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Late Export for You

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When a work from another country or region is released in that region, fans elsewhere are aware of it (usually through the internet) and, either due to an arduously long wait for localization, money/licensing, and/or simply laziness on the part of the creators/distributors, it takes several months or even years to reach other shores. However another reason for the long delay is due to local censorship laws that the content is having trouble navigating through. Since there almost always is some waiting time involved in an overseas release, examples are limited to when the process takes an abnormally long time and/or gets a significant portion of the fanbase annoyed, or even enraged, by the wait and/or importing directly from the country of origin instead. The wait may also cause a significant amount of Fan Disillusionment, especially if the unlucky portion of the fanbase gets exposed to too many Spoilers in the interim.

A general example of this occurred in South Korea with Japanese media. Most of the anime and manga from 1980s and early 1990s would get its official release in South Korea after its historical ban on Japanese media was lifted in the late 1990s. Another example of this is because of a Content Leak, in the case of Hasbro with My Little Pony media during the late 2010s.

This is different from No Export for You, when the creators don't plan on releasing it overseas at all, and Bad Export for You, when a terrible localization of a work is released. However, cases of this may overlap. This can often go hand in hand with Remade for the Export and Compilation Rerelease. Sometimes characters or elements may end up appearing in a different body of work before their "proper debut" in their native series.

Contrast Short Run in Peru, where the work is released somewhere else before it debuts in its country of origin. Also compare the Denial of Digital Distribution variety where the digital release comes much later than the physical one.


Examples:

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    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes:
    • Season 9 of premiered on LeTV in China in 2015, followed by the premiere of Season 10 one year later, and then followed by season 11 another one year later, and so on. A few years later, seasons 9 and 10 premiered in Malaysia on Astro Xiao Tai Yang in 2020, followed by Season 11 in March of 2021.
    • The Season 10-11 episodes were already available on YouTube, but later those episodes were region-blocked after being available there for three to four years for free.
  • King Shakir premiered in Turkey in 2016, but wouldn't land in the United States in any significant capacity until 2023, when King Shakir: Recycle, one of the movies, released on the American version of Disney+.
  • Some countries didn't get Lamput until a couple years after its original Indian release. Notably, the USA finally saw an official release through HBO Max on April 29, 2022, six years after the original release. Around the same time, Cartoon Network US started to air the show on the channel as well.
  • TVB Jade didn't air Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf until 2009 with the Cantonese dub, four years after its debut in China. The same also happened in Taiwan.
  • Even though it was originally produced in English with the assistance of American animation, 2017 Chinese Lilo & Stitch spin-off series Stitch & Ai wasn't released in English until February 2018, on the Southeast Asian version of Disney Channel, and it didn't see release in the West until December 1, 2018 when it arrived in the United States on the DisneyNow service.

    Automobiles 
  • The Audi A3 only hit the North American market on its second generation, by that point it was even made in Brazil, funny enough, its VW cousin, the Golf MK4, was being exported since 1999, and by the next year all the units were made in the very same Brazilian plant.
  • Chevy Colorado, after being discontinued for years, has returned to the North American market, but it's based off of a Thailand-Brazilian GM project that had been released three years before. The Ford Ranger is also from a similar background, only being available to this market after more than six years.
  • Most of the Corollas made outside of Japan were released two years after its country of origin, meaning that by the time, for example, the '98 Corolla hit the worldwide market, the Japanese already had it for quite some time. Quite averted since the 2008 model year, as the car body had to be shortened in Japan to be in compliance with the size tax, despite maintaining the same design and wheelbase. Completely averted by the current generation, as the two models are completely different, but still keeping an two year gap.
  • Toyota took 13 years for their Hilux, now made in Thailand, to make its return to the Japanese market in 2017note , owing to the existing users and enthusiast SUV buyers' strong demand.
  • A big example for Ford: three decades after the Fiesta was initially discontinued for the North American market save for Mexico, and after over a decade without any subcompact (with the Mazda-engineered, Kia-built Ford Festiva, later renamed the Aspire, as their last entry in that segment), Ford started exporting Fiestas to the North American market again in 2009 as part of their “One Ford” world car strategy. This also meant that the hot hatch version, the Fiesta ST, and its larger Focus ST sibling (a Spiritual Successor to the last hot hatch version sold in North America, the Focus SVT) - and especially the even more legendary and long-sought-after Focus RS (sold in Europe and Australia since 2000, with its third generation sold for just three model years in North America from 2016-18) - all managed to hit Ford’s home turf for the first time. Regrettably, issues with the Powershift dual clutch automatic unit in the main Fiesta and Focus models made this return short lived, and played a factor in the company’s controversial decision to wind down sales of passenger cars and focus on trucks and SUVs in the North American market.
  • Honda debuted the Civic Type R on the 6th-generation EK9 hatchback Civic platform, exclusively in Japan on August 1997. Europe got their first Civic Type R in 2001, on the 7th-generation EP3 platform, not too much of a wait. Where does that leave North America? We didn't get the Civic Type R until 2017, on the 10th-generation FK8 platform! It's particularly baffling when considering that the Integra DC2 Type R was released here.
  • Kia Rio, despite the name, has been delayed for years in Brazil, first announced back at the end of the 2000s, the car still has yet to be released. Recently, production started in Mexico and is also exported to Argentina, signaling that this time, it can be for real.
  • It took Nissan decades to realize that it would be a good idea to release the Skyline worldwide (after limited Australian release of R30 and R31 models in the 80s), but it was rebadged as an Infiniti and by that point, it didn't have its GT-R trim, which at the same time, Nissan decided to reboot the GT-R nameplate, later released as a complete, separate sports car instead of a two-door coupe sports version of a sedan.
  • The Saturn L and its successor Aura were based off the Opel Vectra B and C (as the Saturn brand was, at times, essentially Opel for the North American market), however, they were released five years after their European cousins.
  • Despite Lexus began selling in Japan in 2005, it took 13 years for them to get ES sedan, one of their export-only models, to be sold in their own market. The smaller HS (and its Toyota equivalent Sai) was made an excuse between these periods.

    Films — Animation 
  • The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie were both released in Japan one year after their respective release dates in the United States, with the former getting a theatrical release in March, and the latter getting a Direct-to-DVD release in June.
  • The Croods: A New Age was released in the UK on July 16th, 2021, just under eight months after its US release on November 25th, 2020.
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • This happened to many Disney films in Eastern European countries. Until the 1990s, many of their films, including the Disney Animated Canon, could not be exported to most of COMECON countries because of the CoCom embargo. For example, while Cinderella (originally released in 1950 in the US) managed to get a Polish release in 1961, the movie wasn't officially released in Russia until 2005 (55 years after the movie's original release and 14 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union).
    • Dumbo premiered in the Netherlands on 25 July 1951, almost a decade after it originally came out.
    • The Black Cauldron received a Polish dub in 2017, 32 years after the movie's premiere.
    • The Great Mouse Detective was dubbed into Czech, Hungarian and Hebrew in the mid 2010's, nearly 30 years after its original release.
  • Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil never got theatrically released in the UK, but it got a UK VOD and DVD release eleven years later.
  • Kirikou and the Sorceress was not released in the US until 2002 (four years after the original release in France) due to the film's depictions of nudity.
  • Most Marcell Jankovics films are victims of belated releases as they originally had very little international reach.
    • Son of the White Mare from 1981 did get limited American festival showings as early as 1984 but no official public release. It was slated for a 2020 American and European theatrical release, which was cut down to limited screenings due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it went straight to video-on-demand services instead. The official Blu-ray finally followed in 2021, 40 years into the film's lifetime.
    • Johnny Corncob from 1973 was sold to American distributors (Hanna-Barbera in specific) for a proposed heavily altered Re-Cut that got shelved for various reasons. The film thus officially came out in the US for the first time in 2021, as a bonus movie on the Son of the White Mare Blu-ray.
  • Missing Link was released in Italy only in September 2020, a year and a half after its original release.
  • Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf series:
  • Pokémon: The Series: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution is an interesting case. While the film saw a premiere with Japanese subtitles during Anime Expo 2019, the English dub didn't get a release until Netflix announced it for streaming outside Japan and South Korea on February 27, 2020. Its release in Japan was July 12, 2019; so many expected the dubbed film to be released in theaters that November, but this never came to be despite some tie-ins with the trading card game and events in Pokémon GO.
  • Ralph Breaks the Internet came out in France three months after its US release, despite being well into the late 2010s (a time where people are used to Disney movies getting worldwide premieres).
  • Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is this for Australia/New Zealand with the movie confirmed to be out in the land down under in September 2023 in theaters there, the same month the movie will be out on Blu-Ray and DVD in the US. Japan once again ends up getting the movie way late, in December 2023, a whopping SIX MONTHS after the US release... albeit straight to digital, and with Invisible Advertising as well.
  • The Smurfs and the Magic Flute was produced in 1976, but was not shown in the United States until 1983, when it was released to capitalize on the success of the Hanna-Barbera series.
  • This happens to many Studio Ghibli movies in North America:
    • Castle in the Sky: Released in Japan in August 1986, released to DVD in North America April 2003, 16 years later. note 
    • My Neighbor Totoro: Released in Japan in April 1988, released in North American theaters May 1993, five years later.
    • Grave of the Fireflies: Released in Japan in April 1988, released on a subtitled VHS in North America June 1993, 5 years later.
    • Kiki's Delivery Service: Released in July 1989, released in North America on VHS September 1998, 9 years later.
    • Only Yesterday: Released in theaters in July 1991 in Japan, aired on Turner Classic Movies January 2006, 14 years later.
    • Porco Rosso: Released in Japanese theaters in July 1992, released on DVD in North America in February 2005, 12 years later.
    • Ocean Waves: Aired on Japanese TV in May 1993, released in North American theaters December 2016, 23 years later.
    • Pom Poko: Released in Japanese theaters in July 1994, released on DVD in North America August 2005, 11 years later.
    • Whisper of the Heart: Released in Japanese theaters July 1995, aired on Turner Classic Movies January 2006, 10 years later.
    • My Neighbors the Yamadas: Released in Japan July 1999, released on North American DVD August 2005, 6 years later.
    • The Cat Returns: Released in Japan in July 2002, released on North American DVD February 2005, 2 and a half years later.
    • Tales from Earthsea: Released in Japan July 2006, released in North American theaters August 2010, 4 years later.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Crazy Rich Asians was released in late November 2018 in mainland China, four months after its world premiere. Warner Brothers have to wait for the approval from Chinese government for the movie to be shown in the country. When the movie was finally released in the country, the home video releases were already available in the market which contributed to the low ticket sales, eventually flopping at the Chinese box office.
  • Dredd first came out in 2012, but in Italy it took seven years to get dubbed and distributed on the home video market.
  • A Fistful of Dollars was an Italian-produced remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo... which, unfortunately, was done without Kurosawa's permission (and copied a lot of the plot verbatim). The resulting lawsuit (which Kurosawa won) came with an order that the film could not be shown in the United States until three years after it was initially released.
  • Freaky was mostly released in international markets from April 2021 on, over five months after its US release on November 13th, 2020.
  • Get Carter: You would think you could pop down to your record shop and get Roy Budd's soundtrack on a vinyl in 1971, and you could... in Japan. There wouldn't be a British album release (if you didn't fancy paying expensive import prices) until The '90s!
  • Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, a 1964 kaiju film was released in Germany in 2011, with a deliberately cheesy dub mimicking the weird monster movie dubbings produced in West Germany during the 60s and 70s.
  • Gone Baby Gone, a 2007 movie was not released in the UK until June 6, 2008, nearly 10 months after its US release following the then-recent disappearance of Madeline McCann.
  • Hero (2002), which was released in October 2002 in mainland China, didn't receive a North American release until August 2004.
  • Mr. Nobody had a world premiere at the Venice film festival on September 12, 2009... but it wasn't until 2016 that the theatrical cut of the movie got an official Italian dub.
  • The Room (2003) had a theatrical release in Japan in 2020, nearly 17 years after its original release in the U.S.
  • Sorry to Bother You, which had its domestic release in July 2018, only got a release in the UK in December, by which point it had been out on home video.
  • Here Today was released in May 7th 2021 in the US, but wasn't released in the UK until September 3rd and Portugal until October 7th.
  • The Personal History of David Copperfield was released in the United States in August 28, 2020, over seven months after its UK release on January 24.
  • Warner Bros.' late 2020 and whole 2021 film slates have been made available both in theaters and on HBO Max due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and to bolster the latter streaming service, which was only available in the USA back then. People in countries where theaters were shut for months (such as France) had no way to see these films legally for months until the normal schedules for VOD and physical media of theatrical releases had passed. Cue record piracy in these countries for the likes of Wonder Woman 1984 and Godzilla vs. Kong.

    Literature 
  • Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi: After it was finished publishing on its online platform, the novel had its traditional Chinese paperback release in 2016 (and later in simplified Chinese in 2018). It took at least a few years for official translations of the books to come out, with the first volume of the English translation coming out in 2021.
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was originally scheduled to release in the US in September of 1999 after having come out in July of 1998 in the UK, but Scholastic released it in June instead after finding that people were importing it instead of waiting.
  • The Peter No-Tail books, also known as Pelle No-Tail or Pelle Svanslös in the original Swedish, is a series of children's books written by Gosta Knutsson as a sort of protest against Nazism was back in the 1930s, but it has received Animated Adaptations later on, two of which from the 1980s received English dubs released by Vestron Video and Atlantic Releasing in the U.S. and VCI in the U.K. The dubs have become moderate Cult Classics, so you'd think the books would have been translated into English. They were translated... in 2017, 78 years after the first book was released. Even still, not all the books have been translated yet, and one of them, Pelle Svanslös In America hasn't been translated at all, presumably because the book itself clearly takes place in the '30s to '40s. (The Film Of That Book that did get released in English is an In Name Only Mind Screw of a film.)

    Live-Action TV 
  • The South African government would not allow television service in the country until 1976, because Hendrik Verwoerd (the prime minister of South Africa at that time) viewed the television as a threat to the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner volk, giving unfair prominence to English, and creating unfair competition for the Afrikaans press. This means that some American live-action programmes from the 1960s, such as ABC series Batman and Bewitched and NBC's I Dream of Jeannie, were not exported into South Africa until between 1976 and 1979.
    • Also, some British production companies, as well as British Actor's Equity, refused to sell the programs to South Africa's main broadcaster, SABC, in protest of the apartheid. This means that some British television programmes from the 1970s and the 1980s only aired in South Africa during the 1990s, after apartheid ended.
  • A peculiar example with the Batwoman episode "Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2", due to Batwoman and the rest of the Arrowverse being on different networks in the UK. After Sky1 failed to get permission to show the episode as part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) event, Channel Four decided to show it at the end of the season, to avoid interrupting the story arc with an irrelevant crossover (despite the fact a major plot development in that arc hinges on Crisis having happened).
  • In November 2019, Disney+ launched in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands... and that was it. European countries outside the Netherlands had to wait until about March 2020 to get Disney+, while Mexico and Latin America had to wait until near the end of 2020. This was especially problematic given the hype and coverage of one of its biggest shows, The Mandalorian, in an age of worldwide launches for big new TV shows, and it was especially frustrating for fans who didn't live in one of the five countries where it launched first and took major spoilers in the face on geeky news sites. It was especially weird considering merch that involves spoilers of said show (namely, toys and T-shirts of the Asset, who turns out to be a baby of Yoda's species) was available for Christmas 2019 in some of the countries that didn't have Disney+ yet. Some resorted to using VPNs to get Disney+, others used illegal means, with The Mandalorian being as pirated as Game of Thrones in only two months. The following year, the delayed implementation of Disney+ caused similar things to Mulan (2020), which due to COVID-19 was relegated to the streaming service, with the added burden that few countries still had movie theaters open.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022):
    • Australian fans had to wait until May 5, 2023 — seven months after the show's North American premiere (Oct. 2, 2022) — to watch it on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network.
    • The British television debut on The BBC was on Oct. 12, 2023, which is more than a year after the original North American telecast.
  • Kamen Rider, the sister show of Super Sentai, would finally start getting American releases via Shout! Factory in March 2020, with the original season being the premier show of a new channel dedicated to tokusatsu 49 years after its debut.
  • LazyTown didn't air in much of Eastern Europe, including Poland and Russia, until 2008, almost 4 years after it debuted, when Jetix began airing the series in that region.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus didn't get mass distribution in the United States until the autumn of 1975 (both the PBS presentations and the heavily-censored ABC Wide World of Entertainment specials that spurred a lawsuit), after the show had already wrapped up production in Britain.
  • The first season of Peacemaker (2022) didn't debut in the UK until March 22, after all of its episodes had already aired from from January 13, 2022 to February 17 in the US.
  • Although the Star Trek franchise had minor notability in Hungary through the theatrical films (released out of order), it was only in 1997 that Star Trek: The Original Series got a release, with the other series following suit in the late 90s and early 2000s. This inconsistent release schedule meant that the characters' voices varied wildly between the different series and movies.
  • Toei and Saban Brands finally started releasing Super Sentai in its original form through Shout! Factory, the same company that released the first 17 seasons of Power Rangers, after 22 years of not releasing the seasons officially in the United States. Supposedly, the main reason for the long wait was that when Disney got the franchise, another company wanted to license Sentai for release in the US, but Disney halted that by buying the rights wholesale for distribution of uncut Super Sentai seasons. Saban didn't have any problem with sublicensing the franchise after they got PR back, so in 2014, Shout announced the release and first released Zyuranger in early 2015. However, they have yet to announce plans for the various movies and V-Cinema crossovers and specials. It's stated that they were a separate license from the show proper. 2019 saw the release of Jetman, the first release with no Power Rangers adaptation, but then there was a hiatus due to Hasbro buying the rights to Power Rangers from Saban, and Super Sentai releases wouldn't resume until 2022 with Fiveman.
  • Riding High, a New Zealand produced teen drama serial based on the German comic series Wendy, was not released in North America until February 2005, nearly ten years after debuting in the aforementioned home countries. That release being on the now-defunct ichannel-a Canadian public affairs channel which was arugably among the last places anyone would have expected to look for a show aimed at kids. ichannel was also the host network for the North American premiere of CITV drama Animal Ark (based on the book series of the same name)-eight years after it's original 1997 launch in the UK.note 
  • While some bits and pieces of the Ultra Series had made it over to the West, such as DVD releases for Ultra Q, the original Ultraman, and Ultraseven, the infamous 4Kids dub of Ultraman Tiga briefly airing as part of the "Fox Box" block in the early 2000s, and certain shows ending up on streaming services, much of the franchise (particularly the Showa era shows, including non-Ultra productions such as Jumborg Ace) was locked out due to some very long-running and bitter legal disputes between creator Tsuburaya Productions and other entities, particularly Thai-based Chaiyo Productions. Essentially, after the two companies collaborated on a couple of projects in the 70s (Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman and Jumborg Ace & Giant), the president of Chaiyo engaged in some legal chicanery to claim the foreign distribution rights to the series, including the use of forged documents. The resulting dispute lasted until 2017, when a court finally ruled in Tsuburaya's favor, and in 2019, they would partner with Mill Creek Entertainment for streaming and physical releases for the entire franchise, with several series of every era of the franchise finally (legally) crossing the Pacific for the first time. Safe to say, it took a while, but it seems the Ultra Series has certainly made up for lost time in terms of distribution in the West.
  • El Chavo del ocho and El Chapulín Colorado both premiered in Brazil in 1984, eleven years after its original Mexican release date of 1973. Many episodes were dubbed over the course of four slots until 1992 in completely random, non-chronological arranging, resulting in some two-parter episodes only having the first or second part aired, and several episodes being included in multiple slots resulting in them having multiple dubs. Until the next official Brazilian dubs for a DVD release of several episodes in 2005, many remained either undubbed or with their dub archived, especially remakes or original versions of episodes that were already airing normally (as the series had an habit of refilming the same stories a few years after the original, so the network found it redundant to air multiple versions of the same episode and, for decades, cherry-picked a specific version of each one to remain airing regularly). Over the course of the 2000s and 2010s, several episodes were dubbed or finally premiered after their dub having been archived for decades, and it was only in 2019 that every common episode of both series had been dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese - and that's not counting the lost episodes or the 80s Chespirito sketches, which still haven't been dubbed as of now.

    Music 
  • Another infamous example is The AvalanchesSince I Left You, released in the UK and US in late 2001, nearly a year after its initial Australian release in 2000, because of the sheer number of samples the group had to clear, and the unwillingness of most major labels to get that job done. Luckily, in North America, Sire Records came to the rescue, and their promotion also helped “Frontier Psychiatrist” become a cult hit in the US.
  • The first two Buzzcocks albums, Another Music in a Different Kitchen and Love Bites, were released in England at different times in 1978. Neither album got an American release until 2001. The seminal singles compilation Singles Going Steady was released in 1979 instead of the first two albums to introduce the band to American audiences, and in turn became a popular release in its own right.
  • Cocteau Twins' albums prior to 1988's Blue Bell Knoll were only released in the U.S. through Capitol Records in the early '90s. Prior to that 4AD Records entered into an agreement with Relativity Records to distribute the band's The Pink Opaque compilation in the U.S., but opted not to issue their individual albums. Their albums were still popular enough imports through airplay on College Radio that they were able to play a handful of gigs in the U.S. before they had an American record deal.
  • Joy Division's second and final album, Closer, took nearly an extra year to be officially released in the United States (March 1981 vs. July 1980 in the U.K.); nevertheless, it still made the 1980 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critic's Poll as an import. Their debut, Unknown Pleasures, had it even worse. It was released in April 1979 in the U.K. and released in the U.S. in October 1980. It wasn't even released in the States for what would have been the band's first U.S. tour had frontman Ian Curtis not killed himself the day before the band was due to leave for America. Their posthumous rarities/live double album Still was released in 1981 in the U.K. and was't released stateside until 1985, off the heels of New Order's Low-Life.
  • EMI America Records declined to issue Kate Bush's albums Lionheart and Never For Ever in the U.S. following the failure of her debut, The Kick Inside there. The Billboard chart entry and favorable reviews for The Dreaming there prompted them to finally issue those albums stateside.
  • Muse's 2001 album Origin of Symmetry wasn't released in the US until 2005 due to a dispute with Maverick Records.
  • Public Image Ltd.'s debut Self-Titled Album from 1978 was originally rejected by the band's American label, Warner (Bros.) Records, for being too uncommercial (ironic given that they would later release the even less commercial follow-ups, Second Edition and The Flowers of Romance, in the US relatively on-time); it wouldn't be until 2013, 35 years later, that the album would finally receive a US release through independent label Light in the Attic Records.
  • Wire's second album, Chairs Missing, was released in 1978 — but not in America, which had to wait until 1989.
  • XTC's Mummer album was released in May of 1983 in their native UK, but their US label Epic Records rejected it, leaving its American status in limbo. It finally got issued in February of 1984 on Geffen Records.

    Toys 
  • In Japan, the first color Tamagotchi came out in 2008. Except for a few Tamagotchi Plus Color devices being sold at Toy Kingdom in the Philippines in 2009 and an English release of the Tamagotchi iDL in Asia and Australia, none of the color Tamagotchis saw a foreign release until the summer of 2019, when the Tamagotchi Meets version was released to the U.S. as Tamagotchi On nine months after being released in Japan.
  • TOMY released a battery-powered model of Edward from Thomas & Friends as part of their Plarail line in 1996, but it wasn't released outside of Japan until 2001.

    Western Animation 
  • Hanna-Barbera cartoons made during the Animation Age Ghetto era in the United States fall under this trope in Germany and Austria, while some other Hanna-Barbera cartoons are outright No Export for You. This is because of Hanna-Barbera's inability to recognize Germany and Austria, the two German-speaking countries of Europe, due to Moral Guardians, and also, owing to both countries' history of authoritarianism. This meant that Top Cat (for example) aired in Germany in the 1990s, a whopping almost 40 years after its premiere.
  • The first season of Adventure Time arrived in Italy on January 8, 2011, 8 months after the series began in the US. To make up for this, the season was aired in a bomb format and ended on January 24.
  • All Grown Up! didn't premiere in most European countries until 2005/2006. Although it did air in France in 2004, it aired on TF1, while it's predecessor Rugrats was airing on France 3. This, unless they had seen the Rugrats special All Growed Up, probably would have made French viewers think that the characters coincidentally had the same names as the ones from Rugrats, not that they were actually the same characters.
  • Due to "life-of-series" programming contracts, new episodes of American Dad! cannot run on Disney+ in Australia until a week after airing on 7mate, which as of 2023, is up to more than 18 months behind their TBS airing in the US.[1]
  • Season 2 of Amphibia did not officially come to Scandinavian countries until April 13, 2022 on Disney+, nearly two years after it originally premiered in the United States and nearly 11 months after it originally concluded.
  • Not counting a ultra-rare direct to video release in 1997, Animaniacs wasn't shown in Russia until 2003, ten years after premiering on FOX.
  • Arthur first aired in Germany in 2001, five years after its premiere.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Japanese Nickelodeon network wasn't well-received, so many of the shows were cancelled and the channel was eventually dropped. As a result, Avatar the Last Airbender originally only ran until Book 2. Years later, Amazon Video salvaged the Japanese dub by dubbing Book 3 with new voices for several of the characters (Aang, Toph, Zuko, Azula, and Suki being the major ones).
  • The Backyardigans came to Israel in 2009, 5 years after the show first aired.
  • Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom didn't air in the USA until October 5, 2015, exactly six and a half years after it's UK debut.
  • The original 1996 Blue's Clues was set to be released in Hungary in 2010. Its first season was already dubbed but due to undisclosed reasons the show never premiered. This "lost dub" was only discovered in 2020, 24 years after the show's original release, on iTunes. Still no television broadcast is planned.
    • Blue's Clues debuted in Norway in 2012, sixteen years after it first aired in the US.
    • The show premiered in both Israel and Poland in 2006.
  • For some reason, the Italian airing of Bob's Burgers on Fox skipped Season 10, which was later released on Star (Disney+) on February 2, 2022.
  • Bob the Builder premiered in Italy on September 28, 2002, a while after it began airing in the rest of Europe.
  • CatDog premiered in Canada on September 18, 1999, almost a year and a half after it aired in the United States. As a result of this late debut, Canadian copies of The Rugrats Movie VHS omitted the bonus short based on the show.
  • Chip and Potato first aired on Family Jr. in Canada on October 15, 2018 and had aired 31 stories (15 1/2 episodes) before being placed on Netflix. Only 10 episodes (20 stories) were released on Netflix at first, but as of November 2019 all 40 stories are available.
  • Darkwing Duck from 1991 didn't get a Hungarian dub until 2004, a fact that nobody outside of the people involved with the dub were aware of, as the show never made it to television. It took until 2022 for this lost dub to surface on Disney+. As Disney cartoons were tremendously popular during the early 90s and children of that era are even called the "DuckTales Generation" in Hungary, it is a mystery why Darkwing Duck got completely ignored for over three decades. This also lead to much confusion, as DuckTales (2017) was dubbed in the country without the knowledge that a Darkwing Duck dub already existed, resulting in many characters having multiple different names.
  • The Fairly Oddparents began airing on Nickelodeon in Japan on July 7, 2006, five years after it premiered in the US and four months before the end of the show's original run.
  • Fireman Sam came to Israel in 2001, 14 years after its UK debut. It was also in the midst of an 11-year hiatus at the time.
    • It also took a while for Sam to come to Italy, with the first episode airing there in January 1999.
    • Some European countries didn't even receive the 1987 version of the series until around the time the 2003 series was airing.
  • In the United Kingdom, the relaunched version of Futurama was once in a similar situation to what Battlestar Galactica: The Plan experienced (see Live-Action TV), thanks to the Sky network holding an exclusivity agreement on the first release of the show in the United Kingdom, and being convinced that no one was really into Futurama anymore. However, as of July 22, 2011, Sky started showing the post-Into the Wild Green Yonder episodes.
  • Garfield and Friends seems to have premiered in Italy in 2003, 15 years after it's premiere.
  • British series Go Jetters premiered in its native country in 2015. It didn't get an American release until 2018, when Universal Kids started to air it.
  • While most Nicktoons premiered a few months to a year later on YTV in Canada, Invader Zim did not premiere on YTV until 2006, 5 years after it originally aired in the US.
  • The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour specials premiered in the late 2000s or early 2010s in most of Europe due to a broadcast conflict regarding Timmy's series. In countries like Sweden and Hungary, they never aired at all. The sole exception other than the UK seems to be the Netherlands, who got the first Jimmy Timmy Power Hour in January 2005, due to FOP always having aired on Nickelodeon there.
  • Johnny Test premiered in Japan in 2015, 10 years after it premiered in the United States and Canada.
  • The Indian feed of Nickelodeon didn't premiere The Loud House until May 18, 2020, 4 years after it premiered in the United States. And the show isn't airing with a dub, likely due to COVID-19. Likewise, the show finally premiered dubbed on Japanese television after being a sub-only release on April 28, 2021, 5 years after its American premiere, on Nick+ via RakutenTV.
  • The Magic School Bus premiered in Japan in 1999, five years after its North American release.
  • My Adventures with Superman began airing its first season on October 20, 2023 on both E4, and Channel 4's streaming service, in the UK, after the season had already finished it's initial airing in the US from July 7th to September 1st.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • The Japanese dub premiered on TV Tokyo in April 2013, 2 1/2 years after the series debuted. Only two seasons were broadcast. Even after the change of licensor from Bushiroad to Sega Toys, the rest of the seasons have yet to air, but the Equestria Girls ones continued on through Netflix Japan. The movie was given a Japanese release 1 year and a month later, Direct to Video, by Pony Canyon. By August 2019, the show was Un-Cancelled in Japan and is now airing the third season almost 7 years after it originally aired in the US and during the show's final season elsewhere. As of November 2023, they are now on the sixth season.
    • In South Korea, the first two seasons premiered on Tooniverse in April 2014, 3 1/2 years after its original debut (which was longer than it took for South Korea to release more anime and to release the Nintendo DS Lite after they completely lifted the ban on Japanese cultural products in 2004). Seasons 3 onwards were released exclusively on Netflix. Lastly, the Korean dub of Season 9 was released in around September 2022 on Coupang Play, three years after its original release.
    • In Croatia, the series began airing in November 2014, more than 4 years after it debuted, and for quite a while aired just the first season (only getting the second one as well in 2017) and initially came with a number of glaring issues (most noticeably the notoriously common audio mixing errors such as careless lip-syncing and looping various lines of dialogue). A second, newer dub of the show eventually came in November 2017, 7 years after the show debuted and 3 years since the original Croatian dub began airing, and first aired only the first season and then announced new episodes from/up to season 4 for April 2020 which was over 2 years since the new dub first aired and several months after the show officially ended in October 2019.
  • My Little Pony: Pony Life: Premiered in the United States on November 7, 2020, while in Canada, it premiered in June 2020.
  • The Owl House:
    • Thanks in part to Disney Channel Italy shutting down in May 2020, and to a lesser extent also the COVID-19 pandemic, the series wouldn't arrive in Italy until February 5, 2021, a year after its U.S. premiere, and exclusively on Disney+.
    • In the Nordic countries, the show did not premiere on Disney Channel until February 15, 2021, a year after its U.S. premiere. The entire first season did not come to Disney+ in the Nordics until May 28, 2021, nearly 7 months after the show was first added to Disney+ in the United States, and 1 year and 4 months after it first aired on Disney Channel in the United States.
    • The show was supposed to premiere on Disney Channel in the Czech Republic and Hungary in January 2021 (as the two countries share the same programming), but because of the anti-LGBTQ attitudes of the Hungarian government it never aired on the channel. However, Czech and Hungarian dubs were already made for the show's first season, and they were released on Disney+ in early 2022, about half a year before the service became available in Central and Eastern European markets. As a consequence, The Owl House first officially came out there over two years after the series' U.S. debut, though it still cannot air on television.
  • Japan got a dub of PAW Patrol in April of 2019, almost 5 and a half years after it premiered in Canada and the United States.
  • For some reason, The UK didn't get Pig Goat Banana Cricket until January 6, 2018—2 years and 5 months after its premiere.
  • Thanks to Nickelodeon Netherlands ceasing broadcast of the series, the final two seasons of Postman Pat weren't aired in the Netherlands until they aired on Dreamworks Channel in 2022, five years after the series ended.
    • The series premiered in Italy in mid-2005, and in Germany in 2006.
    • The show was first dubbed into Hebrew in the mid-90s.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
    • The series premiered in France in December 2000, 2 years after its US premiere. This is especially strange when you realize Cartoon Network's French feed was launched in August 1999.
    • Seasons 5 and 6 weren't dubbed in European Portuguese until 2014 for Cartoon Network due to the series being cancelled by TVI before they could air.
  • Because The Proud Family never aired on Disney Channel in the Nordic countries, it was not officially released there until the launch of Disney+ on September 15, 2020, exactly 19 years after its original premiere in the United States! In fact, the crossover episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series featuring characters from The Proud Family premiered before The Proud Family itself did!
  • Ready Jet Go! premiered in the United States in 2016. Its Indonesian dub premiered in 2020, while the Sinhala, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and Russian dubs premiered in 2021; in all five cases, the dubs premiered after the show had already been cancelled in its native country in 2019.
  • Rugrats came to Israel in 1999, 8 years after the show first aired in the USA.
    • Season 9 of Rugrats premiered on Nicktoons Africa in January of 2019, 17 years after it aired in the United States.
    • The last 3 seasons (including the All Growed Up special) weren't dubbed in Italian until Nickelodeon Italy launched in 2004, because Italia 1 stopped airing Rugrats in late 2001. Due to this, Rugrats in Paris would remain Kimi's only appearance in Italy for 3 years. The dub finally ended season 9 in mid-2005.
  • Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies: The Sabrina portion of this Saturday-Morning Cartoon was an outright No Export for You for countries outside of North America, Latin America, Asia, and selected European countries. However, in The New '10s, the United Kingdom began to see releases of this show, but on home video instead, almost 40-45 years after its premiere.
  • Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat premiered in Bulgaria in 2017, almost 16 years after it premiered in Canada and the United States.
  • The final season of Samurai Jack came out in Italy only in January 2022, 5 years after it was first aired in the US.
  • Schoolhouse Rock! never saw the light of day outside of North America until Disney+ added it in 2020, 47 years after its premiere.
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! didn't get a full release in Norway until 2015, almost 50 years after it premiered in the States (one episode was dubbed for the "Cartoon Crack-Ups" DVD back in 2001).
  • Shimmer and Shine premiered in Portugal on April 1, 2017, a year and a half after it premiered in the US.
  • The Simpsons didn't make it over to Hungary until September 1998, nine years after its American premiere.
    • The episode Another Simpsons Clip Show wasn't dubbed in French until 2006, twelve years after it premiered in the US. This is extremely strange, given that the episode contained hardly any new footage.
  • Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends premiered in the USA in 1981, but never aired in France until 2020 when it became one of the titles available on Disney+ at launch.
  • Spider-Man: The New Animated Series premiered in Italy in March 2013, 10 years after it was first aired in the United States. By the time it premiered there, Ultimate Spider-Man had already aired every episode of its first season.
  • The Smurfs (1981) released its first season in Poland in 1987, six years after it began airing on NBC and while the show was on Season 7 in the US. The dub would not be completed until 2010.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • While most other Nicktoons did get dubbed and released by either Rai or Mediaset, SpongeBob, despite its massive popularity, wouldn't arrive in Italy until August 30th, 2004, a few months before Nickelodeon Italy launched.
    • Similarly, the show first aired in Israel on July 1, 2003, the same day Nickelodeon launched on the country.
    • In Japan, the special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout first aired on NHK in 2022, three years after it premiered in the United States.
    • The series premiered in Poland on July 10, 2008, almost ten years after it first aired in the United States.
    • "Best Day Ever" and "The Gift of Gum" premiered in the Netherlands on May 9, 2010, about 3 and a half years after these episodes originally aired on Nickelodeon US.
    • "Goo Goo Gas" premiered on Nicktoons Africa in January 2019, 11 years after it aired in almost every part of the world.
    • Season 5's "New Digs" and "Krabs a la Mode" first aired in Israel in 2015.
    • Around season 13, the United Kingdom started lagging behind on premieres. For instance, "Pat the Dog" premiered in America on July 9, 2021, while it took until October 2022 to air in the UK. This also extends to its Spin-Off, The Patrick Star Show: "The Yard Sale" reached the United States and Canada in November 2021, but it first aired in the UK in August 2022.
  • "Change Your Mind", the series finale of Steven Universe, first aired in Italy in October 2020, almost 2 years after it originally aired in the US, and almost a year and a half after the previous episode had premiered in Italy.
  • The 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series originally aired in Japan on TX Network (TV Tokyo and its affiliates) in mid-2014, but the show failed to gain traction there initially, and only the first season's dub was completed before the show was temporarily shelved. However, in September 2015, the show was added to Amazon Prime in Japan, and the show's dub was completed there. The dub eventually started airing on TV again on Disney XD from May 2017 to September 2019, with the series finale having already been aired in the United States by the time Season 2's first few episodes had aired on TV in Japan.
  • Thomas & Friends premiered in Greece & Finland in 2001, seventeen years after it first aired in the UK.
    • The show was first dubbed into Latin Spanish in 1994.
    • It came to Romania in 2006, more than 20 years after its UK debut.
    • The show first came out in Israel in 2000.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures premiered in Russia on September 2, 2002, twelve years after it premiered in the US.
  • Total Drama:
    • Turkey managed to release the show on May 4, 2015, almost 8 years after it debuted in Canada.
    • In the wake of Total DramaRama's success, the Catalan dub managed to air the later seasons (All-Stars (2013), Pahkitew Island (2014), and Ridonculous Race (2015)) in its native language in 2019. The dub initially ended at Revenge of the Island.
    • If one has The BBC iPlayer, then The Ridonculous Race made its UK premiere on that platform on April 4, 2022. What's interesting is that none of the previous seasons (excluding Island and Action) that lead up to Ridonculous aired in the United Kingdom.
  • Transformers: Rescue Bots was released in Italy only in May 2017, 6 years after it began and 7 months after it ended in the US.
  • While not exactly late per se, Unikitty!'s French premiere of September 3, 2018, is definitely late compared to the rest of the world.
  • Italy tends to be late when it comes to importing [adult swim] shows that aren't called Rick and Morty. Most of the time it's a case of Unfinished Dub, but The Venture Bros., which premiered in 2003, didn't make it to Italy until April 2021, with the launch of the Toonami channel on Mediaset Play Plus.
  • The Italian dub of Voltron: Legendary Defender began only a year after the US release, but the dub of season 3 and further took a longer wait to be released than the original. The last two seasons were released on the Italian Netflix feed with subtitles only in January 2021, a little more than two years after the original release, with the proper dub being released only two months later.
  • Wolverine and the X-Men got released in Hungary on December 20th, 2012, nearly 4 years after it premiered in the United States.
  • This happened quite often with British children's series in the 90's that were changed for their import into North America. Thomas & Friends took five years to come over as part of Shining Time Station, Noddy's Toyland Adventures took six years to come to the US, where it aired on The Noddy Shop, and TUGS appeared in the United States eight years later on Salty's Lighthouse. The shortest show from Britain to come over to the US that was in a program made to introduce it to overseas audiences was Magic Adventures of Mumfienote  on The Fox Cubhouse. It also happened to British cartoons which aired by themselves without being expanded. For example, Postman Pat aired in 1981 in the UK and aired on US television a mind-boggling 24 years later note  and Fireman Sam, which aired twenty years after premiering in Britain on Sprout note .
  • Elinor Wonders Why was released in Canada on June 6, 2022, a year and nine months after its premiere in the United States.
  • Kiri and Lou came to the United States on May 30, 2022, three years after its premiere in New Zealand on March 18, 2019.
  • Maisy began airing in the Czech Republic in 2020, a full 20 years after its UK premiere in 1999.

    Others 
  • Pornography has commonly been subject to this. However, the Australian/New Zealand market has been the hardest hit with the second being the UK. For this reason, is because Australian and New Zealand lawmakers have the strictest pornography laws in terms of decency and acceptability by their respective governments. British lawmakers have similar rules but not as strict as Australia and New Zealand.
  • NOW That's What I Call Music! free-to-air 24/7 music video channels 70's, 80's, and Rock arrived in the United States though a free TV streaming platform LocalNow on September 29, 2023, nearly 3, 6, and 1 year(s) after their respective launch. Their cable exclusive channel Clubland TV remains excluded.
  • As it both involves both animated and live action movies (and even sometimes TV shows both live action and animated), Japan is the poster boy for this trope. Many factors including timing the releases to specific seasons/events, the time to dub and localize for Japanese audiences, gauging if the movie is a hit in other countries, etc. This Quorra link explains many reasons for Japan being the last to get them.

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