One thing I notice more and more is that fansubbers seem to do a much more complete job with their translations, and many times seem to come up with cleaner sounding subtitles. One recent example of this was the first Inu-Yasha movie, which was released by Viz. The fansub I saw of it translated the title something like "The Love That Transcends Time" (I don't have it right in front of me at the moment). Viz translated it as "Affections Touching Across Time". They both pretty much mean the same thing, but given a choice between what to call it I'd probably lean towards the first. The second just sounds kind of clunky.

The other thing I really like that I see in fansubs are the little notes that many of them have explaining various things in the show. Usually things to do with Japanese culture or explaining jokes. Too many times I see DVDs where they try to americanize the jokes more and they just don't work that well. The Azumanga Daioh DVDs are a good example of this to me. While I think ADV did a decent job with it, I've seen them do so much better.

So here's my plea to ADV, Geneon, Viz, Anime Works, FUNimation, and everyone else. Start having a subtitle track that also has notes like this. Or have them on an alternate angle or something. I like learning about the various little bits of the culture.