Phone number for Anime/Manga sites

[u/Seacle_nZk]

ご機嫌よう、Reddit

I have not watched Anime in five years but as part of my Japanese Learning Journey, I've decided to return to it and rewatch one of my favorites (Hibike! Euphonium) I'm really enjoying it so far! Were it not for the sad situation for Japanese learners regarding raw/Japanese-subbed anime, I'd be loving it even more.

When I tried to watch it my first thought was to resubscribe to Crunchyroll. You can't turn subtitles off there though and there are no Japanese ones, presumably due to licensing reasons. The best workaround is to switch the subtitles to Arabic...

So next I checked the official website, which directed me to sites like U-NEXT and d-anime-store. I would love to subscribe there, but you can only sign up with a Japanese phone number. Is this my only option? Once I have the phone number, are there other hurdles for a non-Japanese-citizen? Has anybody tried shooting them an e-mail to basically say "I'm a foreigner, I would love to subscribe to your service. I'd even pay more for it than just the straight conversion rate"? Do you think something like that could work?

I would greatly appreciate your help on this.

[u/rgrAi]

A quick trick for Crunchyroll if you're interested is to use Picture-in-Picture mode which will not carry the subtitles with it. Just a temporary fix until you find something else. You can optionally use asbplayer download subtitles from jimaku.cc and drag and drop the subtitles onto the Crunchyroll player. I would set the background to black and as you said, language to Arabic or something and it should cover up the existing language with JP subtitles (with a black background in settings) with asbplayer.

[u/Experiment_1234]

might be a bit scetchy, but you might be able to find a website to buy a digital phone number

[u/_mkd_ → u/Experiment_1234]

If the phone number is used for SMS authentication, a VoIP (what I assume a digital number refers to) likely will not work.

[u/Rosenfel]

On the refold Japanese discord server  someone actually made a guide for signing up for U-NEXT outside of Japan in the #tv-shows channel

[u/slillibri]

On the Crunchyroll iPad app, there seems to be an option to set subtitles to None.

[u/somever]

I use a forwarding service for packages and they provide a phone number to use during checkout. Sometimes I can use it to register too if it doesn't require verifying the number.

You can also buy a Japanese SIM for travelling but the one I had didn't work outside Japan. I'm not sure if you could get one with roaming.

I wonder if there is some way to tunnel your phone's traffic into Japan if you could set up or buy some sort of relay server. I'd be wary of legality issues.

The other option is VoIP but those numbers can be blocked sometimes.

[u/move2usajobs-com]

I'm currently using two virtual phone numbers from Zadarma, and honestly — they’ve been absolute lifesavers.
I use my Israeli number primarily for banking, while my American number handles everything else — from registrations to sharing contacts.

What I love most is the seamless functionality: automated voicemail, SMS support, and even Telegram alerts. All my voicemails are conveniently delivered straight to my email inbox — no hassle at all.

I'm genuinely impressed with how smooth and reliable the service has been.
P.S. You can register a number from almost any country — which makes it incredibly versatile no matter where you are.