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 people are probably going to be grateful for).
This trope is sometimes referred to as "Americans Hate Soccer (Football)", due to the infamous VocalHatedom 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.
See Also: Cross Cultural Kerfluffle
Tingle's role in the main series has been largely reduced; He doesn't appear in 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.
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.
General example: 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, hence the backlash that characters like Sasuke cause in the States.
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 U.S. 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 pairthe girls up together instead.)
Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion is widely disliked for being effeminate and whiny, and is actively hated by a fair portion of the international fanbase.
To an extent, this also applies to the series itself. 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.
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 Quiche. Older, perverted, male doujinshika on either side, however, share the same sentiment: Anything goes.
Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto 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 verypopular 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.
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 Genre 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 hugehatedom 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.
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 ForOur Ship mode who still carry that torch.
While non-American fans are more or less accepting of Misa Amane from Death Note, 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 (which is sort of the point, though.)
She also is extremely popular among cosplayers, due to how the items needed to make her costume are very easy to get and to make look good. In fact Francesca Dani, one of the best known cosplayers in the whole world, has Misa among her pet "outfits".
North American fans of Sailor Moon hated Chibi-usa/Rini, who was 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 mis-cast, 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.
Which is odd, since Chibi-Usa is very hated in Latin-America as well... despite having an excellent VA with a very cute and nice voice. Oh well.
With a few exceptions, shoujo anime sells terrible in America because it's seen as "girly" (or rather, because American 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.)
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 relativelystoicpersonality 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 practicallya laundrylist ofAsian/Japanesestereotypes 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 5Ds, whose Complete Monster methods are far less popular among English fans than Japanese ones.
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 atrocious dub performance, especially her songs. 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, though Your Mileage May Vary. 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
It was the price. Starbucks started the trend of expensive, 'designer', demi-gourmet coffee and had no real competition in that market apart from privately-owned coffeeshops. Australians consumers, on the other hand, took a look at the prices Starbucks was asking for coffee products they could get anywhere else and better and laughed them off the continent.
It's also possibly because of two very big aspects of modern Australian culture: support for underdogs and dislike of American-based companies. McDonald's, KFC, and the like succeed on the Grandfather Clause, but when a big, multinational American company started appearing and threatening Hard-Working Small Australian Businesses? It's no wonder it failed.
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 Japan (you probably have a better chance finding them in US Army and Air Force bases), and probably other countries as well, which might explain how most non-Americans' perceptions of the Burger is the kind you get at McDonald's.
It's actually moderately successful in Australia... but under the name Hungry Jack's. The name Burger King was already trademarked by someone else during their initial entry into the Australian market. When that lapsed they tried to become Burger King (all new locations were to be Burger King, old ones to change later) ... but flopped majorly killing off any plans to change the existing outlets to Burger King after the initial entry.
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 pĺskmust 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.)
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. compared to other countries.
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
Perhaps similarly, 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*
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).
, 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.
What happened was that Ford got stuck in a will-we-or-won't-we decision loop for so long that they wound up with no choice but to facelift the old model for '05; the heavier facelift for '08 excluded the hatchbacks (which had been solid niche sellers) and cost more than just federalizing the second-gen car would've.
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.
There's an urban legend that the Chevy Nova sold poorly in Latin countries because the words "No va" translate to "doesn't go".
Well it is a bit true for Mazda Laputa and Nissan Moco, which respectively translate as "The Whore" and "Snot". Mitsubishi Pajero ("Wanker") was perhaps less disliked.
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 Hate Dom 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.
Then 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 museumin Hong Kong.
Film
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.
To be fair, lots of people in the US and Canada had the same opinion, but they usually felt that it was so over-the-top it crossed the line twice.
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.
Disney's Hercules was well liked by critics and audiences alike, and hated by the Greeks; who apparently did not like the film's portrayal of their culture and history.
This can be justified though, because the Greeks are more knowledgeable about their own mythology than other outside sources. See Sadly Mythtaken and Everybody Hates Hades.
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 (though, recently, most of the world has fallen in love with explosions). 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.
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.
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.
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 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), despite it being the largest radio market in America and country being, by some measures, the most popular genre of music in America. 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 America, 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 American and local subculture, including rodeo acts), Canada and Australia (both of which have frontier histories and large rural areas not unlike those found in America).
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.
Professional Wrestling
Samoa Joe has caught surprisingly negative reactions from Japanese fans, who see him as a ripoff of many Japanese wrestlers from the '90s.
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.
Bryan Danielson doesn't really get over in Mexico, but is very popular back home.
Performance Art
Jeff Dunham made some jokes about the Toyota Prius (calling it a lunchbox, because it is small). This type of car is considered normal-sized in Europe.
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.)
While not exactly beloved in America, Neil Hamburger seems to be hated by British audiences.
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?"
Football, known as soccer in the US, Canada, and Oceania, is the most popular sport in the world, but in the United States it's considered a joke and mostly played by kids whose moms are afraid to let them play real sports (and the kids of immigrants from Latin America), or a game played by foreign guys with foreign sounding names on foreign teams. The opposite is true as well: while American Football is big in the States, the rest of the world (except Japan, apparently?) classifies it as: the game where slow, alcoholic, muscle bound freaks too chicken to lose the pads and play Rugby take a 20 minute break every time the ball touches the ground, and thus pass high school/college despite lacking the grades. (FYI, the pads were added by law because so many people were dying on the field. Until then, it was basically Irish Rugby.)
This is less true on the West Coast where Major League Soccer teams like the L.A. Galaxy and Seattle Sounders manage sellout crowds. This may be due in part to a much larger population of Mexican immigrants.
It's almost certainly the greater degree of 1st generation immigrants, as other places with a high concentration of people who were born and raised outside of the US tend to show a similar interest in the sport. Just try to go to a sports bar in NYC in one of the more ethnic neighborhoods and ask them to turn off the "soccer" game on the TV.
This troper lives in Seattle and can tell you the reason it's popular here is because (A) the Seattle Sonics moved to Kansas City, (B) Soccer was already popular up here (American Football is sometimes called "Hand egg" as a joke about the Football/Soccer name), (C) the Sounders have had amazing seasons and many Seattlites feel that the Sounders will become their big name sports team following the fall of the Mariners and the Seahawks (though, naturally YMMV ) and (D) the Northwest has always been big on sports so virtually every sporting event up here is a big deal to everyone. Except Penny Arcade of course.
Despite this, the USA has been big on Soccer mainly as a youth sport. It is the most popular recreational sport for both boys and girls (even bigger than Baseball) and many players in America's Big Four Team Sports (American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Ice Hockey) have claimed to play soccer when they were young. Of course most players convert to one of the big four or a single or Olympic sport (Golf, Tennis, Nascar, etc...) when they grow older since more money and prestige can be gained in those sports though.
Though even if Americans are mostly apathetic with soccer/association football, they are still big into the FIFA World Cup. For example, Landon Donovan's last minute game winning goal against Algeria in 2010 was heavily celebrated across America. And more Americans bought tickets to South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup than people from any other country but the hosts - more than England and Germany (two favorites and perennial powerhouses) combined. FIFA even gave the USA a World Cup in 1994 in hopes of increasing popularity, and it was the most attended World Cup ever both overall (3,587,538) and average per game (68,991)! For Soccer as a spectator sport outside the World Cup...well let's just say patience is a virtue.
But don't forget that the US has almost three times as many inhabitants as Germany and GB combined.
Soccer experienced a brief but explosive boom in the United States between the late 70s and the mid 80s with the North American Soccer League. Famed Monday Night Football sportscaster Howard Cosell predicted it would become one of the most popular sports in the nation, and for a few years, he was right. The NASL was big business, especially the New York Cosmos, which brought in some of the soccer world's biggest heroes (such as Pele himself and Franz Beckenbauer) to play for them. This led to an incredibly dominant team that won the championship five times - in a league that only played 15 seasons! Sadly, the NASL lost its TV deal when ratings were less than projected. It limped on for a few years before dying in 1984.
The same could also be said for Canada (minus the Opinion Myopia). Canada is more into American... err Canadian Football (although popularity is second to hockey of course) and soccer isn't really much of a spectator sport there, either. Of course much like in America, there are exceptions including Toronto, whom their MLS team manages to have what has been called the among the most diverse and rabid horde of fans in the entire league. Seriously, home games are a massive tide of raving red-jersey'd fans screaming themselves hoarse, and that's before the game starts! This may be largely due to the city's large immigrant population. Free advice for anyone planning on visiting Toronto: Whatever you do, DO NOT attempt to drive around College Street or The Danforth during Soccer season, especially if it's a World Cup year.
American-style football is also popular in Mexico. While nowhere near as popular as Association Football, it's the most popular minor league sport.
American Football also seems to be growing in popularity in Germany.
The NFL's attempt to generate interest in American football in Europe (World League/NFL Europe/NFL Europa) started out with one team in Germany (Frankfurt), a team in London and one in Barcelona. By the time the plug was pulled, five of the six teams were based in Germany.
American Football's popularity is steadily increasing throughout Europe and, to a lesser extent, Asia, where there are pro leagues in virtually every country and a cross-continental championship series.
Japan is mentioned above as is, but deserves a little further discussion. While Eyeshield 21 helped popularize American Football in the nation, it's been surprisingly popular there for quite a while - many universities have been fielding teams since the 1970s, and the pro league has been in operation since the 80s. Not only has Japan won the IFAF American Football World Cup twice, they hosted it in 2007, where they were runners-up to the US.
American Football is still a niche sport in Japan though; baseball, soccer/football, and rugby are far more popular than American football there.
South African soccer fans love their plastic trumpets, or vuvuzelas. Anybody watching The World Cup on TV finds them incredibly annoying. This is also partially because vuvuzelas are louder than a jackhammer and 140 dB, and instead of just being blown when the home team wins (like with noisemakers at football games), which would be fine, they play it CONSTANTLY. It's gotten so bad that referees and coaches can't make calls because of the noise.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Duffy could possibly spill over into Never Accepted In His Hometown, as he was actually 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 (despite the fact that you didn't build him yourself). 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 just three years later.
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 IX under their name and heavily marketed the title to make it one of the best-selling games of July 2010 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.
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.
Speaking of Street Fighter... BlazBlue! 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.
In general, it's because the American Fighting Game fanbase tends to be more hardcore because it's not terribly widespread; BlazBlue is targeted to a more casual Japanese market (with things like more emphasis on long combos, anime characterization, published strategy guides that spell out every detail of a combo instead of assuming you'd just figure it out yourself, etc.). The Japanese hardcore segment itself tends to be more in tune with fighting games styled like Street Fighter and older KOF games just like its stateside counterpart.
Despite this, the game seems to be doing relatively well in America, and Dustloop is certainly showing that quite a lot of people love the game.
Mortyr (2093 - 1944), a Polish WW2FPS (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 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 PlayStation 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 Superpowered 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.
In fact, the entire game can be considered this, given its respectable amounts of fanart in Japan.
Similarly, Reala 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 Squadwho 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.
Rinoa of Final Fantasy VIII 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 vocalabout 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. However, some have seen Vaan as being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap with other involvements in spin-offs that made him more important to the story. (His main criticism was that he was the Designated Hero but didn't have much ties to the plot, as Ashe and Basch*
Originally intended as the protagonists
were more crucial to XII's story.)
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, obtuseexercise 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.
On the subject of 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.
Non-character example, on a smaller scale: The French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec has traditionally received Pokémon games in English. Due to recent video game laws in the area, it has also received France's French translations of the two latest sets of games (HeartGold and SoulSilver, and Black and White). In a rare example of French Quebecers not being overly supportive of their native language, the English versions seem to sell more copies in Quebec and are generally more well-liked, most likely due to a greater familiarity with English Pokémon and character names (ironically helped by a now-cancelled Quebec French dub of the anime that used the English names rather than the French ones).
Similarly, Latin-American fans hate the translated names for characters/locations/etc. used for the Spanish versions, sold in Spain (the Spanish Bulbapedia once had an entire debate on the subject). One can guess that it'll get worse if they decide to import the Spanish versions, like with Quebec (though not to the same extent, since at least the Pokémon themselves use their English names in Spain as well as Latin America).
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 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 "Pokemon Black" (where you obtain Reshiram) sells more than "Pokemon White" (where you obtain Zekrom). In the US, it's the opposite: Zekrom is the more popular and "Pokemon White" sells more than "Pokemon Black", while Reshiram is a Base Breaker.
In the Sengoku Basara universe, the Japanese fans certainly love Oichi and she is pretty much theEnsemble 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.
The Xbox 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.
The Dynasty Warriors series of games are huge sellers in Japan. But they merely have a cult following in America and the UK.
While the Fire Emblem 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.
Apparently, a lot of people in Japan hate Dragon Quest IX. One reason often cited is the fairy Stella, who looks a little 'ganguro'—some Japanese can't stand her, in a kind of reversal of the classic "Americans hate Tingle".
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.
Western Animation
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.
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.
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.
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.
Avatar The Last Airbender was immensely popular in America. It did... poorly in Japan. So poorly they didn't even bother dubbing the third season. Apparently, many Japanese felt insulted at the way the Asian cultural influence in the series was portrayed (the fact that the bad guys, the Fire Nation, are partially based on Imperial Japan probably didn't help matters too much).
