Best Solution for English Subtitles

[PityOnU]

Recently watched Princess Connect Re : Dive on Crunchyroll and was really impressed with the art style and sound direction. The story, while not anything new or Earth-shattering, was also really fun and family-friendly.

I decided I would purchase a Blu-Ray release of season 1 so I could have a full quality version of the series, as well as to support the creators, as they recently announced a season 2 is in production. I also wanted to be able to send them home to my mother so she could watch as well (Crunchyroll is a bit beyond her capabilities/comfort zone when it comes to technology).

However, when purchasing, I didn't consider that the Blu-Rays might not come with English subtitles. Has anyone else here had experience with Blu-Ray releases of anime? What are the chances it will have English subtitles embedded? If not, what's the best solution for adding them? The ones one Crunchyroll were serviceable enough for me.

 

[FAST6191]

If you have a link to the particular version you ordered then such things will tend to be noted somewhere on the internet.

Generally stuff ordered from an English speaking country (or most European ones) will have them.
Whether Japanese stuff has it varies massively. It would be no surprise at all for something to lack it, though with modern stuff it is increasingly more common (international distribution is a thing Japan finally woke up to and realised there is a market for it).

As far as adding subs to pressed media... it is not as nice as getting them for nice AVI/MKV/whatever downloads of single shows but many of the same sites that do external subtitle files will also often have some for the DVD/blu ray. You can also try to grab the subtitles for other versions of the thing but subtitle formats are odd things (some are frame based, others might be more timer based, all of which is OK until you have a mismatch) and if say the blu ray includes a few seconds of pre roll then things will be off, at which point your mother will likely then be on the phone or something asking to delay/speed up subtitles.

If it is going to be a problem then might be easier to keep the disc but instead grab some fansubs or whatever and have her watch those.

 

[PityOnU]

Haven't received the Blu-Rays yet, but just wanted to update the thread for anyone who may be interested in the future:

You can use youtube-dl, along with a cookies.txt dumped from a browser login to Crunchyroll, to download streams directly from the site. The tool can also download all of the subtitles in the .ass (LOL) format, which can be converted to .srt without too much issue. I haven't tried converting them yet myself, so I can't speak authoritatively on the subject.

I was able to download the highest quality encode of the stream, all of the subtitles, and then embed them into the .mp4 files. The built-in Windows 10 media player (Movies or something?) doesn't seem to be able to display embedded subtitles, but VLC handles it just fine.

I'm still hoping the Blu-Ray discs come pressed with the subtitles so I can easily share with my mother, but for my own collection, it's nice to know I'll be able to rip and embed professional subs if they aren't.