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"I guess annoyance doesn't cross cultural boundaries."
—Edd, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, "Shoo Ed"
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This is the opposite of Germans Love David Hasselhoff: A character or entertainer who is fairly popular in one region becomes The Scrappy in another market.
The most common reason for this is usually Values Dissonance, as things that seem normal or relatable in one culture can be seen as offensive, baffling, or just plain stupid in another. Another reason for it can be that a character is supposed to represent the nation that hates them, and this character is seen as offensively stereotypical. In the worst cases, the hatedom of a single character can result in No Export for You for an entire series (something some people are probably going to be grateful for).
This trope is sometimes referred to as "Americans Hate Soccer (Football)", due to the infamous Vocal Hatedom in the US against the said sport, and more preference towards American Football. (The subsequent Opinion Myopia and Flame War between the sport's fans and haters has also been notable).
See also The Scrappy. Please do not use this page as a place for Complaining About People Not Liking the Show. Also, it's not enough to simply say something is hated. You have to say why it's hated.
Contrast with its polar opposite, Germans Love David Hasselhoff.
The Trope Namer[]
- Tingle from Zelda.
- Popular enough in Japan and part of Europe to get his own games, and loathed enough in America and the rest of Europe to have only four other roles in main games following his first appearance in The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask: Oracle of Ages, The Wind Waker, The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures, and The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap. Note that still gives him way more appearances than nearly anyone not named Link, Zelda or Ganon. The game in which he is the main character, Freshly Picked Tingles Rosy Rupeeland, never reached North America.
- Tingle's role in the main series has been largely reduced; He doesn't appear in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (Purlo's appearance was based on him, but they have vastly different personalities) and gets only non-speaking cameos in Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and Skyward Sword (on a wanted poster, a statue/portrait, and a doll respectively).
- He is at his weirdest in The Wind Waker, wherein he refers to Link, a twelve-year-old child, as "Mr. Fairy", and forces his brothers—and one random guy—to dress exactly like him and perform slave labor. He also forces the player to pay him ridiculous sums of money in exchange for information on where to find eight MacGuffins. With all of his annoying traits, it's no wonder that fans joke about him being a sex offender when they're breaking him out of prison for the crime of petty theft as part of the plot of the game (though it should be noted that in the HD edition, an additional scene was added in that implied that Tingle actually was innocent of the petty theft charge due to the Killer Bee gang of miscreants encountering Link and telling him about the theft of the pictobox and then stated that the one responsible "got away", and said cutscene can be triggered before rescuing Tingle or even meeting him).
- The hate of Tingle has also carried over into the Super Smash Bros games:
- Tingle has a cameo in Melee, in which it is quite possible to drop him into the ocean. It is not uncommon for players to declare a brief truce for this purpose.
- In Brawl he's an Assist Trophy, and has a small variety of effects, such as summoning a bunch of balloons (no effect on gameplay), causing everyone to breathe fire, making all surfaces slippery and forcing you to trip endlessly while banana peels fly everywhere, scattering a hoard of Hammers/Golden Hammers everywhere (out of which only one is the "real" one, the others being duds that force your character to flail around uselessly), and zooming the camera extremely close to the character who summoned him, all accompanied by his weird creepy grunts, groans and other odd sounds.
General Examples[]
- Norway, for a long time, was an isolationist country in the animation community. It would not be until the late 1980s when American cartoons began to air there.
- In Japan, dark and angsty young guys (especially pretty ones) tend to be well liked by audiences, often per their perceived mysterious and deep characteristics. Elsewhere, such traits tend to be associated with the Emo trend and/or with a Wangst-y personality (which in Western terms, is negatively seen as whiny, annoying, and emotionally immature and dysfunctional), hence the backlash that characters like Sasuke cause in the States. Dark characters who are composed emotionally and don't show angst are not subject to this out west.
- On a related note, Cold, logical, by the book characters tend to fair much better in Japan then they do in America, Toshiro Hitsuguya of Bleach being a great example.
- Yamato Nadeshiko, Genki Girls and other "traditional" Moe character types are the Distaff Counterpart version of this, being liked on Japan (but still not as much as tsunderes) but not so much on the West.
- The Tsundere character type is highly criticized and not well liked in the West, although not as severe when compared to the Moe archetype.
- Het Is Ew gets a lot nastier in the US fandom. Any girl who is seen as getting in the way of the Ho Yay will instantly draw the fire of a thousand fanfics in English, leaving the Japanese fandom to wonder what all the fuss is about (a lot of yaoi fangirls there actually are happy to pair the girls up together at the same time.)
- While the idea of using sexy female characters in Mecha series are a thing in Japan, this idea is also popular outside the country...at least until the 2010s and beyond, where it was mostly seen as a poorly executed concept by the older fans, primarily due to the newcomer Anime fans' general preference to female fanservice rather than both the mecha AND the character development on the female characters.
Anime and Manga[]
- Sub-saharan Africa is the region with the lowest consumption and ratings of anime overall. Unlike America and Europe, anime is generally out of the sub-saharan African mainstream, with only six African countries (mainly Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, among others) broadcasting anime during the mid-1990s anime boom. Watching anime if you live outside of the six countries during the 1990s in the region of sub-saharan Africa? It’s impossible. Well, even during the internet age anime boom, you can only get American cartoons or none at all, sadly. (However, this is expected to change in the 2050s, as the new "anime boom" will occur in Africa.)
- Sazae-san, despite being a Long Runner that is running for the same number of years as Sesame Street, isn't very well known outside of Japan, despite there are selects from the manga translated in English.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most respected and influential anime franchises in its homeland, overseas, however, it's a very strong case of Love It or Hate It thanks to its Gainax Ending and Mind Screw nature.
- Momo Hinamori from Bleach manages to rank very high in Japanese popularity polls, even though she's disliked almost everywhere else. This may be because the Japanese like her very feminine, gentle nature and blind loyalty, while in the west, those traits are seen as weak and sexist. Toshiro Hitsugaya is also in the same boat: he is the most popular character in Japan...but not so much in America, mainly because of his bad habit of jobbing in fights as well as having an even more dispassionate nature than Ichigo. The rest of the world seems to like him just fine though.
- The intense ship-related hate toward Masaya of Tokyo Mew Mew for which western fans are infamous doesn't seem to exist at all among Japanese girls; Nakayoshi, in fact, ran a character poll, and he ranked far above Ryou and Kish.
- Shugo Chara is popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but when the show aired in Italy performed worse because it was too inappropriate for preschoolers to watch.
- Naruto:
- Sasuke Uchiha is much more divisive in America than in Japan, and was hated by large segments of the American fanbase long before his Face Heel Turn. This is because he's seen as a one-note 'brooding' character.
- Sakura Haruno, along with Sasuke, is one of the most hated characters in Western Naruto fandom, particularly due to her Tsundere-ish personality and the subsequent violence she dishes out to Naruto in the anime, as well as pairing reasons. In Japan, however, she regularly features in the top 12 characters in polls as voted by fans.
- This could also apply to Naruto himself as well, while he is the most popular character in Japan, he is something of a Base Breaker in America.
- Shizuru Fujino of Mai-HiME seems to be very popular in most fandom circles, except in Italy. While they were largely supportive of her feelings for Natsuki, the instant she Kicked the Dog by attacking Yukino and killing off Haruka, Yukino's Most Important Person, her popularity crashed and burned.
- Slayers:
- Princess Amelia is well-loved in Japan, enough to make her a Breakout Character alongside the even more beloved chimera Zelgadiss. Her quixotic love of justice, inexperience in fighting, and a poor choice of voice actress made her hated in the west for a while; eventually, subtle Character Development and a new actress (Veronica Taylor) made most of the dislike dissipate and she's now rather popular in the US as well.
- There is also the shrine maiden Sylphiel, a demure mage with a crush on the handsome Gourry and very much The Medic to the point that she is incompetent in combat. Because of the Real Women Never Wear Dresses attitude in the west, she is hated there, and her anime-exclusive replacement, the headstrong yet haughty Filia, is preferred. In Japan, both females are well-liked, but Sylphiel recieves more face time because of the novels' popularity.
- As a Real Robot multiverse with the series-wide motif of War Is Hell (which, inevitably, brings complaints of Anvilicious treatment), a myriad of Gundam series often result in this happening.
- Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its successor Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny continues to rank high in the top 10 character polls in Japan (including Newtype) long after Destiny ended and Kira himself beat Char and Amuro for the number one spot in the Gundam 30th Anniversary favorite character poll, but they have a rather large hatedom among the western Gundam fandom. This largely comes from the fact that the pair used their Omniscient Morality License to shove their beliefs down the rest of the Cosmic Era world's throats at gunpoint, all based off evidence which Lacus herself admitted might have been faulty.
- In fact, Destiny gets this treatment in the west. Not a specific character, but the whole series. The most basic complaint is that Kira Yamato (and many other characters from the previous show) went from simply cameoing in the series to outright assuming the position of the main characters, and with this also became the "right side" in the conflict. For a good example, Destiny has a huge Hatedom in North America; many consider the series to be the worst Gundam series ever conceived, but in its native Japan, it was the most popular anime for 2 years. Two years after the show ended production, it was still extremely popular. Only after the slightly more popular (in North America at least) Code Geass aired. Even then, this trope still applies, especially in R2.
- On a related note we have Flay Alster, Kira's first girlfriend. Because of her early actions (namely, blaming Kira for her father's death and then manipulating his feelings for her to try and get him killed), a lot of Western fans despise her to the point where her My God, What Have I Done? moment and her attempts to redeem herself fall on deaf ears. The Japanese fans, however, were more willing to forgive. What makes this really ironic is the director's statement in a post-series interview that Flay was intended to be the kind of character who would appeal to Western audiences. Apparently, something went horribly wrong and reversed.
- Similarly to Flay (in several regards), Nena Trinity of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is considered one of the more popular female characters in Japan (and was the most popular until dropping Out of Focus and being replaced by Ensemble Darkhorse Feldt Grace) but is widely loathed in America. It's been suggested that Nena appeals to Japanese fans because her carefree personality and lack of inhibitions are considered exotic in a country where most people, especially women, are expected to be excessively polite and reserved. On the other hand, her being loathed in America seems to have less to do with her personality and more with her Moral Event Horizon crossing early on which, just like with Flay's actions, the Japanese are apparently more forgiving of (one wonders what it'd take for a character to get on their bad side....)
- The voice given to her in the English version might have also had something to do with it. As someone once said of it when comparing voices: "It left you wanting to punch her, as opposed to wrapping her in a blanket and shipping her off to a mental hospital."
- Rebellious Princess Relena Darlian/Peacecraft of Gundam Wing has a split fanbase in America, while in Japan, she often appears in Gundam Ace's "Top 30 Females" list, and is the only Gundam Wing character to ever appear on said list. Back in the day, the hatred was truly stunning; originally many viewers had an absolute refusal to recognize any of her character development, but over time this attitude has mellowed and quite a few people will admit to being fans. Nowadays, it's pretty much mostly fangirls in full Die For Our Ship mode who still carry that torch.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS:
- While the series is well-liked by a number of Anime fans in the late 2010s, a number of long-time Gundam fans outside Japan also shares some of the Japanese fans' general resentment to the series due to poor story execution.
- Like Wing and SEED/Destiny, IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS also gets the flak of being an overly milked series in the international circles.
- Despite being one of the most popular characters in Japan (with him topping no. 2 in the May 2017 Newtype character ranking), Mikazuki Augus is viewed as one of the most divisive, if not: the biggest scrappies in the franchise by parts of the international Gundam community.
- Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its successor Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny continues to rank high in the top 10 character polls in Japan (including Newtype) long after Destiny ended and Kira himself beat Char and Amuro for the number one spot in the Gundam 30th Anniversary favorite character poll, but they have a rather large hatedom among the western Gundam fandom. This largely comes from the fact that the pair used their Omniscient Morality License to shove their beliefs down the rest of the Cosmic Era world's throats at gunpoint, all based off evidence which Lacus herself admitted might have been faulty.
- Doraemon is one of the franchise long-runners in Japan. While it did well in Italy and Spain, it sells terribly in America. There were attempts to market the series in America, but it would not be until 2015 when an English dub of 2005 Doraemon series premiered on Disney XD.
- Doraemon is also a hard sell in French Canada. Despite being dubbed in French, Doraemon was never popular in Quebec. It even goes to the point where the manga has never been published in Canadian French.
- A very few Anglophone countries, usually with a non-English language as its co-official language, have made way to broadcasting Doraemon, mostly in Asia. Such countries include Hong Kong (which aired on TVB in Cantonese) and Singapore (which aired in Mandarin etc.)
- Also, Doraemon is very unpopular and a hard sell in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands (in case of Switzerland, with the exception of Italian-speaking area of Switzerland). The only thing to this day where Doraemon is available in the Netherlands is the manga.
- Death Note: While non-American fans are more or less accepting of Misa Amane, she's loathed in the USA, with her voice actresses performance being perceived as irritating by most fans, and her character seen as shallow, annoying, and stupid.
- North American fans of Sailor Moon hated Chibiusa/Rini, who is popular in Japan, at least partly because of her original portrayal in the dubbed version of the show (which most North Americans are familiar with) that made her far more whiny and bratty than she was in the Japanese script. Her original voice actress was particularly horribly miscast, only exemplifying her annoying nature by her ear-grating voice. Notably, her acceptance by North American fans seemed to increase when the original actress was replaced with a better one, Stephanie Beard, after the show switched from DiC to Cloverway (and that's not counting the re-dub by Funimation). Which is odd, since Chibiusa is very hated in Latin America as well...despite having an excellent VA (Cristina Hernández) that would become a superstar in LA dubbing few after voicing her.
- With a few exceptions (mainly in online services like Crunchyroll), Shoujo anime sells terribly in America, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden because it's seen as "girly" (or rather, because American, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovakian and Swedish children's TV networks absolutely refuse to show "girly" cartoons, meaning no exposure and thus no sales). This is despite being one of the more popular genres in Japan. Most of them can't even be licensed. (On the other hand, shoujo manga sells very well in America, Norway and Sweden.)
- The magical girl anime and manga licencing sales management in Slovakia suffers the worst: once upon a time, the country's only distribution of magical girl manga and anime series is Sailor Moon, but on television, it stopped at SuperS. Sailor Moon's Sailor Stars and other magical girl series such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Sugar Sugar Rune, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Pretty Cure etc. were never released in Slovakia. It would not be until Little Witch Academia premiered on Netflix when Slovakians can watch magical girl anime other than Sailor Moon. This means Slovakians had to wait for 25 years to get the country licence its second magical girl series. In 2021, Sailor Moon became available again, using a new dub and including Sailor Stars, similar to the situation in North America and France.
- Not Just Bikes discusses on how the "public transport is for the poor" mentality was pushed by the car industry to make car ownership and suburban sprawl more expected and this resulted in many manga and anime featuring public transportation extensively selling terribly in America, and as a result, television networks in America absolutely refuse to show any cartoons that feature public transportation extensively, meaning no exposure and thus no sales, and most of them can't even be licensed in America. This is despite Japan being home to one of the world-class public transport systems, and world-class public transport systems being extensively featured and ingrained in Japanese pop culture, and one user on TripAdvisor saying that Tokyo's metro system being the best metro system in the world.
- Given that the characters of Axis Powers Hetalia are Anthropomorphic Personifications of countries, this trope is inevitable.
- The character Japan gets a lot more mixed reception in the West than in his own country. There are definitely Western fans who like him, but also an equal number of fans who are 'meh' about him at best and brand him as an Extreme Doormat, Flat Character, and/or even the series' Creator's Pet at worst due to his relatively stoic personality and him representing the author's homeland which automatically makes him the character most vulnerable to Mary Sue accusations. A major factor in this is that Japan is so very Japanese that many Western people who are not familiar with Japan and Japanese culture simply don't get or can't appreciate the jokes about him, therefore finding him boring and flat. In particular, those more acquainted with Anime Character Types than general National Stereotypes had expected the personification of Japan to play funny anime stereotypes like Otaku and Dirty Old Man to the hilt and perceived the relative lack of these stereotypes in his character to be a case of the Japanese author trying to make his home country look better than the rest of the cast, not knowing or realizing that Japan's personality is practically a laundry list of Asian/Japanese stereotypes that are much more well-known in real life and media than the more-obscure-to-a-general-audience anime-based stereotypes they had in mind.
- This extends to even ships involving Japan: England/Japan is easily the first or second most popular ship in Japanese fandom. In western fandom...not so much. Some Western fans even seem to dislike the England/Japan ship mainly because of its massive popularity in Japan. Even Greece/Japan, the most popular ship for Japan in western fandom, seems at times to be favored not so much because more Western fans like it than Japanese fans do, but because all other ships for Japan are simply less popular in western fandom than in Japanese fandom, and it just had the good fortune to not conflict with Western fans' most common OTPs (i.e. America/England, France/England, Russia/America, Russia/China...). Netherlands/Japan and Turkey/Japan, in particular, have decent followings in J-fen but Western shippers for them are virtually an endangered species. Japan/Taiwan goes a similar way, since J-Fen has it as the most popular het ship for Japan and THE Taiwan ship, but it brings quite the "controversy" in W-Fen circles since it's used to bash Taiwan and mistakenly accuse her of being a Relationship Sue for Japan.
- Koreans weren't too pleased with Hetalia's Korea, either. The American fandom adopted him as an Ensemble Darkhorse after the shitstorm passed, though.
- Divine of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, whose Complete Monster methods are far less popular among English fans than Japanese ones.
- Hikari/Dawn's Piplup in Pokémon.
- For Japan, it was a cute, loveable penguin that became one of their mascots. In America, however, Piplup is wildly hated (if not by all, then at least by a very LOUD contingent of American fans). Not all Piplup, mind you, just this one in particular.
- A similarly sized contingent loathe Pikachu just as much, calling him "Godchu" and "Deus Ex Pikachu" and decrying his alleged plot-warping powers. (Oddly, some of the same people later hated Piplup for stealing Pikachu's spotlight...)
- Similar to the Sailor Moon example above, Lynn Minmay of Robotech fame is loathed primarily for her dub performance, especially her songs, which were seen as terrible. Her Super Dimension Fortress Macross counterpart, Minmei, is somewhat of a cultural icon in Japan, and Mari Iijima (her voice actress) is a beloved personality.
- This can generally apply to the Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo series in general. For those who do like the series in the west, there's Beauty, the heroine, who is well-liked in Japan, but mostly hated in the west for being the resident Damsel Scrappy throughout. For the sequel manga, Shinsetsu Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, there's Namero Yononaka, who eventually becomes the new emperor for The Empire of the series; he's the most popular of the three new protagonists of the manga (making 9th place in the last Japan popularity contest; the other two came in 11th and 20th respectively) but his nihilism, narcissism, and lack of humor make him despised among the sequel's small western fanbase.
- A fair number of the Indonesian fanbase loathed the BanG Dream! franchise due to pointing out the similarities between the series with K-On!.
- Love Live! Series:
- Unlike the Japanese fandom and most of the international fanbase's current views to them, Aqours is also seen as replacement scrappies to Muse by very little parts of the Asian fandom.
- Suwa Nanaka's performance as Kanan Matsuura and as a singer had received a mixed reaction outside Japan, as half of the fanbase loathed her vocal tone while the other half actually supports it.
- In terms of slash shipping; While the YohaRiri/Riko (Yoshiko x Riko) pairing is known as one of the very popular pairings in Japan, the ship's reputation in overseas (especially the Western and Asian fandoms) are somewhat divisive, mainly due to YoshiMaru's (Yoshiko x Hanamaru) status as a Fan-Preferred Couple there, plus they're more canon-backed and has more ship tease prior to YohaRiko's popularity.
- In comparison to Japan and the International fans' view to her, Keke Tang from Superstar!! is somehow not well-liked in the PRC fanbase, regarding the minor controversies such as: 1. The character being introduced in the worst time possible. 2. The (minor) ongoing rumors of Liyuu "Dark History (commonly, "doing indecent things on a Ferris wheel")" in 2019.
Businesses[]
- Walmart, despite being the most successful chain of stores in the world, has some locations where it does very poorly.
- In Brazil, local suppliers didn't like the way Walmart did business (basically amounting to Walmart telling the suppliers "you let us dictate the price of product X, or we won't carry product Y; also let us look at your books so we can figure out which product you make the most off of so we can blackmail you more effectively, and if you don't like it we won't carry any of your products") and basically told them to fuck off, leaving Walmart with limited, overpriced, and/or crappy stock.
- In Japan, where high quality is the usual marketing strategy, the Walmart mantra of "Low Prices" is viewed with suspicion rather than as a Godsend to the pocketbook; as a consequence, its subsidiary in Japan suffers from a general lack of profits.
- Walmart has had to make many changes to be accepted in the Canadian market. The first change was to lose most of the greeters and the floor staff - Canadians generally see abundant floor staff as proof that the management distrusts its customers and is snooping around looking for shoplifters. Another change was to sell popular Canadian brands and not whatever their American suppliers could provide; the federal government got into that mess when a popular clothing manufacturer was banned from Walmart because it had a plant in Cuba (Unlike the US, Canada has no trade sanctions against Cuba). More recently, Walmart's attempt to introduce the Supercentre into Canada failed miserably due to Walmart's refusal to take local differences into consideration. It turns out that Canadians are far pickier about the quality of their food than (many) Americans are. They also care more about quality than price and expect a much wider variety of products than Americans do. They looked at the low-quality, white-bread selection at Supercentre and went elsewhere. There were some things Walmart wouldn't budge on, though. Jonquiere, Quebec briefly made headlines when the efforts of local Walmart workers to unionize actually prompted the store to pack up and leave, which is actually standard practice for Wal-Mart. It is company policy to liquidate supplies and close the store when there is a tangible risk of unionizing. Walmart even shut down all of its Sam's Club warehouses across Canada in 2009, largely due to the economic conditions and the fact that Costco has already long been established across Canada.
- Walmart also spectacularly failed to gain a foothold in Germany, for a number of reasons. German customers are for example not used to employees packing their shopping bags or greeting them at the entrance, and felt harassed by them; and there's the fact that Germans find constant enthusiasm and small talk to be forced and dishonest. Huge stores for convenience goods are generally unpopular compared to the more compact and easily navigable discount stores that are ubiquitous in just about any place, ever, while electronic goods, clothes, tools and so on are usually bought in specialized stores instead. Also, local chains like Aldi and Lidl hold the low-price market segment already tight in their hands, so Walmart actually had to go up against tough rivals competing with them eye-to-eye. And lastly, as a place with traditionally strong organized labor and the oldest welfare state in existence, Germans detested Walmart's business practices regarding their employees; among other things, Walmart's "Statement of Ethics" that prohibited relationships between employees was ruled by a German court to be not merely illegal but in fact in violation of constitutionally guaranteed basic rights. Needless to say, this did not make for entirely good PR as far as Walmart was concerned.
- You may have noticed that France has not been mentioned here yet. That's because the French have gone out of their way to keep Walmart out completely, perhaps taking this trope to its extreme. On the other hand, France is home of Carrefour, which has a similar enough business model to be able to fend off Walmart even without prejudice against it.
- And the UK... Well, that's complicated. The UK has ASDA, which are owned by Walmart as a subsidiary. However, the only real mention of Walmart is on the front of the store, as the store is just a typical big modern UK supermarket. Generally ASDA tend to have better employee relations than the US parent, but still drive the 'low price' angle. And they also have to wear horrid lime green uniforms. A couple of the old ASDA hypermarkets have been rebranded as Walmart Centres or something similar, but still the name Walmart is relatively obscure in British towns.
- In its home country, Walmart has failed to get a foothold in urban and rural areas because their store size is a poor fit. Local grocery stores and small store chains like Family Dollar and Dollar General still dominate despite the company's Neighborhood Market and Express concept stores.
- Walmart is also notably weak in Michigan, where the native Meijer hypermarkets are more common; they have a reputation for keeping prices low (often by the same ruthless methods), but not the reputation for rapaciousness (deservedly or not) or shoddy products (the produce/grocery section in particular is well-regarded; it helps that Meijer started as a grocery chain).
- Inverted, in a very odd way, in Mexico: While Walmart is doing well in Mexico, it's for very different reasons: While the American Walmarts tend to vary from smaller outlets to medium sized stores, the Mexican ones tend to be BIGGER (if not even more) than their American peers. The reason is because Mexicans hate buying in smaller supermarkets (like the ones owned by the government, which tend to be smaller and with fewer products to sell) and a bigger store is a sign of having more products and better service than a smaller one. It does help that Walmart's Mexican branch (and franchise) is owned by a Mexican supermarket chain, rather than by their American branch, but this could change due of the recent corruption scandal involving Walmart with Mexican authorities.
- Starbucks opened with huge fanfare in Australia and soon had branches everywhere. But, within a few years, the franchise flopped spectacularly and most of the stores shut down; leaving only a handful in the capital cities. Business commentators suggest that this was due to Australia having had a 'coffee culture' since the post World War II immigration boom from Europe. Even small towns had a place where you could get a cappucino, so Australians simply weren't impressed by the variety of coffee that Starbucks offered.
- Barbados was not loving McDonald's when the franchise set up there in the late '80s, to the extent that the Golden Arches pulled out after a couple of years. (Unlike KFC, which thrives there to this day.)
- Burger King was a major flop in India. You have a better chance finding them in US Army and Air Force bases.
- Coca Cola is largely successful in Sweden. However, they lose a significant market share around Christmas and Easter, to a domestic soft drink called must, branded as julmust for Christmas or påskmust for Easter. On the subject of Coca Cola whilst being the dominate soft drink in many countries the same isn't true in Scotland where Irn-Bru is usually the best selling soft drink all year round. Which in itself was made as a knockoff of Cola, and Coca Cola has since its introduction to Sweden been desperately trying to get back the market share and brand itself as "the Christmas drink" with huge marketing campaigns every year. (It didn't work.)
- Similarly, Pepsi outsells Coca Cola in Quebec (largely due to its association with Quebec celebrities) and in the Central Appalachian Mountains.
- Years ago, Pizza Hut had a major opening blitz on Long Island. It failed spectacularly after a few years and now there aren't many Pizza Huts left up there.
- IKEA had a harder time settling in the US than in any other country.
- Text messaging was slower to catch on in the U.S. despite widespread popularity in Japan (thanks to a taboo on talking on phones in public) and Europe, due in no small part to wireless carriers charging an arm and a leg for texting services. A generation of teenagers did make it popular, though probably not with the parents who were paying the phone bills.
- The wildly popular Krispy Kreme doughnut chain made a massive expansion into the New England area, at one point being almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks in eastern Massachusetts. A few years later, they were all but gone. Apparently New Englanders refused to convert from their long-loved Dunkin' Donuts. Same in Canada, except with long-established Tim Hortons instead of Dunkin' Donuts being more popular than Krispy Kreme. (Dunkin' Donuts is still around in Canada, but generally only with a few locations in Quebec.) Incidentially, many Dunkin' Donuts locations have closed in favour of Tim Hortons, to the point where Tim Hortons now has locations in New York City.
Clothing[]
- Hooded sweatshirts, or hoodies. In the US and Canada, they're viewed as normal casual wear no worse than blue jeans, especially in cooler weather and among young people, and many schools and colleges sell hoodies branded with the school logo. In Britain, on the other hand, they're associated with the "chav" stereotype and criminal behavior, and some stores have banned people from wearing hoodies inside.
- It should be noted that most stores and shopping centers ban people from wearing their hoods up; you can still wear hoodies as long as the hood is down. This rule also applies to hats, the reason being that it will conceal your face on CCTV.
- This is somewhat zigzagged, however, since it's mainly hoodies that are made by athletic brands (such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc) and sold by certain stores, such as JD Sports or Sports Direct, that are frowned down upon or, at the very least, treated with suspicion in the UK. Meanwhile, hoodies that are made by major clothing brands, such as Levis, Timberland, Ralph Lauren, etc, are viewed more favorably in the UK, probably because they are typically worn by normal, middle class people and are not associated with chav culture like the ones made by the aforementioned athletic brands.
Comic Books[]
- Alpha Flight never got popular in Canada, where the team is supposed to originate from. This might be because the characters seems to have been inspired from stereotypes of Canadians. Which is ironic when you realize the team was created by Canadian artist John Byrne.
- The Disney comics are traditionally more popular in Europe than the United States. However, according to Don Rosa, the confrontation between Scrooge and Soapy Slick in Part Eight of The Life and Times of Scrooge Mcduck, in which Soapy's riverboat casino was destroyed, was frowned upon by European readers for supposedly making Scrooge look like a Batman-esque vigilante (although Rosa never wrote what exactly happened and constantly maintained that the tale was meant to be exaggerated through legend).
Cars[]
- Anyone driving a Hummer outside of the US is likely to be made fun of, and/or have people throw things at them due to their large size and poor gas milage. Though they're a popular target for derision in the US as well,[1] they were actually selling when people had the money to buy cars (and when oil prices weren't inflated).
- Oddly in Venezuela, if you drive a Hummer you probably are some sort of Marxist-socialist big fish (connected to the Chavez government?).
- In Mexico, if you're from the north/west, you're likely to be ordered to stop for a search on the road. Drug dealers like them very much, apparently.
- Hummers outside the US get people throwing things at them. Even stretch-Hummers...
- Not to mention the hate from the Jeep offroad scene.
- The updated Ford Focus wasn't sold in the US (where the current model is still based on the first-generation European spec) for reasons that get... complicated:
- Ford would require them to sedan-ize them, as "hatchbacks don't sell in the US."
- Considering that they made a four-door sedan for the first Focus for the US, it was more an issue of the second-generation Focus being too expensive for American markets, which see small cars as cheap cars—the second-generation European Focus was very well-appointed and very expensive by American small-car standards. This turned out badly for Ford, as later refreshes of the US Focus, formerly a class leader, were surpassed by foreign competitors, were panned by the American auto press, and experienced rapidly falling sales. The upcoming next model of Focus will be sold in both the US and Europe as part as Ford's new strategy of consolidating its worldwide product lines.
- This may also reflect the difference in the perception of car sizes in the U.S. and European markets; U.S. buyers generally prefer larger cars than European buyers, so while the Focus may be "small" by U.S. standards, it's fairly middle-of-the-road in Europe, hence not as "small car" price sensitive. It may also make sense if you consider that the Focus probably isn't perceived as a particularly "small" car by European standards. In other words, it's not that Europeans don't like cheap small cars (there definitely is a market there) or generally pay through the nose for them - it's that the Focus is a midsize model.
- Speaking of Ford, the Ford F-Series is by some estimates the second best selling passenger vehicle of all time despite the full-size truck market being almost exclusive to North America.
- City cars like the MCC Smart series and any of the small Toyotas (Yarises and Aygos) and their many competitors are popular on the narrow congested streets of Europe. Americans have a suburb culture, and their roads (even in the cities) are quite broad enough to allow for even the heftiest SUV or pickup truck. The idea of buying a car just for driving in the city is ludicrous to them. That being said, smart cars have made slight inroads in California for their fuel efficiency (petrol prices are higher in California than anywhere else in the continental US), and New York City where it is notoriously difficult to find a parking space and millions of residents never leave the city.
- The Yaris is fairly popular in Canada, too.
- Japanese companies got their first foothold in the American market by offering small cars that were a better fit for urban areas. These cars were normally fitted with larger engines than their European and Japanese market versions to better handle highway driving.
- The Smart has been a failure because it's only available with a gas engine that gets about the same gas mileage as a Yaris or Fiesta, and doesn't have any real parking advantage in the U.S. The redesigned For Four would have been a far better competitor, but Daimler-Benz lost their relationship with Mitsubishi when they sold off Chrysler. This car, now sold by Mitsubishi as the "i," will finally be reaching the American Market as a 2012 model.
- In the 1970s over half of Mercedez-Benz's cars sold in the U.S. were diesels due to their reliability and excellent gas mileage. Several other companies followed suit, adding diesels to their vehicles in the early 1980s, but most were underdeveloped and fuel quality at the time was poor. GM's diesel 350 in particular received major backlash due to its extreme lack of power and inability to start at low temperatures. This effectively killed the market outside of heavy duty trucks. Hybrids got a more positive reception in the country than most areas because the cars only had to compete with less economical gas engines.
- All cars, including city cars and sedans etc., generally sold poorly in Hong Kong and Singapore obviously due to very high taxes and the political climates very public transport focused.
- There's an urban legend that the Chevy Nova sold poorly in Latin countries because the words "No va" translate to "doesn't go".
- Diehard Detroit Muscle Car enthusiasts tend to have a general hate towards imported sportscars and supercars, especially Japanese sports cars. One such car receiving a lot of such Hatedom is the Nissan GT-R R35, whose performance is nearly up there with the likes of the Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, yet costs less, has less horsepower, is heavier, and is said to be better handling and more practical (eg unlike most high performance sports cars in the Corvette range, the GT-R is a four seater as opposed to a 2 seater). This fanbase went up in arms when the GT-R scored a laptime just a fraction of a second off the ZR-1's at the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
- Check out the world's lowest car ownership rates here. Look at Bangladesh, there are almost no car enthusiasts.
- There's the European car enthusiasts who frown down on American cars because that they are "plastic pigs", as well as Japanese cars because they are inferior to cars from the likes of Italy and Germany. Of course, said American and Japanese cars are much cheaper, and to a degree more practical, compared to an Italian car like the Pagani Zonda, in which the latest model is going to have only five produced--and one is headed to a museum in Hong Kong.
Film[]
- Indians seems to feel this way about any humorous depiction of Gandhi. There was a major backlash on YouTube over the "Gandhi II" clip from the Weird Al Yankovic movie UHF, a fake movie trailer that re-imagines Gandhi as a 1970s blaxploitation-like hero. This is doubly funny as many seem to be attacking the person who posted the clip as though he's the one who created the video, not realizing it's from a movie that's more than 20 years old.
- Roberto Benigni's 2002 Live Action Adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio was lambasted by American audiences and was the recipient of six Golden Raspberry Awards, including one for "Worst Picture", both because they saw it as a vanity project for Benigni (who wrote, directed and starred in the film...as Pinocchio), and were somewhat disturbed that the title role, traditionally fit for a little kid, was being played by a man in his forties. It also was a closer adaptation of the book than the Disney Animated Canon version, reinstating Pinocchio's obnoxious personality and such incidents as the hero being hung by a noose at one point, and not surprisingly American viewers didn't find this charming; and not only that, the film was initially released by Miramax only in a roundly condemned All-Star Cast English dub (Breckin Meyer voiced Pinocchio, for one thing). The film performed much more favorably in Benigni's home country, where it was nominated for a handful of awards by Italian film critics.
- Borat was considered so offensive that it was banned in Russia, because many felt it would lead to race riots. The movie wasn't shown in theatres, however, DVDs are freely available.
- 300 was condemned as "Western Propaganda" in Iran due to the way Persians were portrayed in that film.
- Much like the comics, superhero movies underperform outside of the U.S. Even The Dark Knight showed mediocre results in some territories (most notably Russia, where it was expected to be a smash hit, but turned out with a middling gross). Dark Knight didn't do that well in Japan either, with Japanese viewers and critics explaining that they imagine "Superhero Movie" to mean "light and entertaining", not "dark and thought-provoking". Despite that, it did still have some critical success. Noted in-universe with Bruce dating a Russian ballet dancer who does not understand why the people of Gotham City support Batman.
- Disney's Hercules was well-received by critics and audiences alike, and hated by the Greeks; who apparently did not like the film's portrayal of their culture and history. Considering how Disney's take on an American legend is generally considered Snark Bait by American Disney fans, it's surprising this hasn't happened with their other non-European fairy tale/story adaptations. Mulan even became a massive hit in China.
- To some extent, Mulan was not the worst offender of the "Disney world culture view" as a lot of others. Besides, they have Jackie Chan doing voice over of Shang for both Mandarin (there are 2, one for Mainland, one for Taiwan) and Cantonese dub, and have an all star voice cast that essentially were awesome in all 3 dubbed versions, there are reasons why Mulan was not hated. The general view in China was "it must have been very difficult for you foreigners to even come up with this, so we'll admire your effort and forgive stuff that weren't done so well." On the other hand, blatant over-stereotyping such as the Great Ten from DC Universe was very poorly received in China. Though in the case of Great Ten the creators were deliberately invoking the tropes, people manage to hate it none the less.
- Rather ironically, when Mulan got a Disney-sponsored live-action remake in 2020, it was completely Overshadowed by Controversy.
- The Jean Cocteau version of Beauty and the Beast is an arguable example. In its home country of France, it was one of the more beloved adaptations of the fairy tale. In America... reception was mixed to say the very least.[2]
- The Little Mermaid by Disney is zigzagged between this trope and Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales. While the Disney version is obviously popular in the United States, Denmark has mixed tastes to the story due to the changed ending.[3] However, after Ron Clements, during the world premiere, apologized to the Queen of Denmark for the changed ending, apparently taking the complaints to heart, she revealed she actually preferred Disney's take on it due to it now having a proper ending, claiming Hans Christian Andersen never really knew how to do endings anyway.
Literature[]
- Harry Potter has an in-universe example: the book Quidditch Through the Ages has a section dealing with the status of Quidditch around the world. Americans apparently prefer the game Quodpot, a sort of hot-potato game involving a Quaffle that has been tampered with and explodes - probably a joke on Americans who prefer American football to soccer and are obsessed with Stuff Blowing Up. In Asia, however, Quidditch is only slowly gaining appeal because Asian wizards have traditionally preferred flying carpets to flying broomsticks. The exception to this rule is Japan.
- Henry James wrote two political novels during the 1880s—one novel, The Bostonians, about women's rights movements in America, and another novel, The Princess Casamassima, about labor unions and terrorism in England. Bostonians was a hit in England, but widely denounced in America as cruel and unsympathetic, while Princess was a hit in America, but dismissed as exploitative and narrow in England.
- Though the reception is generally positive in its home country, one of the expanded materials for the Naruto franchise, titled "Sasuke Retsuden: The Uchiha Descendants and the Heavenly Stardust", is widely reviled by parts of the English-speaking fanbase due to the story focusing on (and expanding) Sasuke and Sakura's relationship. Keep in mind that the reaction was caused by Sakura's infamy due to her actions in the Anime, while NaruSasu is also seen as a Fan-Preferred Couple due to Naruto's devotion of saving Sasuke.
Live Action TV[]
- Power Rangers:
- The TV series was Overshadowed by Controversy in New Zealand.
- Due to differences in attitudes as opposed to the source material of Super Sentai, Power Rangers has some elements that don't gel with American audiences.
- The general rule is that Super Sentai works best while being silly, and Power Rangers works best when being serious. This is the reason why Chouriki Sentai Ohranger flopped in Japan, but Gekisou Sentai Carranger saved the series from cancellation. The inverse being that Power Rangers Zeo is fondly remembered, but Power Rangers Turbo almost got the show cancelled.
- Villains also get different treatment. Rescue Sentai Go Go Five had villainess Denus, who is well-regarded in Sentai fandom. When it was adapted into Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, her equivalent, Vypra, was hated by fans, thanks in no small part to the X Pac Heat leveled against Jennifer Yen. It got to the point where Linkara, in his review for his History of Power Rangers series, all but cheered when Vypra was absorbed into Queen Bansheera later in the season.
- Somewhat tying into the general examples of Japanese character popularity above, Kamen Rider fans in the West tend to dismiss Wataru Kurenai (and, to a lesser extent, Ryotaro Nogami) for being 'weak' and 'unmanly' compared to many of the other protagonists in the franchise.
- Before the preview of Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, its opening theme song performer (Takeshi Tsuruno of Ultraman Dyna fame) is absolutely loathed by an amount of fans from China, as rumors of him being misbehave has been circulated.
- Loki is generally well-liked around the globe but its loudest critics and naysayers all seem to come out of the United Kingdom. Loki premiered during Chris Chibnall's much reviled run of Doctor Who and was celebrated by audiences as a Spiritual Successor to Steven Moffat's run on Doctor Who. Outside of England, this went over fine. In England, Loki earned the ire of those Whovians who can't ever tolerate another show having Time Travel as part of its story, denouncing it as "They Copied It, So It Sucks" and starting a small Fandom Rivalry, seemingly quite put out that a six episode show gained better worldwide reception that Series 11 and 12 of Doctor Who, along with having a much better budget. Loki may not be outright hated in England but it's nowhere near as popular as it is in North America.
- While Sesame Street is one of the fan favourites in the States, it was never released in the United Kingdom. The reason for this? There was a bizarre incident in the early 1970s where the BBC highly rejected the show, accusing it of "indoctrination" (and some think it even upstages the self-produced Edutainment show Play School).
- The format of the BBC Edutainment show Play School sells terribly in America, because the country already has Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street etc. Any attempts to market the American version of Play School on PBS will fall into death, leaving Americans who watch Play School out of luck. However, Americans who live near the Canadian border can watch Polka Dot Door, the Canadian adaptation of BBC Play School.
- While Barney & Friends series is big in America, in other parts of the world it is not as big. It is notable for being viewed as a rip-off of the locally-made preschool show Here's Humphrey in Australia (Here's Humphrey debuted 30 years before Barney).
- Here's Humphrey is considered an icon of Australian culture. Elsewhere (including America) it's viewed as a rip-off of Barney and Friends.
Music[]
- The Sex Pistols recorded a UK #1 album with Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, which never cracked the top 100 in sales in the US. Both instances are due to the immense cultural relevance of the bands in their native countries, which the other country never really understood. It did not help matters that the Pistols' sole US tour during their original run was a publicity stunt concocted by Malcolm McLaren that saw the Pistols touring the Bible Belt (one oft-shown image has a theater marquee somewhere in the South showing the Sex Pistols headlining that week, with the next week's show featuring Merle Haggard!) to generate lots of "rednecks v. punks" news. One of the only shows in punk-friendly territory was the very last in San Francisco—and that one ended with Johnny Rotten leaving the stage, and the band, abruptly.
- Similar to how grunge was largely ridiculed outside North America, American indie music in the 90s was largely ignored in the UK, with Blur being the only famous British band to draw any influence from bands like Pavement. These bands weren't immensely popular in America, either, but they were even less popular there. This ended when The Strokes released Is This It, which had an immediate impact in the UK that was unmatched in America.
- British indie music in The Nineties, in turn, was largely ignored in America, except in music magazines and on College Radio.
- In Israel, Richard Wagner's music is very unpopular, mainly due to the composer's virulent (but not murderous) anti-Semitism and his popularity within the Nazi party inner-circle. Many Holocaust survivors moved to Israel, and the Nazi death camps were known to blast Wagner over the speakers.
- Even The Beatles were victims of this, in a few different places, in 1966. The most famous one involved John Lennon's infamous "we're more popular than Jesus" comment, which was more or less dismissed as harmless in the Beatles' native Britain, especially after Lennon clarified it... but this was not the case in America. There, a few radio stations in the South held burnings of Beatles records, and the whole ordeal turned into a media ruckus. The anti-Beatles sentiment wasn't actually very widespread, but there was enough of it in some areas that the Beatles had to cancel a few tour dates due to threats. Far worse was the reception they received that year in The Philippines, when they were essentially chased out of the country for refusing to play for Imelda Marcos, and to a lesser extent, the controversy in Japan from their appearance at the Budokan (which is now a popular concert venue, but at the time was reserved for martial arts, and many saw the Beatles' appearance there as disrespectful). All of these incidents, along with the increasingly complexity of their music, made 1966 their last tour.
- Country Music outside of the US, specifically Middle America.
- New York City, for example, does not have any country stations on the FM dial (though, the area around the capital of New York, Albany, does, as does the vast majority of the state of New York), despite it being the largest radio market in the US and country being, by some measures, the most popular genre of music in the US. In the Northeast, being a fan of country music carries many of the same connotations as being a fan of NASCAR—unless it's a hip alternative country band, a crossover pop artist, or a legend with universal appeal (like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, or Patsy Cline), admitting to being a country fan will most likely get you called a redneck, a hillbilly, or some variation thereof. Outside the US, the only places that can be said to have significant country fandoms are Ireland (whose own tradition of folk music fed into Appalachian folk, which is an ancestor of modern country), Africa (possibly due to the popularity of the banjo), Brazil (a mishmash of US and local subculture, including rodeo acts), Canada and Australia (both of which have frontier histories and large rural areas not unlike those found in the US).
- In Canada you tend to find either a gentler brand of country (i.e. Anne Murray) or a more folk-infused style (like when Great Big Sea or Barenaked Ladies make occasional forays in to the genre) being heard universaly - although they country stations exist and more hard-core C&W groups are out there, they tend to stay in and around Alberta, which likes to identify with the C&W culture. There is, however, a curiously large aboriginal following of country music.
- Power Metal bands often do well at home in Europe, placing high on the charts and playing stadiums and arenas. In the U.S. however, they're lucky if their CD gets a release, let alone charts, and the few bands that do tour the States are reduced to playing small clubs.
Professional Wrestling[]
- Hulk Hogan was one of, if not the, biggest WWF star of all time... but when he brought the flexing, no-selling, All-American character to WCW, the fans were lukewarm at best at first, and progressed to booing him and throwing his merchandise back into the ring. He got over with them as the villainous Hollywood Hogan, but when he returned to Hulk Hogan, the fans still weren't impressed. This was largely because most WCW fans were fans of the old NWA and hated the WWF's campy, story driven style compared to the NWA's hard action (which was why wrestling ratings on TBS tanked for the brief time that the WWF was on there). Ironically, the WWF/E tried to bring Hogan back as Hollywood in 2002 but had to revert back to Hulk Hogan because their fans refused to boo him, even after he plowed a truck into an ambulance that had The Rock inside it.
- Samoa Joe has caught surprisingly negative reactions from Japanese fans, who see him as a ripoff of many Japanese wrestlers from the '90s.
- Bryan Danielson doesn't really get over in Mexico, but is very popular back home.
Performance Art[]
- For all the jokes about the "Frenchiness" of Cirque Du Soleil, which originated in Quebec, France is one of the few countries the company has performed in that didn't take to it when it first arrived. After an initial, critically roasted visit to Paris in 1990, they didn't bring another show there until Saltimbanco in 2005. The books 20 Years Under the Sun and The Spark point out that circus has been a staple of French entertainment for so long that a) Cirque's style wasn't particularly new to them and b) it just takes a lot to impress critics there with so much competition. (Notably, the 1990 tour didn't do well in England either, but since Saltimbanco in 1997 all the tours have visited that country at some point.)
Stand Up Comedy[]
- While not exactly beloved in America, Neil Hamburger seems to be hated by British audiences, possibly because Jerry Sadowitz has been playing a similar character on the UK comedy circuit for years before.
Sports[]
- In the United States, speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno is thought of as a national hero, the USA most decorated winter Olympian ever, and one hell of a dancer. However, in South Korea the Japanese-American champion is one of, if not the, most hated individuals in the nation and nicknamed "The King of Fouls". It started after the 2002 Salt Lake City games when he won a gold medal after Korean skater Kim Dong-Sung was disqualified for blocking him, and he happily celebrated afterward. There were massive protests against the United States after he won (even though US servicemen accidentally killing a couple of Korean schoolgirls probably also had something to do with that) and the United States embassy had to be closed the next day because of threats against them. The first verse of Yoon Min-Suk's hit song "Fucking USA" was all about Ohno—the rest was about Bush threatening North Korea. They thought what Apolo did was worse than a potential war. They even sold toilet paper with the multi-time medalist's picture on it. They apparently also released a game where you could shoot Expys of Ohno. It got so bad that a year after he won not only Apolo but the entire US speed skating team did not enter the nation due to death threats—and after that he only entered the country while surrounded by armed guards. In South Korea, Ohnolike has even entered the lexicon as meaning "dirty trick". The hatred against the Dancing With the Stars champion swelled up again during the 2010 Vancouver games after 2 Korean skaters took each other out and Ohno won Silver, however by the end of the games it was the Australian embassy that was being shut down because of death threats because of a controversial decision to disqualify the women's relay team made by Aussie referee Jim Hewish, who just happens to be the same judge that disqualified Dong-Sung in 2002 giving Apolo his first Gold. During the 2002 World Cup, the South Korean team scored on the U.S. team and re-enacted Ohno's "bump" as a part of their celebration. South Korea erupted in laughter. America essentially said "lolwut?"
- Then there's Korea's close tracking of figure skater Kim Yuna and the manufactured rivalry with Asada Mao, a Japanese competitor who she beat on the way to winning the 2009 Grand Prix. When she set a new record, Korean media just had to mention that Asada's score was pretty unimpressive.
- Traditionally, ice hockey is only popular in Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the northern US. The obvious reason is because it's traditionally a winter sport. Attempts to spread it outside of those regions have not had much success. The National Hockey League, for instance, added or relocated a number of teams to the Southern United States, with mixed results. Taken Up to Eleven with the St. Louis Blues. In the Northern half of Missouri, the team is popular and among the top ten in attendance nearly every year. In the Southern half of the state, they get less coverage than high school basketball and their popularity is limited to certain parts of the area. Meanwhile, in parts of Canada hockey is a year-round major news source, eclipsing not just all other sports combined but also politics, religion, and the arts.
- NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is easily one of the most popular forms of auto racing (CART used to be one of the top until the CART/IRL split) in the United States and if you consider it a sport its popularity is up there with the NFL. While it has fans from other countries in North America, it has a niche fanbase in the rest of the world at best, because even in the US, it's often considered a "redneck" sport. In the Prohibition era, people would occasionally set up races between each other to see who had the better car set-up for transporting moonshine, which eventually evolved into NASCAR. It was invented by people considered to be "hillbillies" or "rednecks", and the majority of its drivers also tend to qualify under such names.
- Conversely, Formula One is often coined as the "Pinnacle of Motorsport" and is up there with the FIFA World Cup in popularity in most of the world. In the US however, it has little love, hence there has not been a US Grand Prix in years. One of the turn-offs in F1 to most US racing fans is the difficulty in passing, which is something that happens a lot in NASCAR and CART/IRL (then again, passing is easy in oval tracks, which F1 cars never race on).
- Lacrosse is only really popular in the United States and Canada, which is fitting, as it was created by Native Americans, and even then, it is very regional, being mostly popular in the Mid-Atlantic States. In the UK it's thought of as a girls' school sport, albeit a brutal one - see the St Trinians cartoons/films. Lacrosse is also almost solely a girls' sport in Japan, where it's currently experiencing a surge in popularity.
- Even in the United States, lacrosse is mostly associated with rich East Coast prep school kids, and isn't played much by poorer people.
- Curling is big in Canada (where even the smallest town usually has a curling rink), but not so much in the rest of the world, which wonders what the heck those people are doing with brooms on the ice. Curling is known in Scotland (being that's where the sport was invented) and isn't viewed as peculiar and unusual as it is elsewhere in the world, but its popularity is not nearly as big as it is in Canada. That being said, it does score big ratings during the Olympics, probably because it's the only native Scottish Winter Olympic sport...and for the longest time was the only distinctively Scottish Olympic sport in general (shot put, hammer throw, and rugby sevens, although originating in Scotland, aren't distinctively Scottish, and golf hasn't been Olympic since 1904...although it will return for Rio 2016).
- Even within sports, different teams/individuals can have differing reputations from country to country. Diego Maradona, for example, is idolised in his native Argentina and is a byword throughout the rest of the world for a supremely skilled individual. Except in England, where, due to the infamous "Hand of God" goal, the word "Maradona" is synonymous with "dirty cheat".
- When playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby is very popular among the hometown fans, as is expected for a team's star player. When it comes to international hockey, though, pretty much every American hockey fan hates his guts because of his gold medal-winning goal for Canada against the United States at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
- Italian footballer Paolo Rossi was the hero of the 1982 World Cup championship... and absolutely loathed in Brazil, as he scored the 3 goals in the game that eliminated the best Brazilian team in years. (when Rossi visited São Paulo, once a taxi driver recognized him he kicked Rossi out of his car)
- In Sri Lanka, Muttiah Muralitheran is the greatest spin bowler in the history of Cricket. In Australia, he's a cheating chucker who stole Shane Warne's Test wicket record. The rest of the world just doesn't care.
- At least soccer is recognized in the United States and Canada, where while not as big as the Big Four, the national teams gets tons of media coverage. Compare this to Rugby or Cricket, which is popular in Europe, Oceania and Africa (at least for Rugby, Cricket is more of a British and Commonwealth sport), but gets nearly nonexistent coverage in North America.
- Gaelic games such as hurling or gaelic football are huge mainstream sports in Ireland, attracting massive media coverage and crowd attendance in the tens of thousands. Elsewhere they are almost entirely unknown outside Irish immigrant communities.
- In the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, when the St. John's Maple Leafs hockey team of the American Hockey League (AHL), the farm team of the Toronto Maple Leafs, moved to Toronto in 2005 as its sister team the Toronto Marlies, St. John's got a replacement hockey team in the form of the St. John's Fog Devils, an expansion team of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL, otherwise known for short as "The Q"). Although its first season had decent ticket sales, the Fog Devils did poorly in its overall gameplay record, and actually lost money in its second season, to the point where the QMJHL franchise was sold to Montreal businessman Farrell Miller in 2008, who renamed the team the Montreal Junior Hockey Club. It was sold a second time in 2011 to a group led by former NHL defenseman Joel Bouchard, who moved the team to the northern Montreal suburb of Boisbriand, where it became renamed the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.
- It's been speculated that the move of the Fog Devils may have happened because, while the Maple Leafs were a fairly popular AHL team for 14 seasons (1991–2005), the QMJHL, despite having a strong presence in Atlantic Canada since 1994 (when the Halifax Mooseheads were first introduced), the QMJHL may not have been looked as much positively in Newfoundlanders and Labradorians' eyes. As a result, Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province in Canada without a team in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL, which the QMJHL is one of three leagues it's part of), and it was the only province without a professional ice hockey team until 2011, when the AHL returned to St. John's through the move of Winnipeg's AHL team, the Manitoba Moose, which became the St. John's IceCaps, the farm team of the new Winnipeg Jets.
Theme Parks[]
- Ah, Duffy the Disney Bear. Apparently a huge hit when he was introduced in Tokyo Disneyland, he was brought to America in 2011 to many delighted cries of "Who the hell is that?" and "Why is he everywhere?" It appears as though America does not get the appeal of this new character, who is Mickey Mouse's little plushy friend who he sleeps with on lonely nights.
- There was an earlier version of Duffy who was Never Accepted in His Hometown, as he was introduced in the US first. Debuting at Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney in 2004 as the creatively titled Disney Bear, he was Disney's attempt at breaking into the Build-a-Bear market. This was despite the fact that Disney did not make it possible to build him yourself, which, if you are at all paying attention, is kind of the one main selling point of Build-A-Bear. Naturally, the reception was lukewarm at best. Plans for his introduction at Disneyland (who by that time had an actual Build-a-Bear store in their own Downtown Disney) were cancelled, and he was pulled from Disney World (who now has a Build-A-Bear spinoff store in their Downtown Disney) just three years later.
Video Games[]
- Germany seems to be the only place that develops and buys simulation games, locally known as "Aufbauspiele", like The Settlers significantly.
- Aside from Final Fantasy and Pokémon, or the brief surge of western popularity generated by FFVII, JRPGs have generally sold poorly outside of Japan. One of the reasons may be the prevalence of both androgynous males and tween prepubescent characters that appear to not translate well with a Western audience.
- As well as how it's become popular to hate them, complete with Vocal Minority.
- A very notable example is Dragon Quest. It is said to be the most popular game franchise in Japan (every release of a Dragon Quest is probably akin to a Japanese holiday), and it is both critically and commercially successful there. Everywhere else, the series still earns critical acclaim, but the series merely has a small cult following, probably due to the "kids' stuff" issue, since the games generally have a colorful art style. Nintendo is aiming to turn this around, though, as they published Dragon Quest IX under their name and heavily marketed the title to make it one of the best-selling games of July 2010 in the US.
- This is likely a reason the games targeted by Operation Rainfall didn't initially make it over despite the trend not actually applying to the Wii and JRPG titles on the Wii frequently outperforming their original Japanese release. The reversal may be due to the fact that a significant portion of the US Wii owner base feel like their system is inundated with shovelware and Casual Games, and leaping on anything "more hardcore" like ten-thousand starving hyenas on the corpse of the last gazelle in the universe.
- Cait Sith was never the most popular character in FFVII, in no small part due to his Jerkassery in the beginning of the game, and the fact that his Limit Break relies on pure dumb luck. And then he started speaking in Advent Children, itself a Base Breaker movie, with a very poor Scottish accent. Many fans from Scotland, and Britain in general (ironically, since the voice actor was British himself), were not amused. In a Famitsu poll for best video game characters held in 2010, the characters from Final Fantasy VII that made the cut were Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Sephiroth, Zack...and Yuffie, who, while not nearly as disliked as she used to be, is still a semi-Base Breaker in the US.
- Sprite-based games are appreciated in Japan about as much as high-quality 3D-graphic games, and Hand-drawn sprites are common. However, they are generally seen as "Primitive" or "SNES sprites" outside of Japan, unless that is, they were an Indie game, or handheld game.
- With a few exceptions like Russia and the Baltics, Super Mario games have been sold poorly in post-Soviet states. This is because Nintendo did not have a presence in the post-Soviet states, and until 2011 when Nintendo entered the market of post-Soviet states, many post-Soviet states' distributors include pirated multicarts (including Mario as one of them).
- Mexicans really hate T. Hawk in Street Fighter, perhaps because he's apparently supposed to be Mexican but obviously isn't. El Fuerte has become some sort of inverse Replacement Scrappy. The Jamaican kickboxer Dee Jay, who was added to the Street Fighter II roster under the suggestion of American playtester James Goddard, is beloved by the North American fanbase (and also in his home country). In Japan, he rarely appears, and when he does, he doesn't do much of anything. Humourously enough, Dee Jay and T. Hawk both happen to be the only new characters from Super Street Fighter II left out from the console versions of Street Fighter IV (which included Cammy and Fei-Long); however, both ended up returning in Super Street Fighter IV.
- Nintendo has a long time had a troubled history in South Korea. You have World War II and Japan's war crimes against Korea, and then you have a ban on Japanese cultural products which lasted until between 1998 and 2004. As a result, Nintendo games other than those for the Nintendo Switch have generally sold poorly in South Korea compared to Japan, English-speaking countries, continental Europe and Hong Kong, and South Koreans don't have the same nostalgia as people in other countries do.
- Speaking of Street Fighter... Blaz Blue! 2D, check. Visual Novel story mode, check. Anime graphics, check. Released in the same year as Street Fighter IV, check. It's a new series compared to Street Fighter, check. 12 characters that control like 12 different fighting games combined into one, check. While Japaneses love it, Americans, mainly Street Fighter fans hate it because it looks like anime, something mainstream American audiences hate, or maybe just because it dares to compete with Street Fighter! Don't even mention Guilty Gear veterans, it doesn't help.
- Mortyr (2093 - 1944), a Polish WW2 FPS (with a strange Time Travel element in it) spoiled the Polish press in its day, while it was regarded as a laughing stock abroad (Penny Arcade notably took a jab at this game on this strip). In somewhat of a contrast, however, its sequel got some flak from the Polish press this time around (didn't help that Poland had SOMETHING at the time), while some foreign reviewers regard it as passable at best.
- Raiden wasn't as hated in Japan as much as he was in America and Europe when Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty first came out. Most of the complaints players had in Japan wasn't with Raiden himself per se, but from not being able to play as Solid Snake. This is probably because being Bishounen, as Raiden is, isn't as big of a deal to Japanese gamers, whereas it tends to put off American gamers (this is evident by the amount of homophobic insults that were thrown at his character). It helps that Kenyuu Horiuchi, Raiden's Japanese VA, actually made him sound like a real adult (giving him a voice almost as deep as Akio Ohtsuka's performance as Solid Snake) instead of the approach that Quinton Flynn went with.
- Mighty Kongman/Bruiser Khang is very popular among Japanese Tales of Destiny fans, especially after his personality got expanded in the game's remake, where he becomes something of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. But since many of these Tales remakes and spinoffs never leave Japan, North American audiences, meanwhile, get stuck with the Jerkass Khang seen in the Play Station version, and don't understand why he's appeared in so many spinoffs.
- Emil Castagnier of Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World also has a case of this. In the 5th Tales of Character Popularity Poll (in Japan), Emil came in 12th (out of every character in every Tales game). The majority of overseas fans hate him for being whiny, cowardly, effeminate and annoying. It certainly doesn't help that up until a certain point, in every fight he has to rely on his Super-Powered Evil Side to fight for him. These flaws are ironically also present in Luke fon Fabre of Tales of the Abyss who is well recieved by American fans, although he doesn't suffer the same hate due to being a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass whose annoying factors are overcome sooner... That said, there are some American fans who want to give Emil a hug.
- Similarly, Reala from Tales of Destiny 2 does not have many western fans. As well as her ridiculously girly appearance (which is so unrealistically thin that it reaches Uncanny Valley levels), there's the fact that her story makes many western fans cry Mary Sue: She's a one-woman Spotlight-Stealing Squad who also happens to be the daughter of a goddess, on a mission to find a "hero", who is doomed to be erased from time if she kills her mother, but comes Back From the Dead anyway just so she can be with Kyle. Japan is far more tolerant of her.
- Final Fantasy VIII:
- Rinoa is a very popular character and a pop culture icon in Japan. In the West, she's something of The Scrappy.
- Similarly, Kairi of Kingdom Hearts (and her counterparts Namine and Xion, though the latter isn't entirely played straight in this regard...) is more popular in Japan as well than in the US (to the point where Nomura worried that Aqua wouldn't become as well-received as she is because she was different from Kairi, Namine, and Xion; a notion that's laughable in the West) but that's most likely because the Yaoi Fangirls in Japan are much less vocal about their feelings.
- In fact, a search of popular Japanese fanart sites turns up little to no pictures bashing Kairi or the other girls (contrast to US sites like Deviantart...), even from yaoi fangirls. Instead, you will find a lot of pictures that pair them up together instead. Kairi/Namine, Namine/Xion, Kairi/Xion, or Kairi/Namine/Xion...it's all over the place there.
- Sora too. He's the most popular character of the series in Japan (after all, he's the protagonist), but is a Base Breaker in America.
- Likewise, Tidus from Final Fantasy X is very popular in Japan, but in the west he's a divisive figure, mostly because he looks exactly like actress Meg Ryan. And because he spends most of the game whining, which is only made worse by James Arnold Taylor's over-the-top delivery.
- Final Fantasy XII's Vaan is widely hated in the west, and Square-Enix's Executive Meddling to make him the protagonist is criticised. In Japan, he has enough of a fanbase to get him big roles in two spin-offs and added into Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy.
- The Tower of Druaga is very popular in Japan, spawning numerous sequels, spin-offs, an anime, and even its own amusement park attraction. Westerners who have played this game view it as a sluggish, obtuse exercise in frustration.
- The Monster Hunter series, despite being one of the most popular gaming franchises of all time in Japan, has only established a small, dedicated following in North America. Many Western gamers dislike the games' emphasis on Item Crafting and Level Grinding.
- Slippy Toad of Star Fox is actually pretty popular in Japan. It's the North American fans that despise him, mostly for being a cross between a Stop Helping Me! and The Load. His whiny, irritating voice doesn't exactly help. "Fox, get this guy off me! Thanks, Fox!... Fox, get this guy off me!" That said, however, he did start getting some Western fans by the late 2000s thanks in large part to his codec conversation with Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- Jigglypuff in Super Smash Bros Brawl is disliked because some fans felt it should have been dropped from the roster of Brawl instead of their personal favourite Melee characters (like Roy and Mewtwo). This despite the fact that Jigglypuff is popular in Japan, is the Lethal Joke Character (or used to be) and that it was a main character since the first game.
- Pokémon:
- Lyra from HeartGold and SoulSilver, while fairly popular in her home country, there are many Western fans who hate her for her Moe appearance, and others who hate her simply for not being Kris, although she still has supporters.
- General opinions on the creatures themselves differ in Japan and America. Japanese fans tend towards the "cuter" Mons such as Pikachu (the series mascot) and Jigglypuff, while American fans tend to prefer the Badass types such as Charizard, Mewtwo, Rayquaza and whatever new uber-powerful legendaries are being hyped at the moment.
- Legendaries aren't immune either. In Japan, Reshiram is the more popular of the two Generation V legendaries, and Pokémon Black (where you obtain Reshiram) sells more than Pokémon White (where you obtain Zekrom). In the US, it's the opposite: Zekrom is the more popular and White sells more than Pokemon Black, while Reshiram is a Base Breaker.
- Hydlide and its sequels are well-loved in Japan, but in America it's seen as a piece of crap. The fact that the NES port screwed up the menu system, not to mention being released in North America after better games of the genre (Zelda) were out didn't help. This was Lampshaded by The Angry Video Game Nerd in his review of the game.
- Another Code, known as Twisted Memories in America, is a game published in Japan. While it has seen fans in Europe, any attempts to sell the game into the Anglosphere are doomed to fail so the Wii sequel Another Code R has only seen releases in Japan and Europe (but not in North America or Australia), so therefore out of luck.
- In the Sengoku Basara universe, the Japanese fans certainly love Oichi and she is pretty much the Ensemble Darkhorse of a series seemingly tailored for Yaoi Fangirls. In America? She's considered a useless whiny emo girl, made even worse by the fact that the only 'English' SB franchise that features her and can be reached by western audiences is the anime (fansubbed), which downplays her powers severely.
Oichi: This is Ichi's fault... |
- The X Box and Xbox 360 have dismal sales figures in Japan, although Microsoft is hell-bent on turning this around by obtaining exclusive titles that appeal to Japanese audiences. The Game Overthinker points out that this is because the systems are considered (on both sides of the Pacific) to be delivery platforms for FPS games, which leads into...
- First person shooters are, in general, a niche genre in Japan. While they are gaining a cult following there (perhaps comparable to JRPGs in the West), nobody is under any impression that the next Modern Warfare game will outsell Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Also to a lesser extent in Europe.
- Ironically, this trope ended up inverted with the Xbox X and S series, where the Japanese actually prefer that system over the PlayStation 5 despite their history of loving PlayStation consoles. This was largely because of the Japanese being sour towards the PlayStation series of consoles parent company Sony's infamous censorship policies that had been occurring around the time of the PlayStation 5's release that had a tendency to target Japanese-made games exclusively (particularly if they're anime based) all while their hypocritically shoveling similar filth with their own Western-made games such as The Last of Us 2.
- The Dynasty Warriors series of games are huge sellers in Japan. But they merely have a cult following in America and the UK.
- Fire Emblem:
- While the games set in Marth's world are loved in Japan with the third game being heralded as the very best, the rest of the world sees them as some of the weakest parts in the series.
- On that note, the 4th entry in the series is widely considered one of the best, if not THE best, game in the series by western fans. In Japan, it recieved the lowest Famitsu score of any game in the series. Oh, and Sword of Seals, tied for higest score, is not all that well liked in the west either. In fact, if you want the general western opinion on the series, put those scores in order from highest to lowest, then reverse the list.
- One of the reasons of this is the series was mostly unknown outside of some emulators until the 21st century, and the games set in Marth's world are often given Nostalgia Filter treatment or "I liked this world the best". Most non Japanese players started out with the adventures of Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector though (some with Celice or Roy's via Emulation, and Ike or the Twins for late joiners) and when they saw the old games, they had been a little spoiled, for various reasons.
- The series in general used to have a bit of this to the West, though less "hate" and more "ignorance". A combination of No Export for You for over a decade, an anime styled RPG (which are less popular in the West) and a Strategy RPG as that (which makes players afraid to try since "it sounds too complicated". They aren't completely wrong, though,) as well as the fact that later and more advanced series were ported before most of Fire Emblem was, make this series mostly an unknown to the West, except from big RPG and Strategy fans. Japan? It's not Dragon Quest, but it's up there and is the second Nintendo series with most fanart on Pixiv. Note the first is Pokémon, the only series to outdo Fire Emblem on Loads and Loads of Characters. Now you know why 99% of Fire Emblem-based jokes used to focus on Marth, Roy and Ike's Super Smash Bros appearances, until Fire Emblem Awakening was licensed in the West and it became a gigantic hit...
- Twisted Metal is extremely popular in America but poorly-received everywhere else, where it is considered to be brainless and requiring no strategy. A good example of this is when the PlayStation 3 sequel closed Sony's E3 2010 conference, where it was considered a crowd pleaser by American gamers and bad everywhere else, especially France, possibly because TM2 let you blow up the Eiffel Tower.
- In Corpse Party, Ayumi is usually on the top of the polls in Japan. In America, she's the Damsel Scrappy.
- The King of Fighters characters Ash Crimson and Benimaru Nikaido are off-putting to some western audiences, both due to their mannerisms (Benimaru evokes imagery of stereotypical gay men and Ash has some very effeminate quirks). Likely this is caused by the opinion that a fighting game character should look like they could actually hold their own in a fight, of which both characters do not exude.
- Cream the Rabbit is a popular enough character in Japan that she's become a mainstay in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, whereas in the west she is hated almost as much as Big the Cat. A likely reason is because Cream behaves in a Yamato Nadeshiko kind of way: Ultra-polite, submissive, and somewhat withdrawn. Also, she has a really high-pitched voice. These same traits makes her irritating to many western gamers.
- While Gundam Breaker Mobile received mixed-to-average reviews in Japan, The international release (named as Gundam Battle Gunpla Warfare) received mainly negative reactions from a reasonable number of international Gundam fans, citing it as a "kusoge (shitty game)".
- While Crash Bandicoot remains beloved in Japan to this day, Spyro the Dragon on the other hand isn't. This was most likely because of the Japanese version of the first Spyro game having a broken camera system among other things. This led to Spyro 3 (which saw a release in Japan nearly 20 years later through the Reigned Trilogy) and most of Spyro's games not seeing a release in Japan, with the exception of Spyro Orange (as it was a crossover with Crash) until the first SkyLanders game.
- Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS: While she was a Base Breaker in the West regarding her actions, Lanzhu Zhong, a Token Minority character, is hated by a fair number of Hong Kong fans due to her being a misrepresentation of the country's people (as she also uses Mandarin Chinese frequently), and the fact that the countrymen still insists that HK is it's own identity instead of being part of China at the time.
- BanG Dream! Girls Band Party: Kurata Mashiro, a member of Morfonica, is hated by parts of the international fanbase due to her character's whiny and immature personality, plus Shindou Amane's performance being viewed as "unsuited" to the character.
Western Animation[]
- Most American, Canadian or European girl-focused animated series that attract boys in America are niche at best (or sell terribly) in Japan (with a few exceptions, such as My Little Pony). This is because Japan already has a long tradition of animated Shoujo anime such as Sailor Moon and Pretty Cure.
- Preschool shows with fake interactivity like Dora the Explorer never gained popularity in Japan due to in fact that Japanese children do not like to talk down to by people. For example, when Dora aired on TV Tokyo it was the lowest-rated animated show on television.
- In East Asia, Disney Junior is a hard sell in Japan and South Korea. Much of the Disney Junior content is a hard sell in both countries, and is never popular in both Japan and South Korea among preschoolers. The main reasons are Values Dissonance and difficulties in terms of Cultural Translation. Exceptions included Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor, where both of them are popular in Japan and South Korea among preschoolers. On the other hand, Disney Junior was popular in Hong Kong and worked well there, mainly due to its exposure to British colonialism and Westernisation.
- Hanna-Barbera was never popular in German-speaking countries, save for Wacky Races, Yogi Bear, etc. Yes, given the country's history of authoritarianism, and also due to Moral Guardians, many of Hanna-Barbera shows are a hard sell in Germany.
- Just like the Shoujo anime example above, girl shows from Disney Television Animation and Cartoon Network sell terribly in Iceland for obvious reasons. Steven Universe and Star vs. the Forces of Evil performed worse than Adventure Time and Gravity Falls. Amphibia did better in Iceland, however.
- Within Canada, Caillou is never popular outside of its native province of Quebec which is in French Canada. However, it sees many hate in the United States, where American parents hate the show for teaching kids such a bad behaviour.
- In India, there was mass protest over Clone High's portrayal of Gandhi as a womanizing party-freak where in America he has achieved meme status. He wasn't actually meant to be the real Gandhi anyway, but a clone who acted that way because he had to live down the intense pressure put on him from being the clone of such a great man. Apparently for a lot of Indians, though, the irreverence in his portrayal was just a bit too strong.
- There was an episode of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy called "Shoo Ed" that lampshaded this, where the Eds train Johnny to be the most annoying person in the world so they can charge the kids to get rid of him. However Rolf, the immigrant kid practically falls in love with him. Even taking his belching in stride: "You are full of pickles and beets today, my friend." Double D's response to this is the page quote.
- This has happened to the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Japan. While the 1987 Turtles were very popular back then, the Japanese audiences were expecting the newer Turtles to be like the 1987 Turtles and got Darker and Edgier Turtles instead. The newer cartoon didn't catch on and 52 episodes were dubbed before it got canceled.
- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic sells terribly in Romania and is also frequently attacked by Romanians (giving the show a bad reputation there), due to being seen as a girly cartoon (even though it is originally targeted at a unisex audience), and also due to poor quality dubbing Romania has done.
- An in-universe example in The Critic when Jay's writing staff said the first two "Ghostchasers" films didn't do well in Italy (not saying much that Jay hated those films). Maybe because they translated the title to "Your Mother Has A Hairy Back". Cut to Italians rioting the cinema. Also, "Ghostchasers Underpants" didn't do well in Mexico as hoped.
- In the United States, Nickelodeon goes toe-to-toe with Disney Channel as the top performing kids channel, but it many countries, Disney Channel and sometimes, even Cartoon Network is far more popular. This is especially true in Denmark and Poland, where Nickelodeon is in dead-last place. Taken Up to Eleven in Turkey and Japan, where the channel was outright shut down. (Though shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Chalk Zone, and Ka Blam! are quite popular in the latter, to the point of being the opposite to this trope.)
- An In-Universe example of this occurred in The Simpsons in the episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled", mixed with Replacement Scrappy. Due to Krusty losing out Itchy and Scratchy to the newly aired competing children's show icon Gabbo, he decided to replace them with the show Worker and Parasite, which was apparently popular enough in Eastern Europe that Krusty called them "Eastern Europe's Cat and Mouse Team." In America... let's just say that Krusty airing the show ended up being the very last thing his show went through before being cancelled.
- The Japanese outright hated Megatron in Beast Wars largely thanks to the Japanese dub infamously rewriting his character for the worse in order to add more humor. How worse you might ask? Well, in Canada, his show's country of origin, Megatron was a quintessential Evil Is Cool Dangerously Genre Savvy Magnificent Bastard who in several episodes, most notably the season finales for all except for the final season either outright won against the heroes or otherwise had a near villain victory. In Japan, they made him the complete opposite, a manic and bumbling idiot who when startled and/or shot at was known to scream like a little girl.
- Vampirina, a Disney Junior show, is one of the cutest shows in the United States and generally aims at a unisex audience, but it sold terribly outside of English-speaking countries. One factor is because it contains some Halloween content that is not very known well outside of the Anglosphere, like trick-or-treating, being present in the show (especially, those in Hong Kong and Japan, were the show sold terribly due to trick-or-treating not very well known there). Another factor is because some countries see the show as "girly", especially in countries like Romania, even though vampires are generally very well known there. On the other hand, Vampirina did well in several countries of Western Europe, like France and the United Kingdom for example.
Other[]
- Bonfire Night is popular in the UK, New Zealand and in South Africa. Elsewhere in the Anglosphere, Bonfire Night is seen as a symbol of British colonial rule and thus was eradicated from holiday calendars of Australia, Canada, India among others. In case of Australia, Bonfire Night has since replaced by both Halloween and "Cracker Night" -- the latter being a continuation of it, only to be eradicated in the mid-1990s and its assets are merged into the former. In case of India, Bonfire Night has since replaced by Diwali.
- Japan, outside of the Greater Tokyo Area, really doesn't like buses in general. Most Japanese citizens outside of Tokyo commute by train or drive to work, unlike in Hong Kong (in case of Hong Kong, they had the higher use of buses than Japan, thanks to a campaign promoting public transport there).
- Railways are this in Iceland. The country has a difficult terrain and made railways a hard sell there.
- Hong Kongers outright hated high-speed rail, seeing it as a symbol of "authoritarianism" and communist China.
- Homeschooling is an education style that educates school-aged children at home, but outside of the Anglosphere, homeschooling was never popular. For example, in Germany, it is not allowed to educate your child at home (you need to send your child to school if you live in Germany), while in France, homeschooling is heavily regulated. In Japan, school attendance is compulsory but the fine for non-attendance is rarely applied and amounts to less than ten thousand yen. Japanese authorities may encourage futoko (school refusal) children to receive schooling in alternative ways including home education.
- Credit cards are small plastic cards that are issued by banks, societies, etc. While credit cards are popular in English-speaking countries, many people in continental Europe and Asia shove them in favour of cash and debit cards.
References[]
- ↑ In fact, there's at least a few American-based websites dedicated to Hummer hate (one is made entirely of user-submitted pictures of people flipping hummers off).
- ↑ Greta Garbo was reported to have hated the ending of the movie and even yelled "Give Me Back My Beast!"
- ↑ In the original story, Ariel doesn't get a happy ending and if anything doesn't even survive the tale.