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Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

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Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#141

Post by userbinator »

Arnavion wrote: post #114
aidenn0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching anime dubs with subtitles enabled can be interesting. I've literally seen the dub say "yes" with the sub saying "no."

The answers to negative questions are the other way around in Japanese compared to English. "Are you not a student?" In English, the non-student speaker would respond with "No", short for "No, I am not." In Japanese, the non-student speaker would respond with "Yes", short for "Yes that's correct." A literal translation would make this mistake.

Not really familiar with Japanese; but I would interpret the English in exactly the opposite way, like the Japanese version.

(Native American English speaker.)

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#142

Post by vunderba »

SllX wrote: post #127
vunderba wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame but understandable from a business perspective since they had to have a moderation team to support some of the less savory comments juvenile users were leaving.

No, it’s not understandable because Crunchyroll has spent the majority of its time as a streaming service as a commercial paid or free-with-ads service that has a community, with comments under every video up until like last year. Moderation is an expense, but it’s 1) not an unreasonable one, especially given the scale of Crunchyroll and a paid subscriber base and 2) some investment in automating moderation or develo…

Shrugs. I don't know what to tell you. I'm glad to see that you're passionate about it I guess but most of my friends who use Crunchyroll were also equally unsurprised when they removed the comment section. I can't think of any streaming services that have something like that - as I said before, there's literally no upside to it for CR. Those comment sections could also be a puerile cesspool.

I'm sure there was an extremely vocal minority that threw a fit when they killed it off, but I doubt their overall subscriber numbers were significantly impacted. The majority of people are just there to watch anime. There's plenty of subreddits that are vastly more suitable to discussion.

Calling the Crunchyroll anime comment section a community is a bit of a stretch, it's like saying that the comments under a TikTok video are a community.

My original point stands.

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#143

Post by rkomorn »

userbinator wrote: post #141
Arnavion wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answers to negative questions are the other way around in Japanese compared to English. "Are you not a student?" In English, the non-student speaker would respond with "No", short for "No, I am not." In Japanese, the non-student speaker would respond with "Yes", short for "Yes that's correct." A literal translation would make this mistake.

Not really familiar with Japanese; but I would interpret the English in exactly the opposite way, like the Japanese version. (Native American English speaker.)

I'd consider it ambiguous and probably clarify it like "yes you are a student, or no you are not?"

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#145

Post by anigbrowl »

zdw wrote: post #27
anigbrowl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just turn the subtitles off, or watch it with Japanese subtitles

Crunchyroll strangely lacks Japanese subs, which seems strange as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and most others have them in addition to all the translations.

You are correct, I forgot that they usually lack the original language. Makes zero sense to me, but licensing is frequently lacking in logic.

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#146

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #22

Hah, this is my time to shine. I worked in anime subtitling and timing for a number of years. I helped write our style guide — things like how to handle signs, overlapping dialogue, colors etc. It wound up being quite a large document! But the thing to realize here is that, all of these subs have to be placed by hand. There are AI tools that can help you match in and out times, but they have a difficult time matching…

Back in the 90s I attended an anime club where the main host had an amiga with genloc to generate subtitles, and we watched all the anime classics up to that era. The host had a basic understanding of Japanese while not being fluent, but it was good enough that he'd download and retime fansubs. He also funded his own translations with a couple local exchange students.

Even with stuff at this hobby/mature level, the difference in someone actually taking care with the subtitles is not even close to subtle. It makes a huge difference.

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#147

Post by recursivecaveat »

koolba wrote: post #40
bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #22

Hah, this is my time to shine. I worked in anime subtitling and timing for a number of years. I helped write our style guide — things like how to handle signs, overlapping dialogue, colors etc. It wound up being quite a large document! But the thing to realize here is that, all of these subs have to be placed by hand. There are AI tools that can help you match in and out times, but they have a difficult time matching…

> Because a business will never put in 8x more time on an episodes subtitles than “bare minimum.” 3-4 hours of time for a sub must be a rounding error for the production costs of these shows. No?

It's the kind of penny-wise and pound-foolish behaviour that happens in any large business. As you say, the productions cost dwarf the costs of subtitling so much it is ridiculous. Every unique frame of that show was literally hand drawn and colored by someone, to say nothing of all the writers, the voiceover, the marketing, etc. To refuse the light penny-shaving required to present the final product in a good light is completely non-sensical. If you have so little confidence then why are you licensing and paying for bandwidth to show it?

However, there is somebody in charge of subtitles, and they don't really care about overall business outcomes. So if they can reduce the budget of their department by squeezing typesetting, they win on an objective metric at the cost of a subjective (ie ignored) one.

While it's true crunchyroll has a lot of the anime market, there are more streaming platforms than ever right now, and people don't just consume a fixed amount of legal anime episodes per week, forever unchanging. If they have it in their head that they cannot gain or lose subscribers, that's extremely short-sighted.

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#148

Post by anigbrowl »

uxp100 wrote: post #26
anigbrowl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just turn the subtitles off, or watch it with Japanese subtitles

I think they are referring to text localization. I’m not sure if you actually can turn the subtitle track off on the Japanese language on crunchy roll, the rights holders have long been very concerned with reverse importation.

As someone pointed out CR often lacks Japanese subtitles, but you can definitely turn them off.

Re: Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

#150

Post by barry-cotter »

slg wrote: post #81
bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #22

Hah, this is my time to shine. I worked in anime subtitling and timing for a number of years. I helped write our style guide — things like how to handle signs, overlapping dialogue, colors etc. It wound up being quite a large document! But the thing to realize here is that, all of these subs have to be placed by hand. There are AI tools that can help you match in and out times, but they have a difficult time matching…

>Which is all to say, you HAVE to factor delight into your product. And yet I can't think of a single large corporation that actually has this mindset anymore. The current mindset of management is that any delight your customers take in the product is a sign that either the price should have been higher or costs cut until the product is merely satisfactory rather than delightful.

Nintendo, Studio Ghibli, Cartoon Saloon. I’m sure there are many others in creative industries since you have to delight customers at least some of the time there. A large part of the reason Nvidia is a big deal is that they were willing to make the best drivers, that they just cared more about making a quality product. Lots of companies well exceed minimum quality necessary to keep customers from switching.
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