Why are the English Version Talking Tomy Plushies so hard to find?

[tallshortie93]

Hello everyone!

So this year for Christmas I got quite a bit of money from my family among other Pokemon things (Like the awesome throw blanket you see in the spoiler that my step-sister got me)

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. ITS SO SOFT.

Amidst my Pokemon craze, I knew I wanted to spend at least SOME of my money on Pokemon merch, so I went browsing the internet for ideas. After finding nothing that really peaked my interest at the Pokemon Center, I went looking at what Walmart, Amazon, and others had to offer. I soon realized that I wanted a plushie, since I initially asked for a Pikachu one from the Pokemon Center for Christmas anyway. However, I thought I could find something better than Pikachu if I surfed the internet long enough...and find something I did.





Oshawott is easily one of my Top 5 favorite Pokemon of all time, primarily for it's cute voice in the anime...so when I saw a nearly life-sized Oshawott plushie that TALKED on eBay...I LOST MY MIND. I searched it up on YouTube (finding the video you see here) to see if it was as good as it sounded in real life as it sounded on paper AND IT TOTALLY WAS

However, as I began to dig deeper into how I could get my hands on this amazing product...I hit a major snag. I realized that 99% of the "Talking Oshawott Plushies" I searched for were all "Mijumaru/Oshawott Talking Plushies"...and came in Japanese (or sometimes Korean) packaging. When I found another video on YouTube specifically about this "Mijumaru" version, I was utterly confused. It looked EXACTLY the same as the one I just saw speak in English on the previous video, but spoke its JAPANESE name instead. Upon further research, this version that spoke in Japanese did NOT offer the option to speak in English. Now I was really dumbfounded. How come I was finding HUNDREDS of Japanese versions (Which it turns out, was the version I had ORIGINALLY found that lead me to the YouTube video of the English Speaking one) and was having such a hard time finding the same plushie that spoke in English?

After extensive digging, I found only TWO English-Speaking Oshawott Plushies online for sale...one of which (on the USA eBay) had already been SOLD 2 months prior. The last remaining one was a needle in a haystack, being sold on the UNITED KINGDOM eBay. I was really happy to find one, but then had my dreams crushed when I found out the seller would NOT ship it to the United States for me. However, after a few days, I managed to get through to the seller and convince him to make an exception to ship the plushie to me via International Shipping for an extra cost.

I've NEVER had THIS MUCH trouble trying to buy something IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I beg the question...why are the Japanese talking plushies so abundant, and the English ones so rare? I know Black & White has been off the air for a while now, but other toys for Black & White still sell fine. Maybe not as well as they did when the show was going but they aren't at all irrelevant.

What do you all think? Why are the English Talking Plushies so hard to come by?

(P.S.) I'll post stuff about my English-Speaking Oshawott when it gets here. It's gonna be a long process but it sounds like I've got the seller on my hook...just gotta reel him in.

[42max Turtke]

I think their are so many Japanese ones because Pokemon originated in Japan, and not in the Us. That's just my theory tho.

[tallshortie93]

(Dec 30, 2015, 05:57 PM)CharizardSoOP21 Wrote: I think their are so many Japanese ones because Pokemon originated in Japan, and not in the Us. That's just my theory tho.

I know that Pokemon is actually more popular in Japan than in some of the English speaking nations. When Pikachu is your OFFICIAL FIFA World Cup mascot, you know Pokemon is a big deal in your country.

Also, I have a theory as to why these are so rare.

I noticed that none of the images or videos of English Talking Oshawott Plushies feature it in ENGLISH packaging, and the girl in the video mentions that she got hers at the Pokemon World Championship 2012 inside the Pokemon Center. This leads me to believe that this was an event-exclusive item being sold ONLY at Pokemon Centers stationed within Pokemon events. The handful that popped up online were then just resold by people who got them from events around the time of BW and BW2's lifespan.

It seems only the JAPANESE version actually got a commercial release outside of the Pokemon Company itself.

[Shiny Mew]

I got a Mew Plushie a while back on Ebay...
Most were from Japan and Korea...
But, luckily I found one from the US! :D