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Crunchyroll Faces Cancelation: Why Anime Fans Are Choosing Piracy After Latest Update
(fandomwire.com)
Fansubs have always been superior.
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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I miss them because when something like Seitakoi no Ichizon made reference jokes, instead of localizing they had translator notes at the top explaining the reference and what it was from, I learned so much old japanese otaku culture back then thanks to it.
Remembers all the fan sub opening/ending Karaoke so I could actually understand songs too. 🥹
Steins Gate fansubs were amazing.
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.
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.
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.
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/?
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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.
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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.
And still can't offer the full catalog in my country
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Just canceled. Thanks.
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.
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.
Netflix charges me, a single guy, for 4 simultaneous streams if I want 4k. So I shared with my parents.
Then they had the audacity to stop people from password sharing or to charge even more if you want to share. I set up an automatic email forward so my parents get every sign in related email.
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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.
I cancelled it because I forgot I had it a few days ago. This is merely coincidence to me but nice coincidence.
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When property is valued over people, piracy is protest. Pirating undermines a system that guards profit while neglecting humanity. Every download is a refusal to accept laws that protect wealth over well-being.
The whole “calling out Israel for genocide means you’re antisemitic” line is so worn out and honestly just exhausting. Israel has spent like 4+ decades trying desperately to associate criticism of israel with antisemitism.
I’ve been boycotting Crunchyroll for years, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.
"Piracy is a human right, collective ownership of the seas, comrades!" — Erik L. Midtsveen
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fan subs are best
Kind of miss how much effort went into fan subs, with notes explaining things that didn't exactly translate without context...
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.
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I would very much like a streaming service that makes it transparent what it actually spends its income on.
Like - a streaming service where i pay $10/month and 90% of that goes to the studios/artists that actually produce the anime? I would take that.
But right now i'm worried that i pay $10/month and 90% of that goes to the shareholders of the streaming provider as "profit" while the studio gets almost nothing.
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And the Spotify ceo just stepped down so he could focus on weapons systems for Israel. The people running all of our media services are Nazis.
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why not just pirate shit without a noble cause for once? You know - the old fashioned way
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Animelab died for this
Well shit. If this goes through I'll have to cancel
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.
Ha fuck… that was my last personal sub… any alternative beside the high seas? I’m seasick…
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.
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Crunchyroll doesn't even have all of the anime, they neglect a few classic ones. Pricks.
Doesn't even have all the seasons of some animes they have. It's ridiculous copyright rules in different countries. It sucks.
Enshittification, everyone. It comes to everything.
The problem here is that all these major anime providers are owned by Sony, so you're kinda fucked if you want to boycott them.
Did you read the article - or even the title? This story is about people turning to piracy, not turning to another official source.
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Greed kills
Funnily enough, i was considering just today whether i should re-open my old Crunchyroll account. But i guess i won't do it now after all. IIRC there's been a streak of bad press about crunchyroll; like, this today isn't the only issue.
These mutherfuckers forgot where they came from! Time to remind them
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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Ahh good ol' Aegisub. I have great memories of subtitling anime in my late teens before I got a girlfriend and the fansub scene died when Crunchyroll took over.
I was also one of the people helping test Aegisub on Linux (2009-ish), I wasn't a programmer at the time but I remember a dude called 'verm' in the IRC channel who did a bunch of work to make Aegisub stable on Linux. He taught me the difference between little endian and big endian, I guess he was bored that day
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