The Pokémon series tends to introduce a lot of creatures, characters, and elements across its multiple media that are a hit in their home country of Japan but not elsewhere.
General/cross-media examples:
- Pikachu. It's undoubtedly the most popular Pokémon in Japan and a huge cultural icon. But while it does have fans in the Western regions, it has a history of being shafted by people there for being one of the "cutemons" and a symbol of the anime and its Spotlight-Stealing Squad tendencies. Pikachu earned a mediocre ranking in no less than two Pokémon popularity polls hosted by American gaming websites, with almost all of the top slots being dominated by species deemed more badass, especially Charizard. Although most fans unanimously warmed up to Pikachu over time, what with it being the icon of the entire franchise, the preference for "badass" Pokémon still remains.
- Cute Pokémon in general. Duckyworth
, while reviewing Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior, had one of his complaints be about Giratina’s lack of appearance, appearing in only five of the first 43 minutes of the film and instead giving more focus to the "annoying green flower rat" Shaymin instead. In Japan, there is a bigger focus on the lighter, cuter aspects of a franchise, whereas, in most of the merchandising and the anime, mainly cute Pokémon take up the spotlight; while there is more focus on the "manlier" aspects in Western culture. Hence, the cuter Legendary and Mythical Pokémon tend to get a bigger focus in these films (for reference, the movie is called Giratina and the Sky's Bouquet: Shaymin there instead). Eevee and its evolutions are a major exception here, as they tend to be immensely popular worldwide. - Jynx was a big one. Americans disliked Jynx intensely because, while neither Game Freak nor the Pokémon Company has ever fully confirmed the true origins of its design (with it likely being styled after the youkai Yama-uba), by many, it looked like a Blackface-Style Caricature. Jynx's skin tone has since been retconned to purple in all new releases and even in rereleases of Generation I games. Even after the redesign, Jynx never quite shook off the racist association, and beyond that, many people simply think its design is too strange to be appealing. The backlash is likely why Jynx did not get an evolution in Generation 4, while its counterparts: Magmar and Electabuzz did. The species has sometimes been compared to pop singers Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj in an insulting way.
- Inanimate object Pokémon are based on the Tsukumogami, Yōkai that are objects possessed by kami, and are thus typical of Japanese monster designs. However, because Western mythology doesn't have comparable traditions, such Pokémon tend to be scorned by Western fans as "lazy" or "uncreative" designs for "just being an object with eyes". Or at least jarring compared to the favored Kaiju or feline/canine mons. The only exceptions are Chandelure and Aegislash due to their Ghost-typing, and to a lesser extent, Klefki due to its role in the competition. Also, any object Pokémon before Generation V generally escapes this scorn due to Nostalgia Filter.
- Pokémon games from Gen V onward appear to be universally loved in Japan but are met with a more mixed reception in the West. This is sometimes attributed to Japanese gamers' preference for more linear and story-driven games, as the linearity and overbearing plot of later games is a common criticism in the West. In particular, Pokémon Black and White and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon sold better in Japan than in North America, with the former set of games getting a "perfect" review score of 40/40 from Famitsu. Black and White are generally considered to have been Vindicated by History in the West since its release, with criticisms being aimed more at Gens VI and onward. This continued into the Nintendo Switch era; Pokémon Sword and Shield and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet received excellent reviews in Japan and the former pair won Famitsu's 2019 Game of the Year award, but both sets of games were extremely controversial among Western fans for their own sets of reasons.
- As of The New '10s, Pokémon has engaged in the bizarre practice of eliminating some local language translations of the general franchise rather than creating new translations for new dialects, as many other franchises do. This is usually done to import that language's version of the games from a different country and to ensure that other media is consistent with that translation, but often provokes cries of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The French translation, while absolutely beloved in its native France and Belgium for its extensive Woolseyisms (to the point that original French translator Julien Bardakoff was a prominent figure in French 20th-anniversary celebrations for the franchise), became disliked by French-speaking Quebecers when European French games started to be imported in 2010. Older fans generally grew up with the English games and a Quebec edition of the French dub of the anime that used the English names (rather than the French names that phased them out later on), which reflects a larger cultural preference among bilingual Canadian francophones. This also led younger fans to grow up with the imported European translations, causing a generational rift and a bizarre divergence between older and newer fans, who tend to connect more with the international English- (including English Canada) and French-speaking fandoms respectively, and many older fans continue to be bitter towards TPCI completely replacing their childhood translation.
- The backlash in Latin America towards the Castilian Spanish translations is even worse! While all Pokémon keep their English names in all Spanish versions of the franchise, and there was some contention over the European translation using different character and location names from the English games and Latin American anime,note the Spanish translation is most infamous for the very Spain-specific vocabulary in the games that leads to a very silly and incomprehensible script laced with phrases that are innocent in Spain, but very vulgar and unfitting in Latin America. The reaction got so bad that the Latin American fansite ANMTV led a campaign and petition to properly localize the Pokémon games into Latin American Spanish, which caught the attention of the Latin American Spanish anime voice actors for Ash and Brock (who narrated an entire video on the debacle) as well as Nob Ogasawara, the English translator for Generations I through IV, also taking notice. Pokémon Scarlet and Violetnote would go out of its way to make it clear that their Spanish language option is of the European variety, and change the language label for traded Spanish Pokémon from "SPA" to "SP-EU". Along with many 2022 job postings related to Latin American localization, this suggests that The Pokémon Company International is listening to feedback and hints at an eventual Latin American Spanish language option for the series.
- The Chinese version had different names and translations for different Chinese-speaking regions (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China). When a unified Chinese translation was announced for Pokémon Sun and Moon based on the Mainland translation, fans of the "de-canonized" Hong Kong and Taiwanese translations outside of Mainland China took issue. While the Quebec version of the issue went by largely unnoticed worldwide due to the small-ish French Canadian market, and the Latin American version at least kept its own anime dub and Pokémon names, the Chinese equivalent was a large enough issue to spark actual protests in Hong Kong.
- Dub Name Changes aside, one reason why the French and Spanish translations aren't fully accepted in the Americas is that they are overly specific to France and Spain, respectively, with slang, vocabulary, and expressions that are considered awkward and incomprehensible to people outside those countries (in fact, as detailed above, this is the main point of contention with the Spanish translation). China, at least, gets separate Simplified and Traditional Chinese options for the games. In all cases, this seems to be a case of the Fleeting Demographic Rule, where older fans' deep nostalgia for their smaller local translations (or, in Latin America's case, larger local translations) is ignored in favor of making sure all fans who speak a certain language going forward use the same names and terms.
- An offshoot of the above: while French-language Pokémon TCG cards are legal throughout all of Canada in sanctioned events, they have even less pull in English Canada than they do in Quebec with their already-divisive reputation there. It's easier to find Japanese or even Chinese and Korean cardsnote in English-speaking provinces than French ones. While this normally wouldn't be too surprising, of note is that this doesn't apply to its competitor, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game, where cards in French and other European languages are legal in tournaments and mixed-language decks are somewhat popular.note
Game examples:
- Lyra from HeartGold and SoulSilver. While fairly popular in her home country, many Western fans hate her for her Moe appearance (accusing it of being Lolicon in the worst cases), while others hate her simply for not being Kris. As the generations go by, the hate towards her is a lot less common than it originally was, especially when Pokémon Masters allowed her and Kris to co-exist with one another.
- Due to the popularity of sites like Smogon and Serebii.net, unofficial competitive Pokémon battling is done largely as single battling. While in Japan, there is roughly even popularity between single battling, double battling, triple battling, and rotation battling. However, this has lessened over Generation V due to Nintendo hosting numerous online competitions (with prizes) where only double battling is allowed. This has prompted many (but not most) of the formerly singles-only battlers to give double battling a chance, though good comprehensive coverage of double battling strategies is still difficult to find.
- In Japan, Subway Bosses Ingo and Emmet from Black and White are explosively popular Ensemble Darkhorses, coming first and third in an official poll (the universally popular N was 2nd) and often getting more fan works than the main characters. Outside their home country fans generally found them creepy and unmemorable, if they remembered they existed at all. This only changed when Ingo unexpectedly returned in a major role in Pokémon Legends: Arceus but even then, overseas fans viewed this as Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, rather than an already beloved character getting even better.
- Tierno from X and Y is fairly popular in Japan, managing to score third place on a popularity poll. When Western fans bother to pay attention to him, it's not good. The anime does a better job of showcasing him as a character, but he isn't at the same level of popularity as he is in Japan.
- Friendly rivals in later games as opposed to the more antagonistic ones like Blue or Silver. It's likely the shift in trends partially resulted from Japanese culture not looking favourably on arrogance (and indeed, many rival characters, in general, tend to have their arrogance exaggerated in English localizations, including Blue Oak himself). However, many Western fans, especially older ones who started during the first two generations, prefer the patronizing or outright hostile nature of Blue and Silver. While some of the later rivals do have their fans, many see them overall as Badass Decay and would prefer to have once again a Hate Sink who the player can eventually put in their place. Bede from Sword and Shield, the sole representative of Jerkass rivals in recent generations, has become quite popular for this reason.
- While Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing are divisive concepts all around, the Japanese generally like them more than the Western fanbase due to their love for the idea of giant monster battles. The West is generally mixed due to Dynamaxing being one of the reasons for the Galar Pokédex exclusions and because the mechanic is overpowered in 6v6 singles. Fans prefer Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves because they sacrificed nothing in their respective games, and they aren't inherently broken gimmicks in singles. It is worth considering that Pokémon Showdown, the unofficial battle simulator used by Smogon very popular among western competitive Pokémon battlers, does not have Japanese support, nor is there a Japanese counterpart to it. As a result, except for triple battles, Japanese online battling never went full 6v6.note Dynamax and Gigantamax are mechanics designed with partial-team battling in mind; the Japanese, who are used to partial-team battling, don't mind it quite as much as Western competitive battlers.
Anime examples:
- A general rule is that any mon, whose role is primarily staying in their base form and being cute, is more popular in Japan than in the West, per Japan's preference for cute mons over badass ones. The mons that manage to avoid this fate in the West tend to mostly be Ash's, as Western fans will generally appreciate a cute mon that is able to hold its own in battles. However, they retain a certain stigma (which is part of the reason Pikachu, while cute and undeniably badass, is generally less popular than Charizard, Greninja, and Infernape regarding topics of Ash's ace Pokémon).
- Dawn's Piplup. For Japan, it was a cute, loveable penguin that was a major Pokémon mascot for a few years. Outside America, however, Piplup is viewed as a Creator's Pet (Not all Piplup, just this one in particular.) and received substantial criticism due to its refusal to evolve into Prinplup, a plot point that was seen as shamelessly recycled from both Ash's Pikachu's refusal to evolve into Raichu and Ash's Bulbasaur's refusal to evolve into Ivysaur, both in the original Kanto anime. However, videos like these seem to say otherwise, saying that it's both annoying and lovable at the same time.
- Ironically, when the successor series, Best Wishes, introduced Piplup's Suspiciously Similar Substitute Oshawott, Western fans weren't nearly as spiteful. Besides the fact that he doesn't become as much of a Creator's Pet despite having a similar personality to Piplup, a lot of fans feel that Oshawott's generally less annoying, has at least marginally better Character Development, he doesn't need to show off in Contest battling, and his cuteness isn't quite as force-fed to the audience as Piplup's was.
- Misty's Togepi is simply disliked by many American fans due to it sitting in Misty's arms so often that it makes it come off as honestly useless and often seen as the reason why Misty's personality was toned down. However, it's still well-regarded by nostalgic Japanese fans to this day.
- Dawn's Piplup. For Japan, it was a cute, loveable penguin that was a major Pokémon mascot for a few years. Outside America, however, Piplup is viewed as a Creator's Pet (Not all Piplup, just this one in particular.) and received substantial criticism due to its refusal to evolve into Prinplup, a plot point that was seen as shamelessly recycled from both Ash's Pikachu's refusal to evolve into Raichu and Ash's Bulbasaur's refusal to evolve into Ivysaur, both in the original Kanto anime. However, videos like these
- Pokémon Heroes' Ambiguous Ending of whether it was Bianca or Latias who kissed Ash is a rather infamous debacle among the Western fandom, mainly due to the latter carrying Squicky implications. In Japan, however, the ending is considered much more heartwarming, with various references to the ending still being shown in the main series anime long after the movie's release (including during the famous Kissing Discretion Shot from the end of XYZ). In general, Heroes has much better reception in Japan than it does in the West, with it having won 2nd place in a Japanese poll for the most popular Pokémon movie, only beaten out by Mewtwo Strikes Back.
- To give a bigger picture on how much Japan enjoys Heroes: in 2017, it was voted the most popular in a fan poll hosted on the Pokémon films' official website. In 2021, the Pokémon Company released a poll in Japan asking them to pick their favorite one in each category of OS, AG, DP, BW, and XY, and the winner for the OS group was Heroes. Finally, for the 25th Anniversary Pokémon Film Festival in 2022, the Pokémon Company held a vote and re-released three of most popular Pokémon films in Japan that year and they were Heroes, Wish Maker, and Rise of Darkrai.
- To give a bigger picture on how much Japan enjoys Heroes: in 2017, it was voted the most popular in a fan poll
- Manaphy from Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea gets disliked by many American fans due to it having tantrums without May so often that it constantly comes off as whiny. In Japan, it's something of a fan favorite for its cute design.
- The aforementioned Shaymin from Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior is a Ridiculously Cute Critter that's popular among Japanese fans. However, the West's point-of-view of it is less than admiring, as, throughout the movie, Shaymin comes off as an ungrateful Bratty Half-Pint (ironic, given how it's the Gratitude Pokémon).
- Virgil has notable hate in America: partly for being the essence of Merchandise-Driven, partly for being bland and undeveloped, and partly for being The Unfought. He had all of Eevee's evolutions (to date) and an Eevee itself, for the sake of making him "unique" as a trainer, spontaneously got to be in the tournament (by coincidentally getting all the badges), had almost no interaction with the main cast (at least Cameron shared tons of scenes with Ash), had zero build-ups (his introductory episode was the episode right before the tournament started), and wins the tournament when his Eevee knocked out a Druddigon with a rather overpowered move. Meanwhile, he is an Ensemble Dark Horse in Japan who gets copious amounts of fan art and is even very frequently shipped with Bianca.
- Iris and Cilan from the Black & White series are considered highly divisive characters in the West. For Cilan, it was a cross between him being a Replacement Scrappy for Brock and his "connoisseur" plot not being developed at all. Iris' problem was the general ambivalencenote of cuteness combined with her childish Hypocritical Humor rubbing salt into the wound that was Ash's virtual lobotomy. In Japan, they were very popular with the core 5 million-some audience for the show, so much so that ratings went from 3.6 for BW's finale to 5.5 for Cilan's post-series special, and Iris' special scored a 5.6 (virtually the same viewers) despite airing five months later. Much of this is explained by the fact that unlike in the West, the Japanese versions of the characters are voiced by Aoi Yūki and Mamoru Miyano, respectively, both of whom are extremely popular voice actors over there.
- Latios and Latias from Pokémon Heroes are pretty popular in Japan but while they have a few fans in the U.S., they are panned by critics in the region due to their high-pitched noises and hints of Interspecies Romance between Ash and Latias (according to the games, they can communicate with humans, but that never comes up in the movie). The film's antagonists, Annie and Oakley, are hated by some American fans because the English dub turned them from freelancer criminals who want to Take Over the City to members of Team Rocket who want World Domination, which is seen as an unnecessary change by purists.
- Showcases are much more divisive internationally than they are in Japan. They're heavily based on the Idol Singer industry, which is popular in Japan. However, outside of Japan, people have more mixed reactions to idols (think about the amount of bile that Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber get, and you'll get the idea). Many fans find Showcases boring, too similar to Contests, or think Serena should have gotten a more tomboyish goal such as Rhyhorn racing or battling (especially since most people watch for the Pokémon battles).
- Many English-speaking fans loathe the anime's portrayal of Erika. Amongst the already mean Kanto Gym Leaders, she's infamous for how her staff denied Ash a Gym battle simply because he dislikes perfume, which made it seem like Erika was banning him from facing her for petty reasons. It's not Erika herself, as her laid-back game portrayal is popular (as is her Pokémon Adventures incarnation), but specifically the anime version. In Japan, however, the anime's Erika is popular due to her character design and her sympathetic backstory. This may be why her portrayal in Pokémon: I Choose You! is a Truer to the Text version of the games' portrayal, which was integrated back into the main anime for her reappearance in Journeys.
