"Although the Pokémon animation series and its Game Boy game were not created primarily for the global market, their domestic success quickly convinced producers of Pokémon's potential to succeed overseas. Kubo Masakazu explains that he and the other producers of the television series believed that Pokémon would be relatively easy to localize for a global market because "the setting of the adventure explored by Satoshi and Pikachu looks mukokuseki and religion-free. It appeared easy to produce international versions by erasing Japanese language signs as much as possible" (2000b:345)."