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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?

#131

Post by Hamuko »

echelon wrote: post #7
PebblesHD wrote: post #4

I’ve posted before about my half-in half-out life between Japan and Australia, and the media I consume is a product of this. Anime, while not a massive part of my watching habit, is certainly a weekly thing at least, and over the past few years it’s been getting harder and harder to support legal services outside of Japan. In Australia, AnimeLab used to be the gold standard. It had a polished app and dedicated team,…

It might take a few more decades, but Google will ultimately win the streaming wars. I'll be shocked if anime isn't available on YouTube. You can also interpret that as I'll be shocked if AI doesn't result in every mangaka becoming their own small studio and distributing via YouTube.

There are some anime that are simulcast on YouTube. Watanare was one of them during the summer 2025 season.

https://youtu.be/wyyXL__Awlk

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

#132

Post by SllX »

bavell wrote: post #60
SllX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re still just within the threshold of good enough, but I was pretty annoyed the day comments disappeared. It might have been young viewers, but I was a young viewer once and those comments went back all the way to that time. It was also one thing Crunchyroll had that other streaming sites typically don’t (except YouTube of course): community.

CR removing comments removed the soul from the product :/ Was always fun reading the top comments on big episodes. Finding those few other ppl who noticed that one small thing at timestamp 14:30, dunking on the first episode of the latest garbage isekai... etc

Yep!

> dunking on the first episode of the latest garbage isekai

I was literally reaching to see if somebody else had already made a lame-ass “Truck-kun” joke on the first episode of No Longer Allowed in Another World or if I was going to have to provide a fill when I saw the change.

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

#133

Post by redwall_hp »

xenadu02 wrote: post #116
egypturnash wrote: post #3

Crunchyroll’s major layoff just two months ago, during which most of their operations team was unceremoniously let go, included some of the longest-serving Crunchyrollers, adding up to a combined total of around 100 years of service to the company by my calculations. Is a new subcontractor and/or service the replacement? It seems that way to me. And there's your answer. Bet they're replacing most of their artisinal s…

They did the same thing to their developers a few years back from what I recall. That's why the app has bugs that haven't been fixed in years . For example the sorting options on your watch list are just garbage. They aren't remembered. And "recent activity" includes adding dubs in languages I have disabled in the UI - constantly causing old shows to pop to the top of the list making it useless. Back when they had so…

I will still never complain about CrunchyRoll's apps after using HiDive for a few shows. It can't even remember shows I'm watching, let alone keep track of watched episodes, and insists on rendering subtitles with TVs' closed captioning system.

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

#134

Post by makeitdouble »

socalgal2 wrote: post #76

Are they just bad now? The one I noticed was the "Kingdom" which is several years old. It had horrible subs because the sub were written by Chinese people using Chinese names for places and characters but the spoken language was Japanese. So the sub would say "General Mike is going to attack Houston" and the spoken Japanese would say "General Bob is going to attach Seattle" (fill in Mike and Houston with Chinese name…

It's a tough one for Chinese names. Japan will usually read the actual kanji but with their Japanese reading, which sounds nothing like the actual Chinese. And western audience will probably be more familiar with the Chinese name, except if they have their own weird pronouciation altogether.

For instance the current PRC chairman, Xi Jinping, has an alphabet reading close to Chinese, but Japanese news will call him along the lines of "Shu Kinpei", which sounds absolutely nothing near the original name, but is how someone would read the name assuming it was Japanese and with no pronounciations hints. They just don't care much about the sounds when it comes Asian names, even in official settings.

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

#135

Post by what »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #106
programjames wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the take is: If 100k people watch the episode, spending $200 more for higher quality subtitling comes out to... a whopping 0.2 cents per person (per episode). Let's just say that would cost an extra $1/month per person. 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? I don't know, but maybe some manager believed they…

> 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.

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

#136

Post by ohmahjong »

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…

That's the first I've seen of 4k77 and related projects, thanks for sharing. A true labour of love.

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

#137

Post by jcranmer »

brigandish wrote: post #115
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."

Sometimes, the same meaning has the opposite response in English and Japanese. It’s called echo polarity (apparently). For example, in English: “You didn’t go?” → “No, I didn’t go” (agreeing) or “Yes, I went” (disagreeing). In Japanese, you should say “yes, I didn’t go” or “yes, I didn’t go”: 行かなかったんですか。→ はい、行きませんでした。(agreeing with the negative) or いいえ、行きました。(disagreeing with the negative) (This difference possibly s…

> (This difference possibly shows the more fundamental difference in the cultures, where one values truth more, and one values agreement/harmony more.)

I'd be extremely wary of ascribing any cultural significance to the language modes here. Negation and especially affirmative/negative responses to negative questions is just extremely variable among languages. Even languages in the same language family just end up doing it differently.

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

#138

Post by lotsofpulp »

redwall_hp wrote: post #130
kbolino wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have one good streaming service with everything on it than the dozens of crappy streaming services with their ever-shifting patchwork of available licensed content we have now. Rightsholders seem like a bigger problem than licensees to me.

There's a reason it was law in the US that movie production companies couldn't own movie theaters: distribution should be required to be separate to ensure choice on the viewer side due to the inherent non-fungibility of entertainment media. In other words, if through copyright we grant a monopoly, then it's not a sustainable situation for the distribution to also be allowed to consolidate.

The solution to this is copyright only lasting for 10 years.

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

#139

Post by matheusmoreira »

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'm actually one of the fools who tries to support creators by "buying" (licensing with 0 rights) their things. Why do you think I'm so angry at the shit quality of the products I receive in return? Anger doesn't even begin to describe what I feel when I pay for streaming services and get video so poorly encoded they have artifacts in black frames.

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

#140

Post by jeron »

varenc wrote: post #105
programjames wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the take is: If 100k people watch the episode, spending $200 more for higher quality subtitling comes out to... a whopping 0.2 cents per person (per episode). Let's just say that would cost an extra $1/month per person. 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? I don't know, but maybe some manager believed they…

> 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 Outside of Asia, Crunchyroll is a de-facto monopoly on legal anime. From the article, 70% of new releases are exclusive to Crunchyroll. They're not losing customers to platforms with better subs, because customers have no alternative. (Besides pirating, but I assume the golden…

I was going to ask, crunchyroll has competitors for legal anime stremaing?
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