"Why Japan actual gets a raw deal when it comes to events"

It's common to see a lot of people complaining about the amount of events Japan gets compared to the rest of the world. While it is true that they have the most event distributions, there's several reasons why I think it's actually better to be in the West for events:1. A lot of their important events are linked to purchasesEvery year a Mythical Pokémon is featured in the new movie, and that Pokémon is usually distributed over wireless during showings of the movie in Japan. Now I don't how close you have to be to the theatre to actually pick up the Pokémon, this guy was actually in the movie itself which implies you need to have paid for a ticket to reach it.While it might be enough in the previous example to simply stand outside the cinema, there are some events were you straight up need to pay money. Along with the local wireless distribution, most movies have a Pokémon that you can only get by pre-ordering the ticket. This year it was Cap Pikachu, and the year before it was Volcanion. (Volcanion is a bit strange as this would have normally been the local wireless Pokémon). If you remember, we got Cap Pikachu for free over the internet. There are more examples of these, for example in Gen 4 the shiny Beasts were the pre-order Pokémon and in the West they were for free over the internet.Note, these Cinema Pokémon never get a Japanese "second chance" over the internet like what has happened with some western events.A lot of people were pissed that we didn't get shiny Arceus like Japan did, but not only was this a movie pre-order purchase you only had 1/19 of getting it. (There was one Arceus for each type + the shiny one, each with an equal chance). Didn't get the shiny? You had buy another ticket. The event was even set up so you could redeem the codes multiple times on the same save file.Now the West doesn't get all these events, but when we do they are always free. We always get the movie local distributions, and we get a lot of the pre-order ones. Even if you don't live near a store, often these events are distributed over the internet, or have a second chance for the ones that are first distributed in stores. In Japan you always need to visit a specific location for the movie Pokémon.There's also other examples, for example the Pokémon scrap challenge, which requires you to collect points found in Pokémon merchandise (like trading cards) and exchange them for event serial codes. The more points you have, the better the serial code you can exchange for (the "prizes" range from items like max revives to mythical Pokémon).2. A lot of the events are from Pokémon Centers, of which there are only 11The main reason for the amount of events they have is due to Pokémon Centers having loads of distributions. There are only 11 of these across the whole country (plus a handful of smaller Pokémon stores). Japan's population is 127 million, the majority of which won't have easy access to a center. Not only are these events specific to these locations (sometimes only one Pokémon Center distributes a given event), often they are not that good. Sometimes you get something cool for example shiny Ho-oh. But often, these distributions are normal Pokémon and most of the time they don't even have any special moves. The only thing special about them is the Cherish Ball.3. They didn't get any of the 20 Aniv PokémonThis is the kicker for me. In the West, we got every pre-gen 6 Mythical Pokémon - for free, no hint of a necessary purchase. The ones that were store specific were given second chance distributions over internet. Japan got nothing, well except Mew which was linked to pre-ordering SM.If you were a Pokémon player in the West in 2016, without access to a store that holds events you could have every pre gen 6 mythical + Hoopa (which had a second chance distribution). Playing since summer 2015 would have given you access to a second Diancie event for ORAS over the internet. The only thing you would be missing is Volcanion, but if you had access to a store you could have got it for free. If you're Japanese, not only did you not get most of these, nearly all the ones that were available were linked to purchases and none of them had a "second chance" distribution over the internet.Looking a the lists of events for Gen 6 in JapanThe mythical Pokémon distributed in Japan across the whole of Gen 6 were:Diancie, Hoopa, Volcanion - linked to the movie purchases, see aboveMew - distributed for preordering SMShaymin, Victini, Keldeo - part of the Scrap promotionJirachi - you needed to buy a wrist bandShiny Diancie was actually free, but only available at Pokémon CentersJirachi - there is an annual distribution of Jirachi for Tanabata, it's free but only available at one Pokémon Center in the countryCelebi - available with Bank - but that was the same for the West.Darkrai - linked to a purchase of a limited edition calendar (I got this Darkrai for free in the UK a few months later, as well as the 2016 one)We don't get every event, and we have to wait a while after Japan, but we always get the important ones and the vast majority of the time they are not linked to any purchase whatsover. Western events have been getting more frequent and easier to access over the last few years. We've even started getting more and more events that in previous years I don't think we would have got, for example Shiny Tapu Koko, Salazzle, or Shiny Silvally.tl;dr - It actually sucks to be in Japan for events via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2ASK9NQ