Can anyone with Japanese Netflix (or other recommendations) tell me if it’s decent? Does it have many foreign TV series with Japanese subs? Or is it mostly J-dramas and US Blockbusters?
I’d love to be able to watch some nostalgic TV series with my Japanese friends but I wonder if they’d even any interest in foreign TV shows?
Anyone with insight into the world of Japanese subscription services?
13 comments
I have Japanese Netflix!
You get all the Netflix original dramas and movies, and they come in English and have Japanese subtitles. You occasionally get bit name anime – Attack on Titan, Kimi no Na ha, Boku no Hero but these will be Japanese voices and Japanese subtitles only. Blockbuster movies are the usual, and they get rotated. American dramas like Gossip Girl or Brooklyn 99 are there for a semi-long run and can get removed as the licensing runs out.
I’ve used it for years, purely because I don’t have Amazon Prime. I’ve never run out of things to watch and having that many English shows makes me feel like I always have something I can watch to make me feel like I’m in my home country – even if it is friends for the millionth time.
It’s overpriced and there’s shit to watch. Prime is a much better deal at 500 yen a month and all the other prime benefits like free shipping, music, etc.
My wife is constantly watching English dramas in English so yes.
Plenty of good movies too.
Get a VPN too and you can watch anything from anywhere. For movies, Netflix Canada seems to be the best. UK has Gibli.
As a family we tend to watch Disney Plus, Netflix, and Prime in that order.
Take a look at Disney+.
I can’t speak for other services since I only have Prime but it’s not ideal if you have kids or like to watch animated stuff. Typically any kids show/movie will only be available in the Japanese dub, even if the show was originally made in English. Only really major releases will also have the English version as an option but it will come with Japanese subtitles that you can’t turn off
It’s probably the best, all the others either aren’t バリアフリー or don’t have much content
I used that word because I always put on subtitles (whether it be English or Japanese) because I find that I sometimes don’t catch what people say (idk, maybe years of SNS has dulled my focus). Most services straight up don’t have it.
What it’s largely short of is Japanese programs (and others, I suppose) with English subtitles.
Netflix has a tremendous amount of programs to watch. There are programs that are not yet in Japan, sometimes because they’re still sorting out rights. To my annoyance, some things aren’t here yet, and might never be. Final Destination 4 isn’t here. Not all of Supernatural is here.
Both are not bad, but the vast majority of the Japanese content on Netflix has no English subs. Maybe 90%+ of what I have looked at.
All the foreign content I’ve seen has Japanese subs on both services.
I got a VPN and an add blocker. That’s all I need 😉
Been using Netflix for about 2 years. It’s got plenty of US shows and movies, but Japanese shows and anime usually only have Japanese subtitles. Of the ones that I’m watching right now, only one anime series has English subtitles.
I have a Prime subscription but have only watched on it a handful of times. I think it has a decent enough selection, but I really can’t stand the interface.
If you already have an amazon prime account, it’s not a bad choice IMO. (No clue if you need a Japanese amazon account or if you can use a pre-existing one, if you have it)
<cough> VPN </cough>
If you get Netflix and have a VPN you should be able to change locations around and get different varieties of show options. But if you have Japanese prime you’ll be limited to Japan only and if you use the VPN it won’t let you access other countries prime videos.
Netflix is best for English language stuff and original programming compared to Hulu Japan, which has lots of anime and older US series, but the latter also includes live CNN and BBC.
With a Netflix account and a good VPN like Nord, you can watch any country’s version of Netflix. Hulu Japan is completely separate from Hulu US (Amazon Prime too), so you can only access the Japanese versions of them.