Crunchyroll AI Subtitle Fail Sparks Viewer Backlash

Anime streaming giant Crunchyroll is facing significant backlash after its newest series, Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show, was released with subtitles that were clearly the result of a poorly executed AI implementation.

The AI-Generated Evidence

Viewers tuning into the new show from Studio Gokumi were greeted not by professional translations, but by a series of typos, grammatical mistakes, and nonsensical sentences. The quality was so low that it disrupted the viewing experience, with examples like “Is gameorver. if you fall, you are out” quickly spreading across social media.

The most telling sign of the subtitles' origin, however, was the direct reference to the tool used. Some subtitles literally began with the phrase “ChatGPT said,” confirming that the text was generated by AI and published without any human review or editing.

A Contradiction in Policy

This incident is particularly notable because it appears to contradict Crunchyroll's public stance on using artificial intelligence. The company has been open about its ambitions to grow as a lifestyle brand, but its president, Rahul Purini, has previously made assurances about the role of AI in production.

In an interview with Forbes in April, Purini stated that Crunchyroll was “not considering AI in the creative process” to preserve the authenticity of its content. He also emphasized that AI would not be used in ways that would displace human talent like voice actors. While Purini noted the company was exploring AI for improving recommendations and personalization, using it for subtitles—a core part of the creative product—seems to be at odds with that promise.

The Pitfalls of Rushing AI Adoption

This entire fiasco highlights the critical importance of professional translators and localization teams in bringing art to a global audience. It also serves as a cautionary tale about the entertainment industry's rush to embrace generative AI, often without considering the impact on quality or the people whose jobs are put at risk.

While using AI to accelerate the subtitling process might seem efficient for getting shows streamed quickly after their Japanese debut, the result in this case was a substantially worse product. Subtitles this poorly written are far from the “authentic” experience promised to subscribers and undermine the value of the service itself.