Anime Without Subtitles

I want to keep improving my listening ability, but I need help finding places where I can watch anime without subtitles. I know there’s Netflix and Crunchyroll (I don’t have premium), but I’m finding it really hard to find any other sites that allows me to disable subtitles or just watch anime raw. Anime isn’t the entire reason I’m learning Japanese, but as it gets harder to find anime easily, I feel like my motivation is going down. Even any sites/services that have subs in a different language, I just don’t want English subs, so I can keep practice with my listening. Thank you so much!
(This is actually my first post here, sorry if there are any mistakes, please let me know.)

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(post deleted by author)

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Does HiDive not let you disable subtitles. Pretty much any anime will be on either Crunchyroll or HiDive.

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Wait, I thought it got closed?
It does seem working though… I guess it keeps getting closed and then reopens again :sweat_smile:

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I thought so too, I literally just checked because of this post haha

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Just a quick reminder that the fruit-themed Anime site is a pirate site, and comments about it or other pirate streaming sites will get flagged (it’s happened to me).

In general, pirate sites use whatever sub or encoding version of the anime that is the least effort for them to acquire, and in a lot of cases that means the English subs are hard-coded (they are baked directly into the file and can’t be turned off via controls on the website).

Generally, between Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu and Funimation (which is now owned by Crunchy but being maintained separately), you have access to most of the anime available in North America. Any site that has “anime” in the URL is probably not an official streaming licensee (which means that the original production studio is not getting credit or payment for your views).

Please note that I am not saying that you should give up if your anime isn’t available with the subs you want. It just means that if you have to put on your eyepatch and set sail on the high seas of the internet, don’t talk about it here.

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I see, since I learned about it on these forums to begin with I thought it was okay. Should I delete my comment?

Well, if you don’t someone else probably will. I didn’t know it was a pirate site either and got one of my comments flagged, and I was pissed! :slight_smile: The site doesn’t reveal the fact that the rights to streaming of an IP are region specific, and if a site is accessible worldwide, it must have region-specific versions of its streams that are officially licensed. It portrays itself as a donation-supported site, which would make one reasonably believe the donations were going toward licensing - but they’re not.

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Got it, thanks for letting me know :slight_smile:

If you are able to download anime (which I personally do whenever I watch something not on Netflix), then you can almost always remove subs with the video player. Stuff is rarely hardcoded nowadays

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A lot of times for legal reasons subtitles are forced on (non-Japanese DBD/Blu Ray releases are often cheaper, so it’s done to encourage Japanese audiences to stick with Japanese releases).

The legal ways of doing what you want are to either get Japanese releases, or get a Western release (the subs are forced on, but they aren’t burned in) and rip it to an MKV file. Once you have the file, you can choose which audio tracks and subtitles to use at your leisure.

It's legal to make backups and archival copies for personal use, but some people are a bit leery of it, so I'll put what I do in here

I use MakeMKV (http://makemkv.com/) to rip my blu-rays so I can put them on my Plex server. If you find the resulting files too large to keep, you can transcode them with something like Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr/)

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How about sitting far from the screen such that you can’t read the subtitles? Or put a piece of paper across the bottom of the screen to block them. Low tech solutions. :smile:

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If you get Japanese Amazon (you would need a vpn, us credit card works fine on mine but other people have reported issues), there’s something like 600+ and most of them are unsubbed in any language.

You can just open like notepad on top. :sweat_smile:

I guess subtitles don’t always cover the same space, are in the same position, etc. Sometimes you get subs on top when several people are talking, or on signs and stuff.

If I’m far enough that I can’t read the subtitles, I can’t see what’s going on in the anime either. :joy:

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I think it should be possible. There’s really not that much to see in anime anyway is there? As long as you can recognize which characters are on screen, that’s the main thing.

Unless one likes to enjoy the art and animation of anime. :upside_down_face:

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Might as well listen to a drama CD.

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Thank you! This is literally what I did, I went and found a bandana and covered the bottom part of the screen 笑

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Come to Japan.

I wish I could add subtitles (inc. English subtitles)…

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