Where and How to Watch Anime with Japanese Subtitles (2024)

FAQs

Where and How to Watch Anime with Japanese Subtitles? ›

You can now get Japanese subtitles (as well as other languages) on crunchyroll.

You can now get Japanese subtitles (as well as other languages) on crunchyroll.

Top streaming platforms like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu offer a vast library of anime series and movies, making it easy to immerse yourself in Japanese audio and visuals. However, these platforms lack dedicated language learning tools and may not be optimized for effective language acquisition.

English subtitles in your anime will only help you very little to actually learn Japanese. Because you're ideally starting out at an intermediate level, you should be able to rely on Japanese subtitles. This is a great opportunity to strengthen your listening, vocabulary, reading, and grammar skills.

A lot of the content from Funimation has moved over to Crunchyroll as their libraries merge, but Funimation remains another good place to watch anime. The subtitle options are more limited here, with most shows only supporting English subs. Unfortunately, Funimation doesn't have Japanese subtitles.

If you often switch between languages, we've got a quick and easy trick for you. Here's how to change languages on the fly: Once your video is loaded, click on the gear icon inside the video player. This opens the audio preferences menu where you can pick your desired language.

Subs, or subtitled anime with the original Japanese voice acting, would definitely be the best choice if you are looking for a pure anime experience. Even when the story is set in fantasy or non-Japanese contexts, anime is rife with Japanese social norms, body language, and cultural references.

Where can I watch anime for free? The leading free anime online portals to check are GoGoAnime, 9Anime, ConTV, Anime-Planet, KissAnime, etc.

CrunchyRoll is the biggest streaming service for all kinds of anime shows with over 30 000 episodes. The best thing about it is that it uploads an episode only an hour after its Japanese release. It also has a large selection of Manga. The site allows you to add reviews and share videos on Facebook and Twitter.

What is anime called in Japanese? ›

The etymology of the term anime is disputed. The English word "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon) and as アニメ (anime, pronounced [a.ɲi.me]) in its shortened form.

Anime is made (and spoken) by native Japanese speakers... for native Japanese speakers. Meaning the language you hear is natural.

Subtitles don't display for some languages

The Netflix app may not support subtitles for some languages including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Romanian, or Vietnamese on devices manufactured before 2014, but most newer devices do support them.

There is a form of the language considered standard: hyōjungo (標準語), meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo (共通語), "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of the two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same.

Of these, Hiragana is the best for beginners. It is the most basic of the three sets of the alphabet and it is the foundation of the written Japanese language.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Besides Netflix with subtitles, I also use Hulu.jp where some anime and dramas have closed caption (cc). This gives the Japanese text and can be good for language acquisition but poor for entertainment if you are always pausing to read what was said.

Go into your account preferences and change your default audio language to Japanese. Then, if you want to watch the English dub for one specific show instead, you can change the audio language from the settings in the video itself.