Due to the Pokémon series' immense worldwide popularity, some aspects are well-loved in other parts of the world more than in its native Japan.
General/cross-media examples:
- The series was very big in North America in the 90's. This news report
explains just how big it was back then. Merchandise frequently sold out during the holiday season, and events drew big crowds. It's also worth noting that Pokémon: The First Movie beat The Rugrats Movie for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film based on an animated TV show at the time note and is still the highest-grossing anime movie of all time in the United States. To this day, Pokémon is still rather popular in the country, especially given it's the highest grossing media franchise of all time as of 2019. - Charizard is already very popular in Japan, but is perhaps the most well-loved Mon in North America.note This even extended to the Card Game, where everyone wanted its card, despite being fairly useless. In English-speaking stores, Charizard merchandise tends to sell faster and at higher prices than other Pokémon, even Pikachu. The big lizard also won two Pokémon popularity polls ran by American gaming websites (IGN and Dorkly).
- Mewtwo is also extremely popular in America, often nipping at Charizard's heels in popularity polls. In particular, the more "evil" versions of Mewtwo (as in Pokémon: The First Movie, the Super Smash Bros. series, and Pokémon Origins) tend to be popular with the American fanbase. Tellingly, every official American-developed Pokémon work (Pokemon Puzzle League, Pokémon Live!, Pokémon Detective Pikachu) gives Mewtwo a climactic yet non-villainous role that reflects its life after the first movie.
- Pikachu seems to be the most popular Pokémon in France, like in Japan. Pikachu's Pokémon Speak is undubbed and its name is the same in every language, giving it a sort of universal appeal, and France (which loves Japanese culture anyway) tends to be subject to American Kirby Is Hardcore less than America.
- Speaking of France, the Pokémon franchise is very popular there, possibly having the third-largest sphere of influence there behind Japan and North America. Nintendo games and Japanese culture in general are big in France, and the various French Dub Name Changes and dialogue Woolseyisms are very well-loved by their target audience.note Pokémon returned the favor by setting Pokémon X and Y in a France-based region and by having Junichi Masuda as an occasional guest at Japan Expo, a French anime convention. It's not uncommon to find elaborate ROM hacks in French that have yet to be translated to other languages, and merchandise packaging usually prioritizes French over other non-English European languages (despite there being more German speakers than French speakers in Europe).
- Many Pokémon fans outside of Japan cheered on Japan's Samurai Blue soccer team at the 2014 FIFA World Cup due to their choice of Pikachu and several other Pokémonnote as their team mascots.
- It should be noted that among fan artists, Western artists tend to enjoy drawing the Pokémon themselves more than the human characters. The reverse is true of Japanese fan artists. Somewhat downplayed as there are still a fair few people on both sides (or at least in the West) that invert the trend, and enjoy drawing both and/or, in the spirit of the franchise, drawing both together.
- However, this trope was also quite exaggerated among Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fandom — more foreign artists make Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fanworks than the Japanese artists do, despite the games received better critic reviews in Japan than in the West, partly due to that the games' world having only Pokémon, alongside dramatic storytelling, being a huge deal amongst Western fandom compared to the Japanese. It's not rare for a Japanese fan to make a fanwork out of Mystery Dungeon spinoffs, but it's still uncommon for them to do so.
- In a 1999 interview, Satoshi Tajiri has said that when Japanese players think of Pokémon, they immediately think of just Pikachu. For Americans, it was both Ash and Pikachu. Because of this, he believes that American fans understood the teamwork dynamic. Oddly enough, both fanbases have evolved since then; the American fanbase is mostly about the Pokémon themselves (the Trainer aspect is still around, but the players themselves are the trainers, rather than Ash). In Japan, the "teamwork" aspect has been inverted, featuring the anime's trainers on much of its merchandise and promotions, and America focusing on the Mons themselves, often not exporting Japan's trainer merchandise (with some exceptions).
- The American players now relate more to Red (the generic name for the trainers in the original Pokémon games) and the aforementioned Charizard. So the teamwork still applies.
- In French-speaking Quebec, you're much more likely to find fans familiar with the English names and translations than the French ones, particularly among millennials and older zoomers. At the height of Pokémon's popularity, the games were only available in English there (and remained so until 2010), and an edited version of the French dub was made that used English names. As a result, the sudden appearance of France's French games turned out to be rather jarring for many fans, who simply stuck with what they were familiar with. This extends to the TCG, where it's easier to find English-language cards in Quebec than in France or Belgium and they're considered more valuable and desirable than their French counterparts.
- In Japan, Decidueye is regarded as the least popular of the Gen VII starter Pokémons' respective third stages; being overshadowed by Incineroar and especially Primarina (the latter of which placed third in a Japanese popularity poll behind Mimikyu and, ironically, Decidueye's own starting form Rowlet while Decidueye didn't even place). It's a whole other story in North America, though, where Decidueye is a huge fan favorite (due to being the "cool and badass"-looking starter of Gen VII a la Greninja) and Incineroar and Primarina have comparatively much quieter fanbases. This is demonstrated very well in regards to which of the three starters was added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; Incineroar was a celebrated addition to Ultimate in Japan, but mostly drew indifference (if not outright annoyance) in North America, where the fanbase very vocally campaigned for Decidueye to be added to the playable roster instead.note Thankfully, Decidueye would later get its time in the spotlight with a regional variant as the Grass-type starter for Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
- Likewise, Roaring Moon isn't a notably popular Paradox Pokémon in Japan, not even cracking the top 50 in the same Japanese Gen IX popularity poll that was the first indicator of Tinkaton's popularity and being beaten out by Slither Wing and others. In the West, it's one of the more well-liked Paradox Pokémon for being an awesome Dragon/Dark type with great stats and a colorful but fierce design, and is the most expensive card in the TCG's Paradox Rift expansion due to its popularity and playability.
- Some foreign Pokémon names catch on in countries other than the ones they were intended for. Blastoise's French name of "Tortank" is popular with English-speaking fans, having earned special mention on a number of blogs and a Dorkly popularity poll. Since it's derived from "tortue" (which is similar to English "tortoise") and "tank", it can easily pass as a cooler English Pokémon name. There are other examples like this; for example, Houndoom's Japanese name of "Hellgar". This was very prevalent during the pre-release period for Pokémon Black and White in the West, where many people got attached to the untranslated Japanese names ("Ononokus", "Ulgamoth", etc.) and decried They Changed It, Now It Sucks! when the English names were leaked in January 2011.
- French Pokémon names are creative enough to sometimes find themselves repurposed for Fakémon names in English. Examples include Tortank,note Grolem (Golem),note Diamat (Zweilous),note and Sorbébé (Vanillite).note While possibly coincidental, Darumacho (Darmanitan) is also the English name of a Yo-kai in Yo Kai Watch.note
- In Russia, Slowpoke is the best known Pokémon for non-gamers. If you pointed the mouse cursor to the Russian flag on Arkhangelsk Oblast Investigative Committee's official webpage in 2010, you could see Slowpoke's image. Representatives called Slowpoke "weird piglet".
- You can tell Pokémon is popular in Singapore that in fact, it was the highest-rated show along Hi-5 on its free-to-air channels, Kids Central and their successors, Okto and Okto on 5. It's even up to the point where they have pop-up cafes based on it and a Pokémon Center in the country and boy, they draw BIG crowds.
- In 2022, Kricketune suddenly becomes popular among Chinese fandom. Mainly due to 口袋迷ag, one of the most famous Pokémon fan in China, spent nearly three minutes complaining how useless Kricktune is when he was analysing Pokémons from generation IV families. Popularity of Kricktune even grew higher when an audience used a combination between Kricktune and Palafin as his ID, that even causing ag to utter a criticism that sounds like the villain mocking the hero. Some fans tried to make Kricktune Memetic Badass by comparing it with Satoru.
- An example regarding subsections of the franchise rather than countries: while Giratina is a generally well-liked Pokémon with most of the fanbase, it's easily one of the most popular species with the modern Pokémon TCG collector and player base. This is largely due to its very powerful (if balanced) VSTAR card from the "Lost Origin" expansion, which allows a One-Hit KO on opposing Pokémon if certain conditions are met, as well as the amazing artwork by Shinji Kanda for its Special Illustration Rare from the same set, which easily reached Charizard levels of expensiveness and hype despite being of a far less well-known Pokémon that hasn't been heavily marketed by Game Freak. Though not as drastic an example, Wailord also tends to be more popular in the TCG than elsewhere because its cards are always printed with very high HP values and tend to be playable.
Game examples:
- For Pokémon Black and White, Black sold more copies than White in Japan, and its white dragon mascot Reshiram was one of the most popular Pokémon of its generation there. The reverse was true in America, where White outsold Black and its black dragon mascot Zekrom had a bigger fanbase.
- The release of Pokémon GO was at first limited to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, in part to stress test servers prior to the Japanese release. Americans' love of the game caused the servers to frequently crash in the opening days of its release. The app's huge success also caused the game to be featured on national news stories nightly for nearly two weeks. Even Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton got in on the action, hosting a few events at Gym locations where one could both register to vote and register to play the game.
Anime examples:
- While Misty is not outright hated in Japan, she is much more popular in the Western fanbase, being the most popular of the heroines. This comes from her strong personality and determination in battles. In Japanese popularity polls of the best Pokémon heroines (and Jessie) she is usually beaten by Dawn and Serena.
- The UK is the one notable place where the anime does gangbusters both on TV and streaming with great ratings and success. It got to the point that The BBC got the streaming rights to Pokémon Horizons: The Series and is the first English-speaking country to get the dub premieres before any other country.
- One notable aspect of the Best Wishes series was that Team Rocket were retooled into more competent, serious, and genuinely malicious villains. This change was extremely unpopular back home in the East, where their comedic personas are enduringly popular, and even their Japanese voice actors weren't thrilled. Conversely, in the West, where villains who pose legitimate threats are vastly preferred and many had grown tired of their endless comic failures, many fans sat up in their seats and were all like "Team Rocket becoming actual villains? Badass! Sign us up!", rejoicing at their newfound badassery and serialized, arc-heavy role. Them being diminished back to less threatening villains in XY and XYZ was sadly lamented by many Western Pokemon fans. It isn't all bad, though; since those two series, the trio have had a more palpable number of formidable moments and even omission from certain episodes to allow full focus on the heroes' arcs, making their shtick become more obsolete.
- The XY series series is far more beloved by the Periphery Demographic overseas than among its target demographic in its native Japan, where it suffered a steep decline in viewership interest during its second year and plummeted to new lows for the anime in its third year.
- Pokémon Origins. In Japan, people seemed to be content with the regular Pokémon anime, and Origins failed to outdraw one of its specials starring Cilan and Brock. In the Westnote , a good portion of fans were generally sick of the regular anime after the first few seasons and hyped Origins to oblivion for being a more direct, adult-friendly adaptation of the original games. Even though there are debates about its quality in general, Origins remains much-appreciated by the Western fanbase, and was available to purchase directly on the iTunes store in North America and Europe several months before the regular anime.
- The Diamond and Pearl-era anime was a mainstay of Australia's "Toasted TV" block on Network Ten, especially the Battle Dimension season, which was so popular that they started airing a repeat run shortly after it finished.
