How do we “predict” whether a collab will arrive? Answering those collab questions all at once!

Why this post?

Many veterans are probably tired of the following types of questions, so hopefully this post will address most collab-related questions, such as:

• When is X collab coming?
• Will we get X collab since this other server got it?
• Shouldn’t X collab be here by now?
• Why don’t we get X collab?

Trust me, you’d be tired if you see these questions appearing every hour… So here we go!

The Confirmation: Official announcements

Until official announcements or teasers to 100% confirm collab arrival to a server, everything you hear is speculation. In general, unless it’s simultaneous release (rare), collab announcements arrive in this order:

Server	Wait time for announcement
Japan (JP)	0 seconds
Hong Kong/Taiwan (HK/TW)	Within hours after JP
Korea (KR)	1-3 months after JP
North America (NA)	Few hours after KR

KR server gets the announcements a few hours earlier, likely due to timezone differences.

The Prediction: Guideline to determine collab arrival

For many of us, we want to know ASAP if the collab will arrive NA server, before official announcements. You can usually get a good prediction just from seeing what other servers have received for the same collab, which you can find on their homepages:

• Japan server official site
• Hong Kong/Taiwan server official Facebook
• Korea server official site

Here’s the quick guideline to understand the information:

Step 1: If HK/TW server DOESN’T get the new collab 

• Low chance that the collab will make it to outside of JP server. (Examples: Marvel, Shinkalion) 
• Possible to still get the collab to debut as combination of JP’s 1st & 2nd run, when collab reruns on JP. (Examples: Gintama, Kamen Rider)

Step 2: If HK/TW server gets it 

• More likelihood that Korea and/or NA servers to receive the collab in 1-3 months. 
• The only 2 exceptions: Duel Masters, Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders (FFCD) (Both on JP & HK/TW only)

Step 3: If KR server gets it 

• Even more likelihood that NA server will receive the collab anytime from several hours to 1 month or so. 
• Exception: Mickey & Friends (Available in all servers except NA. Keep in mind that Disney Asia is really different from Disney NA, which may contribute.), and My Hero Academia.

Other considerations

1. Licensing company

Licensing company may matter a lot for copyright and legal issues, especially for anime-related collabs. Many believe this is the primary reason why certain anime-based collabs are absent outside of JP server, though this reasoning is unconfirmed. You can usually find out which company has the license, on the franchise’s Wikipedia page. This serves as a rough estimate and not definitive.

To make this a bit more complicated, anime and manga are different! Most manga-based collabs did not make it to NA server, while anime or anime movie based franchise has. Let’s take a closer look:

Funimation

Many anime series licensed by Funimation are not on NA server. Examples:

• Attack on Titan (AOT)
  
• My Hero Academia (MHA)
  
• Dragon Ball Z (DBZ)
  
• Hunter x Hunter (HxH)
  

Aniplex

Aniplex licensed anime series have been on a good track to make it to NA server as collabs. Many sees this as a guarantee of a collab landing onto NA server, even. Recent examples:

• Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA)
  
• Sword Art Online (SAO)
  
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (DS, KnY)

Manga or magazine based

As the magazines are only available in Japan, most of those magazine-related collabs such as Shonen Sunday, Shonen Champion, and CoroCoro Magazine never made it out of Japan server.

The only exception to this is Fujimi Fantasia Bunko collab, which had characters from Slayers, Full Metal Panic, and Orphen. This was a great surprise for everyone!

2. Collabs in Monster Strike

Monster Strike (MS) is another competing gacha game that has overtaken PAD in popularity (in Japan) for a while, but only based in Japan after the global server closure (RIP as an old player there). Recently there are some collabs overlaps that first hit MS, then PAD a few months later.

This of course is not an official measuring stick as the two games are really different.

Collab comparison

Flandre compiled this data below to showcase some of the collab overlaps. Do note that there isn’t really an exact trend for the dates but in Flandre’s words, “over the years there’s been a lot of overlap in general”, especially since 2017.

Some things to note:

• Many of the collabs in MS that PAD didn’t get were farmable dungeon drops instead of gacha.
• Flandre also noticed that MS rarely do reruns except for annual collabs like Doraemon.

3. Rerun of ancient collabs in PAD

The trends listed above is for more recent collab debuts for the past 2-3 years. Whether an older (and dead) collabs like Dragon Ball and HxH would return is tough to say.

Generally it’s safe to say extremely low, nearly 0% chance for an ancient JP-only collab to revive from the dead and magically make it to NA server.

Lastly: Exceptions exist

There are always EXCEPTIONS to everything. This is only a general guideline to “predict” the weather. We welcome GungHo to surprise us any time!

Hopefully this guideline helps you all on determining how likely a collab will arrive. Special thanks to Upc, Flandre, Onion, and Raijinili for checking over all these information.