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Why can't Earthland magicians use magic in Edolas without the X-balls?
When Natsu, Wendy, Happy, and Carla went to Edolas, they couldn't use magic at first. Later, Natsu and Wendy were given the X-balls to regain their magic usage. Yet, even without the X-balls, Exceeds could use their magic. This is according to the wiki because they have their Magic located inside of their bodies just like the Mages of Earth Land.

Presumably, this is due to the fact that they are the only beings in Edolas whose Magic is located inside of their bodies, just like the Mages of Earth Land.

If both have their magic located within their bodies, then why are only the Exceeds able to use their magic, but Mages need those X-Balls?
Also related to this question, I was wondering why the Exceeds even lost their magic usage, to begin with. It was said that they need to have the right mindset to be able to use their magic, but when they entered Edolas for the first time, they didn't know magic was limited, so they were supposed to have the "right mindset" at that time right? So why did they lose their magic usage when they arrived?

I think when you ask two different questions, you should ask two different questions. Stating that they are related won't make them related.

@ytg Not sure how to save the question then.

To answer your first question: because it's said so. (Possible explanation could be that Exceeds were laid there, so their bodies has some mechanism that they just needed to awaken but mages needed the X-balls for that. But this is just a speculation as we only know as much as it's said: mages needed the X-balls, Exceeds didn't.)
To answer your second question: they were not supposed to have the right mindset. They were pretty much in doubt about everything, especially about themselves. What are they, what are they for... what they knew so far changed quite drastically in a few hours of time. While it's not stated explicitly in Fairy Tail, in most of the other universes (including RPGs), using magic needs quite some concentration, so that "right mindset" thing can be more crucial than you think.

I only have an answer to your second question:
It seems like the "right mind" was all about knowing who you are as a person. The only real evidence I have for this theory is the fact that when Happy and Carla jumped off of Lucky's island, Happy was talking about them not being Exceeds sent to capture the dragon slayers but they were Fairy Tail wizards who were going to do everything they could to save their friends. Right after that, they got their magic back.
My only other option would be that they couldn't doubt themselves in any way. They had to be confident in what they were doing because right after they got to Edolas, they could obviously be doubting themselves as to what they were doing and why various things, then they got confident again and regained magic.
I don't know if either of these is right, but they are my theories.

Earthland mages both generate and absorb magic from the surrounding area, but in Edolas, it is rare to find Ethernano there as there is a limited supply. Think of it like this, gold nowadays is not found like in the movies in large chunks. But instead, it is a massive amount of dirt dug up and refined into gold. It is the same there in Edolas, the Exceeds evolved to generate their own magic, but since it was in limited supply, humans did not learn to absorb it or generate it, so they have no magic of their own. On the other side, Earthland mages generate and consume the magic of their own, making it so that they need both to use magic. The X-balls allowed them to just generate their own to use magic. So it is like H2O, but the X-balls let them just use O.
For Happy and Carla, it is because they thought they used magic the same way and thus learn how to as they used magic. Since they believed they need to absorb magic from the surrounding, they did. But once there was no magic to draw on, they had no idea how to use magic. But once they found out the truth, they could use magic without absorbing it. It was mostly psychological as in like Superman. He believed he needed to eat, sleep, and breathe, so he did. But once he found out he did not need to be worried about it, sure he would do those things, but that does not mean he had to.


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What is this anime song?
(Cross post from /r/AnimeOST, where I didn't get any answer)
I have a song in mind recently, I'm pretty sure it comes from a well known anime that is less than 10 years old, but I can't remember which one.
Do you know what it is? I made a quick music sheet here so that you can see a bit what it sounds like in my head, I unfortunately can't remember any more.

There are supposed to be Japanese lyrics on the music.

Hint: press P or the red ▶ button on bottom-left of the page to play the tune.

Is it an opening or an ending song, do you know?

@ToshinouKyouko I unfortunately don't remember. I don't even remember what kind of anime it was from (but i'm pretty sure it's a well known one, I don't watch unusual animes). I tried finding it by listening to 6h of 'sad anime music' on YT but couldn't find it

The first one that this tune brings to mind is the Attack on Titan opening song - "Guren no Yumiya" by Linked Horizon, which of course is very recent . It doesn't match the tune exactly, but it's a chance it could be because of memory.
Here's an acoustic cover version of the song
The tune seems really familiar to me, so I'm hesitant about this answer, perhaps some more details like style/genre of music would help.

I'm pretty sure it's something more calm, with a women's voice over the music. It's supposed to be slower than the sheet I uploaded (idk how to change the tempo on that website)

The themes are either quite very similar or the same though..

I somehow put a bounty on the wrong question (this one was supposed to go on a question where Ezui had answered), but hey, I owe you a 50-rep bounty and you happen to have answered this question, so here you go.

The melody really reminds me of main theme from Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu. Especially this part : http://youtu.be/foKqCYEYnpo?t=45s
It has slow tempo, but it doesn't have any lyrics. But I might be mistaking it because you used similar instruments in your music sheet.

It isn't this one, but thanks for the try ! You made me discover a new awesome soundtrack :)

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Is Togusa a cyborg in GITS:Arise?
In the other anime movies and series, it is often mentioned that Togusa is 'natural' and that he is not a cyborg. However, in the last episode of Arise, he obviously got ghost-hacked.
Did I miss something, or is Arise inconsistent with the rest of the anime? What would be the point of having him on the team if he is just as prone to hacking as the other members?

He's got a "walkie-talkie" in his brain. I'm not sure, but I suspect his brain is fully cyberized as part of his job's requirements. You would certainly not want to be that one idiot shouting tactical information out loud while the rest are communicating almost instantly via a secured wireless connection.
In the GITS:SAC series when he's in court, his teammates find out they can't communicate with Togusa because he turned off that module, which means he already had it at that time. SAC happens later than Arise on the GITS timeline, so he probably got it installed somewhere at the start of his career as a cop.

Brain cyberization is considered something on the level of immunization - everybody gets it to survive in society (barring some religious or other objectors).

@Clockwork-Muse where is it said so in the series?

In addition to Hakase's answer, Togusa's character has something in common between all series/movies and continuities: he is the less cyberized person in Section 9.
In the original movie from 1995, Major Kusanagi says something along the lines of:

We hired you because you are not a full cyborg, super specialization would make us weaker.

They also mention shortly afterward about he needing a cyber brain to communicate and enhance his memory to be in Section 9.

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Does Madara's age make him immune from the Death Note's "124 years old" rule?
Disregarding for a second that

 Madara is now dead, after ceasing to be a Jinchuuriki

The Death Note has a rule which states that

You cannot kill humans at the age of 124 or over with the Death Note.

The timeline isn't well explained, and I tried to reach a conclusion with a friend, but couldn't eventually.
The question is: Is Madara over 124 years old? And thus immune to the effects of a Death Note?

I don't think mixing the logic of 2 series is a good idea...

It's more of an interest stirrer really. The real question is if Madara is over 124 years old.

If that's the case, isn't the tag "Death Note" unnecessary here?

Agreed there. Edited it out. (Next time, feel free to edit it yourself with a descriptive edit summary to explain what changed and why, At worst case we can always rollback ;-)

I still think we could do a [death-note-puzzles] tag. XD

Madara got resurrected by Kabuto using a technique developed by the first Hokage. And when the technique ceased to be in effect, it was time for Madara to go back to hell? But, Madara basically said: No. Like the badass he is, the technique couldn't put him done. Whatever force drives the Death Note(Haven't seen it yet.), Madara would still say, No. Jackass, most definitely. Badass, to the bones.

Apparently the guys who wrote the "Death Note: How to Use" rules assumed that people only die once, and did not make any rules for people who die and come back multiple times. :-) The problem here is how do you define Madara's age? Do you just subtract his date of birth from the current date as we usually do, or deduct the periods when he was "temporarily dead"? On that note, can Orochimaru be killed by the Death Note, and what does death even mean in his case? ;-)

I don't think he is, he is of an age with Hashirama Senju, as seen from when they were children together, and his slightly younger brother was the master of Hiruzen Sarutobi, who was only 69 when he died.
The age gap between master and student varies, with Kakashi less than twenty years older than Naruto and Jiraiya more than thirty years older than Naruto, but even if Tobirama was forty years older than Hiruzen, that only puts him at 109, and seeing as they were both kids at the same time, Hashirama can't be more than 115 or so, and Madara at most maybe 118.
Looking at it another way, Hashiraama's granddaughter Tsunade is 55 after the timeskip,  and on average grandparents tend to be between fifty and seventy years older than their grandchildren, making it unlikely for Hashirama to be older than 124, but possible.
It's also important to note that after entrusting Obito to resurrect him, Madara did pass away, I'm not sure for how long, but most likely at the minimum for a year or two.
I would guess that Madara was born about 100 to 110 years ago, and spent one to ten of those years dead, making him susceptible to the Death Note.

Obito was 12+ when Madara found him at age 110, and during the ninja war he was 30+. Your birthday doesn't stop coming after you die though.

What sources do you have for these numbers?


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Are Walls Maria/Rose/Sina the only Wall community in the world?
I was watching Attack on Titan and was wondering if this walled-off part of the land is the only one in existence?
Like, if people were ever to go out past Wall Maria into the rest of the world, would they come across other Humans inside other walled-off communities?
Or is the one in the series the only one on the entire planet?

Updated answer
I have not been following Attack on Titan past the first season of the anime, but since I currently can't delete my answer since it's been accepted, I'll provide something based on what I've gleaned from the Wiki.
From the page about the Walls, it appears that at present, there is no knowledge of any other walled community. However, when Eren finally returns to his father's basement, he discovers that humanity has not actually been wiped out. I'm not sure if this development was entirely predictable. Early on, the story of a quick construction of massive walls while humanity was under attack was already very suspicious, but I was not invested enough to think much about it. (My hunch at the time was also more of something to the effect of, "a conspiracy destroyed most of humanity.")
Old answer, based on the first season of the anime
In some of the episode openings (particularly in the first few episodes of Attack on Titan), it's stated that:

Over a hundred years ago, humanity suddenly found itself faced with a new predator. They were more powerful than humans. Humanity was immediately pushed to the brink of extinction. The survivors built three walls: Maria, Rose, and Sina.

Without any further qualification of the statement, it's pretty much implied here (and elsewhere) that the walls contain all that's left of humanity. This sense of there having been huge losses to such an extent - to the point where entire cultures probably have been obliterated - are confirmed somewhat by things like when Mikasa's kidnappers describe her and her mother as the last of the Asians.
There're probably some more explicit statements of this elsewhere, but it's been a while since I saw Attack on Titan, and this was the first place that came to mind that stated something of this sort.
If it matters to anybody, I'm taking the quote here from the Crunchyroll sub.

I think there is a fourth wall.
According to the second ending "Great Escape", you can clearly see there are four walls:

Here, you can see both Wall Sina and Rose where there are no titans.

In this picture, you can see Wall Maria and the titans roaming around in it.

And here, you can see the fourth wall which all the titans seem to live in.
Maybe that is where the shifters came from because you know that Bertolt always wants to finish his mission and go back to his hometown quickly, and as you can see in the picture above, his hand is laying on where the fourth wall is. Also if you look closely, you can see there are no titans beyond that fourth wall, thus we can only see titans in the fourth wall and Wall Maria.
You would wonder, how come no one knows about the fourth wall? Well, we discovered in chapter 63 of the manga that

 the royal family can alter the memory of humanity. Therefore, we can conclude from this evidence that there is a war going on between people in the fourth wall and the rest of the other walls and the royal family is trying to hide it so they can maintain peace within the three walls.

SPOILER ALERT--- FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE MANGA OR WATCHED THE SEASON 3 ANIME
Wall Maria, Wall Rose, and Wall Sina are walls that are on the island of Eldia. The fact that humanity was pushed to the walls is mere propaganda spread by the government as they do not want the people inside to know about the outside world.
The truth is, Titans are made by a country called Eldia (this country is different from the one on the island). A queen [Queen Ymir] (through mysterious means) gained the power to become 7 types of titans. She made thousands of titans to gain power all over the world and tortured a country called 'Marley' when she died, all the powers were split between 7 Eldians. King Fritz (the current king of Eldia) surrendered to Marley and gave them permission to kill the Eldians. Eventually, all Eldians were forced into a tiny island. This island was corrupt, propaganda, capitalism, all of that took place. Almost like Imperial Japan. Just like North Korea trying to protect its citizens from the truth, Eldia does the same.
Now, the 4th wall is meant to represent the barrier of the island. Bertholdt wants to return there, so he placed his hand there. Once you cross this ocean, you'll enter Marley.

There is the walls of Liberio, a town in Marley where any Eldians are from Marley.

So, no, Maria, Rose, and Sina are not the only 3 walls. And there are other places that have walls but not names, like other nations that Marley was at war with also used walls for the same reason as Maria, Rose, and Sina.

COLOSSAL SPOILER FOR EVERYONE WHO DID NOT READ MANGA CHAPTERS 86 AND 87!

 A sort of fourth wall exists and it's the one showed in chapter 87, near the ocean, so it must be really far away from the Walls we know. It keeps mindless Titans away from the sea and it has been probably built by the Marleyan Government. It seems to be shorter than the three other Walls and its structure is different from theirs (it doesn't seem to be built with crystallized colossal Titans). Beyond this fourth wall, there's the ocean and on the other shore of the sea, there's the continent where Marley is.

this doesn't really answer the question

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What is Homura's gender?
In Sekirei, I am confused with Homura's Gender (Sekirei #06). I just can't seem to find out the logic of it.
Is Homura male or female?

From Wikipedia in List of Sekirei Characters:
It states under Homura:

Homura (焔, Sekirei #06) was the self-titled "Sekirei Guardian" who protected unwinged Sekirei during the first two stages (this mission was given to him by Takami), usually from Hikari and Hibiki. Prior to being winged, Homura's power and gender were unstable. Even after his body started becoming female (called "feminization" in the manga), Homura continued to think and act as a man....
   Afterwards, Minato received the power to determine Homura's gender and mentality, but chooses to let Homura remain who he is for now

i'd assume that he is originally supposed to be a Bishōnen character since the main Sekirei Wikipedia page says that Sekirei can also be Bishōnen

Isn't Bishōnen similar to what Hideyoshi and others are like? But Homura has the ability to genetically change genders.

@Sukeibe if your talking about Hideyoshi from Baka and Test yeh kinda but his is taken to an extreme where it's given fan service as if he was a girl as a running gag. as the wikipedia article i linked to says "Bishōnen is also used to describe an anime or manga character who is drawn as if a female, but has male components.", changing genders would be a plot mechanic to explain why the writer can make them into a woman whenever they want


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Did the incident mentioned in "Kiba's Long Day" really occur in the anime?
In the anime episode Kiba's Long Day (Season 4, Episode 184) there's a premise that a outsider had infiltrated the Village Hidden in the Leaves and used an infectious agent before committing suicide.  Naruto has heard about Kiba "and the others" having dealt with this previous incident (and seems petulant about missing out).  From the subtitles of the open:

Naruto: What do you mean by monitoring Akimaru?
Tsunade: You know about the incident where someone from outside
  infiltrated the village, right?
Naruto: Yeah, I know about that. But I heard Kiba and the others
  resolved that incident without any trouble.
Tsunade: That's right.
Naruto: Damn! That Kiba! I want a mission where I totally kick an
  enemy's butt.
Tsunade: To be exact, that's wrong.
Naruto: What?
Tsunade: Before Kiba and the others had the intruder in custody, he
  swallowed a pellet and killed himself.

Is this previous incident that Tsunade and Naruto refer to something that is portrayed earlier in the anime series?  We'd seen some episodes where outsiders disguised themselves and entered the Village (and infiltration is a theme of later episodes as well). But "taking a pellet" to suicide doesn't match with anything I remember in the series to that point.

I don't understand what you are trying to ask here... can you be a bit more specific?

@Krazer: I'm asking if the reference to an outsider infilterating the village made by Lady Tsunade to Naruto (which incident he seems to have heard about) corresponds to something that happened "in story" in the earlier anime episodes.  I can think of a couple of earlier episodes, even one that involved Kiba, that featured such infiltration, but it doesn't seem to entirely match.

Episodes 136-220 of Naruto are all fillers.

It's not impossible for fillers to have their own continuity parallel to the main canon, but the very long filler series that was the last 80 or so episodes of Naruto pre-Shippuden/timeskip were rather abysmal(ly bad).  I wouldn't spend too much time / effort trying to make any sense out of them.  Enjoy them for their comedic value if you can, enjoy the extra screen-time for the neglected secondary characters, and then move on quickly.

No, this is not related to any previous episode and is basically a filler episode. The intruder who died by "taking a pellet" is no-one that has been shown before.
It doesn't match completely because it isn't supposed to. It isn't following any story line provided by the manga. That is why its called a "filler".


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Where in the manga does the Berserk (1997) anime end?
I have watched the anime Berserk and I want to know from which chapter should I continue reading the manga to pick up where the anime left off.
Are there any differences in the plot in anime and manga that I should know about?

I want to know from which chapter should I continue reading the manga to pick up where the anime left off.

The anime ends with Guts having lost his right eye and Casca being thrown aside after being sexually assaulted by Femto. After a complete blank scene, a new scene showed up where Guts left Godo's house.

 This last part didn't occur in the same fashion as in the manga. One must be baffled and would want to know how Guts actually survived the eclipse and managed to meet Godo again. Besides, considering the last scene with Femto, one should start reading manga from Episode 88: Escape to know how Guts survived.

Are there any differences in the plot in anime and manga that I should know about?

Yes, there are some.

In episode 1 of the anime, the girl inadvertently rescued by Guts in the bar was an elf in manga, who followed him later almost everywhere in the story.
Certain characters like Skull Knight, Wyald, Apostle Count, Bakiraka Clan et al, were omitted from the anime.
Certain scenes were also omitted from, as well as added into the anime.

You can hide the spoilery parts of your answer by putting >! at the beginning of each paragraph that you want hidden. I did that for one of your paragraphs; feel free to edit if you think different parts ought to be spoilered.


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Which manga chapter does the season 1 of the anime end on?
I just finished watching the first season of Nanatsu no Taizai (Seven Deadly Sins). I would like to continue by reading the manga but I am unsure which chapter to start from.
Also, I read online that there is a lot missing in the anime compared to the manga. Is that true?

I read the manga first and started watching the anime halfway through, but the final episode coincides with chapter 100, as far as I can remember.
As far as the manga goes, it has 3 arcs. The first arc ends with chapter 123. It ends kind of abruptly. So if you want to read the manga, starting from after the anime series ends, you have to start with the chapter "Power of Love". I am sure it's above 101, it could be 102 or 103. So starting at 101 would be your best bet.
The anime almost covers what the manga does. Obviously, the manga might feel much granular and in-depth, but the anime gets most of the important point though. Try reading from chapter 101.

Do you suggest that I start reading the manga if the anime is missing a lot? The "power of love" is chapter 101 btw. Thanks for that.

yes, I would suggest you read from 101. Anime does not miss a lot.

You should read it from the 102nd chapter. Also, there is no need to read all the chapters from the beginning, because the anime had missed a lot of parts from the manga.
While in general case manga has more to show than its anime, in this case, the leftover part in the anime is not that important and you can miss it without regrets.


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What does it take to kill a Ghoul?
In Tokyo Ghoul, fodder ghouls were getting killed by stabs to the chest and stomach, but then there are people like Nishiki getting impaled repeatedly and destroyed by Shuu, but he still lives. Plus, there's Kaneki getting those... injuries at the end of part 1, but he also still lives.
Is Ishida just being inconsistent, or is there a reason for this? What does it take to kill a Ghoul?

As you know, ghouls have very strong muscle and high regeneration abilities. A ghoul's body can be damaged by Quinque or Q bullets.
The main requirement to kill a ghoul are weapons like those mentioned above and critical damage to a ghoul's body that even their regeneration abilities is not enough to keep them alive.
As stated here regarding the weaknesses of a ghoul,

Ghouls will die if they receive extremely critical or life-threatening traumatic injuries that will kill them before they have a chance to heal.

As you described, some ghouls are still alive while some are not even when they received similar damage. It is because they are strong ghouls, they have more power compared to others and can handle bigger damage.

Whilst it's true that Nishiki should have died (as he hadn't eaten for quite a while), Kaneki was special since he was not just a one-eyed ghoul, which have unrivaled regenerative abilities but also had Rize's kagune, which has been described by Ishida as being a 'kakuja from birth', meaning it makes him stronger than ghouls in general. Whilst he did lose his memory, it is feasible that he survived multiple impalements by Arima.


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Why did Kaneki's hair turn back to its original colour?
At the end of season 2, Kaneki's hair turns back to its original colour.
I know his hair turned to white because of the Marie Antoinette (MA) syndrome, but in all the research I've done, I've found nothing regarding a cure for the MA syndrome.
So, why did his hair change back? Can the MA syndrome be cured? And why did Kaneki get cured out of the blue for no reason at all?

My interpretation was that it was purely symbolic. I saw the white hair as a change in his personality, a sort of draining of his "color" or original personality. When his hair changes back, we see some of his old self coming back.
Keep in mind that writers don't necessarily make those sorts of decisions with medical backing. Pure symbolism is often a very large factor.

I see the changing of his hair color as a physical side effect of him forsaking his mother's nature (his nature), and if you will allow me to speculate, the white hair is symbolic of him embracing his father's nature, not that I think he knows it.
I'm just guessing, but I think Arima (the white hair guy fighting the big Owl, the man Kaneki runs into at the end) is really his father.
They go out of the way in episode 9 of season 2 to show Arima thinking long and hard on what to write in his will, but in the end he leaves it blank. I think it would be messed up to write your child into a will when that child thinks you are dead like, "Dear Kaneki, so I'm not dead, but if you're reading this, then I am dead, so ya, sorry. P.S. Love ya". But the desire to reach out would at that moment be strong. With Arima leaving it blank, he is showing what kind of man he is. A man willing to make the hard choices. The same (more or less) choices Kaneki is making.
At the end, he isn't able to walk away from his friend's request and willingly put himself in harm's way when at that moment no one needed his protection.
That's why I think we see his hair change over and over in the end... a battle between his two natures.

I think the change from black to white was physical as well as symbolic. It showed the change in his personality, that to survive the torture from Jason he had to leave his humanity behind and be a soulless ghoul. The symbolic change of his hair colour from white to black was to show that he had regained his humanity, the death of Hide brought about his emotions and his old self and old life.

I agree with what people have said about why it turns white, but I think the reason it turned black at the end was symbolism for him touching back to humanity through Hide, especially the last shot where we see Kaneki's hair go black and then Arima's white hair right after.
I thought it was kind of symbolic of the irony of how ghoul's are supposedly evil (in human's eyes) but Kaneki is showing how "human" he is when he carries Hide in front of all the CCG, whereas Arima is a human but coldly walks out front to kill Kaneki.
This is just my opinion based off the impression I got.

In the manga, Kaneki's hair slowly starts to turn black in Tokyo Ghoul: re, with Haise Sasaki's hair being white with black at the crown. During his battle with Kanae and then The One Eyed Owl, his hair reverts completely back to its original black colour. Though it takes a lot longer than the anime, this is the same kind of complete cycle symbolism described above.

a lot of people say the remaining white was actually dyed Red due to blood, but in black and white, blood red and black can be indisinguishable

Since Kaneki's hair turns back to its original hair color, I think that means  he's getting his personality. Notice when his hair turns white he is completely insane, but when it turns back he gets his old self again.
In season 3's trailer or "release", Kaneki was shown with black and white hair. This means Kaneki has a split personality but not with the girl that was in control before but with his ghoul and human personalities. Since these are mixed and he is a half-breed, sometimes the ghoul personality is in control and his human personality is in control. Notice when he first becomes a ghoul, he says no to eat human meat but the ghoul side wanted to. That means due to the stress he had before and then the torture he went through much more, the ghoul side took over.
So I think somewhat the human Kaneki was fighting his way past the ghoul because he wanted to take control and be his regular self. If you were being controlled, I think you would fight to take control. That's what he was doing. In season 3, he will be in control but the thing is that the ghoul is still in his personality and the instincts will come back and he will have a split personality that will be stronger.

From chapter 99 of the :re manga, Touka was talking to Kaneki and asked why he had that "sesame-pudding" haircut which apparently means black in Japan. He said that Dr. Shiba told him suppressing his RC cell activity increased his melanin production
Melanin gives you the color of your hair and skin, the production of this stops you from having white hair. That is why older people who have white hair have white hair. They don't produce as much melanin as they use to.
That explains why his hair turned black: he was suppressing his RC Cells. He fought Arima all out and so he had to use a lot of RC cells so his RC Cells weren't suppressed which gave him full white hair again.

I feel that it can't be symbolic of him returning to his normal self. I mean, the reason his hair turned white was due to him being damaged... Right? Like the torture and all caused his hair colour to change, and Hide's death only adds to that damage. I'm pretty clueless

Thank you for your answer, however we are looking for factual answers that can be supported with links to back up your theories. If this is your personal opinion then it should be in the comments. Thank you.

I think his change from white to black over and over again is because of his human side fighting his ghoul side. When he got tortured by Jason he accepted his ghoul side, but when Hide died it brought out his human side and his body doesn't know what to choose.


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Where was “In This Corner of the World" funded?
In This Corner of the World (or Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni) was announced recently to be funded for an anime adaption.
However, I can't find the original source of the crowdfunding campaign. I'd like to be able to see their pitch, budgets and other interesting information that they've likely provided to potential funders.
The official website doesn't seem to mention it either.
Where was the anime funded?

The Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni crowdfunding project was hosted by Makuake, a crowdfunding platform managed by CyberAgent Inc.
It opened on March 9, 2015 with a goal of 20,000,000 yen in 80 days but has hit 36,224,000 yen (181%). It closed and is no longer accepting pledges.
The animation studio is MAPPA, which created Sakamichi no Apollon, and the producer is Genco.
To check for other anime and live-action film crowdfunding projects you might be interested in participating in, the listing is here.


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Why do guys in anime often lack nipples?
This is an image of the guys from Free!:

And this is from Noragami:

As shown in the images, guys in anime often lack nipples. This could be explained by vague Japanese copyright laws, but other anime occasionally show guys with nipples. Why do guys so often lack nipples?

I'm wondering if this kind of tropes only happen in anime or also happen in any other kind of animation.

Animated male nipples are not a matter of legal Japanese censorship (or copyright law). It is fine to air them on TV in prime time. As Ray noted in a deleted answer, Dragonball, viewed as a most-typical shounen anime aimed at children, features male characters whose nipples are easily visible.  Although the series garnered many adult and female fans, the characters are not particularly intended to look comely or provocative to the target audience. The innocuous nipples in Dragonball can be there because they are not intended to be viewed as attractive.
In contrast, mainstream character designs that aim to captivate the viewer in a romantic or sensual way are more likely to be nipple-free, because a well-known aspect of creating fantasy is to paint a rosy picture and subtly remove pesky details that can snap a viewer out of the lovely reverie back to stark reality (the old adage “less is more”).  Nipples are not considered to contribute toward this end, in the same way that Japanese people do not generally shave or wax (since this site is 13+ I'm not going to provide citation links but you could Google that) but we are never shown body hair in regular manga and anime: in real-life, we know these anatomically exist, but drawing them does not help the audience escape into daydream. (Hentai titles and hentai doujinshi have a different goal, so that is why you are more likely to see male nipples there than in mainstream titles.)
Free! is a bishounen (pretty boy) title, so the characters are intentionally drawn to be eye candy. Even more so than the earlier bishounen anime series, Free! and other more recent titles such as Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei Bu Love!, Uta no Prince-sama, Harukanaru Toki no Naka de, Kiniro no Corda, Dance with Devils, Diabolik Lovers, Brothers Conflict, K, Kamigami no Asobi, Starry Sky, Shounen Hollywood: Holly Stage for 49, etc. focus heavily on the eye candy aspect, such as including stages of undress, characters striking sensual poses, “camera” angles and lingering shots that accentuate their figures, etc. The character design is intended to garner fans who crush on the characters and buy all manner of merchandise sporting those characters.
Bishounen characters are not as prevalent in shounen titles as in shoujo, but they are now widespread (f you look at the bulk of shounen series from the 80s, 70s, and 60s, you will find far fewer bishounen characters there, especially as primary protagonists), partly based on changing cultural preferences (something along the lines of metrosexual) and partly on expanding otaku demographics (pulling in the potential female audience can be more financially-viable than it was in the past). Noragami is not marketed toward women, but it follows in the current trend within shounen series of those that try to appeal to readers/viewers beyond the target demographic.
Historically, the naked body was not considered to be attractive in Japanese culture. The classic Heian era (11th century) novel The Tale of Genji illustrates how people wore layers and layers of clothes (women wore 12 layers), and had sex while (nearly) fully dressed and in the dark (see pages 30-32 of The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu: A Reader's Guide by William J. Puette). Some consider the origin of bishounen to date as far back in Japanese literature as the protagonist of The Tale of Genji (i.e. Hikaru Genji as the proto-bishounen). Genji was the era's ideal man. He considered imagining his lover without looking closely as preferable to viewing the unattractive details of her actual body.

since this site is 13+ I'm not going to provide citation links but you could Google that Is the content 18+ on the site you want to cite? If it's not, then I think it's fine to include them.

@nhahtdh, would discussion of pubic hair here constitute 18+? The sites I came across that discuss it with no photo were anecdotal compared to the one that includes a male full-frontal nudity photo.

Do you mean to cite this: http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/07/25/internet-survey-sheds-light-on-how-japanese-women-deal-and-sometimes-dont-deal-with-the-hair-down-there/ ? It looks fine to me, as it is a rather scientific article. (On second look, it's about women)

@nhahtdh, I've seen that article but it isn't one that I would have citied since it is about Japanese women with an average age of 41.9 years old, whereas my answer was about Japanese people in general, young men being the most pertinent demographic to my answer.

The lower image shows a low-definition scene. The shading is very basic. See how few strokes there are drawn forming the general shapes of the objects? In such scenes, every line counts and you don't want to draw anything too complex that would steal the viewer's attention. On the contrary, in detailed scenes, you can see even the tiniest details.
Can't really say what the anime director thought when he decided to drop nipples from the top image, but I think it was something along the lines of "Huh, nipples look weird in this scene. Let's remove them". The contrast between sunlit skin and shadow is very high, so nipples would really stand out in this particular lighting.
It's worth mentioning that there is a whole erotic genre of manga and anime, where nipples and much more are explicitly drawn and expected to be seen. A reason not to draw them is to reduce sexualization to a minimum.
Also, I'd like to explicitly mention one of the most obvious reasons:
Nobody wants to see men's nipples in regular anime.

I dunno how the target audience of Free! (i.e. Japanese women) thinks, but I don't think it's inconceivable that they may want to see men's nipples. Agreed that the Noragami scene (the bottom one) is just low-detail.

I don't really think it's about toning up or down per se.  Sensualization/sexualization of both genders in anime is part of the goal for sales, they even throw in fanservice (obvious enticement scenes) at times. But perhaps it's about the nipples themselves, even of males, that are seen in a particular light which doesn't translate the same across cultures.

Perhaps what is kind of opposite of not showing nipples in Japanese anime/manga is actually having anatomically correct nipples on Batman's costume starting in the Tim Burton movie era and later.  Ask yourself, why are there nipples on Batman's costume?  Maybe the intention here is to go more for the sexual "eye candy" appeal in the character even though no clothes or costumes that I know have either have nipples or have a need for nipples.


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Why does Akane support Sybil?
In Psycho-Pass, Akane is someone who strongly believes in justice and she doesn't cross the line even if she could. She knows Sybil is not the perfect system and lots of people do suffer from injustice because of it.
So, why support it then, even when she has had the chance to destroy it? How bad can it get without Sybil? It might be difficult for society without Sybil, but if the rest of the world can live without it, then why not the Japanese?

There are several opinions on this matter discussed in the anime, and I believe one of them makes the most sense. The fact that the society living under the law of Sybil has already formed certain behavioral patterns makes it very hard to safely oppose the system.
Remember how people start freaking out at the very thought that their criminal rating could go up? How they become extremely nervous at the sight of a criminal activity or something that may look like it. Imagine if they learned that somebody is trying to oppose Sybil, how they would react. This would certainly cause a lot of trouble and quite possibly lots of people killed because of how the Sybil system works.
So the safer solution is to change the way it works gradually from within, by changing the basic principles of how it judges people. Akane can't single-handedly destroy the Sybil system, and because she has such a strong sense of justice, she knows it would not be right to risk more innocent people's lives than she has to, so she doesn't really have a lot of choice.

But if there is no Sybil, then people don't have to worry about their crime coefficients. Even if they do rise temporarily on opposition to Sybil, a different system can take over and gradually stabilize the society again.

They will most likely freak out even more because "now criminals can go unpunished oh noo". For the regular police to overtake the whole country before Sybil is disabled, would take a lot of time and preparation. I don't think any one person is capable of organizing that well enough in a short time span. What Akane had in mind would take less time and cause minimal disturbance to the society.

On the contrary.  There's an entire scene where a large group of people watches a woman get beaten to death with a wrench and nobody even flinches.  The only thing Sibyl's monitoring system thinks is wrong is that the woman is getting overly stressed for no apparent reason.  The vast majority of people are subdued sheep divorced of their humanity and wholly dependent on Sibyl's judgment.  It is a clear minority that exhibit significant issues.  You may be confusing the problematic minority as being indicative of the wider population since Akane's entire job is dealing with that minority.

Like @zibadawatimmy said, people don't really have their own opinion anymore. They just follow Sybil. So it wouldn't be very hard to control people like that who just follow orders. That's true.
But in the episode where Makishima distributes the helmets, the people do take to streets and fight for themselves, eventually going really violent. Don't you think it will be chaotic like Hakase said.

@zibadawatimmy I think that scene is actually contradiction to what you are saying. People are so used to idea that crime cannot happen, that they didn't realize that any crime is going on. They all thought it was just performance (or hologram). It is the moment they realize it is a crime that their crime coeeficients start skyrocketing. The Sybil is so good at judging disruptive elements that people grew up thinking they don't even exist.

First, how Hakase said, the process of disabling Sibyl would be extremely tough and if not done correctly, it would result in many people getting hurt or dying.
But there is other problem : what system should replace it? I think it was stressed enough in conversation between Akane and Sybil. Even though Akane doesn't like the current system, she doesn't have a replacement that would give same results as Sybil while being much "nicer". Unlike Makishima, who didn't care what would happen after Sybil was destroyed, she doesn't want to risk anarchy afterwards. She doesn't want to risk a situation, where system much worse than Sybil would emerge afterwards.
And one more thing : no matter how bad you think Sybil is. It still gives "happiness" to most people. Even if life of few are sacrificed for it.

I would also like to mention that the rest of the world ISN'T functioning very well without a system like Sybil. Wong and Sybil both stated that most of the countries in the world are in a state of anarchy and disorder.

I would personally say that Sybil isn't needed.
Even if other countries are in disorder, that does not mean there will be no order, all such countries will come to a form of order, also such a society is even worse than Cyberpunk 2077's dystopia.
In the end, I would like to say, DEMOCRACY will be better because of actual freedom of speech. In a democracy, you can overthrow a government. In the Sybyl, you just can't. The formation of such a society should be opposed even if it exists.

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What is the usage of the stones monsters drop?
According to the Wiki page, adventurers can exchange the gems they collect in the dungeon for money.

Magic stones are crystal-like stones that are dropped by monsters. The
stones can be exchanged at the Guild for valis (Orario currency).
The bigger the stone, the more valis it is worth.

I was wondering, why does the Guild want these crystals? Do they have a use?

According to ja.Wikipedia:

魔石
モンスターの生命力の核にして、冒険者の飯の種。例外なく胸部に存在する。
モンスターを倒して胸の魔石をえぐり出し（アニメでは倒すと肉体が消失して魔石だけが残る）、ギルドで換金するのが冒険者の主な収入源。
魔力が込められており、照明や下水浄化、調理用コンロ、冷蔵庫など、さまざまな道具に用いられる。
胸の魔石を直接攻撃して砕いた場合、モンスターは即死する。

Magic Stones are the core of the monsters' life force, and adventurers' means of living. Without exception, it locates in the monster's chest.
Killing the monsters, gouging the Magic Stones out of their chests (in the anime, the body of the monsters disappear when defeated, leaving their Magic Stones behind), and cashing them in at the guild is the main source of income of the adventurers.
Charged with magic, Magic Stones can be used to create various tools, such as lighting, sewage purification, cooking stove, refrigerator, etc.
Monsters die an instant death if the Magic Stone in their chest is destroyed by a direct attack.

DanMachi Wiki has a bit more details regarding the use of Magic Stones:

Uses

Magic Stone Lamp: A handy and flexible use of the Magic Stone is the production of Magic Stone Lamps. These items give off a dim shine that allows one to see underground or in total darkness. It was once considered as the "century's greatest invention."
Ignition Device: Magic Stones can be used to produce ignition devices.
Freezer: Magic Stones are used in the production of freezers to preserve food.

Volume 1, Chapter 2 is cited as the source of the information above.

Basically, they mainly act as power sources like batteries. Bigger ones are worth more because they can be used for longer and contain more power.
For example, when watching an episode, look at the lamps. There isn't a candle in there, it is a magic stone.

Yes, they use it to create potions or armors, weapons and/or anything it can be made out of.
Note that both shards and drop items (monster parts) can be used for crafting. Drop items not necessarily lead to magic items.

 In episode 9 entitled "Blacksmith (Welf Crozzo)", Bell meet Welf Crozzo and at the end of this episode, Welf made Bell a weapon crafted from the horn dropped by the Minotaur he had killed on previous episode.

 Since Crozzo is reluctant to craft magic items, the weapon he crafted from the minotaur' horn is not a magical item.

Additionally, from Wikipedia

Adventurers visit the dungeon to defeat monsters and take their shards, which are used to craft magic items.

I am pretty sure it wasn't the shard that dropped but the Minotaur's horn.

Did you see that when the horn drops, the outer layer of it, together with the rest of the Minotaur disappears? Take note of that. And on episode 9 with Welf, Bell said that it is just too precious for him to let go or to sold it.

but even if you say all that, it still is a minotaur horn and not a crystal like the one in the question,
also what bell means by it being too precious to him is that it has sentimental value for him as he was almost killed by a minotaur in one of the previous episodes, so he thought of it as something that proved he overcame his previous weakness and fear.

yeah of course that's what im talking about the  "precious" term NOT the value for its exchange. Anyway if you say so then why do u think the horn does not disappeared? Do you have any explanation? And did you see if there is anything that drops after the body disappeared? And haven't you noticed that it is still the appearance and color of the shard that JUST LOOK like a horn because of the shape.

yes but Algaros is asking about the use of the crystals and the Minotaur horn is not one of those crystals, the sword was crafted with only the Minotaur horn as a ingredient so it has nothing to do with the crystals.
he asks about the purpose of the crystals not the horn.

@Jordy Kramer As i have stated up there it is clear that Im saying that the shards are for crafting potions and creating armors or weapons. So wether that thing that drops from the minotaur is actually a shard or just a horn it's not matter here and that's another issue. It was just an example. But the answer still served the question about the usage of the shard.

Crozzo calls the horn a "Drop item". In ep 2 it is shown that monsters can drop shards or items. Shards are appraised on their size/purity, not the monster they are from. The minotaur horn is not a shard, since it is still regarded as part of the monster defeated.

@Mindwin, hmm therefore could it be the horn that served as an item since it is not a shard? Thanks!

authors: Росен Бланарь


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What do "sama" and "kun" mean? Are they related to the shinobi rank?
In Naruto, Yamato called Kakashi as Kakashi-sama, whereas Naruto as Naruto-kun.
Previously, I thought that sama was for equal or higher rank shinobis while kun was for junior rank shinobis. But I noticed that I might be wrong as Hinata too called Naruto as Naruto-kun.
I found some general answers on Yahoo! Answers, but is there a specific reason why they did that in Naruto? What's the actual meaning of sama and kun?

It's the same in anime as it is in real life. Anime generally is Japanese so some translators will keep Japanese Honorifics when doing subtitles of dubs, such as sometimes when Iruka or Kakahi gets called by their students as Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei. the Wikipedia link in the question you linked to is as good of a resource i use

Yamato calls Kakashi as Kakashi-senpai, I have never once heard him say Kakashi-sama.

That aside, there is nothing specific to anime to be explained here. Since anime is in Japanese, it naturally uses the Japanese honorifics (unless, of course, the "plot" specifically requires it to not do so).

See also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/JapaneseHonorifics?from=Main.JapaneseHonorifics

Nothing about this question is specific to anime/manga/Naruto. This has been already answered on the Japanese Language SE where it is on-topic & users have explained the various usages. Rather than a trope, this is simply a Japanese language question. Sama: 1, 2

3, 4, 5, 6

7, 8, 9. Kun: 1

2, 3, 4

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network and has already been answered there.

@seijitsu - Firstly, I heard these words in Naruto, so this was the place where I could ask this and I already mentioned in the question that please answer in respect to the anime, just because I somehow googled it but was confused because of what they spoke in anime.

This SE is a good place to ask questions about Japanese words/phrases that originate in anime/manga, such as this, or about terms coined within anime/manga subculture, such as this, but if a question is about standard Japanese, the Japanese Language SE is a great place to get a speedy answer. You can sign up for various SE accounts and link them into one username.

@seijitsu Well it is a fine line whether some language/cultural questions are on-topic as can be read at this meta post. To me it seems that this question is more on-topic here than over at the JL SE, because he is specifically asking for the reason why Yamato and Hinata speak the way they do, which would not be answerable over at the JL SE.

@Peter Raeves, yes, I agree that an alternate question, such as "Why do Yamato and Hinata speak formally?" or "Why do Yamato and Hina address characters differently than other characters address those characters?" (which would be about their personality), would be on-topic here, as compared to "what's the actual meaning of Sama and Kun?", which is a language question that does not innately relate to an anime/manga series. The meta link advises, “Culture questions need to be directly related to anime/manga. If a question about Japanese culture still makes sense removing all references to . . ."

“. . . anime/manga, then it's off topic,” and "if the same question could be asked without making any reference to an anime, and the answers would be the same, then it's not really an anime question." Name me's answer below was able to answer the question without saying anything unique about Yamato or Hinata, saying that they are using normal Japanese according to standard usage.

Both terms are Japanese honorifics.
Sama (様) is the formal version of "san", used for persons in higher positions (inferiors to superiors). On the other hand, kun (君) is informal and mostly used for males, such as boys or juniors. It is used by superiors to inferiors, by males of the same age and status to each other. In schools, teachers address male students as "kun" while girls as "san" or "chan".
As for anime Naruto, Yamato called Kakashi as Kakashi-sama simply because of respect for the higher position. Kakashi is a lot experienced than him. Meanwhile, Hinata called Naruto with "kun" as an informal honorific for a boy with the same age, that applies too for kun.


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How come Mokarin's mom is so good with guns?
In multiple episodes of Sabagebu!, Mokarin's mom handles her gun exceptionally well and she's sort of badass too (Episode 7).

But how come? Was she part of her own Survival Club? Or, has she had some professional experience with guns? Was this ever revealed in the anime or manga?
Note: spoiler is acceptable.

According to Japanese Wikipedia, Kazue Sonokawa's gun handling is anime exclusive. In the original manga, while she's shown of her high-level physical skill, she's never shown using a gun.

Momoka's skill is possibly hereditary. Kazue Sonokawa (her mother) possibly has a natural affinity with weapons just as Momoka does. She's possibly seen a bit of action when she was younger too and has the lessons of experience as an advantage.
Another contributing factor is that Kazue is an adult. Adults in Japan are allowed weild more powerful weapons than juveniles' airsoft guns. Adolescents can only use guns which are limited to a kinetic energy of 0.135 Joules. However, adults can use guns with 1 Joule - which could be why her bullets seemingly shot through the floor and also gave her an advantage over Momoka
Reference.
(It was probably just the mangaka's decision though)

Personally, I wouldn't exactly look into considering it was a one-off moment expressed comedically. So in all honesty, as BADASS as that paints her (and I'm all on board for more badass moms in media in general), I still firmly believe it's just for laughs that'll probably be left forgotten.
I could be wrong though, guess we'll see if the show actually goes to address it.

Doesn't she say something like "A mother's battlefield is the home"? Which would imply that's considered standard housewife knowledge in-universe. I wouldn't go looking for logic in Sabagebu though.


text:
Is Law's Devil Fruit immune against Haki?
Law cut Vergo into two in one hit on Punk Hazard.

As far as I know, Haki users can block Devil Fruit attacks. The best example was when Rayleigh fought against Kizaru, in which he easily countered Kizaru's sword with his Haki.
Why couldn't Vergo block Law's attack? Is Law's Devil Fruit immune against Haki?

AFAIK using Haki materialize Logia users and attack is effective to all DF users. If your statement is valid then all Haki user would be stronger, block any DF user attack.

Law didn't just use his power to cut Vergo, he also cut him with his sword as part of that. The combination of Law's power, his sword, and the Haki he used through his sword, were enough to overwhelm Vergo's full body Haki and slice him in two.
Haki is not a binary quality. Depending on the willpower and the strength of the person, they can have stronger or weaker Haki. If Law's Haki had been too weak, he wouldn't have been able to cut Vergo. However, if he used as much Haki for his attack as Vergo used for his defense, then it would just become a contest between Law's sword and Vergo's abs.
In One Piece, there are very few absolute powers. Luffy was able to punch through the Snake Sisters' Haki by putting enough forces into his punch. No one is immune to Haki, but Haki is not infallible either. Haki can be beaten by Haki, and weak Haki can even be beaten by excessive force.
In this case, I believe it was a combination of Law's Haki and strength that defeated Vergo's Haki and toughness.

Your statement on snake sisters is not necessarily true because we know Luffy has been able to use haki unconsciously. So it may has been Luffy's brute strength, but it could have also been Luffy's will that materialized haki without him knowing it.

Haki isn't almighty. Pure strength can still overcome even Haki. The best example we have seen so far is when Luffy was able to punch harder than Boa Marigold could coat herself in armament Haki in chapter 520. This was at the time when Luffy didn't even know how to use Haki yet.
From this example, we can see that one doesn't need Haki to overcome Haki. The same goes for Law. The combination of Law's power and his slash were more powerful than the power Vergo could ever summon to defend himself with.
Oda added this scene to prove how strong Law had become. He wasn't the weak psycho child he once was. He had grown to be pretty strong and was determined to defeat Doflamingo, and he showed us by defeating Vergo, who supposedly had a pretty strong Haki.


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Is Hidan still alive?
From what I recall, Hidan's head was buried deep inside a hole in the Konoha Forbidden Jungle.
Does it mean that Hidan is still alive after all this year? Is it possible for someone to rescue him and bring him back if he is still alive?

According to the Wiki

Though believed dead by Akatsuki, Hidan is in fact alive but is dying slowly from a lack of nutrition.
When Kakuzu was reincarnated during the Fourth Shinobi World War, he took Hidan's absence as proof that he was still alive.

So we can conclude that Hidan is dead, since nobody going to rescue him, we already know that. Plus, Hidan's main advantage is his inability to die from virtually all causes, with the exception of malnutrition.

but the toll for beeing immortal is that he serves his god jashin and present him sacrifice. so since he isn't able to do this, his power of immortality shoudl vanish and he will die then

Although it's mostly based on speculation and it isn't really mentioned in the series that that he is definitely alive, when Kakuzu was reincarnated during the Fourth Shinobi World War, he took Hidan's absence as proof that he was still alive (Chapter 530, page 3).

Its not speculation.  They said he's an effective immortal and he would be buried there forever with Shikimaru's clan's forest watching over it.

@Quikstryke Please do not forget that Kakuzu specifically said there is no such thing an immortal when he talked with Shikamaru when they met (I think for the second time).

but Hidan is well and truly immortal thats why Shikamaru had to bury him alive or else a smart cookie like Shikamaru would've figured a way to kill him

@HashiramaSenju from the link you provided quote  "Though believed dead by Akatsuki,[42] Hidan is in fact alive but is dying slowly from a lack of nutrition.[10]"

But take note that you need the DNA of Hidan in order to reanimate his body. His absence doesn't really mean that he is still alive. Maybe there are just no DNA sample present.

@NaraShikamaru Well, if could get the DNA of the second Mizukage, i'm sure getting the data he needed about Hidan would be simple enough.

he is dead, the 4th databook states that he required nutrients to survive like anyone else. this means food and water, no human can survive longer then a week without water so he was dead within a week

I don't recall Hidan being featured in the 4th databook. Did you perhaps mean the 3th? If not, could you include a reference to the page it was mentioned perhaps.

@Dimitrimx by "3th" do you actually mean "3rd"?

As far I know, Hiran can only die from starvation, though he could have figured a way to get out of the hole at shikamaru’s forest, or someone could have found him and rescued him, idk but that would be a sick arch


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Meaning of telegraph code in the song "Planetes"
The song Planetes in Guilty Crown begins with some telegraph encoding, which I think is Wabun code.
Here is the YouTube link.
My transcription is:
-•-• -••-- •-- --•-- •- --•-• •-•-- -•--•

which decodes to this:

ni-yu-ya a-i-shi-te-ru

Niyuya didn't make sense. Did I get something wrong?

It really is Wabun Code. The telegraph sequence at the start of the song was widely known and had been discussed on Japanese website, all of them says 「集｛しゅう｝　愛｛あい｝してる」 (Shu-u, ai-shi-te-ru) is the encoded message. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
If you take a look at the Wikipedia page you cited, the small ゃ ya, ゅ yu, ょ yo in the digraphs are encoded the same as regular や　ya, ゆ yu, よ yo.
So we can comparing your attempt at decoding:
-•-• -••-- •--

and the supposed coding of the message (shi-yu-u):
--•-• -••-- ••-

Listening to the telegraph sequence again to cross-check, while I can agree with Japanese fans' transcription of the 3rd mora ••-, I could only hear 1 dash at the beginning for the first mora --•-•. And apparently, the author of answer [1] on Yahoo also encountered the same problem:

ネタバレになってしまいますが、
「しゅう あいしてる」
だそうです。桜満集のことですね。
ただ、最初の音(？)が微妙に「にゅ」と解読されるようですが、「にゅう あいしてる」だと意味が通じないので「しゅう あいしてる」で間違いないとおもいます。

Translation:

This is going to be a spoiler,
but it seems to be "Shuu, I love you".
"Shuu" here is referring to Ouma Shuu.
However, although the first sound somewhat decodes to "nyuu", "nyuu aishiteru" doesn't really make sense, so I think it is definitely "Shuu aishiteru".

There is this question on Yahoo Answer which says that apart from the Morse code at the beginning and at the end (which I myself also confirm, but I don't bother to decode it), the asker feels that there are also Morse code playing in the background through out the song (which I also feel there is something, but listening closely reveals nothing).

probably you would need to de-mix the song to get the telegraph in the middle, and even so it would be hard not to dismiss it as noise. So probably it would need a godly sound engineer or just ask the songwriters directly. Anyway, the internet is vast and awesome. Let's hope... XD

Looks like there really is a section from 1:30 to 1:42 which has Wabun code running in the background.

I tried decoding it by looking at its length through soundwave graphs (Audacity, or Audition) and it definitely looks like "Ni-yu-u A-i-shi-te-ru" (Nyuu Aishiteru) as the original author said.
The problem with "Shuu, Aishiteru" is that Planetes was never a song from the original Guilty Crown, it was part of the Lost Christmas OVA which Shuu was never part of. Either EGOiST and their manager decided not to put it in the original and use what they have for Lost Christmas, or it is a whole different meaning.
I have also seen other people theorize that it is Riyu Aishiteru meaning "reason I love you" which is better, but "ri" is never in the code.

There actually is no problem with the song. EGOIST includes chelly, who is in persona of Inori Yuzuriha. It would make sense Inori would leave a message.


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The connection between the deadly sins and the animals in Nanatsu no Taizai
In Nanatsu no Taizai, the main characters are associated with one of the 7 deadly sins, and to each sin is associated with a certain animal:

Wrath - dragon
Envy - snake
Greed - fox
Sloth - grizzly
Lust - goat
Gluttony - boar
Pride - lion

Is there some reference in this association? Does it correspond to some tradition or is it just made up in this manga?

This is just my interpretation, however I believe it is close.

Wrath - dragon
Wrath is described as extreme anger, fury and/or rage. Apart from the most common belief that dragons breathe fire, which is normally connected to extreme anger (which we even see in anime when a character becomes angry they erupt in flames), dragons are also depicted as clam creatures whose path of destruction is brought about by their rage/anger.
Envy - snake
When a person is envious of another, they normally poison oneself in some form or another which will normally lead to their own self-destruction if they don't change their ways. Take Snow White's stepmother: in the original works, because of her envy towards Snow White's beauty she continues to plot to get rid of Snow White until at the very end after arriving at Snow White's and the Prince's wedding.

As a punishment for her attempted murders, a pair of glowing-hot iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is forced to step into the burning shoes and to dance until she drops dead.

Greed - fox
This one I am not entirely sure, but foxes can be seen as greedy as they will prey on any small animal for food, including new born lambs only a few days old (have had personal problems with Foxes where I live when lambs are born). Also, as Septian Primadewa has commented, foxes are depicted in stealing things such as his example of Swiper from Dora the Explore.
Sloth - grizzly
Sloth is normally seen as the reluctance to work or make an effort or just general laziness. If you think about how grizzly bears will hibernate for the winter sleeping the entire time you can normally associate someone who sleeps all the time as being lazy.
Lust - goat
The goat can sometimes be symbolized as lewdness. When carried over into Christianity, the goat represents the Devil, lust and the damned while the sheep symbolizes the saved. Also in general, both sexes of goats symbolize fertility, vitality and ceaseless energy, with the male goat representing masculine virility and creative energy, while the female goat represents the feminine and generative power. Main Source.
Gluttony - boar
The boar is a wild pig..... do I need to say any more how pigs represent gluttony?
Pride - lion
Lions are normally seen as prideful creatures. With the alpha lion, the herd it leads is normally referred to as its pride, and given that lions fight over the top spot of the pride, to be its leader would be quite the satisfaction derived from the achievement of having become the leader. Also when we generally think of lions, the first image we think of is normally one with the large mane. Wouldn't you take great prideful of that?

NOTE: i would normally think of Goats and Foxes the other way around, don't know why for goats since the image i have in my head could be Gluttony but with Foxes a very attractive woman in slang could be refereed to as a Fox or a Vixen (Female Fox) which in same cultures could be a sign of the woman's own lust while others it's a magnet of the lust of men

Fox often stealing things. Swiper is another example.

@SeptianPrimadewa i keep forgetting he's a fox


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What would happen if the NerveGear was yanked from someone's head?
In the anime it is said that if you try to remove the helmet it would destroy the brain - so what if you pull it off quick enough that it doesn't have a chance to?
Certainly, it's not impossible; and on that note, why did they not just use an EMP on the device to begin with, frying the circuits so there is no way for the battery to power the microwave transmitter?
Is there some law of physics I am missing here?

My question, Why didnt they use the newer super safe model of nervegear and dove into Sword Art Online, then communicated with everyone from the real world to the virtual world

Post new questions as new questions.   But here's an idea.   The network had been taken over by Kayaba,  It was therefore running independent of the game company, as they had no administrative access.  Therefore, how could new users log in?  Also, the "newer super safe" model, likely took a while to develop, I am not sure if the manga/anime states how long it took after SAO for the new headgear to come out, but yeah, development isn't instantaneous.....How long was Oculus Rift in development?

@DavidNazzaro unless Rect Progress was working on the AmuSphere before Argus or Kayaba release the NervGear it took them less than 2 years as Leafa was already playing ALO when Kirito woke up and he was in SAO for 2 years, but ofcause they did aquire Argus so they proably had a good head start if they started the AmuSphere after the NervGear. also in Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment Leafa said she was able to get into SAO by finding a NervGear and a copy of SAO

I have to assume that some people at least tried.
For your initial examples, there simply isn't any canon information to help us. I am quite certain that there would be a huge political backlash which would attract attention, and the families of the trapped players would also be seeking out help. However the entire story was told from the point of the players, and there was no announcement that anyone made it out alive otherwise. That means details of various failed experiments simply added to the near 4k dead by the end of the experiment.
However I believe that it was entirely possible to release all of the players, but then a very delusional man named Sugou came along.
The biggest thing that I want to stress is that the brain-frying function of the NerveGear was understood very little. While it was explained to everyone within SAO, we have no idea how much information was given on the outside.
Except we know that the company who developed SAO, Argus, went bankrupt due to the SAO incident. Their assets were acquired by RECT Progress Inc., who formed a Fulldive division headed by Sugou to overlook the SAO servers and assets including the Cardinal System. Furthermore, we can tell that they have the direct source code to the system based off the modifications that they have been able to make. This includes upgrading the system to improve on things that it couldn't do before, and also modifying the Logout function to redirect 300 users to their own server.
Here we're dealing with a team of people that has access to the full server software, the hardware that it runs on, and the connection that goes out from it. On top of that, this team has full documentation on the NerveGear (they did co-develop the NerveGear's successor), and they have shown to be able to modify the existing SAO game. This means that this team, with time and patience, could have done any of the following:

Restore the logout button
Forcibly log everyone out
Modify the "death" script to no longer instruct the NerveGear to fry the brain
Disable the NerveGear remotely

However this didn't happen. Instead, 300 unlucky people were transferred from the hands of one madman to another.
Now remember that this one small division of people were responsible for the lives of many thousands of people, and they had nefarious plans. It was in their interest to keep the players inside the game in order to avoid any attention to their true goals. They were so good about keeping secrets that they were able to design an entire game world around the very place they did the experiments in, and not one person in the company found out. Remember that this was such a commercial success that Sugou was to inherit the company, however nobody else in the company figured out what was going on.
What's even worse about this secrecy is that this treasure-trove of information is kept from the public. The "experts" in the field are the exact same people who want to keep everybody in the game. Now if you wanted to free your relative from a death game, would you put your trust in Joe Schmoe who has a theory but no solid evidence? Or would you trust the kind team of dedicated individuals who are experts in this area and tell you that nothing can be done?

People actually did try. In the anime in the first episode during the scene where everyone is gathered for the game master announcement, Kayaba stated, "Unfortunately it's certainly possible that a players family or friends would ignored this warning and attempt to forcibly remove the NerveGear. As proof of this, 213 players have retired from both this world and the real one."

Half this answer assumes that Sugou et al actually did have update capabilities for SAO, regardless of having source code/other documentation.  The simplest way to prevent new updates being downloaded is to issue new code signing keys.  I'm convinced even Sugou was locked out, or he probably would have tried to get ahold of Asuna sooner...

@clockwork having control of the hardware the code runs on as well as the network itself, hacking into the game to find any such information would be trivial for a company that size. They've been able to add new features and upgrades to the new Cardinal system that ALO was based off of. The fact that they were able to modify one of SAO's functions, the logout function, proves that they had the ability to modify the existing software. I think that they didn't grab asuna right away because they wanted to be discreet.

@Thebluefish - Kayaba modified the logout function for SAO.  Sugou didn't get to siphon people off until the logout happened, at which point a bunch of things would have been unlocked.  Having access to program source isn't the same as the running system.  Given current trends in computing hardware, I'm fairly certain that future machines will actually be (generally) safe from physical presence based intrusions.

I can think of two reasons:

Plot.
They wouldn't want to risk someone's life for an experiment with EMP, who knows what kinds of backups does the NerveGear has, and EMP can be guarded against.

As for yanking, a computer would have a much faster reaction time than you.

Then the question standing is, why not use a machine using hydraulics to pull it off?

I think somewhere in the anime they mentioned that the headgear had an internal battery storage. Could anyone check this for me?

@JohnOdom There is, but an EMP (or Electromagnetic Pulse) will supposedly fry all circuits in the device before it gets to activate it.

@JohnOdom that is correct, Kayaba mentions this on the first day when he is mentioning that unplugging the Nervgear from power wont release them (as the internal battery will kick in). also one would be needed in order to transport victims to hospitals (remember that Kirito was in his room when he first started playing but wakes up in a hospital. i assume it is the same with Asuna)

@MadaraUchiha The fact that the NerveGear can use microwaves to fry someone's brain and it not being flagged as a potential hazard by regulatory authorities is probably a good indication that Kayaba kept alot of secrets about the NerveGear hidden even from his employers.

you want to point a high power EMP at someone's head? you would probably torch their head in the progress anyway or blow out all the safeties and the microwaves would fry them

Actually, an EMP effect from a high yield nuke detonating in the upper atmosphere would theoretically do enough damage to the circuitry to render even the backup batteries useless.  It would also render everything within a certain radius of the center of the pulse effectively back into the stone age.  That said, saner minds likely prevailed with the conclusion that letting a thousand or so stew in a virtual world, would be better than the EMP idea lol.

It was mentioned that the machine intercepted their nervous system so they can't walk around when telling their brains to walk in the VR world (Why they're usually in bed when playing).
I would think the removal process involved restoring those neural connections.  Yanking or disrupting this process probably resulted in permanent paralysis/neurological issues.

I think this isn't the case. Considering how dangerous the NerveGear would be otherwise, I don't think they would design it to cause damage if it was removed.

they also mention in the first episode, that a family member can remove the helmet, so the "log out" button was not the only way.

@Thebluefish The OP is talking about the first version (When they were stuck in SAO). A little under 4000 have been killed by the NerveGear. http://swordartonline.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_Art_Online

@Eejin I realize that. The SAO incident got widespread attention very early on because it was killing people when the helmet was removed. That indicates that this was not the intended behavior of the device and it could be normally safely removed.


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What was L's real name?
I watched through Death Note once, and I never remember hearing L's name, even after he died.
What was L's real name, or did he never have one (it was never said)?

According to both the Death Note Character list on Wikipedia and the L character page on the Death Note Wikia, his full name is L Lawliet.  He does have several aliases that sound more like real names but L seems to be his actual name.
From the L Wikipedia page:

Tsugumi Ohba, the writer of the series [...] For L's name, he wanted to use a single letter with a lot of significance; he considered "I" and "J", but eventually chose "L" after careful consideration.

The Wiki page also points out that his name is written in Latin characters as "L"

i've been trying to find the subbed movie but i only find this one, crap quality but it seems he wrote his name in English so i gave you a +1 because i thought he wrote his name in japanese

L's real name is L Lawliet

Alias: L
Letter: L
Real Name: L Lawliet
Relation: The famous detective L. He was found by Wammy as a child and brought to the orphanage. The goal of the orphanage is to train a worthy successor to his title.(†)
Source: Wammy's House - Characters related to Wammy's House

Also, Wikia lists his name as エル (Eru), so most likely that is how you would spell L in his name (over using the English letter L)
There is also a scene in the movie Death Note 2: The Last Name where we see L's real name written in the Death Note

 which he shows to Light that he wrote in himself to become immune to Rem's use of the Death Note and trap Light.

Curious, what do you mean by "That is how you would spell L"?

@Catija the エル (Eru) part. i assume rather than the Letter L which we always see he would write エル

According to what I remember, he always just writes "L"... he doesn't write his name in katakana.

There are Death Note cards that state the characters' full and true names. And L's card says "L Lawliet." So that is his true name. The letter "L" and Lawliet as his last name. The cards are, as far as copyright goes, completely under the suit of the same owners as the anime and manga.

I believe that L's real name is Lind Lawliet. As we know, when L puts Lind L Tailor in his place in his PSA, the L follows Lind. (Lind L).
Afterwards we discover that L's last name is Lawliet. So we have L Lawliet. I believe that if we simply reverse it (L Lawliet) take both names and put them in their proper place and you get Lind Lawliet.

While this might make sense, there's no proof that shows his real name is Lind Lawliet instead of L Lawliet. At best, this is a theory/speculation.


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How do 3D objects coincide with traditional 2D animation?
I was watching an episode of Shirobako. I love how the anime gives you a slightly in-depth view of the production process. However, something I can't get my mind around is those few segments that involve CGI (in anime in general) with the interaction of traditional 2D animation such as stationary or moving objects.
In the episode, a scene in Exodus where the girls ride a jeep while avoiding an explosion was shown in key animations/"genga": https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/10903.
As you can see, the 3D bike and characters basically move together on a plane. Could it be that the bike is animated frame by frame in traditional animation somehow? Or the other way around? Or could it be more technical than those?

Clarification: are you asking how the bike was specifically animated in Exodus/Shirobako, or are you asking how 3D and 2D animation are integrated for anime in general? (I imagine the answer could be different for Shirobako because of how they're animating the animation process itself.)

My question is how the bike was specifically animated in Exodus/Shirobako to put it in short terms. That can answer all my questions abut 3D and 2D integration anyway. So yes.

The bike can be animated in a 3D model editor application and overlayed upon the ready 2D frames. It doesn't really matter which application both come from, since they can all export frames to static images. 3D editors have motion direction, of course, or else we would not see much 3D movies. And you can not add anything else aside from the main 3D mesh with applied texture, so that the background will be transparent upon frame export.  You know how they have those "layers" in Photoshop? Well, that is it. One of them comes from 2D app, the other from 3D. Nothing special.
Images taken from this Autodesk 3ds Max™ tutorial showing how not much of a rocket science it is to create 3D scenes with transparency (click images for full resolution):

The image with transparent background and white shadow with gradual transparency changing, after exporting from a 3D editor, can be imported into a 2D editor (such as Adobe Photoshop) and be laid over some colored rectangles like this:

We also have sites like GraphicDesign on StackExchange Questions and Answers sites network that ask questions on similar topics with such illustrations:

You say "traditional animation", but that really means collaging paper elements on a table, taking a shot of the scene and later on gluing together the resulting frames into a cinema roll. You must want to know about the modern day way, so that is what I described above.
Older animation techniques require the use of celluloid sheets, which are transparent sheets of plastic, to make the things simple. Are you familiar with the term cel-shading? Well, this is where the modern day 3D animation technique comes from − the older days method of drawing the outline of objects on a cel sheet. It goes something like this: You draw the black outline and the fill inside areas with colored paint. Then you place it above the scene image and move around or swap for other cels with different character poses.

There are a number of techniques used to overlay 3D objects onto ready frames of anything else, used by all sorts of "magicians" in their shows. You could ask google how they did it before computers and find out something new.

Construction of Anime Frames
When a frame of anime is made, there are different layers to the images. These allow for easy editing of a particular component.
Here's an example image (taken from Wikipedia) .

Presume that we are releasing an anime about this bird and this is the image that comes up in the title screen. We are ready to release the first episode, but the director says "actually, that bird is too far to the left, we need to change it.".
If our image didn't have layers, when we move the bird we won't know what was behind it originally, leaving a hole in the image:

Because we're a very experienced set of animators however, we know that we should use layers. We have one layer with the background on it, and another layer that is transparent apart from the image of the bird. Moving the bird layer should be much less painful now.

It is by using layers in images, that animators can put in other mediums such as 3d, or real-life photos with ease.
How 3D can be put onto 2D?
Here's an example 3D model that I found of a motorbike within a 3D editor:

In the editor, you can control the camera (left) and the lighting(right) [both highlighted in orange] of the scene. This particular scene only has one light source, but you could have several.

Editors usually allow the user to render a 2D image of what the camera can see. By moving the camera around, you could get all the images you need for the frames. You can then insert them on their own layer of the 2D images.

There are some problems with this approach though, A better way of getting the result though. If there are multiple movements in the system it is hard to do keep track of their timing from frame to frame. Also, if other camera angles are requested by the director, the process must being again. For this reason, making scripted movements is a much better approach. The frame-by-frame solution would work well for objects such as parked cars, or objects with little movement.
Manual setting of movements (examples: rotate wheel of bike 5rps, 'turn 30degrees left after 4 seconds) and Key Framing is how an animator sets up this system.

3D animators can then export the animation as several images, as seen from the camera's point of view. They can then be added to the layers of the 2D frames.
And if the director wants to change an angle, all the 3D animators have to do is move the camera and regenerate the images.

I'm not 100% certain about this but I imagine that the moving 2D parts of a frame are done after the 3D rendering as 3D's precise movements would make it hard to adjust for the 2D's less refined movements, wheras 2D is easily changeable to accomidate the 3D models - it also allows the camera angles to be changed early on.


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What does Touma say to the "Replica" Sorcerer with the Obsidian Blade?
At the end of A Certain Magical Index I episode 18, the "Replica" Sorcerer (the one with the Obsidian Blade) asks Touma to make sure he protects Misaka.  When Touma answers, we can only see his lips moving (no sound) and then he smiles.
Misaka is listening from behind one of the iron beams of course. Normally in anime, it is fairly clear to me what these moments signify, but in this case, both the Sorcerer's and Misaka's responses are (in my opinion) ambiguous.
What does he say?

@ton unless his name is "Kamijou-kun"

I believe you're referring to Etzali. This happens in chapter 2 of Vol. 5 of the light novel. Touma respond positively to his request, which is overhead by Mikoto.

Yes, it is Etzali (I haven't read the light novels, but have read a general synopsis).  Is this same scene in the Manga as well?

“I have promised to protect Mikoto and her around.”

When Touma helped Kuroko, he said so, in Volume 8 of the original novel. And perhaps in Volume 11 of the manga.

Manga volume 11, chapter 64, page 15
The full quote was:

"That’s right, it's a promise. This promise is to protect Misaka Mikoto and the world around her. This is my agreement with a certain nameless person who fell in love with her so quickly."

He explains this to Shirai Kuroko regarding his promise with Etzali from Toaru Majutsu no Index light novel volume 08.
Source: Touma's quotes on Toaru Majutsu no Index Wikia

I haven't been able to find a satisfying answer explaining Etzali's and Misaka's reactions yet, so...
Whatever he said, it obviously confirmed the promise Etzali asked for, but it wasn't what he had wanted to hear.
Combined with Misaka's reaction, I have two theories. I'll start with the one that's less likely:
In A Certain Magical Index II episode 23, Kamijo says to Kazakiri that he'd rather chop his hand off than lose one of his friends. I am mentioning this because it shows that he would make a statement essentially comparing the value of body parts and people, even though it specifically makes sense in that context because his right hand can literally kill Kazikiri.
The idea is that maybe he said something along the lines of "I'll protect her like my right hand" or "I'd chop off my right hand for her".
The reactions would then basically be a masturbation joke. I honestly don't find this theory very satisfying.
Luckily, there is evidence to contradict it. Here is the excerpt from the light novel, copied from Reddit:

Mikoto and the boy were the only ones in the alley.
The words that had come out of his mouth shook her more than she let on. But what rocked her very core—that she did not realize. Nevertheless, she unconsciously understood that she’d be better off not letting it show. Or rather, she possessed a compelling force telling her that she mustn’t do so.
However, without care, it would erupt within her. She was desperately holding it back, like a raging vortex of steam trying to escape her body.
It was strange.
She didn’t want to let it show on the surface, but she felt pained trying to hold it back.
Would that not mean that deep down she wanted to let it show? But that wasn’t the case.
Just thinking about letting it show nearly made her red in the face.
And she didn’t even know what the essential thing was.
She held everything in her throat, not understanding why.
One way or another, she’d realized it.
Mikoto had always kind of thought she was a unique existence. She had thought that even her distance to this boy had shrunken just a little bit compared to everyone else. Like if he was browsing a list of a thousand names and saw the name Misaka, he’d at least stop for a moment.
But no—she’d been wrong.
And that fact by itself had a big effect on her. She didn’t even understand why something as insignificant as this had caused her so much damage, so she of course couldn’t think of a way to deal with it. She wanted to run away right now if she could—from this unidentified pain.
But she couldn’t.
She didn’t want to turn tail and run away from him.
It would hurt him.
The pain would be much more than what she was feeling now.
(…Man, I really am an idiot, if I do say so myself.)

In my opinion, the marked part sums up the meaning behind her reaction. She realizes that to him, she's more or less just another person.
This makes me think that he said something along the lines of "I'll protect her like everyone else" or "I will protect everybody I can".
The idea is that this would be the worst possible answer because Etzali wanted him to commit specifically to protecting Misaka, but it still gives the promise because it includes him protecting her.
Now, in the anime, Misaka also says that she is taking what he said the wrong way and that he made it very misleading. The idea with that is that Kamijo is the kind of guy who protects people wherever he can, but this doesn't actually mean he cares about everyone equally. He still likes some people more than others, but he protects everyone.
It should also be noted that, in the light novel, he actually realized Misaka was close because he is so unlucky that he wouldn't have survived otherwise:

A steel girder had fallen into the ground right between his legs as he sat on his butt. That wasn’t all. All around him, more of them were sticking out of the ground, covering them up, like a badly made hut with tons of holes in the roof. There was a precarious balance here that seemed so weak a breeze would cause the whole thing to come crashing down, but for now, at least, Kamijou hadn’t been buried alive.
(That was lucky…wait, that’s impossible. I’m unlucky, after all. Which means…oh, I see. That Level 5 can use the power of electricity to manipulate magnetism, too, can’t she?)

However, this doesn't seem to affect what he says to Etzali at all, he either didn't think about it much or simply didn't care if Misaka heard his answer in the way he gave it. I do feel like this is in line with his character.


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What is the chronological timeline from Yuuki's birth to when Kaname saves her from a vampire in the snow?
The Vampire Knight timeline is kind of confusing and a lot of the backstory is told in relatively fragmented pieces.
What is the chronological timeline from Yuuki's birth to when Kaname saves her from a vampire in the snow?

This answer includes the information from the manga. The anime makes a reference to a couple of key elements which don't get revealed until the 2nd half of the manga which occurs 1 year after the first half (what the anime covers).
Below is the list of events in chronological order from Kaname's birth to Yuuki's "awakening" as a human:
(Note: The [M] indicates information found in the 13th volume of Vampire Knight. In the anime, Juri makes a reference to Rido killing Kaname and awakening Lord Kaname)

Kaname is born in secret
Rido takes him to the coffin beneath the Kuran Estate [M]
Rido sacrifices Kaname to awaken Lord Kaname in hopes to absorb Lord Kaname [M]
Lord Kaname wounds Rido (As Rido woke him up, Rido is Lord Kaname's master and cannot be killed) [M]
Having been woken in an incomplete state, Lord Kaname reverts into an infant to stop the thousands of years worth of hunger which would be sated by him slaughtering the Kuran Family, represses memories so they won't get in the way [M]
Haruka finds Kaname's sheet bloodied, finds Lord Kaname as an infant [M]
Juri finds Haruka, and both take Lord Kaname and raise him as they would have with Kaname [M]
Yuuki is born in secret
Kaname begins to go outside, finds the rose that only blooms every 10 years, returns to tell Yuuki the next time he sees it he'll encase it in resin for her
Rido learns of Yuuki, finds Kuran Residence, accompanied by Vampires from the Senate
Haruka faces Rido, is killed
Juri sacrifices life to turn Yuuki into a human
Kaname faces Rido, mortally wounds Rido but is unable to kill as he is Lord Kaname and Rido was the one who woke him
Kaname escapes with Yuuki (asleep?) to find Cross
Kaname leaves Yuuki in snow to deal with Perusing Vampires [M]
Yuuki awakes, Vampires find Yuuki, Kaname returns and protects Yuuki

In the anime, the fight against Rido at Cross Academy plays out differently, and in the manga, Kaname gathers the Elder Council (The Senate) and kills them before going to attempt to kill Takuma's Father, so if a third season (or second if you think Guilty is still the first season) of the anime comes, it may have differences when it reveals this part.

Do you mean Rido? Because there is no character named "Freedo".

@kuwaly yep, i keep hearing Freedo but Rido sounds more right, changed it to Rido, it's for that very reason i don't name Kaname's mother cause i hear Jurry

Kaname/Yuuki's mother is named Juri. Their father is Haruka.


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Is the age restriction lower in Japan than in western countries?
For instance, the anime Darker than Black is R-17+ (violence & profanity) in the West, but is it higher or lower in Japan?

What type of media are you specifically referring to? Different media have different regulators.

i am referring to anime

Where are you seeing this rating?

As far as I know DTB has not been rated as "R - 17+ (violence & profanity)" by any Western TV ratings organization. IMDB doesn't list any such rating.

They have a rather different standard on profanity over there, one time Sonic the Hedgehog gives a very emphatic yell of "s**t" in an anime.

The television rating system in Japan is the same as the movie rating system.
Their regulations are as follows:
Unrestricted

G: General audiences
PG12: Parental guidance suggested. Some content may be unsuitable for children under the age of 12.

Restricted
These are regulated, and all movie theaters are required to check for ID. Allowing in an underage child is a criminal offense.

R15+: Restricted to teenagers 15 and over only.
R18+: Restricted to teenagers 18 and over only.

It is a lot more difficult to regulate television watching than to regulate movie-watching, so just because a rating is given for a television show, it doesn't mean that it is being followed, whereas in a movie theater, at least, it can be regulated. Frequently, in America, for TV-MA, a warning will be given that the show may not be appropriate for children under the age of 17.
Darker than Black was actually rated TV-MA in America, not R. R is only used for movies, and Darker than Black is a TV series. The rating is given here.
I cannot (at the moment) find what the Japanese rating is for Darker than Black, but presumably it was either R15+ or R18+.

Side note: R15+ isn't like the MPAA's R where you can get in if accompanied by a parent. Both R15+ and R18+ are strict no-entry, like the MPAA's NC-17.

Are you claiming that Eirin rates TV series as well as movies? I can't find any solid sources to back that up, including their own website. Even if they do, I'm not sure that late night anime get rated.

Both http://rating-system.wikia.com/wiki/Eirin and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_content_rating_systems#Japan say it, though they may be pulling from the same source/each other. I have no first hand experience, but it is from what I found.