Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles

Tried watching some CR content on Amazon Prime. Unusable. The subs are garbage. Better quality from Netflix which is a freaking random host not even anime focused. Had to cancel the CR sub. Literally unwatchable

Let me guess: AI?

If you ever need to hack some subs by yourself, whisper.cpp can output .srt files and you can run the small or medium models even on modest hardware.

A similar issue has been plaguing the manga industry since "The Great Scanlator Purge" that took place a few years ago, leaving only the "official" Viz media-contracted translators in the wake of the ruins. For some reason, this change came with a general unwillingness on the translators part to correct, or translate, concepts that virtually all fan translators would've been happy to do.

Here's some examples (there are many more):

1) the explanation of puns and hidden meanings in the kanji used to describe names, locations, special abilities, jokes, which honorifics are being used currently (if any), etc. of which there are usually many. Understanding/being aware of this context used to be absolutely vital to the experience of reading manga.

2) there's a relatively new manga called "Versus", in which humans from parallel earths, in parallel universes all merge into the same universe, and their planets are also merged together. In the english version, Viz translates one of those worlds as "Indignia", which doesn't mean anything. However, the Japanese for this world is "怒ど神しん界かい" (Doshinkai), which is literally interpreted as "World of the Angry God", or "Mad God World". They took it upon themselves to make similar changes for all the other worlds, obscuring their original meanings as intended by the author... why? Beats me. Now, one could make the argument that "Mad God World" doesn't sound good in english, so the Viz translators change is an improvement, which is not unreasonable. However, any half-decent fan translator would've simply left a footnote like "the literal Japanese interpretation is X; I changed it to Indignia because...". Problem solved! Don't just retcon things because you feel like it without explaining yourself. And if you won't explain yourself, then leave it as is.

3) english One Piece readers often have no idea just how many things are lost in translation; One Piece is filled to the brim with puns, double-entendre's, and foreshadowing, which has always been a significant part of its appeal, and is now nowhere to be found via the official providers.

4) Physical signs, such as things written on buildings, on somebody's clothing, or even on a stop sign, are usually not translated.

5) cover pages! You wouldn't know it anymore, but manga often has cover pages (often officially colorized) with extra comments and tidbits from the authors. Fans would include these pages in their scanlations. Viz pretends they don't exist.

I can only imagine the thought process of whoever's making these decisions at Viz (or its parent company Shueisha) resembles something like "westerners don't care about that stuff. Stop wasting precious time and resources trying to explain it". They don't quite seem to understand how badly they have diluted the manga reading experience in the west, especially for those of us that grew up reading this stuff, way before it reached mainstream popularity.

This is unfortunately the answer - VLC/MPV would allow you to select the dubbed audio and also select the EN-US subtitles that are based on the original audio.

GabeN saying that piracy is first and foremost a service problem is still right on the money.