Moving on, I don't think you will see changes prominently on anichart or MAL anytime soon; the point is that it's gradual and more subtle than that. Crunchyroll was already involved with 60 productions apparently. Conceptually, in a hypothetical "worst case", they could have been influencing artistic choices for each of those programs. We do know they did one: High Guardian Spice is a particularly explicit example of an anime deliberately constructed to western progressive specifications. A lot of people are rather unkind about it, but that's really immaterial; what it really is is a clumsy first attempt at end-to-end control of the anime pipeline from script, to production, to distribution. They didn't find a winning formula with it, but they'll keep trying because there's too much money on the table.
So, I do think that this change in tone is imminently about to happen. Weatern values have already been injected in other forms in localized content too, e.g. in our uptightness about certain types of expressions of sexuality (e.g. that which is perceived to be pervy; e.g, the infilling of "boob-windows" and covering of midriffs in localized games), and with activist translators who deliberately whitewash phrases they find problematic and also who select progressive translation choices over neutral ones.
The bottom line to me is that the money men have zero interest in the integrity of the mediums in which they dabble. As you note, there's precedent; in the 90's, it was 4kids dubs which routinely butchered shows, sometimes extremely. The nature of the interference will change with the standards of the day, but the fundamentals don't.
For now, it doesn't really have too much of an effect since Crunchyroll and Netflix's subtitles already don't really have a good reputation. But it's certainly a sign that if they could get away with it, they'd definitely do more.
This is a meme that has mostly been spread by people who don't really speak Japanese, but have picked up a few words and are convinced they know better than bilingual professional translators.
> adding in meme language like "sus"
I remember seeing this example making the rounds -- IIRC, it was a translation of the word きょどる, which is a slang term that was coined fairly recently (90s). It's a contraction of 挙動不審, which means roughly "acting/moving suspiciously as though you're trying to hide something". So not only does it accurately convey the meaning, but turning a slang Japanese term into a non-slang English translation would be less faithful to the original intent.
Of course, the anime fans who complained about the translation don't know this, because the word isn't in any of their Japanese-English dictionary sites, and they can't read well enough to just Google it. On top of that, many of them have gotten so accustomed to stilted translations that they think the stiltedness is somehow a reflection of the original Japanese dialogue itself, and therefore any translations that sound more natural in English must be somehow "inauthentic".
And certain anime fans are absolutely convinced that "progressive" values are entirely unheard of in Japan, and therefore could only have been introduced by "Western influence". So they will seize on any shred of evidence that seems to support this narrative, no matter how flimsy.
You really think "sus" will stand the test of time, be intelligible to viewers years and decades from now? It's at least a debatable point although you're comparing it to Japanese that by your own admission has survived a quarter century. But claiming our complaints about major and minor changes to works by Crunchyroll, the entity which officially bought Right Stuff Inc. are bogus do not stand up to examination.
And needless to say there's a lot more where the above came from. For another major corporate example see Seven Seas which just can't stop censoring and altering the work of the "bilingual professional translators" who are native Japanese speakers they hire and credit who are not at all happy about it, for doing that silently and without consulting them reflects on their professionalism.
> You really think "sus" will stand the test of time, be intelligible to viewers years and decades from now? It's at least a debatable point although you're comparing it to Japanese that by your own admission has survived a quarter century.
Well, "sus" has been on Urban Dictionary for about 20 years, and Wiktionary has a citation from 1972, so it's not like it's some radically new term that is likely to come and go in a short period of time. Besides, plenty of creative works use language that becomes dated over time, and that doesn't make them bad.
What does the context matter when the person who made the change, not mistranslation, freely admits to it!
How can you claim to be an authority about these issues when you're not aware of what may be the single worst example of it, and have no interest in investigating this when it's brought to your attention?
Suffice it to say that in my opinion, context always matters (which also means I'm hesitant to read anything nefarious into a single tweet snipped from a conversation), and I reject the idea that a "change" and a "mistranslation" are categorically different things, rather than points on a continuum. And if you're implying that anyone who has knowledge relevant to this subject must automatically be outraged enough to "investigate", then I disagree with that too.
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I personally don't think that will be an issue because I don't see Netflix turning down an anime that Crunchyroll refuses to carry...
Oh hey! I have a litmus test handy! Got a citation for Netflix carrying "Ishuzoku Reviewers"?
In addition; Per wikipedia, Tokyo MX and SUN both canceled their airing of it as well, so it's not strictly western sensibilities that it is failing.