this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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Recent reports have announced that Crunchyroll, the largest anime streaming service, will be replacing Aegisub with Israeli Software, OOONA, to produce subtitles more efficiently. Anime fans across the world are disappointed with this collaboration due to Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians (via a report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry).

Crunchyroll is also ignoring the needs of groups who require Closed Captions to understand the scenes better. They are isolating a large chunk of their audience in favor of AI-based subtitling, which defeats the point of a streaming service. Overall, this hasn’t been a great year for Crunchyroll, and this won’t be the end of it.

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[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 149 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Fansubs have always been superior.

[–] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 65 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Remembers all the fan sub opening/ending Karaoke so I could actually understand songs too. 🥹

[–] themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 3 weeks ago

Steins Gate fansubs were amazing.

[–] exu@feditown.com 35 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

There are barely any real fansubs left. Most are Crunchyroll, Netflix or Funimation restyled and maybe retimed plus checked if they spent a lot of time on it.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 9 points 3 weeks ago

I'm an old pirate who remembers, and the thing, the raw ingredient missing in this scenario?

need

If it didn't exist, if there was no possible way to get a copy of somesuch Gundam episode whatever in english, some dude somewhere would cross the ends of the earth to get it onto the internet. Piracy is motivated entirely by utility and need, it's why music piracy atrophied into almost nothing until Soulseek arrived and streaming prices increased. Supply met demand, and it will again for fansubs.

If it's needed, someone will meet the need. We did it in 1998, we'll do it next year.

[–] missphant@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 weeks ago

And that's honestly all that's needed, the official translations are usually perfectly fine. The elaborate typesetting is what makes the fansubs so good.

[–] themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Agreed, It very noticeable how bad the subs are. I remember watching an the terminator anime and the subs were atrocious.

https://reddit.com/r/television/comments/1f4cj61/netflixs_wellanimated_terminator_zero_starts/?

[–] nullroot@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

I've been an anime of crunchy roll with those auto ai subs and the main character is called Kun. Holy shit half the time it's censoring itself because it's trying to say something racist, but not always...

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

That‘s how Crunchyroll itself started out if I remember correctly. Now look at it, completely unrecognizable. It‘s exemplary for how things have been progressing or rather regressing this century so far.

[–] vateso5074@lemmy.world 128 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Don't forget that Crunchyroll is also owned by Sony, who have basically picked up a monopoly on anime streaming services by buying out all of the competition. Aniplex, Funimation, Crunchyroll, Kadokawa, all under the Sony umbrella.

[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago

And still can't offer the full catalog in my country

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

I hate that some seasons shows are on Netflix, but the rest are only on CR

[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 88 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 39 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm doing my part!

My renewal was literally tomorrow too. As these streaming services get worse, I keep on cancelling. Been two years for Prime (literally smashed cancel the day ads were announced) and all i've got left at this point is netflix and spotify.

Netflix pricing almost has me there.

[–] theredknight@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I'd cancel it in a heartbeat but my wife would murder me.

[–] mzesumzira@leminal.space 7 points 3 weeks ago

You could try moving to Tidal or Qobuz, they treat their artists better and there are tools to transfer playlists

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[–] 3abas@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Netflix has been enshityfying and on the capitalist death spiral for YEARS, cancel that shit and spend your money on a VPN and some hard drives...

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[–] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 76 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh, didn't realize this. Had a rolling sub which I never bothered to cancel as I very occasionally watch with mates, but have now cancelled it.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 18 points 3 weeks ago

I cancelled it because I forgot I had it a few days ago. This is merely coincidence to me but nice coincidence.

Only piracy will keep you from being complicit.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 65 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

All the streaming services are unethical now, both in pricing and operation. Netflix is maybe the least bad, but I can’t justify the cost for that, either.

Stremio + Torrentio is the way to go.

What happens next is like what happened in the 2000s. People will turn to piracy as legitimate content is no longer feasible, affordable, or ethical. Then the corporate oligarchs will crack down violently to make examples of the people they’ve given no other choice or recourse.

It’s time to eat the rich.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

people they’ve given no other choice or recourse

I don't know, I find I also have the option to not consume media that I can't pay for or justify ethically. For instance, the only streaming service we have a subscription for is The Criterion Channel.

[–] WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

True. But many people can justify it ethically.

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[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 46 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Kind of miss how much effort went into fan subs, with notes explaining things that didn't exactly translate without context...

[–] Schal330@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Not just the notes, but I feel like they put more effort into making sure the text doesn't blend with what is on screen. Instances on Netflix of some shows where there will be white text with a white background, and the text has no drop shadow or black border.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

Oh man, I remember seeing things go from burned in subs to sub tracks with all kinds of nice functional markup and managed font color schemes and such to... Slapping white text with no border/shadow in the bottom middle of the video unconditionally without formatting...

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[–] MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

To the extent they exist

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[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well shit. If this goes through I'll have to cancel

[–] themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

https://xcancel.com/sugoilite/status/1973732830334292420?s=46&t=qypRlc3aYixql0uGFrdzNA

Many people noticed that the changes in the subs, they used to translate text in the background for example.

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 26 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Oh so it has gone through? Fuck. Time to cancel then

[–] pinheadednightmare@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The pirate life is the only life for me.

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And it's been working for decades, always getting laughed at by the newest hype but yet again persisting.

Also it turns out companies do it and it wouldn't work otherwise (see ai training)

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Ha fuck… that was my last personal sub… any alternative beside the high seas? I’m seasick…

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Honestly, piracy is easier than it ever has been. You can automate torrents or usenet downloads with the *arr suite. There’s a bit of a learning curve to get it set up… But once it’s running, it’s basically just “add show to your watchlist” and ~15 minutes later it shows up on your media list with full metadata, subtitles, etc ready to go.

Plenty of people will suggest stremio, which is… Contentious. It works for streaming by downloading a torrent to cache. After you watch it, stremio automatically deletes the cache. So in day to day operation, it uses very little hard drive space and primarily relies on your internet speed and properly seeded torrents. But that latter part is the problem… Since it deletes the cache, it isn’t actually seeding anything in return. If everyone used stremio, nobody would actually be able to use it, because none of the torrents would be seeded. It’s a sort of mass prisoner’s dilemma.

Technically, you can set stremio to keep a rolling cache of {x} size, and it will hold onto the torrents until you start to download something new and it needs that space. But very few people will expect to hit a 1.0 ratio, even with a decently sized cache.

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

The whole point is not to do any setup and maintenance just to watch anime… I already have a job where I have to do that and I was hoping that it would pay for the convenience. My passion is watching anime, not setup downloading pipeline for them.

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[–] kiagam@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

The end goal was always to deprive us of alternatives

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[–] Fyrnyx@kbin.melroy.org 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Crunchyroll doesn't even have all of the anime, they neglect a few classic ones. Pricks.

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Doesn't even have all the seasons of some animes they have. It's ridiculous copyright rules in different countries. It sucks.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What do you expect, they started as a pirate platform.

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[–] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 weeks ago

Sub ran out midway last month.

Kodi + Premiumize.me + Otaku for the win. 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

[–] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

These mutherfuckers forgot where they came from! Time to remind them

[–] quant@leminal.space 14 points 3 weeks ago

Oh they do remember. They fondly remember those early years piggybacking on strangers goodwill before laughing all the way to the bank.

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[–] BilSabab@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

why not just pirate shit without a noble cause for once? You know - the old fashioned way

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Impossible.

Piracy is always noble.

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[–] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago

Well then, fund an alternative.

  • MuseAsia
  • Ani-One
  • RetroCrush ?
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