How To Make Crunchyroll Play In English

Crunchyroll is the number one repository of anime on the internet. It’s a subscription-based website that offers the widest range of Japanese animation around and is usually the first name that comes to mind when discussing where to stream anime. As most anime comes from Japan, it is usually in Japanese but there are also English subtitles or dubbing. This tutorial will walk you through making Crunchyroll play in English.

There is a but here. Not all Chrunchyroll titles will have English dubbing. They all have English subtitles but not all titles will be dubbed. This is the same for many website that show original anime and not unique to Crunchyroll. Where possible, all anime websites will feature titles on their original language and in any dubbed languages but that isn’t always possible.

Make Crunchyroll play in English

If there is English dubbing for a title, it will be displayed. It will either be mentioned in the title like the image above, ‘91 Days (English Dub) Episode 1 – Night of the Murder’ or be listed underneath if there is more than one dubbed version. You should see a selectable link under the title, one for each language. Select the English link and the title should play with English dubbing.

As mentioned, not all titles have English versions. It takes a lot of effort to dub an entire episode and not all studios have those kinds of resources.

There is a forum post on the Chrunchyroll website with a running list of all anime titles with English dubbing. The list is updated regularly and includes every title that appears on the site. I have used the list myself and it seems to include almost everything that has English versions. And is updated monthly as far as I can tell. You will see that there are a good number of titles with English dubbing but nowhere near the full range of anime titles available.

Sources of English dubbed anime

Crunchyroll might be the most recognized website to get your anime fix but it is far from the only one. There are dozens of good quality websites that offer anime dubbed in English. As far as I know, all of these are legal but stand to be corrected if you know different.

VRV

VRV is a very popular website that makes anime available to the western masses. There are a lot of anime titles on here and most have English dubbing and/or subtitles. It’s a geek site with more than anime and is a decent spot to try if Crunchyroll isn’t delivering the goods.

9Anime

9Anime has a ton of anime content. Like Crunchyroll, not all of it has English dubs but a good number of titles do. The downside here is that dubs are not clearly marked but if you use the filter on the home page, you can filter by subbed or dubbed which makes the process much easier.

Kissanime

Kissanime is another very popular source of all kinds of anime. It’s a .ru site but seems okay in terms of security. It has quite the collection of titles but does not clearly display whether they have subs or dubs or not. You may see a small (Dub) or (Sub) next to the title but it isn’t guaranteed. There is no filter either so it’s a matter of trial and error here I’m afraid. The reason I recommend this site is for the sheer scope of titles. There are hundreds, if not thousands of anime titles here.

Animefreak

Animefreak is another good source of anime and well worth checking out. Like Kissanime, it doesn’t have the clearest display of whether a title is subbed or dubbed. You will have to select a title and then read the description on the right to see if it has dubbing or not. It isn’t the easiest way to do things but again like Kissanime, the sheer size of the repository makes this place worth checking out.

Hidive

Hidive is another solid source of anime. It has a lot of dubbed titles and is available on Roku as well as online. For once, dubs are made clear with a blue box on the title image that says ‘Dubbed’. This makes selecting your titles much easier. There is also a specific category for dubbed titles which makes selection even easier. Again, the range of titles is huge and covers many popular and some niche anime series so you should find something to like here.

Crunchyroll will play in English if dubs are available. If it doesn’t play automatically, you can manually select the dubbed version from the title list underneath. Not all titles are dubbed so if one doesn’t play in English, try one of these other sites. They might have what you’re looking for!