Bad Export for You

Sometimes a company says "No Export for You" and refuses to release its media outside of its home country. And then there's this situation, where they do release it, but in a watered-down, poor quality or overpriced version.

This is most likely to happen with video games and anime. Media produced in Japan are particularly prone to this, because high prices make them expensive in Japan. To discourage Japanese fans from buying cheaper from abroad, many distributors make their foreign products expensive or unattractive (e.g. by removing Japanese audio or subtitles). The fact that they are screwing their overseas fans matters little, as their domestic market is usually worth far more than the American or European one, although this has lessened in time due to them going from niche product to having a larger market share, making the population difference balance out the per capita difference.

A Bad Export For You can take on many forms. The work's text, when localized into a target language, may be completely incomprehensible. It also used to be a common practice when translating manga to mirror the pages horizontally,^note because Japanese is read right-to-left and English and most Western languages left-to-right which can cause errors with text that is part of art. Several major scenes, game levels, Player Characters, and other major features of the original version of the work may have vanished or ended up disabled. A Game-Breaking Bug or two may turn up only in exported versions. A video game may be made more unfair to play internationally. And last, but not least, the price of obtaining the work may be unreasonably higher in certain countries compared to its home country.

Don't add examples which are just Americanizing something because they think Americans want it that way. Or, if a localized version loses features — most commonly multiplayer mode — due to lack of infrastructure, that is not this trope. If the soundtrack is changed, it is NOT an example either; music tastes are highly subjective.

People in isolated areas can get very angry about No Export for You and Bad Export For You. That is why there are other choices.

Regional Bonus is an inversion of this trope applied to Video Games, and Better Export for You is also this for non-video games.

Compare Porting Disaster and No Dub for You. Also compare the Denial of Digital Distribution variety where the digital release is worse than the physical one. See also Macekre and Bowdlerise.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Video Games

Other examples:

Comic Books

• Transformers:
  • When IDW reprinted The Transformers (Marvel) in 2008, they ran into a problem with several issues that featured Marvel's characters. The early Marvel comics were blatantly set in the actual Marvel universe (Spider-Man aided the Autobots in rescuing Sparkplug Witwicky in issue 3, and it was later revealed that the Dinobots and Shockwave fought in the Savage Land). Removing references to the Savage Land were simple enough, but Spider-Man was a full-on guest star and famously webbed up Megatron during their encounter. Ultimately, the problematic issues were replaced in the omnibuses by text descriptions obliquely referring to Marvel characters as 'costumed adventurers' and the like.
  • Crossing over with Denial of Digital Distribution, when IDW reprinted the Marvel comics again in 2011, they managed to make an arrangement with Marvel to include the issues featuring Marvel characters like Spider-Man... but only in the physical comics. The digital version of the omnibuses released in 2012 didn't include them.
• The Complete Adventures of Tintin is a complete set of all the books released in the UK, including the controversial first two books and the unfinished final book. Unfortunately, the pages have been shrunk to half their original size, ruining the artwork and making the text hard to read.

Films — Animation

• Cats Don't Dance inverts it, as it received a proper widescreen DVD release in 2008, but only in Europe. Other than a rare LaserDisc release, Americans were stuck with a 4:3 pan-and-scan DVD until 2016, when it was reissued as a Vanilla Edition MOD as part of the Warner Archive Collection.
• The newly-formed The Weinstein Company acquired the North American rights to the The Magic Roundabout movie. Poised to release it in a market unfamiliar with the original show, the studio took an unusual route and did a Same Language Dub of the film. The plot was entirely the same, but now it featured an American All-Star Cast, with only Kylie Minogue and Ian McKellen retaining their roles. What changed most dramatically is the dialogue, courtesy of a rewritten script by Butch Hartman. Not only was a narration from Judi Dench added and all British slang removed, but almost all of the jokes were rewritten, with most of them centering around American-centric pop culture references. The uniqueness of this version, renamed to Doogal, makes it a curiosity to this day, though the approach did not make the film a success in North America.
• In a weird inversion, Frozen (2013) was released on Blu-ray 3D internationally, and that was just the start of Disney apparently dropping support of Blu-ray 3D in North America entirely out of the blue. Worse, some titles released outside of the country are region-locked, including Ratatouille. Even for those releases that are region-free, this trope is also played straight in that the foreign Blu-ray 3D releases are sold without the regular 2D disc in some markets and said 3D disc has restrictions so that it would not play on non-3D players. Also, the 3D Blu-ray doesn't come with any of the bonuses found on the regular Blu-ray disc. In other words, foreigners who want to watch the movie in both 3D and 2D and enjoy the movie to the fullest had to pay twice for the film.
  • Speaking of Disney, the company was notorious for this during the 2001-2003 era when many of the Disney DVDs released outside of North America had many bonus features changed or removed, and some behind the scenes bonus features having their running times cut down.
• The 2007 Hungarian DVD of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Only the film's speaking parts were dubbed, but the song subtitles included on the disk are inconsistent with the dub and awkwardly translated in general, leading to some characters having different names in the spoken dialogue and in the subtitles. At least one line ("Uh-oh. I hope there's still time to set things right.") is missing and Jack just flaps his mouth silently, and one exchange ("What are you going to do?" - "I'm gonna do the best I can.") was left in English with no subtitles. To add further annoyance, the DVD was advertised as containing a Russian language track, one of the film's more interesting international dubs, but in reality it has the original English track on it twice. TV airings prior to 2010 did feature song subtitles written to match the dubbed dialogue (it's unknown why they didn't put these on the DVD), but they were in later years supplanted by the clunky DVD subs. At least certain TV showings fixed things like the missing line and the un-subbed exchange.

Films — Live-Action

• Toho is infamous for this.
  • As a result of this, the Parasite Eve film was released with hard subtitles.
  • May be why Godzilla movies are released in the United States without the extras they had in Japan. Until the mid-2000s, they didn't even have Japanese tracks.
    • This is why Destroy All Monsters had its initial American DVD release without a Japanese track or even a menu or chapter stops. The later Media Blasters release added all of these in, as well as selectable subtitles.
    • The company that's currently releasing them (Classic Media) is making its own extras for the American releases to make up for this. As mentioned, though, a lot of the films were unavailable in their original Japanese versions — including the undeniably classic original Godzilla (1954) — until 2004 or later, well after the American market for subtitled foreign films came in vogue.
    • Classic Media released Gojira on Blu-ray — before the Japanese release! Too bad it was another case of Bad Export, since the Blu-ray we got turned out to be a glorified upscale, rather than the shiny new HD transfer that was eventually released in Japan. Oh, well. Criterion to the rescue!
    • Averted with Madman Entertainment's Australian DVD releases. Granted, they didn't get the license for five of the films, and Godzilla 2000 is the American cut only, but all the other have both Japanese and English tracks and are anamorphic.
• The international 4K release of Citizen Kane was done by Warner Bros. instead of Criterion, and is missing a massive amount of supplements that the US and Canada got, such as a third commentary track and interviews with cast and crew members.
• Later UK Laserdisc players have digital audio only, which breaks many early UK Laserdisc releases, including the theatrical Star Wars Trilogy. In addition, only 1,150 titles were released with digital audio in the UK, compared to the over 10,000 of America and Japan.
• Die Hard with a Vengeance had good domestic home video releases by Fox. Unfortunadely, international distributor Disney did not care to put out a non-Vanilla Edition DVD internationally, or even a Blu-ray in some markets. The UK cut was also heavily censored, rendering some scenes incomprehensible.
• Iron Monkey: The 2001 Miramax US release changes the soundtrack, removing the Wong Fei-hung theme, removes Fei-hung's name from the title, the sound effects, opening credits and end credits have been replaced, the English audio track and subtitles remove any political context, sped up scenes were slowed down, and there are over 100 additional cuts including censoring violence and removing comedy elements from scenes.
• Arthur and the Invisibles:
  • The Weinstein release cut out all of the "questionable" content, including some important plot points, leaving several egregious jump cuts. This to the point where the entire romance between Selenia and Arthur is completely taken out, making her sudden attraction to him at the last minutes seem to come out of nowhere.
  • In the U.K. and Ireland, the second and third films were edited together into one film (Arthur and the Great Adventure).
• When Let the Right One In was first released on DVD in English-speaking markets, fans got an irritating surprise - the DVD producers had decided to try cutting costs by coming up with their own subtitles so that they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the folks who'd written the subtitles for the theatrical release. Those who'd seen the theatrical version were able to tell the difference, and raised enough hell that the DVD company ceased production on the cheap version, and reissued with the theatrical subtitles restored.
• Deadpool: In many, many other countries with stricter censorship codes, the sex scenes were completely cut while scenes with any visible penis used an earlier take where the CGI penises had not yet been rendered into the scenes (yes, most of the penises were CGI) or in the rare case of real penises, used alternative takes with the penis not visible, this despite the film already being rated to be for adults only to begin with. On the other hand, this is a better option compared to Banned in China in many ways, and the excessive violence, expletives and crude humor are still left in uncut.
• The uncut version of Team America: World Police can only be found on DVD. All Blu-ray copies only contain the R-rated cut.
• The 2011 French romance Q was notable for its unsimulated sexual scenes. When the film was released on Region 1^note (North America) DVD, not only was it retitled Desire, but all the scenes in question were removed and replaced by non-explicit tamer versions, even though anyone with an Internet connection can easily access to the uncut version in lieu of buying the censored DVD. This is not the only example of this.
• The European and Australian Blu-ray releases of Muppets Most Wanted include two featurettes, "On the Set with Walter" and "Inside the Gulag", both of which are not on the American and Southeast Asian Blu-ray releases.
• Avalon (2001), a Japanese-Polish science fiction film, when it was finally released to North American DVD after years of the original version being unofficially available, included mistranslated subtitles, unnecessary added narration and other editorial changes that, for fans of the original, ruined the film.
• Takeshi Kitano's Brother (2000) is important for being the first American co-production by the Japanese filmmaker, and features different characters who speak English and/or Japanese. This notion of language barrier completely disappears in the French dub, where everybody speaks French without any difficulty.
• The Philippine DVD release of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl by C-Interactive Digital Entertainment came at a 4:3 aspect ratio, despite claims in the packaging that it was formatted for widescreen.
• The Belgian Blu-ray release of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure has exactly zero special features, despite being released by Universal Studios, a studio that normally doesn't skimp on extra material, and despite being called the '25th Anniversary Edition'.
• Fox thought the ending of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was too depressing, so they removed the song "Superheroes" and the Dark Reprise of "Science Fiction/Double Feature" when released in America^note , resulting in a very bad transition, and the end credits plays a reprise of "The Time Warp" instead. Fortunately, 1990's-on home video releases would reinstate them, and DVD/Blu-ray issuings include both the original UK and the shortened US versions.
• For some reason, Joker's Blu-ray release uses an alternate Italian audio track made for the Venice preview, which, while identical to the final product, features an offscreen narrator translating every on-screen English text.
• In 2014, Disney has canceled plans for future Blu-ray releases for the Hungarian market and parts of the neighboring Central/East European region, including Pixar and Marvel productions, though Star Wars is exempt. The reasoning is that Blu-ray releases typically sell very poorly there due to their steep prices (and suspected piracy). Guardians of the Galaxy was the first to be hit with this, with most further Disney films only coming out on DVD, often containing no bonus material. Only a handful of exceptions have been made since (Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), but the Blu-ray export "ban" still holds otherwise.
  • Portugal also had something similar happen, except it started sometime in late-2017 instead of 2014.
  • And then the same happened for both Blu-ray and DVD releases in Iceland, Brazil and Latin America in 2020.
  • The Philippines has had no Disney DVD or Blu-ray releases since 2016, with the last film released there being Zootopia.
• The Grandmaster was heavily cut by 15 minutes for the American release with a different structure from the original Chinese Director's Cut. Most critics prefer the uncut Chinese version over the American release.
• While many DVDs and Blu-rays of Super Mario Bros. (1993) are mostly barebones releases, there is a 4K release with many more bonus features exclusive to Australia.

Literature

• The first English versions of many of Jules Verne's books were Blind Idiot Translations, and only Verne's most famous works, as well as a few obscure ones, were retranslated to a higher standard. To this day, many of Verne's books are only available in low-quality translations, and the bad translations of even the more famous books still float around today, often being published as "unabridged" editions. Thankfully, the new translations have overtaken the older ones, at least with newly printed versions.
  • An easy way to see if an edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea is one of these older bad translations is to check the first line of Chapter Two. If Arronax says he's just returned from the "disagreeable territories of Nebraska," it's the bad translation. A good translation will more accurately state that he's just returned from "the badlands of Nebraska."
• The Hungarian edition of the children's book BIONICLE: Tale of the Toa, has 50 extra pages that were cut from the English release. On one hand, it fleshes out the world and characters better and some passages in the English text feel clunky without the missing sentences. On the other, it's arguably slower, redundant at parts and contains numerous translation and continuity errors.
• English As She Is Spoke began life as a mid-19th-century Portuguese-to-French phrasebook. It was translated—almost certainly without the author’s knowledge or consent—into English by a Portuguese writer who knew neither French nor English, working from an antiquated dictionary. The result is a comic classic.
• The Italian edition of the Super Mario Encyclopedia is mostly good, except for two points. Hammer Bros are referred as "Martellone Bros." (The Italian name for the Sledge Bros., which are referred with their English name in the book) instead of the usual "Martelkoopa", and all the translation captions^note Game screencaps in the book are taken from the Japanese version with captions translating underneath in any other version are either missing, filled with a "TRANSLATION GOES HERE" placeholder or in German.
• Terry Pratchett's original German publisher, Heyne, inserted ads into their version of one of his books—not on the back, not as extra endpapers, but actually interrupting the scenes. So if you were trying to read Discworld in Germany in the early 90s, you were liable to get stuck with a version that stopped the plot to discourse on the wonders of particular brands of soup. Needless to say, Sir Pterry was most displeased, and pulled the rights from Heyne when they wouldn't back down. (This was apparently SOP for Heyne at the time, as they felt genre novels would lose them money otherwise. More fool they, since insisting on this cost them the rights to publish one of the most popular series ever written.)
• The first Russian publisher VE Schwab contracted to publish Shades of Magic with ended up censoring Rhy's romance with Alucard—which she had to find out from a fan on twitter. Since this was a breach of contract, the rights at least reverted easily and Schwab sold them to a different publisher, but Russia's censorship laws still mean the book has to be shrinkwrapped and marked as 18+ even though it's YA.

Live Action TV

• New Video Group's US release of H₂O: Just Add Water (all 3 seasons) is OK and all, but it lacks the bonus features of the original Australian home releases. The only bonus? A 90-minute recap of each season. Seriously?
  • Even the DVD releases of Digimon for the US (Adventure, 02, Tamers and Frontier) also suffer from this. (This is from the same company that released the H2O example above.)
• Walking with Dinosaurs was released in Hungary as a DVD box-set that included the original series plus the Big Al and the two original Nigel Marven specials. Instead of recording new narration for the base series, the producers chose to use the old error-filled dub and reorder some sentences to match the original narration's timing, which resulted in some sound effects and bits of music being overlaid on each other. In five of the series' six episodes, the sound is also out of sync by a full second. They combined the WWD base disk and bonus-feature disk into one, which came with the price of dropping one of the extras, yet the DVD case still advertised the set as containing 4 disks. The creator interviews advertised on the back of the Chased by Dinosaurs case have also been replaced by typo-ridden dinosaur fact-files, written in English, save for one which is inexplicably French.
• Netflix often receives grief for region-locking content on its service, which often isn't warranted given the strict constraints of third-party content licensing, and for charging the same price in every country, which may be a more fair complaint. There was much outcry when Netflix stepped up their effort to block proxying and region workarounds. That said, the majority of "Netflix Original" content isn't region-locked, and is completely uncensored in every country, and Netflix is available to nearly every country in the world, so as their focus changes to original content this criticism has begun to recede.
• Doctor Who Series 10, in Singapore and Malaysia, was screened first on the BBC Player service and was only available on BBC First up until three weeks later, with little cuts here and there. This was not the fault of the BBC, as Malaysia and Singapore have blue-nosed censorship boards that have very strict codes on the portrayal of LGBT characters on TV and in cinemas, but are more relaxed with online streaming services.
• The "international" (read: Australian) version of Die Sendung mit der Maus seems to have various segments lobbed off and only focuses on the "how it's made" segments and the animated segments featuring the mouse and his friends. Material licensed from other studios, such as the Captain Bluebear segment and the Shaun the Sheep segment, does not air on that version of the show. Understandable since that they are third-party segments and may have licensing clauses that prevent them from being resold as part of another show, as they may be aired as either part of a different show or on their own in other countries. Additionally, none of the musical segments were ever exported either, although the music of Schnappi Das Kleine Krokodil made it worldwide by different means.
• Since reruns of Gladiators debuted on the MGM-programmed American diginet Charge!, they have been edited for time. Extraneous music (including "Another One Bites the Dust", "We Are Family", and "The Boys are Back in Town") is edited out, more commercial breaks are put in, and the closing credits are dramatically shortened. Strangely, when the International competitions aired in previous cable runs, the music was left in.
• An odd zig-zagging with relation to UK-produced TV series that air in the US as part of Masterpiece Theatre, particularly in the case of shows produced for Britain's commercial networks. Since PBS does not air commercials, shows produced in conjunction with PBS often include extra footage when broadcast in the US. A recent example is Victoria, which had on average 5-7 minutes added to most episodes (including scenes that, in more than one episode, actually filled plot holes evident in the original UK broadcast). However, when the time came to release the series on DVD and Blu-ray in North America, the original ITV edits were used, omitting the extra scenes (and thus reinstating any narrative gaps filled by them). On the other hand, viewers in the UK have not had either a broadcast nor home video or digital release of the PBS edits of the episodes, either.
• Seasons 3 and 4 of LazyTown aired in Canada, but only in French. Anglophone Canadian fans were stuck with having to view the new episodes by way of NBC stations that are available on Canadian cable systems or have a broadcast range that covers the US-Canada border regions.
• Dark Angel was aired and released on DVD in the US in 4:3. Some international companies, however, were given unfinished 16:9 masters. This is particularly egregious on season one where these releases include lots of static wide shots, alternate takes, and just straight up fourth wall breaking stunt scenes.
• Every Super Sentai release in the US by Shout! Factory (And by extension, Kamen Rider Zero-One) would fall into this, mostly by picture quality, as these releases are mostly the Toei Channel broadcast masters (i.e. strong and/or strobe lights being dimmed or blurred) like it's the best US fans will ever get, as opposed to the original Japanese domestic releases, which has none of the said edits. Also mostly to discourage reverse importing as the US sets are nearly the same prices Japanese consumers would get for 3 to 4 episodes on their DVD volumes.
  • On an extra note, their release of Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman has their subtitles done as closed-caption ones (i.e. names are shown during dialogue in front of the subs, show actions being detailed, etc) like it was made for deaf viewers, and that was the only subtitle option they have in that release that Shout has yet to correct in later prints.

Music

• Flaming Lips: The original release of The Soft Bulletin ended up with one song exclusive to the US edition and another song exclusive to the UK and Australia — U.S. copies had "The Spiderbite Song" as the third track, while UK and Australian copies had "Slow Motion" in its place. The U.S. vinyl edition and a later U.S. CD reissue included both songs, but "The Spiderbite Song" remains exclusive to the U.S. on CD or vinyl.
• The US copies of the Foo Fighters' Wasting Light vinyl come with a code to download a better sounding mp3 version of the album. The non-US copies of the vinyl are exactly the same except they don't come with this code. And they're more expensive. What's the point?
• The Beatles:
  • Inverted with album Magical Mystery Tour. In Britain, it was a 7" EP, encompassing most (but not all) of the songs from the TV movie. "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were not present, as British practice at the time was to keep singles and albums totally separate. The US version was an expanded full 12" album that restored the single tracks and added a few more songs as well. In fact, now the US version IS the canonical version of the album on both sides of the Atlantic. It's notable that the US album was considered for release in the UK at the time, but it was felt the double EP was better value. However, demand for the US version was so high that it became a canon UK album when reissued in the 1970s, and many people forgot about the EP. Despite this, there are still fans who don't see it as a proper album.
  • Capitol removed tracks from the band's albums and added singles and filler to them so that they could release 'new' albums later on. A particular egregious example of their policy is taking Side 1 of the UK version of Help!, interspersing its tracks with the orchestral score from the film (not performed by The Beatles), and releasing this as the US version of Help!. With the second side of Help!, they spread the 7 tracks amongst three albums: Beatles VI, Rubber Soul (US), and Yesterday And Today. The Beatles were so annoyed with the latter that they insisted Capitol stopped the process when renewing their contract in 1967. The only US album released later was Hey Jude, which was a compilation of non-album singles and the previously soundtrack only (in the US) "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better". This was released as a stopgap whilst the band worked on Abbey Road (they had promised Capitol Let It Be, then called Get Back, but weren't satisfied with it at the time).^note It certainly didn't help that Capitol put the executive who'd rejected four of the first five Beatles singles for American release in charge of their albums.
• Blur's American record label, SBK Records, altered their first two albums before releasing them in America:
  • For Leisure, the label completely rearranged the track listing, deleted fan favorite "Sing", and replaced it with b-side "I Know".
  • On Modern Life Is Rubbish, the label replaced the finished version of "Chemical World" with the demo version, inserted non-album single "Popscene" in between "Turn It Up" and "Resigned", and added two b-sides, "When The Cows Come Home" and "Peach" as a Hidden Track.
    • The Japanese version of Modern Life is also different, adding "Young and Lovely" (yet another b-side) and "Popscene" at the end of the album.
• The Malaysian release of the Strawberry Shortcake Strawberry Jams soundtrack CD lacks the final two tracks of the US version (Friendship Grows (Like a Flower) and the closing theme) for some reason.
• The US release of BT's Movement in Still Life was heavily adulterated, with several of the trance tracks replaced with American-geared trip-hop, the track length in general decreased, and the bonus CD omitted. Some of the otherwise UK-exclusive tracks did get a limited US release on the Extended Movement EP, which was distributed through college campuses.
• The Nintendo Power soundtrack Play it Loud! has track 36, an instrumental "Corneria" theme based on Star Fox 64. The song has a loud skipping sound as if someone bumped into the recording equipment. The Japanese version does not have this skipping noise.
• Duran Duran's second LP Rio was remixed by David Kershenbaum for the US to give the album a dance/club-friendly sound compared to the rock-tinged original UK release of the LP. The US finally got the correct version of the album in 1986 when Capitol Records released the album on CD. Because of the initial popularity of the dance remixes in the US, the re-release of the album in 2009 includes both versions of the album.
• Pink Floyd's debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, got hit with this twice in the U.S. The first release featured a heavily altered tracklisting meant to conform with American album standards mentioned above. The other was the version on A Nice Pair, a double album compilation of the band's first two albums, which substituted the live version of "Astronomy Domine" from Ummagumma, likely due to EMI's American division, Capitol Records, lacking access to the original master tapes. As with The Beatles, the original U.K. version was standardized worldwide for its first CD release in the '80s, meaning that American fans could finally get a proper version of the album outside of import copies.
• Jason Derulo's 2013 album "Tattoos" wasn't released in Jason's hometown of the US, but instead as a 5-track EP with only some of the songs from it. It was eventually released as "Talk Dirty" months later, with a modified tracklist. In the case of Tattoos, the new songs from Talk Dirty were later added to that album for an Europe-only Updated Re-release, thus resulting in a "definitive" version.
• While Mansun's first two albums, Attack of the Grey Lantern and Six, both got American issues, the tracklisting was heavily and carelessly shuffled around, which disrupted their flow as they're both concept albums (Six especially). Their last album, Little Kix, ended up skipping a U.S. release.
• Inverted with Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack album Radio Sunnydale: The international version (as released in UK, Australia and Latin America) had to omit three songs included in the US version due to licensing issues... But to make up for it, they added 11 more licensed songs and one more piece of score music, making it nearly twice as long as the US version.
• A Flock of Seagulls' Self-Titled Album, in its initial American release, had the track "Tokyo" removed and the original LP version of "I Ran (So Far Away)" replaced with the 7"/video edit, in addition to the tracklist being rearranged. The 1988 reissue restored "I Ran" to full length, but still lacked "Tokyo".
• One particularly egregious case was the remasters of Kraftwerk. If American fans wanted to get their hands on remastered versions of Computer World, Electric Café, or The Mix, they had to either import them, shell out the cash for the Catalogue box set, or buy each album with T-shirts and mousepads on the Kling Klang Shop for even more. This can be chalked up to label issues: shortly after their (initial) worldwide signing to EMI, they were dissatisfied with Capitol Records’ handling of The Man-Machine, quickly inked a new American deal with Warner (Bros.) Records, switched again to Elektra Records, and subsequently returned to EMI in America through its semi-independent electronic division Astralwerks. When Astralwerks released the Kraftwerk remasters, they were only allowed to release Kraftwerk’s Warner/Elektra output in ''The Catalog'', and had to also keep the remasters off US and Canadian streaming. Then came UMG’s purchase of EMI, and UMG having to sell Kraftwerk’s catalogue as part of Parlophone Records to WMG…which is also Warner and Elektra’s parent company. Although all the remasters are now streaming in America, considering The Catalogue has not been reprinted at all since then, and WMG’s own reissue label has not rereleased their Elektra albums physically in remastered form in North America (although record stores do get expensive imports of the colored vinyl LPs from time to time), perhaps all the rights wrangling was for naught.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's self-titled debut dropped "Acrobat" when it was remixed for the US market. Most regions would eventually get the track when Epic Records started releasing both the Japanese and American mixes as a double-CD package in 2003; the sole exception was the US itself, where distribution of the YMO catalog stopped after the 1992 remasters^note incidentally, the Japanese versions of the '92 remasters included both mixes of the debut album, but the US mix was the only one released internationally during this campaign.
• Queen:
  • The original South Korean release of A Day at the Races dropped "Tie Your Mother Down" and "Teo Torriatte", both due to their lyrical content. In particular, the Japanese choruses in the latter song violated the country's ban on Japanese cultural imports (following Imperial Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945).
  • The original South Korean release of News of the World dropped "Get Down, Make Love" due to the government there considering it inappropriate.
  • The original South Korean release of Jazz omitted "Bicycle Race" and "Let Me Entertain You". The latter was removed thanks to the line "we'll sing to you in Japanese," which veered too closely to violating the country's ban on Japanese cultural imports. Both tracks would later be restored for a 1992 reissue.
  • The original US CD release of The Works omitted the lyrics from the liner notes; they would eventually be restored in the 1991 Hollywood Records remaster.
• New Order: The original US CD release of Brotherhood omits the bonus track "State of the Nation"; it would eventually be restored for the 2008 collector's edition.
• Jimi Hendrix: The initial UK CD release of Electric Ladyland mistakenly swaps sides two and four, the end result of Polydor Records' engineers neglecting the fact that the original UK LP was sequenced for automatic record changers.

Technology

Happens all the time with technology components as well, often as a sub-par form of region-locking

• Asus' motherboards often have inferior versions that are sold in greater Asia. For example, the TuF Sabertooth 990FX motherboard. The versions meant for first world countries has additional circuitry to allow PCIe 3.0 cards to run at full speed. The versions meant for second world countries don't have the circuitry, meaning devices are crippled to only run at PCIe 2.0- owners of such motherboards don't benefit from the newer graphics cards. Those in third world countries have it worse, the versions sold in those areas don't even get USB 3.0 support...
• Asus' F2A-55M Micro-ATX motherboard has two versions as well- The first world country version has one PCIe x16 port, two PCIe x1 ports and one PCI port. The ROW version not only lacks one PCIe x1 port, the port that was removed is the boneheadedly the one furthest away from the PCIe x16 slot. Meaning if you use a dual-width graphics card, you lose access to the only x1 slot on the motherboard. Why they did not remove the one closest to the X16 slot instead (which is the sensible option) is a riddle for the ages.
• Samsung's Galaxy S series and Galaxy Note series flagship smartphones sold in select regions such as the United States, China and Japan would use Qualcomm's Snapdragon system on a chip while those sold in the rest of the world would instead use Samsung's homegrown Exynos SoC. Samsung had been stagnating with its Exynos SoCs that (probably because of constant legal battles with Qualcomm) performed much worse than their Snapdragon counterparts according to synthetic benchmarks like AnTuTu. Things came to a head in 2020 when the Exynos 990 suffered numerous issues such as overheating, throttling and battery drain, resulting in even budget phones outperforming the flagships with the Exynos 990. Understandably, a number of people who played games on their phones (and some who don't) and were not in a Snapdragon region got angry, wishing Samsung would just drop Exynos to end the madness and use Snapdragon instead. While Samsung's official statement claimed otherwise, the fact that its home country South Korea, traditionally an Exynos region, switched to Snapdragon starting from the S20 series, did not go unnoticed. It is quite easy to forget that the roles were reversed at one point; the Snapdragon 820 was considered inferior to the Exynos 8890 for the Galaxy S7 and Note 7, and the year before that, the Snapdragon 810 performed so poorly that Samsung averted this and shipped its phones with Exynos worldwide. Those aforementioned people in Exynos regions finally got their wish when Samsung released the S23 series with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy worldwide, at least for the next few years while it got its chip situation sorted out.
• Many Android enthusiasts in North America are disappointed over Samsung's decision to permanently lock the bootloader on all Galaxy devices sold in the United States, starting from the S7 onward, citing pressure from major US cellular providers. Non-flagships, including those with Exynos chips, were also affected. This didn't keep development from pushing through though — custom recoveries and leaked engineering boot images for Galaxy S models sold in the States were made available to those who own US carrier variants of the S7, though this unfortunately isn't the case with the S10 and Note 10, whose security is tightened up a la Fort Knox (Which ironically does say on its bootup screen that it is Secured by Knox), making it absolutely impossible to root the device (without a paid exploit, at least), let alone flash a custom ROM. This, combined with the above point, has made models sold in certain markets such as Hong Kong, especially desirable, as these models have freely unlockable bootloaders and a Snapdragon SoC.
• This also applies to TP-Link routers sold in North America. Due to a threatening letter by the FCC, TP-Link has decided to region-lock their routers, and the US version of the routers will be locked down extra tightly that third party firmware will be forbidden to run on the routers. The reason for this is because some killjoys have been using custom firmware to boost the own Wi-Fi signal strength on their router so their signal is strong enough to be picked up where ever they are on the block. But that comes at the price of drowning out and thus effectively jamming some of the neighbors' Wi-Fi signals, and in some cases even disrupts the radar systems of airplanes. Why We Can't Have Nice Things indeed.
• While Oppo subsidiary Realme treated most of the world with a triple-camera variant of their C3 smartphone complete with a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, those in India aren't as lucky as the C3 variant sold there only came with two rear cameras and no fingerprint reader. Adding insult to injury is the Australian-market model which came with an NFC sensor for wireless payments. In fairness though, the Indian variant is a tad cheaper but is otherwise identical as both phones share the same MediaTek Helio G70 system-on-chip, the same amount of RAM and onboard storage. Assuming you'd only care about playing Player Unknowns Battlegrounds or Mobile Legends and not much else, the inferior camera setup and lack of biometrics shouldn't be that much of a loss.

Theatre

• It took centuries for William Shakespeare to become popular in France, as his works were only available in bowdlerized translations and even the plays were staged in heavily butchered form. In fact, it was only with André Gide's translation of Hamlet in 1946 that the Bard became truly respected there.

Toys

• Happens sometimes to toys based on Toei Animation shojo anime when released through Bandai Asia:
  • The roleplay toys for Sailor Moon SuperS did not include the "Sailor Link" IR function that the Japanese ones did. Also, instead of the Chara Talk Sailor Team dolls (Which also uses the Sailor Link IR function), they just got similar-looking ones that looked like the ones from that line.
  • The music box toy from Ashita no Nadja does not play the song that's used in the anime like the Japanese version. Instead, it plays "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes". Ironically, Bandai would later make Disney merch for Japan and Asia.
  • International releases of the Crystal Commune from Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star are just plastic molds with a sticker stuck on that light up.
  • The Korean release of the Curemo from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO! is just a plastic phone toy with a reflecting sticker on it.
  • The Bandai Asia release of the Fresh Pretty Cure! toyline includes a Linkrun that just lights up and makes noise (with the Korean version being bundled with plastic figurines of the Pickruns) and a light-up Chiffon plush doll instead of the more advanced toys Japan got. However, Korea did get the talking version of the Chiffon plush.
  • The Korean Maho Girls Pretty Cure! toyline includes a Mofurun plush that doesn't read Linkle Stones or talk. To make matters worse, Mofurun is the main transformation item in this particular season.
• This is a common criticism of Hasbro's localization of Beyblade.
  • During the period known as Metal Saga (everything between Beyblade Metal Fusion and Beyblade Shogun Steel), several Beyblades were made lighter during localization compared to the Japanese and Korean versions. In particular, the various forms of L-Drago were changed to reduce weight. As a result, it became much less viable competitively. Later one, the Hyperblades subprint completely removed the mechanical functions of several Beyblades' parts and only released the functional ones much later in much less appealing color schemes.
  • The launchers for the first year of Burst had a few issues, all of which resulted in a weaker launch than the by-then ubiquitous Light Launcher from the Japanese line. The tabs that the Beyblade attached to on the launcher were thinner and had narrower, shallower bumps that made many of them not grip very well and prone to falling off when attempting to launch. The replacements from Evolution onward are also inferior to the Light Launcher despite having a similar mechanism, though with a weaker pawl that barely stops the tabs from freely spinning. Inverted with the Hasbro Sword Launcher, which is slightly better than the Japanese Electronic Sword Launcher that it's based on performance-wise due to lacking the tachometer which adds drag when launching. The Hasbro Sword Launcher is even better than the Beylauncher LR/Dual Threat Launcher, despite using a ripcord when the other uses a string-wound mechanism, which is generally a superior design.
  • Older fans of the series see Turbo, Rise, and Speed Storm this way due to dropping the Japanese gimmick of metal parts in the Energy Layer in place of gimmicky tips for specific Beystadiums. This is meant to focus more on fun and spectacle than the competitive side of the game. This is largely because the game is meant for kids, and Hasbro is marketing the series as such. Unusually, they responded to the criticism by localizing the Japanese versions directly as the Pro Series, being completely identical to the originals and even having the same compatibility quirks.
• Transformers:
  • In the twilight years of G1, both the Breastforce and the Brainmasters, previously Japanese-exclusive, were released in Europe. However, under a belief that Combining Mecha wouldn't sell, they were recolored, renamed as the Rescue Force and the Motorvators, and most importantly, were stripped of most of their accessories—including the parts that made their combinations possible. And on top of that, Rescue Force lost two of its members. Hilariously, both their combinations are still sort of possible, but... well, compare Liokaiser◊ and Road Caesar◊ to "Big Rescue Force◊" and "Big Motorvator◊." It's particularly stinging, since neither set has ever been reissued, even in Japan, so the watered-down versions are pretty much the only semi-reasonably-priced option. As Thew Adams said of Rescue Force 3, "the best thing I can expect out of him is that one day, I'll have to replace him."
  • Transformers: Robots in Disguise and the Unicron Trilogy were both notable for altering characters and colors to be inaccurate to the shows, such as Ruination (went from mostly gold to mostly gray) and Tidal Wave (went from dark purple to a weird pea-soup green). One of the weirdest cases was the Cybertron version of Starscream, which came in two versions in Japan: a fairly reasonably-sized version (representing Starscream at the start of the series), and a massively-upscaled version (representing his gigantic "King Starscream"-form from later in the series). Seemingly to avoid upstaging the big version, the American release of the line never put out the standard version in Starscream's normal colors, with the only available version being an exclusive release recolored in dark burgundy.
  • Due to differing safety requirements some Transformers are prone to being modified when being brought over to the US from Japan. Typical examples include pointed tips like jet nosecones being rounded off, spring-loaded launchers having their springs weakened, or smokestacks on trucks like Optimus Prime being shortened. This is generally seen as unfortunate but acceptable by non-Japanese fans. However, Masterpiece Megatron, who transforms into an over-sized but realistic Walther P38 handgun, was more significantly affected. Because of updated toy gun laws, some online importers modified Megatron to safely get the toy through US customs, which was primarily done by inserting plugs into the tip of the toy's barrel. Some importers used flat-tipped yellow plugs that could be easily removed, but some used rounded red plugs that were affixed by adhesive that couldn't be removed without causing damage to the figure. Some importers who opted for the latter method were forced to offer refunds to angry customers.
    • Meanwhile, Australia classified Masterpiece Megatron as a replica gun (even with the plug) and so he was considered a restricted import by Australian Customs, resulting in mass seizures of shipments. Buyers in some areas had to obtain a special permit to own him, and even then they had to keep the obtrusive plug in the barrel.
  • The Hasbro version of Masterpiece Rodimus Prime omits his trailer, thus preventing him from transforming him into his futuristic Winnebego mode (making him a sort of Composite Character, with his vehicle mode being his original Hot Rod form and his robot mode being his upgraded Rodimus Prime form). His elbows were also retooled from the Japanese release, giving him more articulation at the cost of the elbow joints being so weak it is difficult for him to hold a pose. Worst of all, Hasbro's Rodimus is doomed: due to having powerful springs putting contant pressure on unusually weak plastic, his shoulders and knees have an unfortunate tendency to spontaneously break or even outright shatter. The Transformers wiki suggests "Just pose him once and back away slowly..." as the proper way to "play" with the Hasbro version. (Then again, the original version wasn't a whole lot better in terms of quality control.)
  • For the Japanese release of the Transformers: Prime toyline, TakaraTomy modified all the Deluxe and Voyager-class toys to add 5mm holes in order to incorporate the Arms Micron gimmick. In an attempt to tap into the Japanese love of model making, all Deluxe and Voyager-class toys were sold with unassembled weapons that the buyer would then assemble themselves, with details like eyes and faction symbols provided by stickers. These weapons (the titular Arms Microns) could transform into robot or animal modes and could also combine into Super Weapons. Unfortunately, TakaraTomy decided to also allow the buyer to "customize" the actual Transformers as well, and stripped away much of the paint of the Hasbro versions. Color and detail was instead meant to be provided by stickers... even those on rounded areas that don't hold stickers well. A couple of examples include:
    • Poor Ratchet was almost pure white, with all his red areas (including curved areas like his shoulders and chest) instead being provided by stickers.
    • The Vehicon and Japan-exclusive Jet Vehicon had several stickers required for strange and questionable areas. For example, the Hasbro Vehicon had the Decepticon emblem behind a transparent window on its chest; while the indent for the emblem is visible, there isn't actually a way to access it without popping the window off and possibly damaging the toy. Worse, the headlights are also stickers... but unlike the chest there isn't actually a way to access headlights behind the clear plastic, meaning the best you can do is put the stickers on the clear plastic.
  • The Arms Micron system also meant that the weapons provided with the Hasbro releases were omitted. The problem was the Hasbro weapons were designed to resemble the Anatomy Arsenal used by the characters in the cartoon, but the Arms Microns were too big or simply not designed to match that aesthetic. As an example, the Vehicon comes with the Arms Micron Noji. The Hasbro Vehicon came with a blaster that could clip onto the toy's forearm when a hand was folded away, mimicking the integrated Swiss-Army Appendage look of the cartoon. Noji is unable to do so, so the Arm Micron Vehicon must wield him as an oversized Hand Cannon.
• Some localized versions of the original Furby were only made by one specific factory. Italy got stuck with Jetta (abbreviated as JT), which is widely considered the worst of the lot, with Furbys often developing issues with their mechanics and electronics.
• The American release of SuperThings only made it to Series 1 due to a combination of low promotion and being placed in specific stores as exclusives, primarily in less-common chains, while the remainder of the world was already on Series 6 at that point. Series 2 was given planned promotion for a release there, but never made it past press releases.

Western Animation

• The Region 2 DVDs of Adventure Time have no special features.
• Inverted with The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Some countries have the show available on both DVD and Blu-ray, but America just has it on DVD. To boot, America's DVDs for the second season don't have the episodes arranged in chronological order.
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm got this treatment in France by Warner Bros.. The only release here, at least with its beloved European French dub, has long been a now out-of-print VHS. Warner kept announcing a DVD release there, which never came out despite fan protest. Finally, a Vanilla Edition Blu-ray was released in October 2018, but with the much less well-received Canadian French dub instead of the European one. Many upset fans recently signed a petition to make the film's distributor release the still hard-to-find European French dub on video.
  • It seems Warner listened to those upset fans, as they proposed new Blu-rays with the European French dub at free exchange. However, very few (if not none) of them worked properly, as Blu-ray players wouldn't recognize them, thus shredding any possibility for French-speaking Batman fans to legally obtain a good quality copy of Mask of the Phantasm, other than the now very obscure VHS.
• As a local film collectors blog shows, the Brazilian market is rife with these. Blu-rays without the best audio\video quality, taking away DVD Bonus Content from the international versions, false advertising (original version in a supposed Director's Cut, the liner notes announcing extras that aren't there - particularly if they were on a bonus disk the distributor dropped...), bad subtitles, cutting the original audio and/or redubbing the Portuguese track...
• Releases of more recent Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon shows in Italy are always lacking in multiple formats.
  • Cartoon Network shows are usually released in boxsets in most countries, but Italy never gets all of them. For example, only the first and last seasons of Adventure Time were released in DVD, while The Amazing World of Gumball got only seasons 1 and 5. On Netflix, Adventure Time is missing the entirety of Season 4 plus some episodes from Season 5, while Steven Universe is missing seasons 2 and 3.
  • Nickelodeon... oh boy. The last two shows that got full DVD releases in Italy were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) and The Legend of Korra, while most of the other shows get only DVDs of random episodes... and if you're not SpongeBob SquarePants or a Nick Jr. show, you'll probably get only one of those. On the streaming scene, SpongeBob gets only a few seasons on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and the latter network only has Season 2 of The Loud House.
• Later Doc McStuffins DVDs (starting from Mobile Clinic onwards) were only released in the EzyDVD format in South-East Asia. This format is an atrocity, not only is there no language choice, the subtitles are "burnt in" hard subtitles which are unnecessary with DVDs, that they might just have released them on Video CD instead.
• Strangely inverted with The Mr. Men Show, as the official Mr. Men YouTube channel has uploaded almost every single UK-dubbed episode in remastered HD, as is the case with the French dub. The US, on the other hand, has only had three DVD releases with six episodes each, while the unofficial uploads on YouTube are of different qualities, and none of them are HD. Several originally-dubbed episodes were never even fully recovered until 2015!
• Likewise, the UK^note  And yes, like The Mr. Men Show, it has a different narrator, although the American narrator's singing voice is still heard in the opening, the Netherlands and Germany have full episodes of Miffy and Friends on YouTube for free, with the Netherlands and Germany uploading one episode every Wednesday (although they also upload the classic series at times as well), whereas the US has to pay to watch even one 5 minute episode.
  • And even worse, the UK has the episodes in Widescreen, whereas the US is stuck with 4:3 ratio.
• Germany got a decent DVD release of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, with Seasons 1-2 complete in the span of a few months. The rest of Europe, instead, gets stuff in a way slower pace: between November 2013 and December 2014, they got the entirety of Season 1 in 5 compilation disks (which means that the episodes are totally out of order even in the compete boxset release), plus the first Equestria Girls. With subs available in every language only during audio commentaries and only in French otherwise, and the Italian audio track features songs lowered by an octave (except for a single episode) in the first two discs, turning stuff like "Hush Now, Quiet Now" into a banshee lament. The third disc fixes the aforemented issue from Italian audio tracks, but the reprise part of "Art of the Dress" has lyrics going blatantly off-synch with the music compared to the TV airing of the same episode. The fourth disc is perfect, but the fifth disk's Italian track is completely raised by an octave
  • The Japanese broadcast of the first two seasons (which are all Japan got at first) during its TV Tokyo runs had a longer intro and closing credits, plus a short segment hosted by Suzuko Mimori before the end credits, meaning that episodes had to have entire scenes and sequences cut out in order to fit these new additions. Even when the Disney Japan broadcasts arrived (complete with the return of the US opening song), those seasons aired there are still the TV Tokyo edits of the episodes.
  • The first Croatian dub, consisting of the first two seasons that aired on HRT, was hit with this badly due to it being of exceptionally poor quality. In addition to a small cast, unfitting voice actors and inadequate acting, the dubbing studio split each episode in half (artificially increasing the number of episodes as a result), directly lifted assets from the show's Serbian dubs, resorted to using one single person for most of the songs, and even made countless, borderline serious audio mistakes^note Some examples being lines of dialogue that are needlessly looped or missing, random sound effects playing out of nowhere, and one of the recaps consisting of irrelevant line recordings cobbled together to form dialogue that makes absolutely no sense. Because of these issues, the show eventually received a new dub on a different channel, only porting over the lyrics of the opening song from the original Croatian dub.
• The Italian audio track for Pepper Ann on Disney+ always uses the same voice clip for the scene at the end of the theme song where Pepper finds something under her desk in Season 2 episodes, so she always says "Hey, I found the remote!" in every case (with the line not even matching her face in certain cases).
• When the Pingu episode "Pingu and Pinga at the Kindergarten" was first broadcast on BBC in the UK, the episode's title was presented as "Pingu and Papa at the Kindergarten", despite Pingu's father not appearing in the episode, due to a translation error. The error was even kept in on the VHS release from the '90s! Fortunately, current broadcasts and releases of the episode use the correct title.
• Not counting the Japanese releases, the only The Powerpuff Girls (1998) DVD to be released in any language other than English was Powerpuff Bluff.
• South Park stopped getting Blu-ray sets in the UK and Australia after season 13, meaning British and Australian season sets are missing the Blu-ray exclusive #SocialCommentary feature. And all US sets after season 13 are region-locked.
• Almost all of the episodes of Season 7 of Thomas & Friends in the United States have revised music to coincide with the music of the new series. This happened on TV broadcasts in the UK alongside Season 8, but unlike the US, they are not strictly limited to this version.
  • Since the transfer of the home media release rights for Thomas in the US from Lionsgate to Universal, the quality has gotten significantly worse. The quality is 240p and many specials are converted from 25fps to 24fps, thus changing the pitch, unlike the previous standard to convert it to 30fps, keeping the speed and pitch. Some DVD releases from them have pitch correction, unfortunately whatever technique they use results in warping the audio. iTunes releases are significantly better quality, but the frame rate issue is more prevalent than ever there.
• Transformers:
  • Like the My Little Pony example above, the Japanese version of Transformers: Animated had a longer intro and closing credits, plus bookending live-action segments featuring the Otoboto family. This necessicated the removal of about 3 minutes per episode to fit the broadcasting time. In addition, the Japanese DVDs used the broadcast format (a cropped-down fullscreen format) rather than the widescreen format used by Shout!Factory's DVD releases or on several streaming services. Worse, the Otoboto Family segements were completely omitted from the DVD releases, meaning that Breaking the Fourth Wall jokes that characters would make in the show sometimes had either no punchline or no setup.
    • In addition, several episodes were moved around so that episodes which introduced characters (and therefore toys) were aired earlier than in the original order, and some episodes were dropped completely from broadcast in order for the episode count to match the broadcasting schedule.
  • Transformers: Prime likewise had part of each episode cut to accommodate longer intro and ending credits, as well as a tacked on ending segment starring the Arms Microns (i.e., the Transformers' weapons that somehow became sentient without their wielders being aware of their sentience... despite just about all weapons in the show being built-in). Generally, it was establishing shots that were cut, but sometimes sequences were cut as well. The series was famously not aired in its totality in Japan: the second season's finale was rewritten so that instead of ending with the apparent death of Optimus Prime, he instead dramatically faced Megatron before the fade to black. The third season (Beast Hunters) and the Series Finale movie Predacons Rising was not aired in Japan at all and were instead replaced with a Japan-original web series called Transformers: Go that carried over almost nothing from Prime. To date, neither Beast Hunters nor Rise of the Predacons have been made available in Japan.
  • It could be argued that all Transformers series which were localized under Yoshikazu Iwanami (Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Animated, Prime, Transformers: Cyberverse and Transformers: EarthSpark) were bad exports, since they were altered to the point of becoming almost Gag Dub versions of the originals. Among other things, characters would often break the fourth wall (in an early episode of Prime, what was meant to be a tense moment where a damaged piece of equipment was accidentally brought to life and was creeping up on the Autobot Ratchet was undercut by Ratchet grumbling at the audience to stop yelling, "Look out behind you!"), make references to (Japanese) current events or pop culture such as timeslots or other shows (in Animated, there was at least one occasion where the Autobots joked about taking the timeslot of Tomica Hero Rescue Fire, a fellow robot-themed Toku show also made by TakaraTomy), or gained exaggerated vocal tics (in Beast Wars, everyone had some sort of tic, like Blackarachnia's habit of hissing "Shaa!" or Silverbolt ending almost all his sentences with an exaggerated "de-su"). This unfortunately undercut the mature storytelling of those series and helped cement Transformers as "for little kids", which might in turn explain Transformers' greatly diminished popularity in Japan.
    • A particularly potent example is the Transformers Prime episode "Predatory", which introduced the sadistic, murderous Airarchnid and was a slasher movie/ Predator parody with the Autobots' human ally Jack having to use his wits to stay alive. The Japanese version changes Airachnid into a Pepé Le Pew-type who adores handsome boys like Jack and wants to "keep" him, going so far as to edit out scenes that showed a wall of trophies on her ship that was part of the Predator homage. While the edit could be justified by the need to cut scenes in order to accommodate longer intro and ending credits, the immense change in tone was so jarring that when some of the Japanese voice actors were shown the original they were stunned to see the difference.
• A majority of the Warner Bros. Animation library produced from 2002-2009 (shows like What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Baby Looney Tunes and Teen Titans (2003), among many others) was animated in widescreen, but since these shows aired on children's television blocks and channels, they are almost always cropped to 4:3, whether airing in reruns or on DVD releases. Some of the shows and Direct to Video films of this era have been released in their original aspect ratio on Blu-ray, and most of these are available legally in Digital HD, but if one prefers physical media, they've got the short end of the stick.

Other

• The exported version of the pinball machine Black Hole lacks the normal version's spinning black hole and mirror effect on the backglass.
• Cartoon Network aired in the BENELUX from 2001 to 2011, but all of the breaks were in English (even though most shows on the network had a Dutch dub). It was also third-party commercial-free and aired only half-time as it shared a block with National Geographic (which only could belong on here due to sharing its slot with the aforementioned network, since it had third-party commercials and the breaks were in Dutch, but you could argue that it is extremer than that since most programs on the network were subbed and not dubbed). From 2011 onwards the network would take more initiative and air full-time in Dutch and with third-party commercials.
  • Portugal got hit with something similar: the network was entirely in English (most likely British) and it only played half-time due to sharing a block with TCM.^note This was a holdover from the early days of both Cartoon Network (CN) and TCM in Europe: the former would air during daytime and the latter at night after signoff, in the same way that in America CN becomes [adult swim] at night; at first it was CN during daytime and TNT at night; both aired in English. One by one, each European country got its own CN and TCM. The last holdout was Portugal, which had to wait until 2013. Another setback of this state of affairs was that, after the other versions went on air, there stopped being an actual signoff: CN randomly became TCM at the designated time just by cutting the CN broadcast, which sometimes ended in the middle of a show, and TCM also switched back to CN in the same fashion, in the middle of its broadcast with some films cut. Now it plays full time and all its shows are dubbed; TCM no longer airs.
  • Like the Cartoon Network example above, Malaysia got hit by this with Tech TV back when it was still alive. Tech TV only aired from 7PM to 7AM, which then it was switched to an in-house channel (this is Astro we're talking about, and back then they had just killed rival cable operator Mega TV and technically have a monopoly on the Pay TV market in Malaysia). Sadly, when Tech TV died and changed to G4TV, they just converted the channel to fully in-house and opted to not carry those channels.
  • Before Astro and their TechTV butchering, rival cable provider MegaTV Malaysia did the same thing as BENELUX above. Cartoon Network cuts off at 8 PM to be replaced by TCM, and returns the channel to Cartoon Network at 8 AM the next day. Bandwidth wasn’t an issue as MegaTV’s system used the L-band which System Televisyen Malaysia Berhad (this was before the rebrand to Media Prima) had exclusive rights to, and the decoder supports 99 channels. MegaTV was only using five. Understandably, when Astro came in, they had 24 hour Cartoon Network, and MegaTV haemorrhaged subscribers and eventually died (their only saving grace was they weren't affected by rain fade since the system runs over terrestrial, but their refusal to compete seriously with Astro was their downfall, when they died they only had 8 channels compared to Astros sixty).
  • Cartoon Network's Central and Eastern European regional divisions used to be a complete mess up until the end of the 2000s. Early on, only certain shows ran with localized dubs and most of the channel remained English, including the late-night switch to TCM. The language of the commercials would rarely correspond to any given region, especially since many countries shared the same programming feed. Due to the lack of cooperation between dubbing studios and the in-house translators of the network itself, many cartoon series would be promoted under incorrect titles and ads, tie-in magazines and other promos would often use incorrect name translations for cartoon characters to the confusion of kids. Broadcast errors were rampant and lasted for years — the last few seconds of programming ads would regularly be cut off, not letting viewers know when shows would be aired, or they would only last for a couple seconds before switching over to a different ad. Even cartoons would sometimes be cut mid-broadcast. Certain series would inconsistently switch over to different language tracks, and some shows would only air with the wrong dub in many countries, including episodes of Ed, Edd n Eddy, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Ben 10. At times, shows would even switch languages mid-sentence and these would not be corrected even for later reruns.
• Car makers usually don't sell all versions of a particular car on every market. The most noticeable example is the American Euro car import scene. In most cases, Americans don't get the diesel or less powerful gasoline/petrol engine options and wagon body options!
  • Diesel engines in general are unpopular in the US outside of heavy-duty trucks. Not every gas station has a diesel pump, and diesel engines have a harder time passing stricter US emissions regulations since they cannot use catalytic converters - just ask Volkswagen after the TDI emissions cheating scandal.
  • Japanese cars aren't much better off. Honda in particular is notorious for hamstringing the Civic and CRX with economy-oriented D-series SOHC engines in North America as opposed to the higher-performance B-series DOHC engines found in the Civic SiR and Acura Integra, which gave rise to the JDM scene - importing drivetrain components from Japan and swapping them into USDM cars. On top of that, North America never got the Type R versions of the Accord or Civic (until the Civic's tenth generation), only the more upscale NSX and Integra DC2.
  • For a time from 1973 to 1982, cars from foreign marques had to comply with the United States' 5-mile-per-hour bumper regulations, where protruding bumpers were installed onto US-market versions of cars at the time. This did not sit well with Lamborghini Countach owners in the States, who took out what amounted to an eyesore on their cars' front ends. The "bumper politics" is still felt by European manufacturers to this day, one example being the Bugatti Chiron whose rear bumper pieces were added for the US market.
  • This trope is one reason why the Cadillac Catera failed so spectacularly. While many cars are exported and rebadged to sell in other markets, General Motors in particular was notorious for this with brands it owned or had stakes in. Yet, its decision to export the Opel Omega B as the first “sporty” Cadillac was lacking in foresight. GM did not seem to keep in mind that Omegas were often seen as sensible sedans, even as taxicabs and police cars. Adding a cushier suspension and speed limited to the Omega and taking away several of its advantages (such as a manual gearbox and wood trim), only to market it as a sports car that could compete against models from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes, did not serve it well at all. And that’s not even factoring in the marketing and reliability issues that further doomed it to fail. For the record, Australian car fanatics are keen to point out their GM subsidiary Holden managed to do the unthinkable with their car on the Omega’s platform, the Holden Commodore, and turn it into a legendary V8-powered sports car platform that was not only exported, but also underpinned the US-market Camaro for a time. Before that, Cadillac even attempted to export the Commodore as the Catera instead of the Omega, but were vetoed by GM execs.
• For some reason, Games Workshop gave full translations for the Warhammer: The End Times books only in French and German, with Italy and Spain getting only abridged versions. After the end of the series and the release of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar they apparently stopped doing that... until the second half of 2017, when all of a sudden they began applying again the "Italy and Spain get abridged books" idea with the 8th Edition Codexes for Warhammer 40,000, and starting from 2018 Age of Sigmar Battletomes got the same treatment too.
  • One of the most absurd cases of this kind of treatment is Wrath of the Everchosen, an Age of Sigmar supplement book released in early 2020. English version: a 104 pages long hardcover book featuring new pieces of lore, quick painting guides for Chaos models, three new game modes featuring roaming monsters, wandering Endless Spells and sieges, a series of 8 battleplans to recreate the lore part of the book on the battlefield and a bunch of new warscroll battalions and allegiance abilities for Chaos armies. The Italian/Spanish version features only the painting guides, the warscroll battalions and the allegiance abilities, missing 64 pages from the original.
• Konami seems to have some kind of grudge against American Yu-Gi-Oh! players. Pretty much any time a card is released in Japan and proves to be powerful, you can count on its rarity to be bumped up, often by a wide margin. This can result in cards central to prominent decks going from reasonably common to costing upwards of twenty or thirty bucks a pop. In extreme cases, this can even hit a whole archetype. Similarly, reasonably easy-to-obtain exclusives in Japan tend to be released as extremely rare cards shuffled into the booster sets in America, and archetypes often find themselves released piecemeal (typically only being completed in time to have been hopelessly overtaken by Power Creep). Structure decks are also notorious for being changed to remove strong and expensive cards and replace them with inferior, significantly cheaper substitutes.
• Unless you live in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, India, Japan, Australia or Singapore, you're stuck using the global version of Amazon Prime Video (Singapore and Australia are special cases however, who by special arrangement is somehow allowed to use the US version of Prime Video). And the Global version of Prime Video, well, unless you're an anime head or are after an Amazon Studios production, there isn't much else, and what is there tend to only appear months after they show up in other Prime Video feeds. Sure, they have a cheaper subscription fee to offset the lack of shows, but it just feels like the subscription isn't worth keeping once you have soaked up what you're after.
• The Italian launch of Disney+ in March 2020 had a fair bunch of issues. Some examples:
  • Many series received incomplete releases. For example, Timon & Pumbaa or Star vs. the Forces of Evil) have only the first 1-2 seasons available.
  • Many series have their seasons mislabeled and/or Out of Order. For instance, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales (1987), Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and Recess all have multiple seasons reordered and mashed together as a single one.
  • To make things worse, a bunch of shows and films are missing their foreign dubs. The list includes The Muppet Show, X-Men: The Animated Series, a bunch of live action movies (including some relatively recent Disney Channel Originals) and multiple Classic Disney Shorts.
  • India’s, Indonesia's, Malaysia's, Brunei's and Thailand's version of Disney+ is to be done through a partnership with Disney-owned Hotstar. This means that most in the region need to subscribe to Hotstar to get Disney+ and there is no way to get the service otherwise (the only exception is Singapore who're getting the proper Disney+). Also, because the account servers are technically Hotstar's, your international Disney+ account will not work and you will need to open an account with Hotstar just to keep using the service in these countries. And unlike Disney+ which uses an e-mail account for the user ID, Hotstar's variant relies on a cellphone number- if you don't own a cellphone, you can't sign up for Disney+ Hotstar. The app is also structured differently, so it will not work with a Playstation 5's media remote. Lastly, these versions of Disney+ superimposes a very revealing watermark over a corner of the video, making it dangerous to use on a CRT or Plasma display. Did we also mention that unlike the proper service, there are huge swathes of shows and movies missing, and there are local shows that people do not care about nor want injected into the service?
    • The Israeli version of Disney+ was aggressively marketed as having all the American version's features, as well as Hulu's content library, so Israelis who already used American and European Disney+ with a VPN logged in to the shiny new Israeli version, only to discover... that the Disney+ app they're used to still gives a "not available in your region" error box, and they need to download a second app to access the local version, unlike every other streaming service that got an Israeli release. Those who downloaded the "local" app discovered that it doesn't accept their international Disney+ accounts, is full of bugs and missing features, and even looks like a Shoddy Knockoff Product of itself. The reason for all that? Israel's version of Disney+ is just the Hotstar version reskinned to look like the real thing but with some of the original versions' improvements. Worse, Disney Israel offered no explanation why Israel gets the "third world edition" despite being a developed country whose Internet infrastructure is part of the European network, so Israeli would-be consumers just decided to cancel their accounts until they get the same proper Disney+ Europe gets. Since the Philippines would be getting the same version Israel gets, this might also happen.
  • The Japanese edition of the service, due to being an upgrade/rebrand from the former Disney Deluxe service, will not let you use your international Disney+ account on it while in Japan, meaning you will have to open a separate account for it to keep enjoying the service there. However, the Japanese Disney+ became upgraded on October 27, 2021 with the addition of the STAR section, which in turn made the old smartphone-only app there defunct (And not anymore restricted to a NTT DoCoMo account on top of that!), and opened up the service on other platforms and allowed international users to finally use the service in Japan.
• During the Cold War, this was apparently the standard operating procedure for the Soviets exporting military technology to any place that wasn't East Germany. Tanks, aircraft and other hardware was made to a much inferior standard for export. ^note Why not East Germany, though? Because that was where the battlefield would likely be if World War III happened, and it wasn't going to be helpful for the Soviets to have the garbage defending the likely invasion or counterattack route. This was done for pragmatic reasons: 1) it was profitable for the Soviets to produce cheaper garbage but charge the prices for the regular versions; and 2) if the nerfed versions fell into the hands of NATO, it would make Soviet weapons look weaker than they actually were, so the practice was useful as misinformation.
• The Draconic Roar expansion of the Digimon Card Game was rife with errors in the English released that require referencing online notes to play properly. While every set has had a few cards with issues, this set had twenty four, quite a bit higher than anticipated.

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