Why has the quality of subtitles on Crunchyroll, a major anime streaming site, gotten so bad?
Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse?
https://animebythenumbers.substack.com/p/worse-crunchyroll-subtitles
When you hear that 'the subtitles for anime have changed,' viewers who regularly watch anime in Japanese may not think it's a big deal. However, for non-Japanese speakers who don't understand Japanese and rely on subtitles for key information, the change in subtitles is a big problem.
Below are screenshots of subtitles provided by Anime By The Numbers. The top one for ' My Dress-Up Darling ' has the previous subtitles, while the bottom one for ' Material Collector's Travels to Another World ' has the latest subtitles. Looking at the subtitles above, we can see that 'when multiple speakers are in the same scene, the subtitles are displayed in a different location to make the conversation clearer,' 'visual clarity is maintained with colored outlines and 100% opacity shadows,' and 'Japanese text in the background is also translated in a similar font so as not to stand out.' Meanwhile, the subtitles below are much simpler, and we can see that on-screen text such as 'Reincarnation Book' has not been translated.
While this attention to detail improves the viewing experience, localizing anime to this level requires a huge amount of effort. For other major streaming services, such as Netflix, anime viewership is at most a small percentage, making it difficult to optimize the viewing experience for anime. However, as Crunchyroll is a streaming service focused on anime, this meticulous localization was a differentiating factor.
However, Anime By The Numbers points out that the autumn anime season, which began in October 2025, will no longer feature the same detailed subtitles as before, and that as of October 3rd, all titles available will have simple subtitles similar to those on Netflix and other platforms.
The screenshots below show subtitles for various Fall 2025 anime. The subtitles displayed are simpler, with fewer lines displayed on the screen at a time, and they don't display subtitles in different locations on the screen to make the dialogue easier to understand. Additionally, on-screen text translations are kept to a minimum, meaning viewers sometimes don't have time to read the dialogue because of the translations.
Crunchyroll has exclusive streaming agreements for most anime, meaning you can watch 70% of the new releases coming in 2025, as well as many older titles and movies. For this reason, if you want to watch anime legally outside of Asia, Crunchyroll is generally the best option.
However, according to Anime By The Numbers, Crunchyroll's greatest strength isn't the sheer breadth of its lineup, but rather its 'video quality.' The obvious benefit to the average anime viewer is 'easy-to-read subtitles.' For example, in the image below, the Netflix subtitles on top are white and in a standard font, while the Crunchyroll subtitles on the bottom are colored and in a larger font. Anime By The Numbers states, 'The typography localizes on-screen text, signs, and other elements so that they feel like they're part of the program.'
The image below shows the stark difference between Netflix (top) and Crunchyroll (bottom). While ' Komi-san wa, Komyushou desu ' (top) is an anime that uses a lot of written communication and has a fast-paced dialogue, because it was streamed on Netflix, important text sometimes went untranslated. Meanwhile, in 'Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru' (bottom), even the character relationships chart written on the blackboard is translated.
According to Anime By The Numbers, from the beginning, Crunchyroll's localization team used a tool called Aegisub to create subtitles and on-screen text translations because it was extremely flexible and could handle a variety of fonts, Unicode characters, and independently moving elements simultaneously.
At the time of writing, there are rumors circulating that Crunchyroll has forced its localization team to withdraw from Aegisub. In fact, Crunchyroll announced staff cuts in August 2025, including some of Crunchyroll's longest-serving employees. Anime By The Numbers suggests that Crunchyroll has replaced these veteran employees with new subcontractors and services, resulting in a decline in subtitle quality.
The reasons Crunchyroll may have lowered the quality of its subtitles include: 'Because they sell content distribution licenses to other streaming services, it is easier for them to standardize the subtitle versions,' 'Localization is extremely difficult, so they have cut costs by abandoning careful subtitling and outsourcing the work to less specialized subtitlers,' and 'Because it is easier to adopt industry standards.'
However, Anime By The Numbers points out that if Crunchyroll lowers its standards for subtitle quality, it means that no major streaming service will care about typography anymore, and criticizes Crunchyroll for its 'fan-centric' approach.
Anime By The Numbers also expressed concern that Crunchyroll's disregard for its customers could be used as a justification for pirating. 'I honestly don't understand why Crunchyroll is willing to hand over victory so easily to pirates. If Crunchyroll suddenly reverts to its previous method of providing subtitles, most of this article can be ignored. But if they don't, they'll lose something small but important for the anime medium in exchange for a small profit to Crunchyroll's coffers,' Anime By The Numbers argued.
This article has also become a hot topic on Hacker News, a social news site, with comments such as, 'Crunchyroll has used ChatGPT translations as they are,' an expert commenting, 'It takes a huge amount of time to properly place subtitles, up to four hours per episode for the best quality, but companies can't afford that kind of time, so the best quality translations are always fan-made,' and, ' The subtitles in the dubbed version are also terrible.'
Why did Crunchyroll's subtitles just get worse? | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45458973
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in Web Service, Anime, Posted by log1h_ik