Anime event and voice actor livestreams in Japanese: how to get live English subtitles (free)

Published: 2026-10-18 ・ Updated: 2026-10-26

Works in Chrome or Edge on a computer (Firefox: through a microphone or audio input; not on phones). Japanese ⇄ English only.

The new season announcement is streaming right now, the cast is chatting, and the only English you will see is a fan's summary tomorrow. Anime event broadcasts, voice actor (seiyuu) talk shows and game announcement streams are almost always in Japanese only.

This guide shows how to follow them live with English subtitles made from the audio, while they are still on air.

In short: event and talk-show streams rarely have captions, so there is nothing for a translator to translate. LiveSub listens to the stream's tab on your computer and shows the Japanese with an English translation as subtitles, about one to two seconds behind the speaker. Add the cast and title names to its word list first. It is free and runs in Chrome or Edge.

Open LiveSub and try it

Why there are no English captions

• They are live. Official subtitles, if any, come days later or only for clips
• Automatic captions do not help. YouTube's live automatic captions are English-only, so a Japanese stream gets none, and auto-translate has nothing to start from
• Fan translations take time. Translators and clippers do great work, but they need hours after the stream ends

To follow along while it airs, you need something that turns the audio into text on the spot.

Make subtitles from the audio

LiveSub is a free website with an optional Chrome extension. It listens to the sound of a browser tab, recognises the Japanese speech on your own computer, and translates it into English with the browser's built-in on-device translator. The audio is not uploaded.

It works on any stream that plays in a normal Chrome or Edge tab, whatever the site.

Using Firefox? Firefox cannot share a tab's audio, so LiveSub listens through a microphone or an audio input instead. Open LiveSub in Firefox, play the video in another tab, and press "Start (mic or audio input)" on the LiveSub page. Allow microphone access when the browser asks. If your computer has a loopback input (such as Windows Stereo Mix), LiveSub picks it automatically; otherwise it listens through the microphone to the sound from your speakers (headphones will not work). There is no sharing dialog. On YouTube and Twitch, LiveSub for Firefox turns the video's audio into subtitles directly: press "Add to Firefox — it's free" to install it, play the video in another tab, and press "Start (YouTube / Twitch tab)"; the subtitles appear over the video.

Before the stream starts (5 minutes)

1. Do the one-time download

Open LiveSub, choose Japanese → English under "Translate from / to", and press "Try the how-to video (no sharing)". The speech model downloads once (about 590MB for Balanced) and you can check that subtitles appear.

2. Add the names you know will come up

Cast names, character names, the series title and studio names are what speech recognition gets wrong most. Type them into LiveSub's word list with the spelling you want. They will be corrected to your spelling every time.

3. Choose a recognition setting

• Balanced keeps up with live talk. Start here
• Anime/game voice is trained further on anime and game voices. Try it when the cast is doing character voices, shouting or laughing a lot. It needs a powerful GPU and a one-time download of about 770MB
• Japanese-tuned is often better for ordinary conversation, also on a powerful GPU

You can switch while subtitles are running.

During the stream

1. Play the stream in its tab
2. Click the LiveSub extension icon on that tab, or press "Start (share a tab)" in LiveSub and share that tab with "Also share tab audio" ticked
3. Read the subtitles over the video, or press "Show in a floating window" to keep them on top while the stream is fullscreen

When it ends, "Download transcript" saves everything that was said, with the English, and timestamps.

What to expect

• Talk segments work well. Interviews, announcements and casual chat are where it helps most
• Singing and live music do not. Lyrics over music come out badly
• Crowds and cross-talk lower accuracy. When three people laugh and talk at once, expect gaps
• Jokes and wordplay often do not survive machine translation. You will know what is being announced; you may miss why everyone is laughing
• About one to two seconds behind, and desktop only (phones cannot share tab audio)

This is not a replacement for fan translators. It is a way to follow the broadcast while it is happening.

Wrapping up

Next time an announcement stream is Japanese-only, you do not have to wait for the summary. Add the names, start LiveSub on the stream's tab, and watch it live.

Open LiveSub on your computer and press "Try the how-to video (no sharing)" before the stream, so the download is out of the way.

About this guide: written by the maker of LiveSub. Steps, button names and figures are checked against the LiveSub app as of the date above. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.

Open LiveSub and try it