the characters' original names.
* ''Stinger'', aka ''Moero!! Twinbee'', was the second ''[[
* The ''[[Sakura Taisen]]'' series will finally see the light of day in the US with a remake of the fifth game. Which is not even the most recent game, mind you. Well, whatever, at least ''[[Nippon Ichi|someone]]'' has the guts to try marketing a [[Dating Sim]] to North Americans, which common industry wisdom says [[It Will Never Catch On|will never work]] and [[Tsunami Channel|webcomic]] [[Megatokyo|authors]] seem to think will.
* The Genesis and Turbografx ports/remakes of ''[[
* ''[[Zanac]]'' for the NES was actually a port of the MSX ''Zanac EX'', which was the sequel to the original MSX-only ''Zanac''.
** ''[[The Guardian Legend]]'' was the sequel to the MSX game ''Guardic''.
* ''Tombs & Treasure'', an NES adventure game, was a port of a [[PC 88]] game called ''[[Taiyou no Shinden Asteka II]]''. As the name indicates, this was a sequel to a game called ''Asteka'' (a command line-driven [[Interactive Fiction|text adventure]] with some graphics), which was never translated into English.
* Before ''[[Clock Tower (
* The iPhone port of ''Espgaluda II'' was released ''in North America'' in 2010, seven years after the still-Japan-only ''Espgaluda''.
* As an example of this happening in Japan, the console versions of the medieval-themed FPS, ''[[Hexen]]'', a sequel to ''[[Heretic]]'', were released there, though they never got ''[[Heretic]]'' itself.
* ''[[Mega Man (
* ''[[Monster Rancher]] DS'' was released in Japan in 2007, and a sequel was released in 2008. ''[[Monster Rancher]] DS 2'' was released in the US in 2010, under the title ''[[Monster Rancher]] DS''.
* ''Animal Forest'' was a Spring 2001 N64 release [[No Export for You|only in Japan.]] Its [[Game Cube]] sequel, ''[[Animal Crossing]]'', was released outside Japan.
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* [[Irem]] had two ''Major Title'' games, the first of which wasn't released in America. The sequel was released under the title "The Irem Skins Game".
* ''Axis: Bold as Love'' from [[The Jimi Hendrix Experience]] hit the [[Rock Band]] platform a few months before (a modified edition of) ''Are You Experienced'', which was released first originally. The platform in general has had this plenty of times; a hit song is released, and then an earlier hit from the same band sees its way on the platform later.
* Outside Japan and North America, the Mario RPG spinoffs came out of nowhere and started with ''[[Paper Mario (
* What North America got as simply ''[[Culdcept]]'' in 2003 was the [[
* For some reason, ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] III: The Manhattan Project'' was never released in Europe. That didn't prevent the SNES port of ''[[
* Inverted with the ''[[
* ''Penguin Land'' for the [[Sega Master System]] was actually a sequel to the original ''Doki Doki Penguin Land'', which was never released outside Japan.
* The first ''[[Parodius]]'' game released in Europe was actually ''Parodius Da!'', the second game in the series. Many of [[Konami]]'s [[MSX]] games had European releases, but not the original ''Parodius''.
* The first ''[[
* ''[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/exile/exile3.htm Exile]'' was originally released in Japan for the [[PC 88]], [[PC 98]] and [[MSX|MSX2]] under the title ''XZR II''; the original ''XZR'', to which it was a direct sequel, wasn't localized (and had no console port). However, the versions of ''Exile'' that were localized, for the [[Sega Genesis]] and [[Turbo Grafx 16|Turbo Duo]] were titled without number even in Japan, and the following game for the Turbo Duo, ''Exile: Wicked Phenomenon'', was ''Exile II'' in Japan.
* ''Samurai Ghost'' for the [[Turbo Grafx 16]] was a localization of the sequel to the Namco game ''Genpei Touma Den''. The arcade original wasn't released outside Japan until it appeared on ''[[Compilation Rerelease|Namco Museum Vol. 4]]'', where it was titled ''The Genji and the Heike Clans''.
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