They’re dumb. End of story.

In all seriousness though, I think it’s just another (incredibly annoying) way of differentiating “their” work from the original work. It’s like scanlation groups who add in a color insert credits page. If you look at my scanlations, you’ll never see anything like that… our credits are so small, we make it a game for our readers to find them.

Thanks for your explanation and I think I at least understand things better. At least, where you are coming from anyway. It does make more sense to cliffnote stuff like some cultural oddities or difficult puns right at the exact moment. I am guessing it might be a rarity for a single episode (instead of an entire series) to contain enough puns, cultural oddities, etc for bridging cliffnotes at the end as the best choice.

On the other hand, I do mind and dislike the practice of using fancy-style fonts with abnormal sizes while doused in odd colors causing enough distractions for the viewer to the point of pausing and re-reading the dialogue. On the spot explanations that are done appropriately are cool. Just not when it feels like the fansubber purposely wanted me to view the cliffnotes more then the anime itself. Maybe, it is a nitpick but for clarity’s sake simplicity seems far better.

Would you happen to know anything behind the quirks of fansub groups that do puns or make some sort of joke right before the show actually begins after the OP credits? A lot of times I feel that they are a waste and wonder why they even bother at all. Especially, when a lot of times they are not even humourous or is actually part of some drama between another group.

@AC
Considering that I have seen encyclopedias displayed in their entirety during a show it is a fucking nightmare to view. So, more difficult shows like Mouryo no Hako or GITS are definitely not going to work that way. I think I recall the initial fansubbers of MnH trying to do that, although thankfully they had an option to turn off the cliffnotes. Otherwise, I would have been really pissed off.

As for Cliffnotes, I actually prefer them at the end of the episode, ONLY IF they are info-dumps where the explanations are too long or take up so much space on the screen that it ruins my viewing pleasure (think what Shinsen-Subs did for Ergo Proxy). I don’t see how series such as GITS, Ghost Hound and Ergo Proxy can do with all the Cliffnotes shown at the same time.

Obviously, annotations should be displayed simultaneously and made short and simple for viewers to understand just by a glance(e.g. places’ names, naming conventions, etc).

If I got any flak, I wouldn’t know about it; I think you’ve known me long enough to know that I couldn’t care less about what the Internet at large thinks about me. There’s a reason why I don’t put my name on my works and I never look at anything I’ve subbed or translated. In addition, yes, that’s a really, really shitty criticism of any fansubber, and I don’t think that any of us should have to bend over and acquiesce to the ridiculous demands of a bunch of 13 year olds.

@AC:

Actually, it’s not. It’s a full-on name; the name of her guitar is ギー太, with 太 being a fairly common suffix for a man’s name, similar to “ro”, “hiko”, etc.

@FSI:
You know, that’s quite a difficult question to answer. Me personally, I’d try and minimalize problems like that by localizing as much as I can. Most of the time, I’d just drop explainations for basic things that I think viewers should know (things like honorifics, terms like “Onii-chan”, “seifuku”, “lolicon”, etc.) If there’s the odd untranslatable pun or other cultural oddity, I advocate cliffnoting it right then and there. A lot of annoyance comes from (I would assume, I don’t know, I don’t watch fansubs) fansubbers being overly cautious and explaining pretty obvious things. But I still advocate putting explainations when they happen. If you put them up in front, they’re a bit of an eyesore (in my opinion) and you tend to forget what they’re talking about. If they’re at the end… I don’t think people will necessarily look at them. I think Cliffnotes should be cut down to only when absolutely necessary, but I definitely think that annotations need to be displayed simultaneously with the translation. It’s like reading a book and having to flip to the back to read the endnote citation. It’s just annoying.

Personally for me, I would prefer it if fansubbers would do something similar to what Shinsen-Subs did for Mononoke where they put this stuff after the show ended (credits and all out of the way). Or Lunar’s work with Souten Kouro by putting in the notes before the actual start of the show for like 10 seconds or less. Obviously, the work required for either show requires more work then others, but still.

Maybe, I should not be distracted so much or feel like the inserts are detracting away from the viewing experience. But, most of the time I just can’t help it since they are that obvious or they just take up most of the screen. If there was an explanation behind this or something, then that would be great since I am quite curious about it.

I don’t see its importance in accurate translation in this case (though try telling that to some K-On! purists and expect some backlashing).

I’m wondering if you got any flack for translating the name of Yui’s guitar as “Geetah”, rather than “Gitah”, which was a 4chan meme at the time and the popular alternative in other subs. It’s a ridiculous criticism, but some of the criticisms of fansubbers I’ve seen around are.