And actually, I just checked and “Subtital” DOES seem to work with Crunchyroll, so here’s the links for that if anyone wants to try:
Firefox:
Chrome:
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I really don’t understand why there is no “legal Animelon” which is paid.
Should that model not attract many learners?
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That would be very nice. But I guess the “Japanese learners learning through anime” niche is very specific and not very profitable(?)
Illegal websites don’t have to pay much and can profit with ads. Legal streaming requires buying licenses, which apparently are very expensive. Just what I think.
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Probably because companies are reluctant to selling licenses. 
Even with Crunchyroll, many series are only available for certain territories.
And the majority of consumers likes their entertainment localized and companies don’t believe it’s worth it to bother with the minority who wants to use it for learning.
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Let’s just hope Netflix expands their anime portfolio … instead of deleting half of it like they did recently (at least for German accounts).
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This is a bit off-topic, but I’ve been having an issue with Yomichan. It’s still related to the main topic though because I am using Yomichan with Anicobin while watching anime on Netflix.
I installed it on my new computer and it works fine after I import the dictionaries. But as soon as I reboot my computer, the following problem starts to happen. I don’t need to press Shift to get Yomichan’s pop-ups. So it’s horrible when I am trying to read something in Japanese because I get definitions for every word my mouse passes on.
Has anyone ever had a similar problem? Maybe it’s some problem with me Chrome, or with another extension?
You can specify the hotkey used to show definitions in the extension settings, so double check that it’s set up correctly there.
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I checked it, and for some reason, the hotkey was set to none instead of shift, even though I didn’t change it. Now it’s working fine, thanks 
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Basically this. Anime companies sell licenses to other countries to show anime just in those countries/regions. It’s not really possibly to have two companies in the same country with such a similar (online broadcasting/hosting) license.
I do think that Crunchyroll should add Japanese subs for all their content because it should be easy enough since they already have the transcripts and timing. I don’t know if they could be persuaded with letters or other requests though.
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That is never going to happen (the below quotes are from Crunchyroll forums).
That’s why when I subscribed to Crunchyroll I never had any moral qualms about using Animelon.
This has been brought up several times before, as you’ll find displayed among this search result:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/search?q=japanese&o=f&t=fc&n=394638
To sum up CR’s response, they state they are not an educational service and indicate this is outside their area of commercial interest. In other words, they don’t see it as something that would bring in or retain a sufficient number of subscribers to be worth the cost.
Keep in mind that CR also has to have language rights for subtitles included in their contract. As strange as it may appear to some people, having the Japanese audio doesn’t automatically give them rights to use Japanese subtitles.
The Japanese content producers have zero incentive to give CR rights to use Japanese subtitles because that may open the door for “cannibalism” of their business model (=Japanese viewers could try to watch their content on CR…)
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I can understand why they may not be able to show Japanese subtitles, but I really wish they would let us turn off the English subtitles for listening practice. It seems like such a small thing but it would make a huge difference to those of us learning the language.
Honestly I’m getting a little fed up with Crunchyroll and thinking about switching to Netflix. Is there any Netflix anime that you guys would recommend?
In which country are you located? Netflix USA has Girls und Panzer, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80205232 but this is the only thing I know about your tastes (for obvious reasons) so it is hard to offer more suggestions.
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Netflix is a great language resource and I watch programmes in various original languages with corresponding subtitles. You can also watch the original dubbed into another language with subtitles but what drives me nuts is that the subtitles don’t correspond to the spoken dialogue. I suspect the dubbing and subtitles are done separately from the original source but not cross checked. My daughter is learning Spanish and we were watching the new Shera. There was one song where we were both looking at each other thinking WTF as there was not a single word in common between what was being sung and the subtitles! I can cope with the differences for Spanish but with Japanese it is too hard as already difficult enough trying to read the subtitles in sync with the dialogue.
You can turn off English subtitles on Crunchyroll. That’s what I do when I’m watching anime on there. Just click on the subtitle language and there’s a “None” option at the bottom of the language list. It would be nice if they had Japanese subtitles though.
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And different licenses. Funimation does dubbing and Crunchyroll does subbing. Not that it matters much since Funimation/Sony bought Crunchyroll last week.
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That’s good to know. Thank you for sharing.
I feel like the “cannibalism” argument is so disappointing because it doesn’t seem like they bother to add Japanese subtitles on Japanese streaming sites (I feel like I’ve seen hardly any on Japanese Amazon Prime at least) and they don’t bother on some movies either. /:
Best legal way is Netflix “Originals” since they’ll always have Japanese subtitles (assuming they’re Japanese shows).
You can download Japanese subtitles for shows on Kitsunekko and then use the Super Netflix Extension to add them to whatever show’s episode you’re watching.This is somewhat slow though since Netflix only takes a certain kind of subtitle so you have to go one by one.
Because of this, I just download shows from Nyaa.si and watch them on VLC Player where I can quickly pop a subtitle file directly onto the video and it’ll immediately work (at worst I have to sync the subtitles which is just a few presses of a hotkey). I don’t really feel bad since most of these shows I’m already paying for via Netflix, Amazon Prime and Crunchyroll and it’s their fault that I don’t have quick and easy access to Japanese subtitles just because of my region. In other words, if something isn’t legally or quickly available in one’s region, one shouldn’t feel bad for pirating it.
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Oh my god I think you just restored Crunchyroll’s usefulness to me. Thank you!
This is really bad news. Less competition = lower quantity and lower quality… 
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