Have you heard about Evil Prince and the Puppet or Akuaya, the otome game that’s been hidden in the shadows for ages? The game was announced in 2020 and it’s been in the works all this time. Just in, today’s the day the Akuaya CBT rolls out.
Crunchyroll execs respond to AI subtitle controversy and the Funimation merger
07.03.2024 - 18:13 / polygon.com
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
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