A movie, TV show, or album receives a higher-quality release overseas than in its country of origin. Sometimes this occurs after the work earns a larger fanbase outside of its original country. Other times it occurs when a format with only niche support in North America proves more profitable elsewhere. On music albums, this typically means better (re)mastering or bonus tracks.
Compare Regional Bonus for the video game version and Woolseyism for translations. Contrast with Bad Export for You for when the foreign port is worse than the original version, or Short Run in Peru if the foreign improvements apply to a domestic re-release.
Examples:
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Anime
- The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family: For whatever reason, the cover art for the Japanese streaming service releases do not use any of the anime's advertisement work. It simply uses screenshots of the Daichi family when they finished transforming (barring Nozomi which is from the speed-lines scene when she's charging towards the Alien Octopus monster in episode 2) and the title logo from the anime's opening. However the overseas releases on the Hulu and Tubi releases uses the artwork from the WOWOW broadcast poster for its cover art.
- The Japanese Blu-ray release for Digimon Adventure is noticeably washed out and quite a bit of details are lost. The Discotek BD releasenote instead upscales the SD masters which, though showing a bit less picture than Japan's HD master, preserves a LOT more detail and is a LOT less washed out.
- The Discotek Blu-Ray of the English dub of Digimon Adventure 02 is a complete recut of the Japanese masters to the English dub audio, recreating the title cards, translated text, and other things to match the dub's edits. This was done because the DVD masters they were given for the dub were so degraded that the upscaling software they used genuinely couldn't work for it, unlike the Japanese masters. In addition, the crew at Discotek also reincorporated things that hadn't been seen since the original broadcasts for some reason, like the introduction to the series ahead of episode 1 where T.K. recaps the first series really quickly, which they had the audio for and used the animation from the Japanese masters synced to it.
- This is standard for Funimation, which usually remasters the audio mixes to 5.1 surround sound for the English dubs on DVD and Blu-ray, when most TV anime are usually in 2.0 stereo. They even remastered the English dub audio to Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT to 5.1 when the original Japanese audio mixes were just mono.
- The Hulu release of Futari wa Pretty Cure, is a strange mix of being Bad Export for You and this trope. For some reason, this release undoes the edits and brings back the Japanese music, but keeps the Ocean Studios dub intact, so while it's close to an uncut dub as you can get to PreCure's first installment, you'll still have to get used to hearing Nagisa being called Natalie and Honoka being called Hannah, among others.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- The series has a strange mix of this and Bad Export for You for the Blu-ray release. The Japanese releases had DNR that destroyed some detail and 16-bit audio. The American Blu-ray release from GKIDS upgraded the audio to 24-bit (resulting in slightly crisper audio) and had a more detailed and grainy new transfer with no DNR. On the other hand, the American release infamously removed "Fly Me to the Moon" from the end credits and background music, and was missing (among other things) the original theatrical cut of Death and Rebirth, and a handful of extras (such as an animatic for Rebirth, music videos for "Fly Me to the Moon", and a 5.1 surround music selection).
- Even with the removal of "Fly Me to the Moon", Episodes 21 to 24 are the Director's Cut versions on international Netflix. While Netflix Japan has "Fly Me to the Moon" intact, the versions of the episodes are the original TV broadcast.
- The Japanese Blu-ray release of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) had heavy amounts of noise reduction and clipping on the Japanese audio track, resulting in Digital Destruction. Most international Blu-ray releases would use this same audio track except for the 2011 US Disney Blu-ray release, which used an unfiltered version of the Japanese audio that has more analogue noise (natural for such a film) but sounds much crisper and natural. Unfortunately, the Disney Blu-ray would soon be replaced by GKIDS' Blu-ray release, which would use the same filtered audio track from the Japanese release.
- Scarlet only received a Blu-ray and DVD release in Japan due to its status there as a Box-Office Bomb widely maligned by audiences and critics alike, despite Mamoru Hosoda's previous film ''Belle receiving one. However, internationally, where Columbia Pictures handled distribution and the film performed much better, the film received a 4K Ultra HD release.
- Studio Ghibli:
- In a similar case to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Castle in the Sky had a narrower soundstage and amplification edits on the Japanese audio track for the Japanese Blu-ray release, resulting in Digital Destruction. Most international Blu-ray releases would use this audio track except for the 2012 US Disney Blu-ray release, which preserves the wider soundstage and volume levels of the pre-Blu-ray releases without any of their issues. This version would later be replaced by GKIDS' Blu-ray release, which had an even worse audio track than the Japanese Blu-ray.
- Spirited Away boasted a heavy red tint on its first Japanese DVD releases, which was toned down for the American DVD. (However, the 2014 remaster completely removed the red tint from both countries' Blu-ray Discs and re-released DVDs.) The sets also contain more bonus features in America than in Japan, including interviews with the English dub's cast and a Nippon Television documentary about the movie.
Comic Books
- The Sandman (1989): Neil Gaiman himself has praised the Brazilian editions of The Sandman as superior to the American ones. The Brazilian editions included back covers with details from that specific story, and also bonus sections with essays commenting and expanding on the themes of the issue.
Films — Animated
- The 2002 UK & Australian VHS tapes of Beauty and the Beast (1991) also had more bonus features than the North American release.
- The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, while being a US/UK International Coproduction, has yet to be released on Blu-ray in the UK, even though it was released on Blu-ray in the North America, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and Scandinavia. The North American prints of the Blu-ray suffer from Digital Destruction due to heavy amounts of DNR. However, the foreign prints did not have DNR and preserve the natural film grain and integrity of the image.
- The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie has Dolby Digital 5.1 audio on all of its North American home video releases, but some foreign Blu-ray releases boast DTS-HD Master Audio.
- Some Disney Animated Canon or Pixar movies, including Frozen (2013) and Coco, receive 3D Blu-ray releases in South America, Europe, Asia and/or Australia, but 2D-only in North America.
- Post-2010 remasters of vintage Hungarian animated movies routinely get better releases in other countries:
- Johnny Corncob and Son of the White Horse received a 4K Blu-ray box set with additional bonus features in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. In the films' home country, the restorations were only screened very briefly in theaters during COVID-19 restrictions, and Son aired a couple times on TV, with its reruns being in blurry standard definition rather than HD. As the Blu-ray format never really caught on among most Hungarian buyers and there is little interest for these films, they only got minimalist, bargain bin-style DVD releases with no bonus content. At least the remasters occasionally air on TV, generally around holidays or national celebrations.
- 1979's Foam Bath was released on Blu-ray in North America (2024) and France (2021), with bonuses included. In Hungary, the remaster didn't get a physical release at all. The film was only available on a DVD bundled with the original print of a retrospective book about the film's director in 2010 — the book was republished multiple times without the DVD. This made it so rare that even a television documentary about the director had to resort to ripping a horrible quality VHS recording off YouTube to show at least some part of the movie. Since then, television reruns and limited online releases of the film have been made available but North America and France remain the only markets to get an affordable, widely available physical release.
- The 2023 remaster of Heroic Times was only released in the United States. Though the pre-restoration Hungarian DVD has some bonus features, the North American release has more.
- Cat City has a 4K Blu-ray release in North America, though it does not include the English dub. Despite this being a very popular, highly watched film in its home, there it only received a standard quality DVD. At least both versions have mostly the same bonuses, sans the audio commentary and booklet made specifically for the English-speaking market of course.
- Make Mine Music and Melody Time were both released on DVD censored in North America, uncensored in the UK & Australia.
- A 2003 Peter Pan (1953) Collector's Edition DVD available only in France contained some bonus features never included on any of the movie's American DVD or Blu-ray releases, such as the 1924 silent movie adapted from the original story.note
- Shrek received a UK/European exclusive 3 disk set, which as well as the film and loads of bonus features, also came with the soundtrack.
- The 2001 North American VHS of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs contained a music video after the film, whilst the UK & Australian releases also featured a making of featurette, deleted songs and a sing-along of "Heigh Ho".
- The Swan Princess received a widescreen DVD in Europe, but its only American DVD releases prior to the 30th Anniversary Royal Collection boasted 4:3 open matte picture, exposing the edges of cels in some scenes.
Films — Live-Action
- For certain 20th Century Studios movies, Hulu hosts HD streams in America, or 4K streams in other regions.
- The Apartment lacks HDR on Kino Lorber's American UHD release, but Arrow Films UK's UHD includes a Dolby Vision transfer, plus more bonus features than the Kino edition.
- The Blade Runner North American UHD set includes the Final Cut in both 4K and 1080p, along with commentaries and two DVDs' worth of bonus features. The UK and French sets swap the DVDs for Discs 2 and 3 of the 30th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray; this means that in addition to the North American set's contents, they also include four older versions of Blade Runner in 1080p, an HD art gallery, and a 2007 featurette about the updates made to the Final Cut.
- Four of John Carpenter's films note have been given 4K restorations courtesy of European company StudioCanal, which coproduced and funded the films. Said 4K restorations have been released by them across Europe before getting belated releases in North America courtesy of Shout! Factory. The Shout! Factory releases use the same 4K restorations as StudioCanal but with much more bonus features as well as newly done Dolby Atmos remixes for the films in addition to the 5.1 remixes and original Dolby Stereo mixes that were on the StudioCanal releases. The Fog also has the original mono mix in the North American release in addition to Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and stereo remixes; while the European releases only had 5.1 and stereo remixes with the mono mix being MIA.
- Casablanca received similar treatment to The Wizard of Oz for its own 80th anniversary, albeit without a soundtrack.
- Disney and Sony Pictures both released some family movies, such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Matilda, as pan-and-scan DVDs in North America, and widescreen DVDs overseas.
- Eyes of an Angel: The movie was released in several overseas territories before the USA and that version was the more complete film, featuring more scenes focusing on the girl and the dog, a narration by the girl (see this portion of the Brazilian dub for an example
) and a beginning credits sequence that played over aerial views of Chicago instead of a black background. The movie only got a proper release in the USA after John Travolta came back into the spotlight following the success of Pulp Fiction and it's likely the movie was re-edited to give his character more of a focus and capitalize on his name.
- La La Land:
- The Japanese Blu-ray is specially encoded with a Master Grade Video Coding technology codec invented by Panasonic and Studio Ghibli to increase colour depth. The Japanese Blu-ray of La La Land is one of the few non-Studio Ghibli films (and one of the very few live-action films) to use MGVC.
- The Hong Kong Special Edition Blu-ray has two Q&A sessions that were exclusive to either Target or Wal-Mart in the US and only in SD presented in HD alongside exclusive bonus Hong Kong trailers.
- The Italian 4K Ultra HD release has a far superior encode to other releases, fixing colour issues present in the US release, while adding Dolby Vision dynamic HDR.
- Every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie beginning with Thor: Ragnarok failed to receive a 3D Blu-ray release in North America, but some did receive this treatment overseas.
- Monkey Man doesn't contain any bonus features on its American UHD disc, relegating them to the 1080p Blu-ray, the digital copy, and the DVD. However, the European UHD disc includes extras.
- Spaceballs: The American Kino Lorber UHD carelessly removed Dot's lines from the scene where Dark Helmet impersonates King Roland, but the Arrow Films UK UHDnote restores them.
- A 30th Anniversary Edition of Super Mario Bros. (1993) was released in Australia on standard Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray, with a ton of bonus features that weren't included on previous releases.
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) 80th Anniversary Edition Ultra HD Blu-ray set only includes two discs in North America: The 4K disc and a repressing of the 75th Anniversary Edition 2D Blu-ray. The UK also provided a four-disc option; disc three includes additional bonus features from past DVD and Blu-ray sets, and disc four consists of a soundtrack.
- Wong Kar-wai movies:
- Only five note of his eleven films have received Blu-ray releases in Hong Kong. And said releases are often mediocre, bargain-bin quality releases with poor upmixes of the original audio, the films being presented in the wrong aspect ratio, loads of DNR, and little to no bonus features. In contrast, the various international releases have proper and director-approved restorations, well-made audio mixes, and usually a boatload of bonus features.
- The Grandmaster has a blend of this and Bad Export for You, as while the North American release has a decent selection of bonus features, it was heavily edited. The Hong Kong release is a Vanilla Edition but it is the director's extended Chinese version, and the audio has been properly remastered in 7.1 surround. The video quality is not half-bad either.
Live-Action TV
- 24:
- Only the last two seasons ever saw a Blu-ray release in the US, but Japan got the first six seasons and the Made-for-TV Movie 24: Redemption on Blu-ray in full HD.
- 24: Legacy went DVD-only in the US due to its declining ratings, but other countries received a Blu-ray release, with the Japanese release not even labelling it as the "First Season" despite being released after it was cancelled with only one season.
- 21 Jump Street (1987): Most home media releases of the show do away with the original soundtrack due to licensing issues. However, the German DVD release was able to secure the rights, and thus the soundtrack is preserved there.
- For Bewitched, Mill Creek Entertainment's stateside Complete Series Blu-ray compressed cropped widescreen versions of the show onto 22 discs, while in Australia, Imprint Television's Blu-ray boxsets (each containing two seasons) spread uncropped versions across a total of 39 discs. Additionally, Mill Creek's delayed boxset didn't come out until after Imprint's line reached Season 4. Imprint's Seasons 1 & 2 set also includes some extras from Sony's discontinued Bewitched DVDs, and comes closer than the American colorized or color-drained DVDs to reproducing the original black and white ABC broadcasts.
- Columbo got a complete series Blu-ray set in Japan over a decade before it did in North America; the Japanese version is also one box set, while the North American version is split in two.
- When Cutie Honey: THE LIVE was originally released in Japan, it was DVD only and split over nine volumes. When Discotek got the North American rights to it, they released it for the first time on a single, two-disc Blu-ray set. And the North American set doesn't cheap out on extras because it also keeps a ton of featurettes, creditless openings and the DVD bonus episode, with the featurettes being the only thing lacking the new Blu-ray quality footage.
- I Dream of Jeannie: Mill Creek Entertainment's stateside Complete Series Blu-ray compressed interlaced masters of the show and I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later onto 12 discs, with results no more attractive than an upscaled DVD. In Australia, Imprint Television's Complete Series Blu-ray spreads full HD remasters across 22 discs, and also includes the extras from Sony's discontinued DVD of the first season.
- Kamen Rider Dragon Knight failed in North America, but had a major success in Japan, where it received a DVD release, a sequel novel and a guide book.
- Narcos Season Three and Narcos: Mexico only received DVD sets in the US, with Mexico not even going beyond its first season. However, these series did receive Blu-ray releases in Canada, Europe, and Australia.
Music
- Alphabeat: The UK release of The Spell (renamed The Beat Is) added "Til I Get Round" to the tracklist.
- Art of Noise:
- In No Sense? Nonsense! was designed as an uninterrupted, 41-minute suite, featuring liberal use of Fading into the Next Song. However, while this was easily achievable on CD, limitations of the LP and cassette formats meant that the album had to split itself in half to fit across the two sides. The North American cassette release, however, is able to preserve the intended configuration by storing the full album on one side of tape, even duplicating it on the second to allow auto-reversing decks to play the material ad infinitum.
- The initial US CD release of The Seduction of Claude Debussy added in a bonus disc containing remixes of "Metaforce".
- Asia:
- The only release of Anthology that ever included the original versions of the Wetton-era songs was in Japan.
- Japan and South Korea were the only places to get the orchestral version of "Faithful", found on their deluxe editions of XXX.
- When Gravitas had acoustic versions of a few songs ("The Closer I Get to You", "Joe DiMaggio's Glove", and "Russian Dolls") spread across multiple versions, Japan got the only release which contained all three.
- The Beach Boys: The re-recorded single version of "Cottonfields" was added as the first track on the original UK and European versions of Sunflower.
- The Beatles: The North American release of Magical Mystery Tour expands the EP into a full album by adding on the other five songs from the film, including the two hit non-album singles that it spawned. The result was made an official part of the Beatles canon twenty years later, when it was included in the 1987 CD reissues of their catalog (which otherwise prioritized the UK releases).
- Boards of Canada:
- "Happy Cycling" was added to the North American release of Music Has the Right to Children, before being issued on all re-releases.
- "From One Source All Things Depend" was added to the Japanese release of Geogaddi.
- The Japanese release of The Campfire Headphase adds "Macquarie Ridge" as a bonus track.
- David Bowie:
- CD releases of the man's catalog are notoriously spotty in quality, going all the way back to the earliest run of releases on the format by RCA Records. However, RCA's CDs had two major instances where the North American version is widely agreed to be better than the equivalents in Bowie's native UK: Aladdin Sane features clearer audio on the earliest North American CDs pressed by CSR, while the North American RCA CD of Diamond Dogs features improved equalization (the UK CD featured an unusual amount of bass-boosting). Tellingly, the 2016 remaster of Diamond Dogs by Parlophone Records used the North American RCA CD as its reference point.
- The Japanese release of Never Let Me Down adds a Japanese re-recording of the B-side "Girls" as a bonus track, a modification that extends to all Japanese releases of the album except the 2018 remix.
- The initial Japanese CD release of Black Tie White Noise slots in one additional bonus track, the "Don't Stop Praying Mix" of "Pallas Athena", between the remix of "Jump They Say" and "Lucy Can't Dance". The Singaporean CD release, meanwhile, adds in an Indonesian-language version of "Don't Let Me Down & Down".
- The Japanese release of Outside includes the B-side "Get Real" at the end as a bonus track, a configuration that would later be repeated for Columbia Records' international reissue in 2004.
- The Hong Kong release of Earthling adds in a bonus disc containing "A Fleeting Moment", the Mandarin-language version of "Seven Years in Tibet".
- The Japanese version of 'hours...' includes "We All Go Through" as a bonus track.
- The Japanese release of Reality adds on a Cover Version of The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" as a bonus track.
- The Japanese version of The Next Day includes the B-side "God Bless the Girl" as a bonus track on both the Vanilla Edition and the Deluxe Edition.
- Jeff Buckley:
- The European and Australian editions of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk include "Gunshot Glitter" as a bonus track. The Japanese version has this as well as "Thousand Fold" (which was released in Europe as the B-Side to Everybody Here Wants You).
- The Australian edition of "Mystery White Boy" has a bonus disc of live versions of "That's All I Ask", "Grace" and "So Real".
- The European version of Grace (Legacy Edition) includes Strawberry Street as an unlisted bonus track.
- The North American vinyl release of Grace from 2008 includes a bonus 7" of "Forget Her" and "Strawberry Street", which was not included on European Versions.
- Daft Punk: The Japanese release of Random Access Memories includes "Horizon" as a bonus track.
- Depeche Mode:
- The initial American LP release of Black Celebration adds on "But Not Tonight", the B-side to "Stripped", as a bonus track at the end of the album; conversely, the American CD is an example of Bad Export for You, since the UK CD not only includes a longer version of "But Not Tonight", but also two additional bonus tracks, "Breathing In Fumes" and "Black Day", not on the US CD.
- The initial Japanese CD release of Violator incorporated a second disc dedicated mostly to remixes of "Enjoy the Silence", plus the B-sides "Sibeling" and "Mephisto"; the set also added in a 40-page calendar for 1991, the year after the album's release. This set also got a second print run in Japan that replaced one of the "Enjoy the Silence" remixes with a new one.
- Ronnie James Dio: "Annica" was added to the Japanese version of Magica as a bonus track.
- The North American release of the Diddy Kong Racing soundtrack album featured a CD die-cut in the shape of Diddy Kong's head. While Nintendo of America saw novelty appeal in the idea, the non-circular shape of the disc meant that it would only work in top-loading CD players, sometimes even damaging them due to the uneven weight distribution making the CD too wobbly. The Japanese and German releases, meanwhile, use conventional 12 cm circular CDs.
- Electric Light Orchestra: While the original European CD release of Out of the Blue in 1986 split the album across two discs, the concurrent Japanese CD release fits everything onto just one. This configuration would carry over to domestic CDs the following year as well as the North American CD in 1988.
- Electronic: The North American release of the band's Self-Titled Album adds on the non-album single "Getting Away With It", with later worldwide reissues retaining this change.
- The Fatima Mansions: The German CD/Cassette version of Valhalla Avenue has 6 bonus tracks added, these being two tracks that had appeared on the North American release of Viva Dead Ponies ("Blues For Ceausescu" and "Only Losers Take The Bus [Dump The Dead]"), two tracks from the UK-only Bertie's Brochures mini-LP ("Behind The Moon" and "Shiny Happy People") and two tracks from the Hive EP ("Hive" and "Stigmata").
- Feeder: They are well known for relegating some of their tracks to be Japanese bonus tracks (for example, "Just A Day", "Opaque" and "Shatter"). They also had a UK bonus track on Echo Park, in the form of "Satellite News", which isn't listed as such but is omitted from all other versions of the album. Meanwhile, the Korean release of Yesterday Went Too Soon got "High" as a bonus track.
- Peter Gabriel:
- The initial Japanese release of Us adds on the B-side "Bashi-Bazouk" as a bonus track. However, it turned out that the song was included without Gabriel's permission, resulting in the album being withdrawn and reissued without it.
- The initial Japanese release of Up came with a bonus CD containing the Unadulterated Radio Edit of "The Barry Williams Show", the Royksopp Remix of "My Head Sounds Like That", and the radio edit of "Cloudless" from Gabriel's soundtrack to Rabbit-Proof Fence.
- Genesis: Most releases of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway prior to the 2007 remaster suffer from an indexing error that sequences most of "Broadway Melody of 1974" as part of "Fly on a Windshield". However, Atco Records were briefly able to fix the issue for later CD releases in the US and Canada prior to the Definitive Edition remasters (which contain the error in all regions).
- The Halo Effect's debut album Days of the Lost contained an extra track on the Japanese pressing, "Path of Fierce Resistance". The band released the track to the rest of the world as a standalone single a few months after the album came out.
- Helloween:
- The 1989 Japanese edition of Walls of Jericho includes "Don't Run for Cover".
- The Japanese release of Pink Bubbles Go Ape includes "Shit and Lobster".
- The Japanese release of Master of the Rings includes "Can't Fight Your Desire" and "Grapowski's Malmsuite 1001 (in D-Doll)".
- The Japanese release of The Time Of The Oath includes "Still I Don't Know" and "Take It To The Limit".
- The Japanese release of Metal Jukebox comes with "Rat Bat Blue".
- The Japanese release of The Dark Ride includes "The Madness Of The Crowds".
- The Japanese release of Rabbit Don't Come Easy comes with "Fast As A Shark".
- The Japanese release of Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy comes with "Revolution".
- The Japanese release of Gambling With The Devil comes with "We Unite".
- The Japanese release of 7 Sinners comes with "Faster We Fall" and a code for downloading "Aiming High".
- The Japanese release of Straight Out of Hell comes with "No Eternity" and a Hammond version of "Burning Sun" dedicated to Jon Lord.
- The Japanese release of My God-Given Right comes with "I Wish I Were There", "Wicked Game" and "Free World".
- Janet Jackson: "Start Anew" was recorded for the Japanese market and is present on the first Japanese pressings of Control.
- Michael Jackson: The first 20,000 copies of Off the Wall (1979)'s UK LP release included a bonus picture disc single containing both halves of "You Can't Win" from The Wiz, the film that led to Quincy Jones discovering Jackson in the first place.
- Jamiroquai:
- Emergency On Planet Earth's Japanese pressing has the inner sleeve pic as the front cover, which is what was originally intended.
- Return of the Space Cowboy adds "Light Years (Live)" on the North American release and "Space Cowboy (Stoned Again Mix)" on the Japanese release.
- "Do You Know Where You're Coming From" and "Funktion" were added to the initial UK and Australian special editions of Travelling Without Moving. The later pressings just include "Funktion" and have a different back cover. The Australian edition also has a whole bonus disc of remixes.
- "Deeper Underground" was added to the UK release of Synkronized and on the Japanese version of A Funk Odyssey.
- "Getinfunky" was added to the Japanese release of Synkronized and on the Australian bonus disc for the album.
- "Time Won't Wait" was added to the UK, US and Japanese pressings of Dynamite. It was supposed to be on all of them, but was subject to Executive Meddling.
- "That's Not The Funk" was added to the Japanese release of Rock Dust Light Star.
- "Nice and Spicy" was added to the Japanese release of Automaton.
- Japan (Band):
- The North American CD release of Gentlemen Take Polaroids compensates for its Late Export for You status (coming out 14 years after the original UK LP) by adding "The Experience of Swimming" and "The Width of a Room", previously the B-side and C-side to the double-7" release of the Title Track, as bonus tracks. The songs would later be included as bonus tracks on the 2003 remaster across regions.
- Most CD releases of the Greatest Hits Album Exorcising Ghosts cut out five tracks in order to fit the compilation on a single disc. Japanese reissues on the format in the '90s, however, feature the full 16-song tracklist across two discs.
- Manic Street Preachers: Every single one of their studio albums includes at least some bonus material for the Japanese release:
- The Japanese release of Generation Terrorists adds "A Vision of Dead Desire" as a bonus track. The 1998 Japanese reissue, meanwhile, replaces it with "Motown Junk".
- The Japanese edition of Gold Against the Soul includes a bonus disc containing five songs recorded from a live show at Club Citta in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. The 1998 Japanese reissue omits the disc, but compensates by including three remixes of "Roses in the Hospital" as bonus tracks, while the 2009 Japanese reissue features an expanded version of the original bonus disc that adds on an extra live track from the Club Citta show and various B-sides.
- The Japanese release of The Holy Bible includes three live tracks from Glastonbury 1994 as bonus material, with a 2000 reissue in the country adding on a fourth live song recorded at Clapham Grand months prior to the Glastonbury show.
- The Japanese edition of Everything Must Go slots "No-one Knows What It's Like to Be Me" between "The Girl Who Wanted to Be God" and "Removables" and adds "Black Garden" between "Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)" and "Further Away".
- The Japanese release of This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours adds "Socialist Serenade" and "Black Holes For the Young" to the end as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese edition of Know Your Enemy appends "Just a Kid" and "The Masses Against the Classes" to the end as bonus tracks, while the Australian edition includes the latter song and The Avalanches' remix of "So Why So Sad".
- The Japanese release of Lifeblood adds "The Soulmates" and "Antarctic" as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese edition of Send Away the Tigers adds on a Cover Version of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero", "Love Letter to the Future", "Morning Comrades", and an acoustic version of the Title Track as bonus tracks. The 2009 Japanese re-release, meanwhile, tacks on a whole bonus disc littered with extra content.
- The Japanese release of Journal for Plague Lovers includes "William's Last Words", "Alien Orders/Invisible Armies", and a Cover Version of Felt's "Primitive Painters" with the Hidden Track "Bag Lady" as bonus material.
- The Japanese edition of Postcards from a Young Man includes "Red Rubber" and "Evidence Against Myself" as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese release of Rewind the Film appends "Death of a Digital Ghost" to the end of the album as a bonus track.
- The Japanese edition of Futurology includes "Antisocialmanifesto", "Kodawari", and live versions of "Ocean Spray" and "You Love Us" as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese release of Resistance is Futile features "Holding Patterns", "Mirror Gaze", and a remix of "International Blue" as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese edition of The Ultra Vivid Lament includes "My Drowning World" and "These Dark Roads" as bonus tracks.
- Paul McCartney: The initial US release of McCartney II included a bonus single featuring a live version of "Coming Up".
- New Order:
- The initial US CD and cassette releases of Power, Corruption & Lies add on the non-album single "Blue Monday" and its B-side, "The Beach", as bonus tracks, preemptively avoiding the confusion UK buyers had over the highly popular songs not being on the album.
- The Japanese release of Get Ready adds the "Crystal" B-Side "Behind Closed Doors" to the end as a bonus track.
- The North American release of Waiting for the Sirens' Call adds on "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion (Mac Quayle Vocal Mix)" as a bonus track. The Japanese release, meanwhile, features three different remixes of "Krafty" as bonus tracks.
- Mike Oldfield:
- The initial UK CD of Incantations truncates Part Three by just over three minutes; the North American CD, meanwhile, features the full track, which later reissues worldwide would adhere to.
- The North American release of The Songs of Distant Earth added a video game onto the CD in which the player tours a virtual city and solves puzzles that unlock songs from the album. The game was carried over to later European releases of the album as well.
- Queen: The 1991 remasters by Hollywood Records, done to commemorate Queen's 20th anniversary, marked the first time that most of the band's catalog was officially available on CD in the United States and Canada (and the first time that News of the World, The Game, and Greatest Hits were widely available on the format there, as Elektra Records' CDs went out of print within a year). To incentivize purchasing these releases over importing the preexisting EMI CDs, the remasters included various bonus tracks consisting of remixes, B-sides, and previously unreleased outtakes.
- Radiohead:
- The Japanese release of Pablo Honey includes "Pop Is Dead", "Inside My Head", "Million Dollar Question", and live versions of "Creep", and "Ripcord" as bonus tracks.
- The Japanese release of The Bends includes "How Can You Be Sure" and "Killer Cars" as bonus tracks.
- A Japan-exclusive 2008 reissue of In Rainbows includes a bonus DVD featuring the Concert Film From the Basement.
- Rammstein:
- Japan got "Hallelujah" as a bonus track on Mutter, and North America got it as a bonus on the Best Buy edition of it. However, fans elsewhere had to either import those copies or find the rare "Ich Will" single. A demo version of the song was released on the Resident Evil film soundtrack.
- In Japan, Reise Reise's cover and pre-gap hidden track were seen as distasteful due to being to do with a Japanese plane crash, so the hidden track was removed and a new cover was devised featuring a ship. This was later used as the cover for Rosenrot. Remixes of "Mein Teil", "Amerika" and a bonus DVD featuring clips from the band's DVD Lichtspielhaus were also included.
- North America got a new cover for Herzeleid with a white background, whilst the original cover remains in place everywhere else. It was likely the cover was changed for revealing too much of the band's upper bodies, rather than the Nazi controversy alluded.
- North America also had a minor bonus with Reise Reise, as the flight recorder hidden track was actually included at the start of the track rather than being hidden in the pregap. As pre-gap tracks are hard to rip on computers, this has made it popular with collectors.
- Australia got "Stripped" as a bonus track on Sehnsucht and when the band toured in 2001, got their "Asche Zu Asche" single with five live tracks as a bonus tour disc too. This version of the album is quite collectible.
- Roxy Music: The North American release of the band's self-titled debut adds on the non-album single "Virginia Plain", which previously acted as the band's Breakthrough Hit in their native UK. This change would carry over to most CD releases of the album both at home and abroad.
- Royksopp tends to add exclusive tracks on their Japanese releases.
- The Understanding includes two bonus tracks, "Boys" and "Go Away", on its Japanese version.
- Junior has a Japanese edition that includes "Were You Ever Wanted". Royksopp would later release the song globally over ten years later, in December 2019.
- The Japanese version of The Inevitable End includes the exclusive track "I Just Don't Understand You". It was released globally five years later on the Lost Tapes collection, in September 2019.
- Ryuichi Sakamoto: The 1983 Dutch release of Left Handed Dream adds the companion EP The Arrangement as bonus material; this extends to the Dutch CD release of the album, which includes the EP as a series of bonus tracks.
- Siouxsie and the Banshees: The North American release of Hyæna adds the band's Cover Version of The Beatles' "Dear Prudence", initially released in the UK as a non-album single, to the tracklist.
- The Smiths:
- The North American release of Meat Is Murder adds "How Soon Is Now?" as a bonus track, since Hatful of Hollow wasn't out in the region yet.
- Louder Than Bombs could be considered this to its UK counterpart, The World Won't Listen, since it swaps out three tracks already included on the Smiths' studio albums for a number of tracks from the still-unavailable-in-the-US Hatful of Hollow and some more non-album tracks that didn't appear on either UK compilation (though several mixes remain unique to TWWL); in fact, popular demand in the UK led to Louder Than Bombs also being released there as well.
- The Stone Roses: The first North American editions of the band's self-titled debut included "Elephant Stone" inserted between "She Bangs The Drums" and "Waterfall".
- David Sylvian:
- Because Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities wasn't available on CD outside of Japan until the 2003 remasters, the belated US release of Brilliant Trees in 1994 adds on the "Words with the Shaman" trilogy as bonus tracks.
- Most CD releases of Gone to Earth truncate the two-LP album by cutting out four tracks so that it can fit on one CD. However, Japanese CD releases from 1988 onward include the unabridged album on two discs, the only versions on the format to follow this configuration until the Weatherbox Boxed Set in 1989 and the 2003 remasters.
- Talking Heads:
- The initial international CD release of Little Creatures adds "The Lady Don't Mind (Extended Mix)" to the end of the album as a bonus track.
- The 2005 remasters of the band's catalog were released in North America on DualDisc, an experimental hybrid format that consisted of a Compact Disc layer on one side and a DVD layer on the other. While ambitious, the format was known for being incompatible with a number of CD players thanks to the CD side being thinner than a standard CD. The international releases of the remasters, meanwhile, split the two sides across a regular CD and a regular DVD, thus alleviating the compatibility issues.
- Tears for Fears:
- The North American release of The Seeds of Love replaces the generic CD label with a custom one depicting a stylized sunflower. The Japanese release similarly features a custom label depicting the band logo, and the first print run in the region adds the B-side "Tears Roll Down" as a bonus track.
- The European release of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending (which came out a year after the North American release) included "Pullin' a Cloud" and "Out of Control" as bonus tracks.
- TV on the Radio: Several of their albums have bonus tracks, but of note are the tracks "Nobody Else" and "Mystery Eyes" which are only available digitally on the Japanese release of Seeds. They are also available on the vinyl version. The reason for this is that they were recorded after the album (as a CD and download) originally came out.
- Ultravox: While reissues of Rage in Eden in the UK and Europe quickly had to replace the cover art due to rights issues (as it was based on a preexisting film poster), American releases were able to retain the artwork.
- The UK and Latin America edition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale – Music from the TV Series, a various artists compilation of music mainly from seasons 5-7 of the TV show, zig-zags this a bit. Three songs from the US version were omitted: Joey Ramone's "Don't Think About It", Blur's "There's No Other Way" and Sarah McLachlan's "Prayer of St. Francis"... But twelve more tracks were added to make up for it, making it almost double the length of the US version while still exclusively featuring songs that were heard in the show.
- Wings: "Helen Wheels" was only present in the American version of Band on the Run. Most worldwide rereleases after each region's initial CD versions, except for the single-disc version of the 2010 remaster, would include the track, either as a bonus track (the 1993 European remaster and 2010 2-CD version) or as part of the main album like the US LP (the 25th and 50th Anniversary editions).
- XTC: The UK Virgin Records CD release of English Settlement drops "Leisure" and "Down in the Cockpit". However, the North American CD release by Geffen Records restored the two tracks (a configuration that subsequent reissues around the world would follow), allowing American buyers to obtain the unabridged album on one Compact Disc.
- Yello: Because "Planet Dada" wasn't released as a single in North American, said edition of The Eye includes the CD single edition as a bonus disc. While the original version of "Planet Dada" is absent from the bonus disc (due to it already being on the main album), the North American release compensates for this by including a video file for the song's music video, which was absent from the single.
- Yellow Magic Orchestra:
- While the American remix of the band's debut album drops the closing track "Acrobat", many consider it a substantial improvement over the original Japanese release thanks to its punchier equalization and the restoration of Minako Yoshida's vocals on "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)", and in fact the original version wasn't released on CD in Japan until years after the American remix.
- When the Japanese version of ×∞Multiplies finally saw release outside of Japan as part of Restless Records' reissue campaign, it featured the instrumental versions of "Chaos Panic", "Lotus Love", and "Kai-Koh" (as Naughty Boys Instrumental was still in No Export for You status) and the non-album single "Kageki na Shukujo" as bonus tracks.
Tabletop Games
- GURPS: In The '90s, GURPS was huge in Brazil. One of the more acclaimed releases was GURPS Supers, ironically one of the least successful GURPS books in the US. One of the reasons why it also fits this trope, and not just Germans Love David Hasselhoff, is that the Brazilian edition got rid of the very generic setting from the American edition, and merged GURPS Supers with GURPS Wild Cards in a single book. To make it even better, they replaced the hideous artwork from the original GURPS Wild Cards with character illustrations made by then up-and-coming Brazilian artist Mike Deodato.
Toys
- Very rarely, some Power Rangers toys will actually be better than the Sentai versions of the same toys.
- The Cyclone Morpher from Power Rangers Ninja Storm, the original Japanese version's disc was permanently stuck inside the Morpher with no way of removing it, but for the American release, they changed it so it could now be removed, and even gave you a alternate second disc.
- The S.H.Figuarts figure of the White Ranger includes more accessories than the Kibaranger figure, such as an unmasked Tommy head and more alternate hand options.
- The Power Rangers Dino Charge Megazord toys were noted to be just as good as the Kyoryuger mecha toys, if not a little better due to the fact that the Kyoryuger toys have issues where the clips break easily, while the Dino Charge versions don't have this issue.
- Hasbro's Power Rangers Dino Fury Megazord toys were well-received for having more articulation, better build quality and more details than the Ryusoulger toys. Bandai Japan would actually take notes from these and give their Megazord toys more articulation and details, starting with Don Onitaijin.
- Transformers
- When it came to figures, for a long while they used to be released a little later in Japan than in Western territories, allowing the franchise's Japanese owner Takara Tomy to give the figures more detailed or animation-accurate paint applications and decoes than in Hasbro markets (with some exceptions) that were generally agreed to be the superior versions. These stopped in 2018 after Hasbro and Takara made a move to better unify the brand globally, leading to identical releases of toys everywhere.
- In a way, these later came back with the Premium Finish line, which was the same concept for select figures, but the big difference is that Hasbro does distribute them in the west, but are hard to come by.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time American Blu-ray sets skip over from Season 6 to Distant Lands, with Seasons 7-10 only available on DVD and digital. However, Australia also has those seasons available on Blu-ray.
- Arthur: Seasons 12-15 were produced in widescreen, but in America, all PBS broadcasts, DVD releases, and streaming releases crop them to 4:3 (with no safe area, meaning characters can get cut out of frames). Strangely, PBS has kept this up over a decade later, when it's much rarer to find anyone who has a 4:3 TV over widescreen. However, in the UK (despite Arthur being a Canadian series), these episodes always aired in 16:9 when possible.
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes only has DVD and digital releases in the US, but also came to Blu-ray in Canada and Australia.
- A same-country example occurred with the music video for the Detentionaire theme song. The English version covers up the ending to tell you to watch new episodes, but the French version shows the video's true ending. The links lead to YouTube, so it's worth noting that this was exactly how the videos were released on the English and French Teletoon websites, respectively.
- While Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi only got compilation DVDs in North America, Japan managed to get all of the first two seasons on DVD, and Thailand managed to get ALL three. This is because Asia is the continent where Puffy comes from.
- In America, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee only ever got its Halloween Episode released on the Cartoon Network compilation "Sweet Sweet Fear". It was available on iTunes but has since been taken off, and is now available to watch on the Boomerang streaming service. Meanwhile, Australia got the first season on DVD.
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series mainly had episodes of the show featured as bonus material on DVDs relating to its parent franchise, a DVD game called Island of Adventures, and Disney+. In Japan, however, where Stitch is huge, they got the entire series in boxset format.
- Phineas and Ferb only ever received DVD and digital releases in America. However, Blu-ray releases were available in Japan, including the movie.
- The entire uncut series of The Raccoons is only available on DVD in Germany. The UK and Canada did get incomplete DVD releases with some cuts. Unfortunately, the original English audio is not available on the German DVDs.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show used edited prints from syndicated airings on Spike TV, MTV and VH1 for various episodes which cut many scenes for more commercial time or added random fade-ins and outs for commercials. The German DVDs and SD-on-Blu-ray release have all the missing scenes intact with dual English audio. However, the missing scenes are only in German.
- Rocko's Modern Life used edited prints of "The Good, The Bad, and The Wallaby", "Road Rash", "Hut Sut Raw", and "Wacky Delly" for its American DVDs. However, the German DVDs used unedited prints for every episode except "Road Rash".
- Steven Universe only has DVD and digital releases in North America, but Australia did get the original series on Blu-ray as well.
Other
- The Subaru WRX is only available as an automatic in its native Japan, despite competing models like the Honda Civic SI/Type R and the Toyota GR Corolla offering a manual option in the region. In the rest of the world however, a manual transmission is offered as the default, with an automatic being an option on the Limited trim and the top GT trim only being available in automatic.