The subtitles of a new Anime series on Crunchyroll are under criticism. Because someone “forgot” a AI note.
For those wanting to watch current anime with solid subtitles in the German-speaking area, the streaming provider Crunchyroll is hard to avoid. Thanks to many “simulcasts”, current episodes with German or English subtitles are usually available just a few hours after the Japanese premiere – often almost simultaneously.
One expects a high quality of the translation – after all, you pay monthly for Crunchyroll. However, the provider has made an embarrassing mistake. Because the already rather clumsy translation of an anime episode also had the addition “ChatGPT said” in the subtitles.
ChatGPT said
causes trouble
Which anime is it about? It is about “Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show”, one of the new summer anime. In the first episode, at the time 19:12, the displayed subtitle says: “ChatGPT said: If I can continue to enjoy the world from here on” (via anime2you).
This addition can only be found in the German subtitles; it was not present in other languages.
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that can take on various tasks – including translations, although one should always verify the quality of the received statements for correctness.
It is also suspicious that only “Emilia”, without the mention of a last name, is listed as the translator in the credits. Normally, you find people with first and last names who are responsible for translating the respective episode.
The passage can still be found at the current time with the ChatGPT note (as of: 02.07.2025, 11:00 AM).
Community is angry, expresses frustration: On social media like X, there is a huge outcry about this incident.
The concern is that this might not just be an isolated incident, but that the quality of translations is now generally declining and human translators might lose their jobs.
However, there are also rather moderate voices speculating that, due to a case of illness, they might have exceptionally relied on AI translations. What really lies behind it cannot be said at the moment, as Crunchyroll has not yet commented on the incident. 5 summer anime that hopefully make a better start, we have here for you.
