Probably because if the Pokemon amime studio is making more from the Western audience than the Japanese one, the producers should listen to the former demands more?I don't think anyone here has info on how much revenue the anime makes outside of Japan. In fact, I don't think I've even seen the subject of how much revenue the series makes in general brought up before.
The anime is hard to pinpoint since I cannot easily find statistics on it, mainly because I can't find a site that splits statistics between games, anime, manga, TCG, and other forms.
Still, I would assume it would be less in the West, specifically America, than in the East because Western advertising is far less anime-centric than the East. I would go as far as to argue to say that the anime is far less popular in the West because we don't see Pikachu as Mickey Mouse like Japan does. The only place I would suspect the anime to be as huge and influential is probably France, but even then, my second hand source could be full of it.
Japan doesn't get a home video release of the show, whereas other countries do.
Streaming and rental DVDs. I heard that there was technically a short-lived home video release during the Johto era, but then that's ancient history. I believe the only part of the show that's available on BD in Japan is... episode 1. Which was included as a bonus feature on the BD for I Choose You. Sort of a "Here's the original episode this movie shares its name and concept with!" sort of thing I guess?What are they meant to do? Is it a streaming-exclusive?
Oh interesting. Why do they have rental DVDs that aren't available for purchase? Is that common in Japan? And what's stopping rental store employees from selling them on the black market?Streaming and rental DVDs. I heard that there was technically a short-lived home video release during the Johto era, but then that's ancient history. I believe the only part of the show that's available on BD in Japan is... episode 1. Which was included as a bonus feature on the BD for I Choose You. Sort of a "Here's the original episode this movie shares its name and concept with!" sort of thing I guess?
So essentially there are actually home video releases, just sold differently.We don't need the black market for that. There's rental DVDs being sold on Yahoo Auction already.
One can even purchase it but they'd need to use the Buyee service (they act as a sort of middle man but then they charge for the service so things will be more expensive)