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Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?

animebythenumbers.substack.com

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

#171

Post by Ekaros »

wk_end wrote: post #30
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…

> That’s why the best subs, are always fan subs! It's wild to hear someone - especially someone in the industry - say that. Fans definitely bring the most enthusiasm to their work, but fan subs are notorious for mistranslations and awkward hyperliteralism.

I take hyperliteralism over agenda pushing any day. I do not want my foreign media to be entirely rewritten to some other foreign media. Just so that some overly political person can make a point...

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

#172

Post by DecoySalamander »

what wrote: post #135
matheusmoreira wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles? They should probably consider that this competitor is actually mpv playing the DRM-free blu-ray quality fully subtitled mkv files obtained for a grand total of zero dollars from organized groups of people who simply care about anime to an absurd degree. "Paying customer" is a…

Without those “fools” paying, you would have no content to pirate.

Anime will not disappear if CR implodes. It will still be funded by the Japanese market and other streamers. There will probably be fewer shows per season for a while, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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

#173

Post by entropi »

what wrote: post #135
matheusmoreira wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they price sensitive enough that they won't go to a competitor that's a few dollars more expensive per month if it has better subtitles? They should probably consider that this competitor is actually mpv playing the DRM-free blu-ray quality fully subtitled mkv files obtained for a grand total of zero dollars from organized groups of people who simply care about anime to an absurd degree. "Paying customer" is a…

Without those “fools” paying, you would have no content to pirate.

I am also paying for crunchyroll and trying to support the creators in various ways.

But still, I often find myself watching anime from fansub groups even though I have a legitimate, official way of watching them. Paying for a streaming service that is objectively, significantly worse than even the shittier pirate offerings does make me feel like a fool.

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

#174

Post by thaumasiotes »

Tor3 wrote: post #152
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.

My native Germanic language has a specific variant of 'yes' which is perfect for when both 'no' and 'yes' alone would be ambiguous. Not sure why not more languages have that. Japanese 'hai' isn't really 'yes' though.. so it's used way differently than you would use just 'yes'. In colloquial speech it's more common uttering various sounds instead.

> My native Germanic language has a specific variant of 'yes' which is perfect for when both 'no' and 'yes' alone would be ambiguous. Not sure why not more languages have that.

French draws this distinction; ordinary 'yes' is oui; 'yes' contradicting a negative is si instead.

Mandarin gives you a variety of options for how to respond. You can use equivalents of 'yes' and 'no', but it's more common to echo the verb in the question.

你喜欢吃辣的吗？("Do you like eating spicy food?")

不喜欢 ("[I] don't like [it].")

Here we have no need to worry about whether the question was positive or negative; if I like the food I'll say 喜欢 and if I don't I'll say 不喜欢.

It's also possible to say 对 "correct", in which case it does matter how the question was phrased.

The specific question here, 你不是学生吗 "Are you not a student?", might be a little odder than usual because the verb 是 is also what's used for a simple "yes". But for "No, I'm not" 不是 is unambiguous, and I have a vague gut feeling that 是啊 would probably be taken as "Yes, I am". And of course you have the option of continuing your response ("yes, I'm a student, I've been enrolled here for two years") if you feel the short answer was too cryptic.

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

aidenn0 wrote: post #80
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…

I sampled a couple of shows on Netfix and I couldn't find any anime subtitled in English; just closed-captioning of the English dub. Netflix's selection I would describe as "fine," so the quality of the subtitles is, IMO a big differentiator for Crunchyroll and given that my household is looking to reduce the streaming services, this change makes the decision of "which one" a lot easier.

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by chii »

riffruff24 wrote: post #161
chii wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The level of customer delight (and hate) in the anime industry is like no other. except that it doesn't show up as revenue. That's where the problem is - people would obviously prefer to have elite tier subs, but not be willing to pay elite tier prices for it.

it does show up. Just like star wars, the toys and figurines and sometimes it even spread into the VAs, authors and other artists adjacent to the projects.

Those are money going into the original authors/production companies etc, rather than downstream into crunchyroll.

In fact, you might even consider paying less for crunchyroll subscription, and buy more of the merch of your favourite franchises.

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

#177

Post by muzani »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #147
koolba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I wonder if it's just a limited number of people who could do this. There was a time when nearly all the anime in my country was dubbed by 2-3 people (and why all the anime had the same lame voices). Maybe if they were paid the same rates as proper voice actors, the quality and people willing to do so would go up.

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

#178

Post by Tor3 »

Erikun wrote: post #170
Tor3 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Europe, if CR has licensed a show or a season, then nobody else can license the same show or season. There's always exactly one place to watch one particular show or season. So, no competition - licensing goes to one, and only one place. Likewise, if Netflix has licensed something then CR isn't getting that license (e.g. Komi Can't Communicate - it's on Netflix, therefore not available on CR)

This may be true for current seasons but previous seasons and finished series are often available on other services. At least crunchyroll and Netflix have an overlap (in Sweden). Frieren is available on both as an example.

Look at Railgun, for example.. they're all old, and each season is either on CR or on Netflix, never on both. Same with Index, and some others.

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

#179

Post by a-french-anon »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #96
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…

> That’s why the best subs, are always fan subs! Because a business will never put in 8x more time on an episodes subtitles than “bare minimum.” Cannot overstate this enough. Fans are the ones who actually care. To an almost pathological degree. Anime fansubbing is a major reason why our video players even have excellent subtitling support to begin with. Many music fans will obssess over ripping quality and lossless…

There's a direct equivalent in the world of anime: frame-per-frame restoration like the GITS Blu-Ray (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40316985) or the '99 HxH anime and LaserDisc scans.

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

#180

Post by asimovDev »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #146
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 d…

I love stories like this. I wish my school still had clubs when I was a student. My computer science teacher was speaking fondly of having doom and quake lan parties in the computer class in the evenings for students and teaching staff and even apparently some parents.
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