History Main / ImportFilter

* An interesting twist on this in TheSixties was that British artists like Music/TheRollingStones and Music/EricClapton were [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff far more into traditional American blues and R&B]] than Americans were. For many Americans, their first introduction into authentic blues were hearing the Stones and Clapton doing covers of classic tracks. This led to a significant revival of interest in the US, but the oft-titled "[[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]]" was really, in many ways, just American music being played by British guys.

* Restaurant chains that expand to other countries will be positioned as more upmarket than in their home countries, even fast food places like UsefulNotes/McDonalds and UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken.

** The breakdown of this trope is at least part of the reason why UsefulNotes/TheJapaneseInvasion began to grind to a halt in the late naughties. The internet fandom communities that popped up in the prior two decades were now big enough to bring many more Japanese series to the US... and they began to realize just ''why'' certain shows weren't imported. People not only began to realize not only that Japanese animation ''wasn't'' inherently superior to American animation[[note]]and the fact that American animation was starting to leave one of its intermittent {{Dork Age}}s at that very time also helped[[/note]], they also began to see that anime had its own assorted tropes and cliches, which were made more apparent once the novelty wore off and they could witness a broader, more representative cross-section of it.

* In France, even with the geographical proximity, the only kinds of German films that tend to get released in theaters are usually UsefulNotes/WorldWarII / UsefulNotes/NaziGermany dramas, dramas about EastGermany and [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell Ostalgie]], and Fatih Akın's films. While those are generally of high quality, they don't reflect the diversity of genres of German cinema (comedies especially, good or bad ones alike).

Compare NostalgiaFilter, a similar effect applied across temporal rather than physical/cultural distance. Can easily lead to a case of GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff.

** Applies even to {{Fan sub}}s. Not everything will get a fan sub, and it's more likely that the crap nobody watched ''because'' it was crap will fail to generate the interest a decent anime might.

* American music is very popular in the UK and Europe. Of course, for every [[Music/NoDoubt Gwen Stefani]], Music/{{Kesha}}, Music/FooFighters or [[Music/FiftyCent 50 Cent]] that makes it across UsefulNotes/ThePond, there's a dozen that sink along the way under the weight of their own awfulness.

** This misconception is NOT helped by all the good [=JRPG=]s on that console which had to be fan-translated for lack of an official release, such as ''VideoGame/FrontMission1'', ''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'', ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', and ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' also received a fan-translation; but it ''was'' released in Europe.

* ''Creator/{{Sunsoft}}'' was basically a whole microcosm of this phenomenon. During 1986-1994 they were considered in the West to be part of the big publishers such as ''Creator/{{Nintendo}}'', ''Creator/{{Konami}}'' and ''Creator/{{Capcom}}''. In Japan they were considered to be a shovelware company and had there a reputation that is about as prolific as the one ''Data Design Interactive'' was having in the West. This is largely because a lot of their debut games (such as the ''Nazooler Land'' series) were bad enough to never be exported in the West and a few of their good Western releases (such as the NES game ''Freedom Force'') [[NoExportForYou never got a release in Japan]].

** This misconception is NOT helped by all the good [=JRPG=]s on that console which had to be fan-translated for lack of an official release, such as ''VideoGame/FrontMission'', ''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'', ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', and ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' also received a fan-translation; but it ''was'' released in Europe.

Production companies aren't going to want to deal with all this for things that aren't likely to sell well. This is the essence of the ImportFilter -- imported works come with even more pre-screening than domestic works that see general release. In some sense, this is "skimming the cream" -- picking out the 10% of everything that SturgeonsLaw tells us is ''not'' crud. It's more complicated than that, though. Some types of work may be aimed at a particular UsefulNotes/{{subculture}} in the importing country, and therefore the ones that end up getting imported will be the ones fit that subculture's expectations. It's not uncommon that the bulk of this work will come from a specified [[ShowGenres genre]]. Whether this is good or bad depends on whether you belong to that subculture, or at least whether you like the same things.

!!Examples of the ImportFilter at work:

* Due to the sheer work involved in translating a VisualNovel[[note]]At the very least, you need someone willing to translate hundreds, usually thousands of kilobytes of pure text (Think Notepad file, not Microsoft Word file) and someone willing to hack the engine. Ideally, you should also have an image editor for those pesky menu icons and still images, and an editor to both check for mistakes and help make the text flow naturally in English. They all have to be motivated to spend their free time for the sake of one VisualNovel for months if not years.[[/note]] and the obscurity of the medium as a whole, especially in the FanTranslation scene, ImportFilter applies. Oddly enough, it is stronger for fan translators than official visual novel localization companies because the many of the more famous VisualNovel creators such as Creator/AliceSoft or Creator/KeyVisualArts are unwilling to sell licenses officially and because PornWithoutPlot [[HGame H-Games]] [[SexSells sell easily]] without requiring a lot of work in translation. This is changing as digital distribution allows publishers to take chances on more obscure game genres such as visual novels, and more of them are getting official translations, even ones that most people thought had no chance of making it stateside, including ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}''.

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

[[folder:{{Music}}]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]

[[folder:VisualNovel]]

[[folder:RealLife]]

** This misperception is NOT helped by all the good [=JRPG=]s on that console which had to be fan-translated for lack of an official release, such as ''VideoGame/FrontMission'', ''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'', ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', and ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' also received a fan-translation; but it ''was'' released in Europe.

** {{Fan sub}}bing is a sort of unofficial filter for anime because of this; there are many series that are thought to have been official imported because the popularity they gathered through fan subbing.

** The breakdown of this trope is at least part of the reason why UsefulNotes/TheJapaneseInvasion began to grind to a halt in the late naughties. The internet fandom communities that popped up in the prior two decades were now big enough to bring many more Japanese series to the US... and they began to realize just ''why'' certain shows weren't imported. People not only began to realize that not every Japanese animation ''wasn't'' inherently superior to American animation, they also began to see that anime had its own assorted tropes and cliches, which were made more apparent once the novelty wore off and they could witness a broader, more representative cross-section of it.

* The import filter (in combination with the NostalgiaFilter) is why many US JRPG lovers who had an SNES tend to think of the 16-bit era as some sort of JRPG Golden Age. In truth, the Super Famicom had as many middling-to-bad [=JRPG=]s as any other system; the U.S. was just lucky, in a sense, that most of the crap never got to the SNES during the system's lifespan.
** This mis-perception is NOT helped by all the good [=JRPG=]s which got fan-translated, such as ''VideoGame/FrontMission'', ''VideoGame/BahamutLagoon'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'', ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', and ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' also received a fan-translation; but it ''was'' released in Europe.
** Note that the US thinks that domestical [=RPGs=] entered a sort of dark age on the SNES, with awful games like ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder'' and ''Obitus''.

** And then there was Bush, a London band who were [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff popular in the States but never made it in their home country]]. While {{Oasis}} were trying to crack America and being promoted as "the new Bush", Bush were trying to crack Britain and being promoted as "the next Oasis"...

** WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCU8F_8ffAQ feels]] that this is the reason why Americans have such a high opinion of British pop music. He admits that, when it's good (like Music/TheBeatles, Music/EllieGoulding, or Music/{{Adele}}), it rivals anything America has to offer. However, he also feels that, as bad as Americans think they have it with their own awful pop music, at least they never had to suffer through the Cheeky Girls, Crazy Frog, Jedward, or the slew of ''[[Series/TheXFactor X-Factor]]'' runners-up (at least, those not named Music/OneDirection, Olly Murs, or Music/CherLloyd).

Production companies aren't going to want to deal with all this for things that aren't likely to sell well. This is the essence of the ImportFilter -- imported works come with even more pre-screening than domestic works that see general release. In some sense, this is "skimming the cream" -- picking out the 10% of everything that SturgeonsLaw tells us is ''not'' crud. It's more complicated than that, though. Some types of work may be aimed at a particular {{subculture}} in the importing country, and therefore the ones that end up getting imported will be the ones fit that subculture's expectations. It's not uncommon that the bulk of this work will come from a specified [[ShowGenres genre]]. Whether this is good or bad depends on whether you belong to that subculture, or at least whether you like the same things.

Most of a given country's creative output is produced for the consumption of people living in that country. This is especially true when there's a language barrier involved; translation is [[BlindIdiotTranslation hard work]]. For comedy, doubly so. Even if two countries share a language, there are [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage other complications involved with importing a creative work]]. For movies and TV shows, RegionCoding may necessitate a new DVD release. For VideoGames, two countries may have different versions of the same console. MoralGuardians and viewers in your country [[ValuesDissonance may get upset]] about aspects of the work that are taken for granted or even welcomed in the country of origin. Some parts may need changing [[CulturalTranslation just to make sense]]. There's always the risk that the viewing public still won't get it. And this isn't even getting into dealing with [[ScrewedByTheLawyers international copyright law]], finding a distributor, and innumerable other headaches with moving a work from one country to another.

* An interesting twist on this in TheSixties was that British artists like Music/TheRollingStones and Music/EricClapton were [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff far more into traditional American blues and R&B]] than Americans were. For many Americans, their first introduction into authentic blues were hearing the Stones and Clapton doing covers of classic tracks. This led to a significant revival of interest in the US, but the oft-titled "[[TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]]" was really, in many ways, just American music being played by British guys.

* Despite the games not being sold, this is why a lot of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' [[GameMod hackers]] tend to think of Japanese hacks as being interesting or better than those from elsewhere, because only the best hacks get shown on Youtube or English speaking sites. People see stuff like BrutalMario, the VIP series and various others being played by raocow and such like and think Japanese hacks are better as a whole, without realising how many mediocre ones are just left to rot on fairly unknown websites. Doesn't help that there's no Japanese SMW Central equivalent to keep them all in one place.

* American music is very popular in the UK and Europe. Of course, for every [[Music/NoDoubt Gwen Stefani]], Music/{{Kesha}}, Music/FooFighters or [[Music/FiftyCent 50 Cent]] that makes it across ThePond, there's a dozen that sink along the way under the weight of their own awfulness.

* Due to the sheer work involved in translating a VisualNovel[[note]]At the very least, you need someone willing to translate hundreds, usually thousands of kilobytes of pure text (Think Notepad file, not Microsoft Word file) and someone willing to hack the engine. Ideally, you should also have an image editor for those pesky menu icons and still images, and an editor to both check for mistakes and help make the text flow naturally in English. They all have to be motivated to spend their free time for the sake of one VisualNovel for months if not years.[[/note]] and the obscurity of the medium as a whole, especially in the FanTranslation scene, ImportFilter applies. Oddly enough, it is stronger for fan translators than official visual novel localization companies because the many of the more famous VisualNovel creators such as Creator/AliceSoft or Creator/KeyVisualArts are unwilling to sell licenses officially and because PornWithoutPlot [[HGame H-Games]] [[SexSells sell easily]] without requiring a lot of work in translation.

** The breakdown of this trope is at least part of the reason why UsefulNotes/TheJapaneseInvasion began to grind to a halt in UsefulNotes/TheNewTens. The internet fandom communities that popped up in the prior two decades were now big enough to bring many more Japanese series to the US... and they began to realize just ''why'' certain shows weren't imported. People not only began to realize that not every Japanese animation ''wasn't'' inherently superior to American animation, they also began to see that anime had its own assorted tropes and cliches, which were made more apparent once the novelty wore off and they could witness a broader, more representative cross-section of it.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:{{Music}}]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:VisualNovel]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* ''Creator/{{Sunsoft}}'' was basically a whole microcosm of this phenomenon. During 1986-1994 they were considered in the West to be part of the big publishers such as ''Creator/{{Nintendo}}'', ''Creator/{{Konami}}'' and ''Creator/{{Capcom}}''. In Japan they were considered to be a shovelware company and had there a reputation that is about as prolific as the one ''Data Design Interactive'' was having in the West. This is largely due to the fact that a lot of their debut games (such as the ''Nazooler Land'' series) were bad enough to never be exported in the West and due to the fact that a few of their good Western releases (such as the NES game ''Freedom Force'') [[NoExportForYou never got a release in Japan]].

** To a lesser extent, this also happens the other way round. Americans may hear {{Radiohead}}, Music/{{Muse}} and Music/{{Blur}} and sing the praises of British rock, but how many of them have honestly listened to EnterShikari or The Twang?

* This also applies to Canadian television. While shows like ''Series/CornerGas'', ''NorthOf60'', ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'', ''Series/TrailerParkBoys'', ''Series/{{Beachcombers}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheRaccoons'' all attain fanbases ranging from cult followings to genuine (if modest) popularity in English Canada, they occasionally hit it really big in the United States, with ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' being a major example. Incidentally, ''Red Green'' has become a major source for Creator/{{PBS}} [[{{Telethon}} pledge drives]] in the U.S., with the actual cast of the show appearing to drum up support. Meanwhile, as with film, French Canadians actively consume their own domestic work, most notably in Quebec.

* American music is very popular in the UK and Europe. Of course, for every [[NoDoubt Gwen Stefani]], Music/{{Kesha}}, Music/FooFighters or [[FiftyCent 50 Cent]] that makes it across ThePond, there's a dozen that sink along the way under the weight of their own awfulness.