Hey guys.
I am thinking about starting to watch some anime with Japanese subtitles. I think this would be fruitful for me considering the level I’m currently on.
However, I can’t seem to find any legal way to do this. I pay for Crunchyroll, but they do not have Japanese subtitles. I’ve heard about animelon, but that doesn’t look very legal.
Isn’t there any platform with this option? How do you guys do?
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Animelon indeed isn’t really a legal way, doesn’t matter that they claim they’re a non-pofit (lol).
Netflix has a lot. Especially with a VPN.
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I second Netflix, if you can get access to an account. Especially if you change your account language (you can do that per individual user on the account), more Japanese language options appear.
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The problem with this is even most Japanese anime DVDs and Blurays don’t even come with Japanese subtitles. Like Kappa420 and Saida said, the only real legal source I’ve found that has subtitles is going to be Japanese Netflix.
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Unless you order them from Japan, but that might be too costly an option. I was gifted Moana in Japanese, comes with Japanese dub, and subs (though they don’t match, of course. Not even the songs 
)
I think you may have misread me. Most of those don’t come with Japanese subtitles. This is a actually fairly frustrating since I own quite a bit of imported DVDs and Blurays and would love to be able to flip on Japanese subtitles if only they had them. 
The point was to emphasize that Netflix is about your only real legal source as Japanese anime companies rarely care to create them themselves.
Edit to add:
What’s even more frustrating is you can you can generally have an easier time finding imported anime releases with either English subs, dubs or both than you can for those with Japanese subtitles. 
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@Kappa420 @Saida Hm, I’ll consider Netflix with VPN. Which VPNs would you guys recommend? And how good is Netflix anime catalog?
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Ah they just sell them raw, even in Japan? I figured they’d have subs for the hearing impaired, if aimed at the Japanese audience. Many live action dramas do have that, at least the ones I’ve seen. Terrace House and such also have JP subs.
I did notice on Netflix (+VPN) that shows like Prince of Tennis don’t have JP subs, so I guess with many of the less widely viewed anime they just don’t come standard.
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Yep, most of the time there are zero subtitles at all. You can often find it easier to find releases with English subs, dubs or both than ones with Japanese releases. Very rarely will you find something like this 3rd of 4th re-release of Zeta Gundam on Bluray that actually has Japanese subtitles:
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Well, diego, sounds like you might want to look into live action content!
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I have a personal chrome extension I wrote that allows you to drag subtitle files from kitsunekko into the Crunchyroll webpage and then adjust timing so that it syncs with their player.
If this is something that people would find useful I could see about making it public, but I’d have to get legal clearance from my company so it might take a bit. Note that it would definitely come as-is and with minimal support 
.
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Why would you need legal clearance from your company? Did you build it on company time or with company resources or something like that?
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Wow, that’s awesome!
But you only need to sysnchronize the first phrase, right? Because the subtitle file already contains the timestamps. Or do you need to sync each phrase? That would be tiring
And is kitsunekko legal?
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You only have to synchronize the first phrase, correct. I’m not sure how legal Kitsunekko is but it falls on the white side of gray market to me.
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I honestly wouldn’t worry about that for subtitle files. You’re properly contributing to the anime industry by watching the anime legally on Crunchyroll, and that’s what matters most.
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I’m not sure to what extent I can answer this question without breaking any NDAs, but it’s pretty typical of software companies to require clearing employee side projects.
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Technically probably not if a Japanese company or licensor wanted to file suit against them they would likely win, but it would probably rank as far less worse (and a much smaller target for anti-piracy efforts) than something like Animelon which is actually full on ripping and posting whole anime episodes.
In the end, it’s probably seen as no worse than websites that post transcripts of TV show scripts which seem to have no issues.
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Oops, I never got permission from my company to upload my WaniKani userscripts. 
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I use Windscribe at 2 dollars a month. Works well for my purpose of watching Japanese region locked content.
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@Saida was faster. That’s what I use, too. Some other recommendations can be found in this thread
But honestly, nothing beats the $2 Windscribe build-a-plan option as described in my post here in the aforementioned thread
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