🎬 Fix Garbled Japanese Subtitles
Drop Japanese subtitle files (.srt, .ass, .vtt). The tool detects the encoding, usually Shift_JIS, and saves them as UTF-8 so they display correctly in any player. Files stay on your device.
1. Choose subtitle files
Why Japanese subtitles get garbled
Fan-made and older Japanese subtitles are usually saved in Shift_JIS (also called CP932 or Windows-31J). Modern players expect UTF-8, and English Windows programs fall back to Windows-1252, so the same bytes are drawn with the wrong characters:
- “ú–{Œê‚ÌŽš–‹: Shift_JIS read as Windows-1252
- ���{��̎���: Shift_JIS read as UTF-8
- 縺薙ｓ縺ｫ縺｡縺ｯ: UTF-8 read as Shift_JIS (the reverse case)
All of these are fixable as long as you still have the original file. Empty boxes (□) are different: the text is fine, but the player has no Japanese font. Install one, or pick a font such as Noto Sans JP in the player’s subtitle settings.
Command-line alternative: iconv -f CP932 -t UTF-8 input.srt > output.srt
Frequently asked questions
Why do Japanese subtitles show up as garbage characters?
Many Japanese .srt and .ass files were saved in Shift_JIS, the traditional Japanese Windows encoding. Players and editors that assume UTF-8 or Windows-1252 read the bytes with the wrong table, so the text turns into strings like ““ú–{Œê” or “���”. Converting the file to UTF-8 fixes it for every modern player.
Are my subtitle files uploaded?
No. Files are read and converted inside your browser and never sent to a server.
Which output encoding should I choose?
UTF-8 without BOM works in VLC, mpv, Plex, Jellyfin, YouTube and most editors. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if an older Windows program still shows garbage, and Shift_JIS only for old Japanese hardware players.
The subtitles are fine but out of sync. Can this fix that too?
Yes. Shift all subtitles earlier or later by a number of seconds, and if they drift further out of sync as the video goes on, apply a frame-rate correction (for example 25 → 23.976 fps).
The text is already garbled in UTF-8. What now?
If someone opened the file with the wrong encoding and saved it again, the garbled characters themselves are now stored in the file. Try to get the original file. Otherwise, paste a few lines into our Japanese text fixer, which can often reverse it.