In a recent interview with The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini revealed that the anime-focused streaming service was experimenting with implementing AI-generated subtitles for the service’s library of titles. Purini’s proposition was that AI could expedite the workflow of subtitling and closed captioning in order to launch episodes “as close to the Japanese release as possible” for worldwide anime fans.
Crunchyroll, which was acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. in 2021 and subsequently merged with Funimation in 2022, is arguably the largest streaming service dedicated primarily to Japanese animation. As of this past January, the post-merger subscriber base comes in at over 13 million. That market share combined with Purini’s vision for potential implementation of AI subtitles prompted some anime fans and media commentators to voice concern.
The core argument: AI technology is nowhere near sophisticated enough to adequately translate the nuances of Japanese speech and text. Then there’s the concern for how such AI would impact human translators and localization teams whose work forms the bedrock of simulcasting and simuldubbing anime.
Polygon spoke with Purini and Crunchyroll COO Gita Rebbapragada at the 2024 Crunchyroll Anime Awards to discuss the controversy and how Crunchyroll is considering the red flags from its audience.
“We hear all of those concerns,” Rebbapragada told Polygon. “The two things we are solving for are: We want to provide a meaningful viable alternative to piracy [and] we want to share in success with the creators and our partners. When the content is pirated, we are unable to share in that success with them and that is something that’s very important to us.
“We have to look at what technologies exist and how to deliver the best fan experience and the best ability to combat piracy. We’re not different in that many companies are exploring this, and many pirate sites are exploring this. Now, having said that, anime is very unique. It’s not like translating general entertainment. There are a lot of references, there’s a lot of meaning, there’s a lot of subtext. And we use human translators, obviously, right now, and I oversee the subtitling team, and they take an incredible amount of care to honor the creative intent behind the story. And so that is something we take really seriously. It’s not something that we take for granted at all. And that is an important value for us.”
In an interview with Polygon, Purini clarified that Crunchyroll is not currently using AI in subtitling.
“AI is new, we are curious to see what it can do, what it cannot do, to understand it better,” he said. “Quality is of paramount importance for us, and if we find out the technology is not to the level that it can create the best subtitles we want for our fans, then we will wait until the technology gets there. And if it never gets there, then it never gets there.”
Purini declined to comment on a timeline when asked when and how Crunchyroll might implement AI-generated subtitling and closed captioning into the company’s localization workflow. “We still don’t know if we can get them done. It’s really, really early testing so far,” he said.
Additionally, Polygon spoke with Purini about the upcoming sunset of the Funimation app and website on April 2. This move, too, has not been without its share of controversy, as digital copies of anime purchased via home video sets distributed by Funimation and redeemable via the Funimation website will no longer be accessible following the closure of the Funimation app and website.
“We understand this is a value to fans,” Purini said when asked what the company is doing to serve customers frustrated by the impending inaccessibility of their digital copies. “We are helping customers as they reach out to us on customer service. We are trying to make them whole. That could mean a discount to our subscription service, or it could mean giving them the value on a different service where they can get access to a digital copy.”
When asked if or when fans can expect the remaining anime titles on Funimation — titles such as Tenchi Muyo, The Vision of Escaflowne, and Serial Experiments Lain — that have not yet migrated over to Crunchyroll to be added to the latter’s streaming library, Purini told Polygon that company was still in the process of seeing those and more titles moved onto the platform.
“We’ve been working really hard to move all that content from Funimation to Crunchyroll,” Purini said. “The majority of that content has already been moved over to Crunchyroll. There are a handful of shows that are in the process of being moved over. I expect by April 2, everything that we can move over will get moved over. There might be a handful of shows that we do not get permission to move to Crunchyroll, and we will continue to work on those with our partners in the future.”
