The Absolute State of Crunchyroll

[00:02] currently watching all the new anime to prepare for my fall recommendation video, and I couldn't help notice something a little different about their subtitles this season. Namely, that they're all ass now. The font is worse.

[00:16] The subs don't have a drop shadow anymore. They're timed terribly with lines just cutting off halfway through sentences. And when characters speak over each other, they just stack the subs on top of each other with no

[00:28] indication of who's supposed to be saying what. All of which makes the subsi harder to read and creates potential accessibility issues. Plus, there's no type setting whatsoever anymore. So, you can just forget about

[00:43] reading any on-screen text that's relevant to the story of the anime when they finally dropped the first episode for Hioaka's final season, nine hours late, it had subtitles for every language except English, even though

[01:00] language except English, even though Hulu got it up just fine, right on time. Overnight, Crunchyroll's subtitles have become as bad as Netflix and Amazon's, if not worse. which is pathetic when their one job as a platform is to be the

[01:17] best place to watch specifically anime. While there are still services like High Dive and Ocean Veil offering more limited type setting, Crunchyroll, who were the best at it until literally last month, have seemingly abandoned it all

[01:33] together. According to as yet unconfirmed rumors, the cause of this seems to be Crunchyroll forcing their entire localization team to switch to this new software called Una, which integrates streamline subtitling tools

[01:48] into a team management chat system similar to Slack. Also, there's some AI crap in there cuz of course there is, although apparently that is through third-party extensions, not built into the app itself. And sources within

[02:02] Crunchyroll have confirmed that they're not using AI in subtitling at all for now. There has also been some haymade about how Uno is based out of Tel Aviv. Though this video is mainly going to focus on how watching anime is getting

[02:16] worse, cuz that's my wheelhouse. To my knowledge, no one who works there has openly supported the atrocities, but I completely understand if you want to draw the line there anyway. Although if you do, you might have more

[02:28] subscriptions to cancel than you realize. Una is an all-in-one enterprise solution designed to be the quote gold standard for big studios and streaming giants who need their content translated. So, it offers pretty much

[02:43] nothing to help with the specific challenges of anime localization. My podcast co-host Miles wrote about this in his anime newsletter on Substack. And according to him, the localization team at Crunchyroll used to use an

[02:56] open-source program called Aegis Sub, which is specifically designed with anime in mind to support advanced type setting and subtitle styling. That was Crunchyroll's secret sauce. But there were several downsides to using it on

[03:12] the business side of things. The more specialized software, of course, required more specialized talent to use it. And those higher effort subtitles obviously take a whole lot more time to produce than the crap they're settling

[03:25] for now. More advanced type setting would also require rendering out multiple versions of each anime episode with different hard subs for every language that Crunchyroll offers because even Crunchyroll's video player can only

[03:38] do so much by itself. Not to mention platforms like Netflix and Amazon don't support type setting at all. So when Crunchyroll sublicicenses an anime to one of those services, they just have to go back and make the subtitles again,

[03:52] but shittier this time anyway. So from a business perspective, changing the software makes some sense, if indeed that is what happened. Crunchyroll hasn't actually confirmed or denied that they're working with Oona yet. And all I

[04:05] could get out of my source is that there were nebulous technical and software issues affecting subtitles for some shows, which the team is currently have a timeline for when it will be

[04:18] fixed. And regardless, Crunchyroll shouldn't be testing out new technology shouldn't be testing out new technology or new subtitling pipeline on live anime or new subtitling pipeline on live anime episodes, LET ALONE ALL of the new anime

[04:30] episodes for the start of a season. This is when the fandom is the most active in discovering and discussing new anime, a moment where any kind of pain point in the viewing experience can make or break a show's chance at finding an audience.

[04:47] And they're out here making it hard to even understand what characters are saying and screwing around to the point that even tentpole shows like Hero Locka aren't coming out on time. This is a serious slap in the face to

[05:02] Crunchyroll's core audience, but it's far from the only one in the last few years. Despite the platform's rapid post-pandemic growth, basically every change that they've made lately has been for the worse. This all really comes

[05:16] back to Crunchyroll's merger with Funimation, which a lot of people Crunchyroll just taking over Funimation's licenses and continuing to operate as they had been. After all, they kept the much more successful

[05:30] Crunchyroll branding. And it would be very obviously silly to put the people who made Funimation Now, a broken dog service that most people only subbed to when they had a really good exclusive for the season, in charge of

[05:45] the very platform that ate their entire lunch and forced them to be bought out by Sony. But the thing about Japanese mega corporations is that seniority is everything. And Funimation's people had been part of Sony longer than

[06:01] Crunchyrolls. So when the time came to eliminate redundancies, it was the real anime fans who knew what they were doing, who got the axe, while Funimation and Sony execs took over. And since then, Crunchyroll has gone through

[06:15] several more waves of layoffs. each one purging the company of more and more of the people who actually gave a about anime, the anime community, and the anime viewing experience. The first real sign of this change was the

[06:31] degradation of the Crunchyroll store, which almost immediately started having the exact same problems that the Funimation store used to have with unpredictable product delays and damaged goods due to poor packaging. Exactly the

[06:45] sort of thing you expect to see from people who don't really care about anime collectors and just want to move as much product as possible as quickly as possible for as little cost as possible. The Right Stuff Buyout was supposed to

[06:59] fix that problem by bringing in literally the best people in the anime retail business and all of their supply chain infrastructure, then folding that into the Crunchyroll brand. But I think you already have some idea of what the

[07:15] people in charge now think of letting real anime fans tell them how to run their business. So it probably won't surprise you to hear that what actually happened was the exact opposite. The Crunchyroll store experience stayed

[07:29] exactly as shitty as it had been, while their only real competition simply >> Yo guys, it's me, Charlie. Hey, did that guy just turn into sand? And to add insult to injury, people who had pre-ordered stuff from Right Stuff ended

[07:43] up having to deal with the same monthslong delays, poor communication, and sloppy, loweffort shipping that they went to that other store to avoid in the into the various Kickstarters for classic anime re-releases that Wright

[07:59] Stuff had been running through their Noomi Entertainment media label, like the Captain Tyler special edition that I promoted way back when. Crunchyroll only just started sending out Blu-rays for the Let's Dub Dirty Pair Kickstarter

[08:13] the Let's Dub Dirty Pair Kickstarter that was funded way back in 2021 with an that was funded way back in 2021 with an estimated release date of August 2022. And when they did finally send them out, not only did they fail to deliver on a

[08:26] promised version of the dub with old school sound effects, several of the school sound effects, several of the discs were straight up mislabeled. So yeah, The Right Stuff Buyout's been nothing but an unmititigated disaster

[08:38] for anime fans, and it's indicative of a corporate culture that simply does not care what we want because they know they're the only real game in town. But that's still not the most egregious example of Crunchyroll abandoning the

[08:53] anime community. That ignominious distinction belongs to what they've done to their own community features, which you might have noticed just straight up don't exist anymore. 2 years ago, they shut down their forums, which was

[09:08] disappointing, but somewhat understandable in the new social media age. except that around the same time they also started using HTCP encryption to block video screenshots on their site and app, making it substantially more

[09:24] difficult to clip, cap, and discuss anime on social media. And it made my life personally harder by messing up my whole thumbnail process, just as a nice little treat. But it still wasn't all bad. They did still have the comment

[09:39] section directly under every episode that let you dive right into talking about anime with like-minded fans as you were still watching it. And when you finished the series, you could even write up a review that would appear on

[09:53] the show's homepage, which could then spark further discussion. It was a fantastic feature, clearly thought up by anime fans who spent a lot of time on other anime sites. But you might have noticed that I'm talking about it

[10:06] exclusively in the past tense. And that's because last summer on July 8th, Crunchyroll just up and deleted the whole thing without any notice, not even giving those fan reviewers a chance to back their work up elsewhere. One day

[10:21] comments were on, the next they were gone. And the reason I know what gone. And the reason I know what specific day it is is because it was kind of my fault. Not on purpose to be clear. It was the last outcome I wanted

[10:34] to see. But 2 days prior to all the comments and reviews going away, I did make a tweet about some homophobic weirdos who were going around reviewbombing literally every Yahwi and Yuri series on the platform. I wasn't

[10:48] really trying to start a controversy, and I didn't even put any blame on Crunchyroll for it happening. I was just pointing out weird toxic behavior from culture warrior tourists trying to gatekeep queer genres that have been

[11:01] part of anime and anime fandom in Japan and abroad since before they were even born. Fake anime fans using our hobby to push their political agenda are a much bigger problem than any one anime website. But the tweet did undeniably

[11:18] put some indirect pressure on Crunchyroll to maybe start moderating comments and reviews a little more. Like at the very least filter out the obvious copypaste spam. And I guess they did some internal calculations and came to

[11:32] the conclusion that it would be cheaper to just nuke the whole feature. a frustrating, disappointing, downright depressing thing to watch unfold when all I wanted to do was mock some guys who forgot about don't like don't look.

[11:46] who forgot about don't like don't look. But now, as I look back on that moment, it does give me a bit of hope for this one. Because even if Crunchyroll's management isn't part of the anime community anymore, there are clearly

[11:59] still real anime fans working there who care about what the community and our little slice of it have to say. They've been out on social media reassuring fans about the subtitle situation as best they can without, you know, an official

[12:14] statement from the higherups. And even if they don't have nearly as much power within the company as they should or used to, they are still passing the concerns of fans along. Since I tweeted about making this video, they even

[12:28] reached out to me about opening dialogue on these and other anime community issues. So, we'll see how that goes. I would love nothing more than to see would love nothing more than to see Crunchyroll go back to being biotaku for

[12:42] otaku. And I honestly think that that would be the best for the long-term sustainability of their brand. But honestly, I don't even know if that's possible anymore. So, I'd settle for them just not actively making the

[12:55] experience worse for their most hardcore users. Crunchyroll may be huge now thanks to the COVID weeb boom, but without their core audience, they are still a tiny ass fish in the streaming ocean. And if all of the reasons to

[13:10] watch anime through them instead of Netflix or some less official channels go away, Sony's new Golden Goose could give up The Ghost before they know it. And I don't want to see that happen because I still think Crunchyroll

[13:25] provides a net positive to anime fans by making sure damn near every show gets translated. Even if you're watching on pirate sites, you're still watching Crunchyroll subtitles, and you'll probably notice the drop in quality

[13:39] there, too. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some poorly subtitled anime to watch and recommendations to write, plus another topical video about the politics of One Piece that I'm really proud of. So, please make sure to subscribe and

[13:52] haven't already to make sure you don't miss any of that. And if you want to support me making more content, especially stuff like this that risks pissing off my own long-term sponsors, consider pledging to my Patreon. It

[14:06] gives me a financial safety net to make risky videos like this one and my Gundam retrospective. And in exchange, you'll get access to uncensored cuts of my videos, an archive of old scripts, and an absolutely lovely Discord community

[14:21] full of amazing people. I'm Jeff Phil, professional anime fan, just trying to professional anime fan, just trying to keep the standards up.