This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
—Amended the bit about "most" of China's 5 million plus World Of Warcraft audience (numbers by the article) players being gold farmers. Last I checked, most middle-easterners don't walk around with bomb-vests, and most Americans actually can point out Iraq on a world map. This, believe it or not, is the same.
Morgan Wick: Okay, can someone explain the title?
Andyroid: I dunno. It seemed like someone was gonna shoot for calling this trope Big in Japan, but changed their mind at the last second. Personally, I like the name Big in Japan.
osh: It was a catchphrase Norm Macdonald would work into Saturday Night Live skits where he played the newscaster. Too obscure?
Grev: Not really, but I'd either go with Andyroid's suggestion or go with the even more obscure Genius In France (a Weird Al song)...
How about "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong"?
Ununnilium: If we're going to change the name of this trope, I'd go with Big in Japan; however, I don't think the current name is bothersome enough to change.
Seth: It wouldn't be if someone would write a paragraph like
Susan Davis: So, is there consensus for renaming this to Big in Japan? Or should we leave well enough alone?
Ununnilium: Took out:
- Plenty of real life examples. Germans love David Hasselhoff, the Japanese love alyssa Milano, the French love Jerry Lewis...
The real-life examples for this one don't have to be pointed out; they're the default. And "X loves Y" needs more details behind it, or it's an annoying cliche.
Andyroid: Would whoever keeps adding Bandit Keith at least learn to spell? *bangs head* I swear I'm this close to a rant about the Internet letting people get away with being annoying.
spell what?
Prodigal Python: I remember reading the Super Goof comics when I was younger, but what's this about Mickey as a detective and Donald as a Gentleman Thief? Where can I find those comics?
Tulling: "Donald as a Gentleman Thief" probably refers to a certain version of the character created in Italia. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperinik
for info. There are also italian-produced MM comics featuring him as a detective, and he is also frequently depicted that way in comics produced by the Danish Egmont publishing house for weekly publication in several countries.
This Troper is amazed that Mickey is NOT a detective in america. He always thought that the "Lustiges Taschenbuch" was a global thing. Also, in them, only Donald (and in really old issues Goofy after eating magical peanuts) gets to be a superhero, most of the times without super villains. He also was never a thief in them, just in the beginning an avenger against those who treated him wrong and now an usual hero. By the way, in a story spanning the newest 4 issues (2 March 09) Donald got another secret identity, agent Doppel Duck (Double Duck), but this seems to be just an one shot thing.
If some of you understand german and would like to read one of them, as far as I remember you can order them online. But beware: Only Goofy, Mickey and Donald have the same name as in america, about every other character is named differently (example: John D. Rockerduck = Klaas Klever, Fethry Duck = Dussel Duck and so on) (this doesn't make it easier for this troper to read tv tropes entries which refer to the duck-verse)
This Troper adds that Mickey was a detective in America in the old days. He was a freelance sleuth on and off in the great Floyd Gottfredson comics of the 1930s and 40s, then became a detective almost all the time in comics from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. These later stories were the serial type most typically drawn by Paul Murry and Jack Bradbury, which you'll know from the "Micky Maus" weekly of the same era. People are nostalgic for them in Europe, but in the original English versions, the personality of Mickey is frightfully boring, and Goofy terribly stupid in a predictable way... it's like Freddy and Shaggy on their own in a weak Scooby-Doo episode.
The weak American Mickey detective comics spun off better Italian and Egmont Mickey detective stories that continue today. The few modern American-produced Mickey stories in recent years, by contrast, have continued to show him fighting crooks and villains, but he's never a career detective anymore. This is why Americans don't perceive him as one.
Dr Dedman: Animag was an American Anime magazine from back in the old days. Animage is the Japanese one (but Newtype is the one with the character poll). Re-corrected, the American poll went Kei/Yuri, contemporary Japanese polls were always Yuri/Kei (though I don't know if they ever got near rankings 1 and 2).
Sly Reference: I just wanted to point out that the quote seems to be a misquote. Tom Waits did do a song called Big in Japan, but the lyrics sheets don't have the quoted line in it. There's another song called Big in Japan that did have that line, but it's by an 80s Europop group called Alphaville.
Ununnilium: Apparently, some Unknown Troper changed it to Tom Waits. Changing it back.
Later: ...and again. >>
Coolnut: Took out:
- In an inversion, in the US, the Dragon Quest series is largely a footnote in Roleplaying Games. (The fifth and sixth installments never even saw an English release.) In its native Japan, it's the highest-selling game series of all time across all genres (in fact, it's against the law to release a new game on weekdays in order to prevent mass amounts of people from skipping work and school). In Lucky Star, Kagami, who usually plays Shooters, not Roleplaying Games, still immediately recognized a reference to Dragon Quest and had input on it.
because it doesn't really fit the trope; such "inversions" are "par for the course" for what they are concerned. They could easily overtake this wiki - we could add pachinko, NFL football, Halo, sumo wrestling, etc., etc., etc...
Nezumi: Eh, Halo is theoretically debateable, but the others have history and obvious cultural differences behind them that cause the rift in popularity. Dragon Quest doesn't. It just... never took off in the US. Even if it doesn't belong here, it's not a valid comparison.
- While it was never a massively huge ratings giant there, Buffy The Vampire Slayer seems to be at least (a smidgen) more known to "non-geeks" in Britain. Perhaps just because it was on The BBC (Two, but still) as well as Sky One and The BBC is the main network of the UK.
This seems to be a tiny difference. Not really worth the entry.
- Inversion: The Transformers franchise, originally derived from the '70s Japanese toy lines Microman and Diaclone, hasn't seen major popularity in Japan for quite some time (though how much the 2007 movie has changed that is, as of this writing, hard to find out). This editor lives in the USA, where the franchise is absolutely huge.
I don't see how this is an "inversion" or a straight example.
- Inverted with Kanon. In Japan, cousin marriage is not considered as bad as Brother–Sister Incest and in fact is common, but in the West, it's not, leaving many Western fans weirded out by the normal and even desirable treatment of Nayuki.
Again, not an inversion; this is more Values Dissonance.
- A strange exception: The aforementioned polls have put Saki from Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star far above Mai, while Western fans tend to like Mai much better.
...how is this an exception?
- This troper would like to point out that all the good bits of the Sonic franchise (that is, the early cartoons and their spinoff comics) were Western-developed and owe very little to the uneven game series. Sonic's post-Dreamcast decline and fall is due to Sega of Japan trying to reassert creative control.
...removed. This is ridiculous on so many levels. Anyways, out for being off topic, personal opinions unfounded in popular reception, etc.
Phartman: "Unfounded in popular reception," my royal ass. Off topic, absolutely, but it's hard not to notice that Sonic's popularity in non-gaming media took a huge nose-dive once it became too anime-esque. I know I stopped giving a crap after Sonic Adventure 1.
Twin Bird: I'm pretty sure the film was released as Unleashed in the US; is "Danny the Dog" Canadian or something?
Would Webcomics go here? Apparently Housepets
is fairly popular in Korea, enough that someone is doing fan translations of it.
Heroic Jay: Removed the following from a mention of Metroid:
- In Super Smash Bros Brawl, she's the only character to have fully-English voice clips in both the Japanese and American versions, in which she is voiced by Jen Taylor.
It's patently untrue; the Mario Bros. speak in their intros (admittedly, almost nowhere else), Ness and Lucas call their attacks in English (pretty clearly in Lucas's case, and he is a No Export for You victim!), and Captain Falcon both calls his attacks and taunts in English, regardless of whether you're playing the English or Japanese version.
Licky Lindsay: where did we get the idea that Naomi Campbell is the source of "big in Japan"? Can we say Older Than They Think? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase)
- Morven: Yeah. I cut it. At most, that was a revival of the saying.
Rebochan: Performed a huuuge cleanup. I also got rid of the various "This Troper" anecdotes bogging it down and moved two over to a new Troper Tales page. I'm sure more of the older ones could also go there, but I didn't want to speak for people if I had to seriously rework their entry to work by itself. Also made a new Disney section because there's so many Disney examples.
Twin Bird: Someone changed "MGMT and Orson" to "The Gossip and Orson." Um...why? Is it because MGMT is too well-known over here (it says something that, from a relatively indie-laden part of the US, I had to look up The Gossip even though I'd hear Oracular Spectacular all over the place when it first came out)? Or is it just that whoever wrote it liked The Gossip better (bad practice there)?
Twin Bird: Pulled:
- Well, actually, the band [Scissor Sisters] is named after...well...a lesbian sexual position.
Well...yes, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the trope. The band's popularity almost certainly had more influence on the nickname than the sex position, even if it's not inconceivable for them to have used it anyway.
32_Footsteps: Pulled this one:
- The Mother series is a modestly popular series in Japan but is INSANELY popular in America. Why Nintendo refuses to localize it is beyond explanation. (Although it didn't receive this popularity until after the original flopped, so, maybe they're just being cautious.) For reference, old copies of Earthbound sell for at least $100.
The Mother fandom in this country is rather insane at times (they can put Wild Mass Guessing to shame both regarding the series itself and the reasons for its lack of importing). That said, no matter how much the fansites believe otherwise, the fandom in the United States is not that large. The passion for the game is larger in the U.S., but the actual series is more popular in its native country. And as for the cost of a used copy, that's 100% the law of supply and demand - the demand isn't that high, but the supply is nearly non-existant.
For the record, the reason Nintendo doesn't localize the series is because they believe they wouldn't make a profit on it. The fandom for the series refuses to accept this, and the lack of release prevents anyone from knowing for certain one way or the other.
