I’ll be living in France till the end of the year and I have noticed that English sub/dub is no longer an option for me. I only get the choice or original Japanese or French. I don’t read/speak either language. Is there a way to get English without a VPN?
I don’t agree with most of the other comments that say you need a VPN. I’m French and I’ve used Crunchyroll since 2014. I used to watch with French subs of course, until my study abroad year in the U.S. in 2017. I got used to watching anime with English subs there and I continued to do so even after I got back to France.
Basically, it depends what you’re watching:
- If you’re watching seasonal anime, good news: with the merging of Funimation/Wakanim into CR, Crunchyroll has kind of become a monopoly on the market. Out of 20-25 anime I watch every season, about 20-22 are on Crunchyroll. And since 2017-2018, Crunchyroll has mostly adopted a similar acquisition strategy as Netflix: when they license a show, it’s for the worlwide rights, meaning the subtitles are available in all languages all over the world. So you have access to the English subs in France with no issue, along with any other languages Crunchyroll supports.
- The 2-3 remaining seasonal anime that CR doesn’t license usually go to either ADN, Netflix or Disney+. As I said before, Netflix and Disney+ also do worldwide acquisition, so English subs are also available on those services. The only exception is ADN, which is basically our local HIDIVE. They’re not the same company, but they end up licensing the same few seasonals that Crunchryroll doesn’t get. ADN only does French subs, and they tend to get 1 big anime every season. For example, this season is Oshi no Ko S2. Last season, they had Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night and even Girls Band Cry, which was not licensed anywhere in most countries. In Winter 2024, they had The Dangers in My Heart S2. For those few anime on ADN, you’ll need a VPN to stream from HIDIVE which offers their catalog for the English-speaking countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia.)
- If you’re watching older seasons (let’s say anything before 2016), the availability varies a little more. They were more competition on the market back then, and so the licensing was more localized. For example, Attack on Titan S1 in only available with French subs, while all seasons after that are available in all languages. I think there is something similar going on with My Hero Academia S1. There is also some weird cases like Made in Abyss, which was never available on Crunchyroll outside of France, and as such only has French subs.
- Finally, there is the case of the older really big shows, such as Dragon Ball or One Piece. Those licenses are obviously very difficult to negociate and are more expensive, so they’re usually only for one country. Both of those are available on Crunchyroll in France, but only with French subs/dubs.
Conclusion: you should be mostly good to go. I myself used to watch Crunchyroll exclusively though a U.S. VPN, until I realized I did not need it anymore around 2022, after the merger. If you need a VPN, I tested a few with CR back then: NordVPN was a bit too slow, and I got good results with ExpressVPN. However, I would use ProtonVPN nowadays, which has the best reputation when it comes to privacy and good performance. They even have a Free Plan with no limits on speed. The only limit in this plan is that there is only 5 countries available (including the US, so you should be good) and you can’t choose one manually, you have to cycle through them until it selects the US. A bit annoying I agree, but not the end of the world if you can’t or don’t want to pay.
Also, here is some terminology you might find useful:
- “VOSTFR” is French subs (= version originale sous-titrée en français)
- “VOSTA/VOSTEN” is English subs (= version originale sous-titrée en anglais)
- “Doublé/doublage” is dubbed/dubbing
Nope, in Europe licensing is in most cases attached to the language of the country, so you’ll need to use a VPN to watch your show with english subtitles.
Depends the anime, most of them have multiple language but just some of them only have French dub and sub
You do need a vpn, if you don’t wanna pay here’s what you can do. Make a Windscribe vpn account (I think you get 2 or 3gb), confirm the email and you’ll get 10gb. Connect to whatever country you want, and start the episode, after the episode starts, turn off the vpn and the episode will still load no problems, just don’t refresh the page.
You can also use the same trick for downloads, connect to a country and start the dowload, after the download starts (meaning after the download circle stops spinning and starts showing the download progress) turn off the vpn and the download will continue. Even if you pause or close the app, the download will continue where you left off without a vpn.
Is there a way to get English without a VPN?
No there isn’t
Thanks for all this!!
Thanks for this entire clarification, it’s the best answer for every “why subtitle is not available during my travel” questions.
P.S.: I used to think that VOSTFR was “voice over subtitles in french” (aka french-dubbed)…
Ah well that stinks. Guess I need to get one now lol
Living in America usually works.
We use “VF” for French dubbed (= voix française).
Idk if there are people that wants to immigrate to the USA only because of the catalogue and to have English subtitles on Crunchyroll 