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How is anime as a whole profitable? (If it is)
I'm considering the following facts:

Japanese people have few spare time, with their jobs taking a lot of their time usually, even kids or teenagers have intense schedules.
There are lots of anime series each year, we can easily expect at least 100  series with maybe an average of 20 chapters per each series.
Most anime don't get out of Japan, even if we consider either worldwide legal or illegal services that offer anime, what is seen most are the most well-known series.
Anime is not cheap to produce, we can consider that each anime episode is about 120000 US dollars.
Anime is pretty time consuming to watch in general.

(I'm making up the previous quantities but I don't think I'm that far from the real ones).
With these facts I wonder how it's profitable in general as my guess is that with those conditions most series would not cover their costs, so it looks somehow strange that people are willing to spend much in something that's hardly going to be profitable (although if the anime is successful and moreover, exported worldwide, it can be truly profitable, that's true, maybe it's just that with their big hits they cover all the rest of the unsuccessful series).
I thought that maybe it was subsidized by the government but with an internet search it looks like this doesn't happen often.
What is missing or faulty in my reasoning, or is anime really profitable? Maybe it's what I've said earlier that their successful series cover the costs of the unsuccessful series?
On the other hand, could it be that it's not usually profitable but they still try to do it just because anime is so big in Japan and they love it?

Related how much does anime cost to make & how much do mangaka profit from anime and merchandise

i think it's about passion for making an anime... not sure..

It's not proffitable but japanese people seems have a lot money ...

Merchandise, DVD & Blu-ray sales. If the predicted net profit from the sales of Merchandise, DVD & Blu-ray is low then some studios will hire freelancers. For example, Madhouse is known for hiring Freelancers.

Some studios are already powerful and big enough such that they could themselves invest certain amount of money in the anime rather than the production committee giving them a budget. Thus they would get a larger chunk of profit. Example, Kyoto Animation and Sunrise studios.

Some studios are directly owned by big and well known production committee members who have produced not only anime but also video games, soundtracks, merchandise & food companies. All of which can act as a source of money for the production of a anime.
Example, A1 Studios -> Aniplex -> which in turn is owned by the Sony Music Entertainment Japan.

International licensing.

Finally, some anime may perform poorly initially, but, several years later they might do well in the international market or during the re-runs. By which the studio and the production committee can get back their lost money. Remember how Gundam 0079 had very low ratings initially? Or how Serial Experiments Lain was a flop in Japan but not so much in US? Or how Ghost Stories utterly failed in Japan but did comparatively well in US?

Point is, even if some shows don't make profit in the initial run, doesn't mean they will always not make a profit later on.

Any sources for this answer?

It's usually not. Art is not profitable. You may find facts and stats around but some of the process isn't really holding up anymore now, the industry is not doing that well. That's actually a good thing because now it'll be forced to adapt to the new climate and cut off on bad industry practices like making fifty generic book adaptations every year that only gets made because of marketing and no one will care enough to watch half of it and yet talent is being wasted on it.
Anime is a luxury. This means you buy it because you want it, not because you need it. Figurines, goods and spin-off works are hugely marked up because something has to pay it off, but sales are largely tacked onto the random number generator of "which show gets popular" and so the business doesn't really have a good idea of what they should focus on. Sometimes it's blu-rays, sometimes actual merchandise, or even hosting events and selling tickets.
Stuff is made because some book company decides they want to fund a show, so they take money and pay a committee / studio to make one. That's one way money could come in. It could also be some investment that the studios is doing, because they want a try on that random number generator. Sometimes your project strikes gold and your project turns out to be profitable. Other times they're not and it doesn't net a profit.
The inherent problem of trying to find profiting points of anime production is that anime production is not a consistent field to study. There are studios that work closely with game companies and get paid by the game company to turn some of that gacha money into a marketing opportunity, there are studios that make original works that very likely won't make it into mainstream attention and profit but are still made because it's art and the team is fueled by artistic passion, sometimes it's just because a project can be done for very cheap so let's roll the random number generator.
I heard gainax is going to fund their projects through patreon soon. Anime might find a living on new-age media along with content creators who make their living off the internet. This may not necessarily be the vision I am aiming for, but either way something will probably happen on that note.

25/07/18 addendum: No, TRIGGER's Patreon Won't Save Anime


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What happened to the bullets inside a human with Ajin ability?
I am relatively up-to-date with the manga (have read up to around chapter 40-50). I don't remember what chapter exactly, but this scene happened when Sato used a plane to bomb the building. As he confronted the S.W.A.T team, he got shot right through his head with bullets many times, after which his Ajin ability would automatically regenerate his body with the bullets still inside his head.
How could his Ajin regenerate his body while the bullets were still inside his head?

Mass conversion, perhaps? So the bullet is absorbed into the body.

We see a part where Sato goes to kill a CEO. He cuts off his hand and uses the regeneration power to burn a hole through the thick door in order to get to the guy. Presumably the bullets in his head are an obstruction, and thus would be disintegrated just like the door was.

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Inconsistency with regard to an event in the Resurrection of Freiza Arc and the Future Trunks arc
During the ROF arc, we see Gohan powering up to his maximum (to an extent capable of almost of destroying himself), to allow Goku to detect his energy and use the instant transmission and get back from Beerus's world.
In episode 47 right before the Future Trunks arc, while Goku and Picollo are picking lettuce off the field, when Goku tries to go to Beerus's world, we see him not being able to detect Vegeta's energy until he turns SSJB. Him not being able to the first time, when he found out that Vegeta had gone off training on his own makes sense because Vegeta had gotten a lot stronger and it was stated that his ki was completely different. This time around, it didn't. It's obvious base Vegeta was a lot stronger than what Gohan powered up to during the ROF arc.
To top it all off, once Bulma contacts Vegeta and Goku regarding Future Trunks, we see Kid Trunks turning SSJ and barely powering up which was sufficient for Goku to find. Kid Trunks wasn't obviously stronger than Gohan or powered up to the extent Gohan did during the ROF arc. Which again doesn't make sense.
Many might argue that this is because Goku is now used to travelling to and fro and he wasn't then but you have to realise that instant transmission has nothing to do with being familiar with the place. It has to do more with detecting ki.
Is this in general bad writing and inconsistencies? Or is there a particular reason for the above listed events?

Dragon Ball is full of inconsistencies. Not only Super, also the original. Remember Tien being 4 or 5 levels beyond Semi Perfect Cell and suddenly being able to hold him down with his kikoho

I agree that was pretty stupid but at least they indicated that Cell hadn't taken any damage. Gohan almost killed himself and it was even stated by Whis and Beerus that the half Saiyan was putting way too much stress on his body. Meanwhile, kid trunks managed to effortlessly powerup to a level easy enough for Goku to find.

Maybe it was to show how out of touch Gohan had become with Martial Arts and fighting, that he had to power up to the point of self destruction for Goku to detect him.
It also helps because of the fact that he knew where he had to look for the ki.
Like you, I think it is lazy writing. Like Krillin going up against SSB, however much Goku was holding back, that was just pure bs.

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Do Servants retain memories of their past Masters?
I have recently started watching the Fate series but I watched it in the order of Fate/Zero then Fate/Stay. But, thats's not the thing that concerns me. While I was watching Fate/stay, this question kinda popped into my head.
Do Servants contain memories of their past Masters?
People keep telling me to read the visual novel but I can't find it online. I would really appreciate if someone could answer the question for me!

A Servant that has been summoned and then returned to the Throne of Heroes will not remember their first summoning during any subsequent summonings. Under normal circumstances, each time a Servant is summoned, it is actually a copy of the Servant derived from the Throne of Heroes that manifests into the world, and changes to that copy do not affect the version of the Hero stored in the Throne of Heroes. (Servants have copy semantics, so to speak.)
However, in Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, Saber and Gilgamesh do not follow this general rule.

Gilgamesh remained in the world from the start of the 4th Grail War until at least part way through the 5th Grail War, and hence has memories of this entire time period (but he would not have memories of other summonings).
Saber, having not yet died at the time of her summoning to the 4th and 5th Grail Wars, was not copied from the Throne of Heroes in the first place. She retains continuity of memory between the two wars. (Saber has move semantics, if you will.)

Senshin is correct, but there's another example to point out.
Archer
Senshin is correct that heroes from the throne do not remember individual summons (for any purpose), as the copy that is stored in the throne is fixed. There is, however, a mechanic which can generate exceptions: reality marbles. The stored hero and his various summons all share the same reality marble. A reality marble, being somewhat literally the user's internal world (which is then made manifest upon the world in some sense and extent), changes in response to changes to that internal world.  As such the reality marble becomes the channel through which memories and personality changes are conveyed and imposed upon the stored hero and subsequent summons.
This is how Archer becomes distorted and warped, and develops a plan to try to end his own existence by paradoxically killing himself should he ever be conveniently summoned into the grail war in some alternate timeline.  He was frequently summoned as a pawn devoid of the ability to enact his own will to mop up the messes of humanity, and to kill and destroy as demanded.  He had made his pact with the world thinking he would prevent suffering and tragedy and death, not simply be a murderous janitor that comes in after the fact.  His reality marble effectively records these things and it results in twisting the personality of the heroic spirit.
So in such a case, yes, a spirit can remember "prior" summons. Though exactly how the "order" of summons gets determined when the throne itself exists outside of time, I don't know; clearly the Fuyuki HGW we see occurs after many other summons for other purposes.
In principle this could apply to any other hero with a Reality Marble, such as the 4th War's Rider.  Indeed, some people felt they saw an adult Waver in his reality marble's army in the Fate/Zero animation, but this seems fan speculation at best and may have been someone else with a similar look.

Yes, If they have master then they remember because the spirit is summoned from the other dimension and after it is done then they go back

What episode are you referring to?


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Why does the Keijo anime/manga title have eight "!" characters?
I found it interesting that in the Keijo title are eight "!", written like "Keijo!!!!!!!!".
Did the author ever tell what's the reason behind its title besides "for making the title eye-catching"?

anime title sometimes pretty random. Like Durarara

@Darjeeling It's "Durarara!!" with two exclamation points, actually!! (Maybe that's what you meant. I wonder what the record for number of punctuation characters is.)

Exclamation points in anime/manga titles is somewhat of an ongoing trend, and because of the ludicrous themes in keijo!!!!!!!! they jumped on the trend in a similarly extreme way as a sort of publicity stunt/way to attract attention. Some more toned back shows may use it to denote seasons (like K-ON!!) but for shows like keijo!!!!!!!! they are instead used to show a self aware, extreme and ridiculous nature.


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Is Kaio-ken increasing Goku's potential?
We know that using Kaio-ken damages your body as you are forcing it to go beyond its limits. But is it also increasing your potential for the higher power? I mean as the body is facing the forced power up it will try to improve and endure that power the next time, right? I guess it works kinda like muscle training, the more you push your muscles the more they develop.
So can't Goku stay in the Kaio-ken mode for an extended period of time (while not fighting) to increase his capacities and go beyond Kaio-ken X20?

Well similar concept Goku used before fighting cell, he stayed in Super Sayian state for long time to reduce the wastage of energy required to transform from base to SSJ, so that he can achieve Perfect SSJ state easily with full power..... but same can be done with Kaioken or not is still question mark

@IchigoKurosaki So why is't he doing the same for the other ssj transformations? SSJB can benefit from it a lot. do I need another question for this?

Kaioken is not a state or transformation. It is a special technique which multiplies Goku's power. Assuming Kaioken doesn't have a limit and you could reach a multiplier beyond 20, Goku doesn't necessarily need to keep utilizing the same to get used to the state. This is because Goku has to train his body to be able to adapt to the physical strain imposed by Kaioken. This requires excellent Ki control which is why Goku was able to stack it on top of SSJB and we never see him stacking it on top of SSJ2 or SSJ3 when he fought Beerus or Back in the Buu Saga against Kid Buu.Also, it's been stated by Whis to Vegeta that God level training involves excellent Ki control and not just putting your body through a lot of physical strain. Also, Kaioken acts as a multiplier to Goku's current level of power and not his Base form unlike his other transformations. So in other words, if someone were to train and achieve a stronger transformation which is a higher multiplier, having a higher multiplier of kaioken wouldn't make a difference.Suppose there existed a transformation which was a lot superior to SSJB(Not gonna use UI here), which is a significantly higher power multiplier than SSJB, then even 30 times SSJB, will not be able to stand up against that power. The best way to illustrate the same would be with an example. Let us assume Goku has a power level of 2 and let there exist one transformation which is a 100 times multiplier and another transformation which is a 200 times multiplier. If Goku utilises the first transformation and is capable of using Kaioken * 3/ his power would be : 2*100 * 3=600. Incase of the second transformation, let's say he can only use Kaioken * 20, but his power would be : 2*200*20=800. (Please note these are not actual power levels and it's only an example to prove the same)

There is no mention of such thing in the series but it makes sense. What it is mentioned in the series it is, saiyans get stronger with every fight they have (zenkai boost), they get stronger when they are about to die and they recover (zenkai boost) , Piccolo also mentions he can't keep the pace of training of saiyans (and this is later re-affirmed when Goku, Gohan, Trunks and Vegeta and Piccolo go to the time chamber and all the saiyans become stronger than Piccolo who was superior to them after fusing with Kami) . So everytime saiyans push or hurt their bodies they become stronger, much stronger than other races after training. So if kaioken takes Goku's body to its limit he should get stronger after recovering it.

Agree. It's a mult, not a transformation.
However, it could have higher adverse affects when used on higher current powers. This is because a mult, is basically changing, what I see as, the per-second power output (i.e. power level). No matter what sort of power level Goku achieves, he has a limit on how much he can temporarily force that power output to be multiples of itself. That is his limit as a human/saiyan. This is different from "power" growth via strain and training.
While he can train his use of power. He cannot easily train personal self-damage due to over-exertion. However, notice that he has increased Kaioken from Kaioken (a simple 50% increase) to Kaioken x 20. This means it's possible but probably a horrible use of time, energy, effort.


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Why does Gekko Moriah set sailors back out to sea if their zombie version will die?
After Moriah takes sailors shadows he puts them on a boat and sends them out to sea. But he says that if the person who the shadow came from dies the zombie they gave the shadow to will die. So why does Moriah send the originals back out to sea? Wouldn't it make more sense to just lock them up so they don't die? Otherwise their zombies would just keep dying.

If he lock them up he need to feed them all so they won't die. But if he let them out, the chance is they will survive on their own. Even if they die, Moria could just use another sailor's shadow. After all if they die so easily, it just mean they're weak. Also his zombie is not unlimited, so there is no use for him to keep them all.

To understand this situation we need a bit of context into Gecko Moriah. One of the Shichibukai, major antagonist of the Thriller Barque and the user of Kage Kage no Mi. His Devil Fruit power allowed him to manipulate shadows in a physical and tangible form.
Moriah maintains a very relaxed and laid back stance at all times. He rarely fights against his opponents directly, preferring to use his doppelman to outmaneuver them and then steal their shadow. (Luffy and Robin both lost this way). Or he may order his crew to take care of it. In general, he will avoid a conflict all together
His tendency to avoid conflicts shows how he collect shadows for his Zombie Crew. He ambushes pirates in the Florian Triangle, steals their shadows and leaves them adrift at sea. His crew of Abasolom and Perona also have powers of the kind which can defeat an opponent without fighting head on.
However, keeping the pirates whose shadows he has stolen would prove counter productive. One of the reasons Moriah was defeated was because of the pirates whose shadows he stole.

Zombie's Weakness - Brook was able to discover the weakness of Moriah's Zombies because he was left on Thriller Bark
Rebel Alliance - The survivors on Thriller Bark banded together and plotted to bring down Moriah. They understood his powers as well as stole over hundred shadows. They used the shadows to power up Luffy.
Handicap - Due to a weakness to the sun, a Shadowless person would have a great handicap and once set adrift would not be able to search for Thriller Bark properly. However, due to extreme fog in the Florian Triangle, this weakness is negated somewhat.

Tl;Dr. There is a greater chance of Pirates rebelling and stealing their shadows back if they stay on Thriller Bark, rather than if they're sent away because of their instinct of Self preservation. It is also in line with Gecko Moriah's nature to avoid conflict until necessary.

But I'm not saying they should just be allowed to run free on the island I'm saying why wouldn't he lock them up true he has to feed them but if they had been locked up in the first place then the ones who collected the shadows wouldn't have been able to gather them in the first place.

@user30104 Then it is more easily obvious... The cost of prisoners is high. I read some 5-6 years ago that US spends something around 30k+ USD per prisoner in a year. Associated risk and cost, with Moriah's tendency to avoid conflict will bring in the same points as above.

but part of the reason that the US spends so much is for the space and living conditions neither of wich moriah would care about and it seems like it would've been a better idea since even if the person is really strong if they accidentaly end up in the sun or just give up he loses a powerful zombie plus if he locked em up that means more powerful courpses when they die

Luffy is strong, probably the strongest shadow Moria caught, but we can all agree that if he went to sea alone and shadow-less he would die instantly.
I think the best for Moria is to keep the originals prisoners in a Seastone prison, but keeping all of them is counter productive like you said and fodder shadows are easily replaced but general zombies are not.
Sanji had a 77 million bounty and he was made into that penguin but Zoro was 120 million and was made general zombie, so I think general zombies are
all 100+ shadow bounties or just special bodies like Ryuma and maybe Captain John, etc, so it's better to capture these shadows in a Seastone prison and send the others. Having 20-50 prisoners isn't that bad.

Sanji was only made into a penguin because they didn't realize he was the person in his poster.


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What's the origin of characters flying through the night sky during the ED?
Here it is in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid:

and here it is in Blend S:

Is Blend S just referencing Dragon Maid or is there an earlier instance of this?

I see multiple chibi-version girls flying in each picture. The pictures have a blue background. Other than that (from the pictures alone) I personally would not make a connection.  Maybe if I had seen *Blend S", a relation between the pictures would be more obvious.


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What is theme music that plays in episode 181 at 07:37 minutes?
What is the theme song that plays while Subaru embraces Rock Lee?

The soundtrack name is Nervous.
You can listen it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRyohGCjdVU


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What is that word that sounds like "assent" in No Game No Life?
In the TV animation of No Game No Life, before every game, the players who join the game would shout out loud a word that sounds like "assent". I once thought it was assent, as the story makes it seem like it is saying "I agree with the game contract under the 10 rules" (where the subtitles say the word means "swear under the 10 rules", which does not sound like a contradiction with the word "assent"). Until I watch the new movie No Game No Life Zero, which tells the story of the creating of the game world we see in the TV animation.
In the movie, when the man sacrifices himself to let Riku run away, he shouts a word that sounds like "assent". I thought to myself: so this is the origin of the word. But I was wrong. When later on Riku and the ghosts started their plan to finish the war, Riku corrects their pronunciation. According to the subtitles, the meaning was changing from "swear to the former brave" to "swear to the rules", but both words to me still sound like "assent".
So what exactly were those words they were shouting?
P.S. I was watching the movie in Hong Kong and the subtitles were in Traditional Chinese. The subtitles decided to show the meaning instead of putting the actual words in it.

I mean the original Japanese version, for both TV animation and the latest film.

The only word that closely resembles the word you're asking for is "Aschente". It's pronounced more or less like: "A-shen-te".
It means one pledges to the ten 'rules' made, and placed by the one true god Tet of Disboard. They state it at the start of every game that uses the ten rules.
(I've linked more about the ten pledges and such in the link above)

So it is a made up word after all?

@cytsunny There seems to be no indication of the word being "real" (so far).


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What is on Red Line?
At one of the intersections of Grand Line and Red Line are both Mariejois and the Fishmen Island. I believe it is the only way to go to the "New World". Since we don't know much about it, I was wondering what kind of secrets it could hide.
What exactly is Red Line and what is on it?

There is nothing much told about Red Line. But it is very mysterious question why that wall even their in the first place!!!

The Red Line is basically a group of islands connected together.
We know that it has it's own season islands, as explained by Nami

The Red Line that crosses the Grand Line has its own Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall "islands" chapter 604

It is 10,000 meters deep, bears the world capital Mariejois, as stated by Hachi.

The Red Line bears the world capital, Mariejois, and is said to be 10,000 meters deep from ocean level to Fishman Island chapter 496

Due to the same height, it is also considered impassable, all though this has been proven to not be the case as

Fisher Tigre Managed to climb the redline to attack Mariejois as told by Boa Hancock in chapter 521
Germa66 passed it with an amphibious ship in chapter 841

Besides the sheer height, it is also considered indestructible, as demonstrated by Laboon in chapter 104, as he had been ramming the red line to no avail for a considerable amount of time.


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Why didn't Mello see Shinigami after touching the Death Note in Episode 29?
I asked this question on Movies & TV SE, but was requested to ask here.
In the 29th episode of Death Note (Father), a third Shinigami (Sidoh) arrived at Los Angeles to get his notebook back.
He needed the current owner (which was one of the Mello's subordinates, Jack Neylon) to touch the Death Note in order to see him.
How did Jack Neylon become the owner of the note if he didn't touch it?
And when Sidoh arrived, the Death Note was in the hands of Mello, but he didn't see Sidoh. Why is that?

though i don't recall how/why Sidoh was visible in the first place to anyone, touching the Death Note allows you to see the Shinigami owner of it and Sidoh lost ownership of it to Ryuk and if i recall Sidoh's Death Note then became Rem's after the Death Note Shuffle.

In the anime, several parts where not included. For example Neylon's eye trade and the attempt to retrieve the Death Note. Could be that the ownership part is also missing.

@Memor-X Once Sidoh takes hold of the Death Note, any human who touches it after that can see Sidoh, provided, it was not held by another Shinigami after Sidoh.

The Death Note owned by Jack Neylon (his real name being Kal Snyder) was the one Light Yagami picked up in the first episode of the Death Note Anime Series, the one with some rules written on the inner side(s) of its cover. This is the very Death Note Light had in his hand when Kyosuke Higuchi (the person from Yotsuba) died of a heart attack. Since Higuchi was its previous owner, the ownership passed back to Light. Also, the Shinigami in possession of the Death Note before Higuchi was Rem.
So when, Light knew that Soichiro Yagami (his father) gave the Death Note to someone from Mello's gang (who they called Y462), he gave up the ownership of that Death Note. So the ownership now passed to Y462. Since this Y462 guy was eventually killed by the leader of the gang, the ownership must have passed to the next person who touched the Death Note, that logically being Kal Snyder. It is never mentioned that Kal Snyder never touched the Death Note. He must have. That is why he became its owner.
There are two logical ways in which the ownership of a Death Note can be affected after the 'death' of the Shinigami who owned it.
Case I:
Let's suppose that if the Shinigami who owned a Death Note 'dies', the Shinigami who owned the Death Note previously, again becomes it's owner. In this case Ryuk becomes the owner of the Death Note, not Sidoh, as it was Ryuk who owned the Death Note before Rem. So in this case, Kal Snyder can see Ryuk, not Sidoh.
Case II:
Let's suppose that if the Shinigami who owned a Death Note 'dies', the Death Note is no longer owned by a Shinigami. So, there is no Shinigami associated with the Death Note from the point when Rem 'died' to the point when Sidoh snatched the Death Note away from Mello. So in this case, Kal Snyder could only see Sidoh when he snatched away the Death Note from Mello and threw it at him. Not at any point before that.
By considering either of the above two cases to be true, we conclude that though the Death Note originally belonged to Sidoh, he was not currently it's owner. That is why Kal Snyder, or for that matter, anyone in contact with the Death Note (such as Mello) couldn't see Sidoh before the Death Note was thrown at Kal Snyder and touched by the respective person.


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What is the violin soundtrack that plays in episode 47 when Gon receives Ging's tape?
What is the soundtrack (probably violin) that plays in episode 47 of Hunter x Hunter 1999 when Gon receives Ging's tape?

If you are talking about the music that is playing in the background while the tape recording of his father is being played then it's not a violin but a harmonica.
It is the harmonica version of the song "Ohayou" (Composed by Keno) which is part of the soundtrack in the first anime adaptation of Hunter x Hunter.
You can listen to it on youtube


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What is the production process like for a doujinshi to be sold at Comiket?
Are there steps for a doujinka to take when making fan-made manga that would be sold at Comiket? For example, the Comiket would be held in April. When will they start making the doujin?
Is the production process of fan-made manga similar to that of regular manga? I mean the doujinka had to like print the doujin themselves, while the mangaka don't. And they need to advertise their work. Do they have deadlines, too? What preparations do they need to make first?
Below is the timesheet of Nurarihyon no mago's author:

Do they manage the production and distribution of their fan-made manga? Or do they just print the manga and sell it?

from what I've read in doujin's afterwords, doujinka do have deadlines to send their finished product to the printers and to the ComiKet comittee so they get a space for their booth (printing can even be done by themselves so it can be dismissed, unless you're making thousands of copies), but that aside they can work at their own pace as long as they make those deadlines. Then again, ComiKet is just one event, there's also the Comic 1, SC, series specific events like Reitaisai for Touhou, etc. For merchandising, it's mostly just posts on pixiv or twitter with samples of what they'll be selling


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What happens to a series after its author dies?
As most of us know by now Daisuke Satō passed away. However, the series he worked on such as HOTD is yet to announce its discontinuation and thus remains on an indefinite hiatus.
This however made me wonder, what will happen to a series when the author passes away?
Will the franchise pick the series up with another mangaka instead? Silently let it linger on 'publishing' as memento? Discontinue it after a XXX amount of time? Or does this differ from publisher to publisher? Or maybe even mangaka to mangaka?
In the case of HOTD it already was on an extended hiatus, and the same thing could just happen to Yoshihiro Togashi, the author of Hunter x Hunter, as he is in quite bad health as well. But Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, could also be next. In which case supposedly nobody knows the ending besides Oda himself and the diseased Hinati Fujinami.

one example i know of is the writer for Kaze no Stigma Takahiro Yamato dying in 2009 leaving the series incomplete and to my knowledge it's remained stalled like that. but then you have Monty Oum who made RWBY where after his death Rooster Teeth continued with the series but not sure if it's because RWBY isn't made in japan or if Monty had given away the rights to RWBY to Rooster Teeth like Programmers do when they get hired (ie. all code you make is owned by the company)

@Memor-X In the case of RWBY, it was continued by roosterteeth to honor him. His family also weighted into this decision, hence Monty's brother picked up the voice of Lie, as he wanted it to stay in the family. It was also mentioned that before Monty Oum passed away, he, Miles and Kerry planned about 7-9 seasons in advance.

same case with zero no tsukaima ln. The author ( LN's Author) passed away in 2013, two years later (2015), the series continued . The author did left the concept of the story. He spent the final weeks in hospital dedicated to the novel’s future and its end. This is where Yurugi ( his substitute author ) is able to announce that the novel is able to continue as the ending has been planned. but i dont know with HOTD case

If you read from this answer you can see they can pick up the series and had someone else fill in for the dead author


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Could titans suffocate?
In the last episode I believe of the first season of Attack on Titan, they showed a titan in the wall. In addition, it looked like there was not much room between the actual wall part and the titan's face. So do titans breathe? Do they need to breathe?

I believe at some point it was stated that they do not need air or food or water, all they need to move around is the sun. but now i'm wondering about the human inside the titan!!! how can they survive?

It's true that titans need 'not to breathe' for survival, it's stated in wiki also but if we are talking about humans inside Titan formation then I think that they don't breathe there also because they get connected to the center of control. It sounds strange but being human one has to breathe to survive. If they do breathe inside the titan form then why do they do heavy breathing when they come out of the nape as we have seen Eren.

Possible spoiler alert (depending on how accurate some of the interpretrations in the anthology were)!
So, late last year, Kodansha Comics released the Attack on Titan Anthology. If you're unfamiliar with it, the creators of Attack on Titan and some famous western artists basically got together and created this mash-up anthology with all of their interpretations of the AoT universe. Some of the pieces in the anthology were just straight up cross-over style pieces like the ones created by Evan Dorkin, featuring references to characters in other universes and such. But, for a lot of the pieces in the anthology, the material was actually extremely relevant to the series and revealed some interesting things. For those of you that have not started in on the Anthology yet, there's a spoiler for it below.

On page 7 of Volume 1 of the Attack on Titan Anthology, a Q&A section reveals that one of the main subject pieces for Michael Oeming was a titan featuring transparent skin. Moving to page 8 of the same volume, you will find the see-through titan. As you might imagine from the story, it did have a digestive system but it was poorly developed and had absolutely no exit. The entrance and exit to the digestive system were the same place: the mouth. What would be of interest to you here is that when this titan was drawn, it featured only a poorly developed digestive system, no heart, no lungs, and no other major organs. We know that at least the digestive system was drawn to reflect knowledge found in both anime and manga, and it would not be a far leap to say that this is an accurate rendering of all organs within the titan's body, not just the digestive tract. Since the titan has no lungs in the picture, the titan likely does not need to breathe to survive.

But it's not enough to make assumptions, and on page 8 Michael Oeming states:

There is a lot of nuance to the story. The history is rich and deep, both with the characters and the actual history of the Survey Corps, the geography, and even the different Walls. So writing a fresh story that hopefully expands the world when it is already so tightly written was a challenge. Luckily, my editors were a big help with the history and specifics.

So, from his answer in the Q&A session, this rendering of the see-through titan wasn't just a re-interpretation or a cross-ever, it was a segment that expanded on the current AoT universe using existing knowledge of the universe.
And, from episode 25 of Attack on Titan we see that, as mentioned above:

There are titans literally hanging out inside the sealed walls. So, it makes perfect sense that they didn't suffocate inside the walls. They have no need to breathe since they have no lungs with which to breathe!

This means that it is highly likely that the see-through titan is an accurate representation of what the titan's organs would look like if the skin were transparent. That is to say, titans likely have no lungs and therefore can not breathe or suffocate.


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How does Mavis form her strategy for the Grand Magic Games if they didn't know what the game would be?
In episode 178 of the Fairy Tail anime they start the final game of the Grand Magic Games. Master Mavis has come up with one strategy out of, according to her, millions of possible outcomes. It shows them coming up with it the night before. However, they say at the beginning of the Magic Games that no one will know what the game is before they announce it, so how did they have all of the night before to come up with a plan?

Your question requires two answers.
  First, everyone knew that the last day would be a battle royal between all members of all teams; I don't know exactly when it was first mentioned but before it happened we saw the contestants talking about how excited they were for it a few days in advance of the episode happening.
  To answer the second part of your question I am going to have to say that they used SAW logic with Master Mavis. To explain in more detail in case you aren't familiar with the SAW franchise, it revolves around a character named John Kramer who is a civil engineer who is very talented at predicting human nature and sets up conditions and anticipates how people will react, from his deductions he creates elaborate plans and traps and watches as people make all the moves he predicted.
  Master Mavis was dubbed the "Fairy Tactician" because she was able to predict human nature giving her a very good idea of how people would react to their circumstances and then she formed her plans based on how she believed everyone would react to the battle royal and for the most part it played off; we do see, however, that she was not able to predict the 3 way battle of Erza, Kagura, and Minerva as she has a mental breakdown that she failed to predict Minerva would interfere however for the most part she predicted where the opponents would head to and when they would head to where they were going.

I wasn't so much asking how she can predict as how she knew what the battle would be. Whats the episode that they announce the battle royal.


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What is the name of the background instrumental theme that starts at 2:19 in episode 28 of My Hero Academia?
Could any of you please tell me what is the name of the background instrumental music in episode 28 (season 2 episode 14) of My Hero Academia, which starts at 2:19? I'd really appreciate it. (The situation is training of Midoriya with Gran Torino.)

It's a slightly modified version of "Sendai no Meiyuu", track 10 of disc 2 of TV ANIMATION MY HERO ACADEMIA 2nd ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK.


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What is the music that plays when Shirley is testing out the headphones?
There's this song in Code Geass I really like. It plays when Lelouch partially erases Shirley's memories in R1 and when Shirley is testing out the headphones in maybe episode 3 in R2 (at around the 18 minutes mark). Can someone please tell me its name?

The song can be heard at around 18 minutes in R2EP3, and also in R1EP14.

According to this reddit thread the song is Masquerade
The vocals, lyrics and composition seem to be all done by Kuroishi Hitomi
It's a great song, it's a shame they seem to have all been taken down off of youtube. If you want a physical copy, Masquerade is the 13th track on this album.


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Do the other universes know that it was Universe 7 that wished them back using Super Dragon Balls?
It was Universe 7 that wished other Universes back using Super Dragon Balls.
Maybe Universe 6 & 11 knows it, but what about the other universes?

Well, the answer would be yes! The angels of all the universes indeed witnessed Universe 7 winning the tournament and they would be going back to their respective universes, so it would only make sense for their respective Universe to find out irrespective of whether they knew beforehand. It would be a very obvious question asked by the gods to the angels considering they were revived all of a sudden  and witnessed the Super Dragon Balls being used.


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What anime is this blond hair girl wearing pink hair ribbons from?
I want to cosplay as her. Thanks for answering.

Hi, welcome to Anime.SE. Could you add some more info, like where did you get/buy this keychain? Meanwhile, while waiting for the community to answer it, you could also try searching anime character database, and if you got the answer, feel free to post a self-answer on the "answer" box below. Thanks!

As per https://anime.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4142/are-questions-regarding-cosplay-or-anime-related-items-still-on-topic, please provide information as to why you think it is from an anime.

That would be Beatrice from the Re:Zero series


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Is Kashin Koji actually someone who has appeared in Naruto before?
So I've been reading the Boruto manga lately. There was this member of a secret organization Kara called Kashin Koji.
Many have speculated that he is

 Jiraiya

or his clone (or student/son, etc.)
They claim this because:

His appearance in front of Boruto and squad was with a toad summoning.
He knows how to make a Rasengan perfectly.

Does this theory have any credibility?

Sure, there are coincidences that Kashin Koji and Jiraiya could be the same, but you also have to realize that Jiraiya died and there was no way he was surviving after the fight with Pain.
Pain finished him and that was the end of Jiraiya, now where the Rasengan and the toad summoning comes into place, it could be very possible that he might have been a relative of Jiraya, but as it looks, we won't find out until we get more information.

After reading it again, small comment I would make would be that maybe Kashin Koji saw the rasengan in the previous fight and maybe laerned it quickly. He does seem like a very skilled ninja so there is a possibility that could happen.

I've heard those rumors too and to be honest, that seems like a plausible theory. But there are 2 counteracting facts for that theory. The first is that Jiraiya's body was lost into the ocean when pain destroyed his back with chakra rods; so its almost impossible for anyone to have acquired his DNA, except maybe they got it long before he died (or how Kabuto wanted to get his DNA).
The second fact is the way Kashin Koji's personality is displayed in the manga, unlike Jiraiya, If i were to describe his personality, Kashin Koji seems more like a self centered, "no nonsense" type of person who is serious minded and very calculating. That is very contrasting to the fun loving, super pervy and social Jiraiya that we all know.
Also, It seems very unlikely that Jiraiya had a son, but then again,  since Jiraiya was such a perv, it wont come as a surprise that the one and only ERO SENIN had some secret relationship and something along the lines resulted in Kashin being born.
Nevertheless, the theory that i feel could be the closest is that Kashin Koji could be a  student of Jiraiya Sensei. Since Jiraiya was able to teach Naruto the rasengan and summoning jutsu, it would make sense to hypothesize that he probably  taught other students too. The possibility that ERO SENIN had a couple more students aside Mnato, Nagato and his crew, and Naruto is not a far fetched idea. Lets not forget that after Jiraiya recieved the Great Gamamaru's vision of the future, he decided to go around, traveling and looking for the so called "child of prophecy". He might have had a couple other students during the years that he travelled around writing books.
PS: My answers are based of assumptions so there's a possibility that I could be really close, or completely wrong in the theory.

No he isnt, but he's a clon of the person you believed to be

 Jiraiya

Koji Kashin

In the last chapter of the manga, we actually get a hint that ties Kashin Koji to Konoha, which makes things even more interesting and complicated at the same time. What we know until now is that:

there is a certain physical resemblance between him and Jiraya (the hair, the age, the two strikes on their faces which are exactly on the same spot - under their eyes)
they use similar jutsus: fire-based techniques, Rasengan, toad summoning, sealing jutsu
while his partner had to wait outside the village since she couldn't go through the Yamanaka clan's barrier without being detected, Kashin Koji had no difficulty to enter the village. He said it himself that anyone who didn't have their chakra registered in Konoha's security system would not be able to enter without triggering the alarm.

So, IMO, that might be a hint that he is a former shinobi from Konohagakure. He also knows a lot about the village, which kind of makes me think that maybe he grew up there or something.
Of course, we can't conclude that based on this information he is Jiraiya, but it surely makes us wonder about his past, his connection to the Leaf and his identity.

It can be Jiraiya, just like what happen to Ao's.
During the war, as you remember in the chapter, Kara is already in process.
They rescued Ao's because of his eye use byakugan, they fix him and revive his body.
Maybe Jiraiya was rescued too by Kara, and they fix his body as a totally cyborg or whatsoever. Because it seems when he use to get his frog out, the frog looks like something different. It looks like the frog was already developed as a fully cyborg.
As you remember when Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata fighting to the most powerful Otsutsuki, the frog that Naruto expected to came out was not the frog he called, but the son of the frog, and Naruto asked the frog where his father was, why he was the one to get one and not his father. He told Naruto that his father was not around because he was busy.
See? It can be Jiraiya. He knows Naruto well, he thought that Naruto was the one who killed the powerful Otsusuki. Due to the karma seal was found in Boruto, Kashin knows how karma seal can get. When they killed one of the powerful Otsusuki.


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How does the checkpoint get upgraded in Re:Zero?
Spoiler Alert
As we have seen in Re:zero, Subaru wakes up in a certain palace after he dies, which is a checkpoint. As the story progresses, we see the upgrade in checkpoint as in normal games.
In most of the games, checkpoint is upgraded (in case of Auto) when you reach certain places or after you've completed certain tasks. The gamer is notified or knows when checkpoint is upgraded; it was not in Subaru's case.
The checkpoints are:

In front of shopkeeper
Bed, in the palace where Emilia lives
The big tree, where they killed the white whale

The checkpoint is upgraded after the task has been completed. But that was not the case, when Rem was saved from the dogs from the forest, it was a task that has been completed but when Subaru returned from death, in the witch cult arc the save point was in front of shopkeeper but not the palace's bed.
From this, a task is not the only thing that triggers the upgrade, but place also plays a role. If that is the reason then the place where big tree is around should have been the save place because Subaru passed that tree but did not stop there.
From all the conditions, checkpoint upgrade not only depends on place and task but other things also. These conditions are just the guess or conclusion derived from above cases. And Subaru also doesn't know how upgrade works and upgrade checkpoint manually, like going some place and doing some thing, e.g talking with the shopkeeper.
How does the checkpoint get upgraded, and what are the conditions required for upgrade?

How the checkpoint is updated is 1. not exactly known, and 2. way more of a spolier than this one. (Hint: Since this is kinda like how it works in a game, there probably will be a GM)

Bed is the most logical of all, I can't even begin to guess how the others make sense. In any case, I think the reasons for those others would be very vague.

There might be information in light novel and I have one more guess which is not relevant so I didn't write in question i.e. the witch inside the Subaru is the main player and Subaru is just a character, so witch decides where to save the game, but this is just a theory

It seems that in the first safe area after all dangerous events have passed and subaru has no chance to be harmed it creates a save point, however it doesn't update at every moment he is not in imminent danger.


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Why could Tetsuo's hand reproduce many flesh, muscles and veins using his ESP?
In the last minute of the Akira movie, we could see that Tetsuo's hand had several injuries, until some laser beam from outer space shot on him, cutting his arm off.
In short, he made an artificial arm using metal and building scrap. Everything looked fine until his ability got out of control. The veins and nerves spread into many material things, and suddenly he could produce flesh, muscles and veins from his cut-off hand using his ESP ability.

How could he produce such things? I thought ESP is an ability to move and destroy things that exist using mind control, not to produce a new skin and flesh.

In the manga, it is explained that the power that gives Tetsuo his psychokinetic abilities is trying to break free, as his body is no longer enough to contain it. To compensate for this, his body is trying to absorb material from all around him. As for why he could produce additional matter, the power trying to break free might be partially converting energy into additional mass during his breakdown, allowing him to generate additional flesh.

If you could added some references with link or other credible sources which support your answer, that woukd be great.

As mentioned by @Gagantous , provide sources for your answer. Answers, from what others here always say, should require no verification from the user so it should be able to stand on its own. It should also be verified easily if there is doubt from others, hence the need for sources.


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What is the soundtrack playing when Luffy beats 50 thousand enemies with Conqueror's Haki on Fishman Island?
I am just looking for the soundtrack that was being played when Luffy defeats 50 thousand enemies with Conqueror's Haki on Fishman Island in episode 554.

I think you're looking for Sai, sai, saikyou!!!


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Can Kumagami in Charlotte possess Yuu Otosaka?
So since Yuu looted all abilities, including Yusa's of course, does that mean he can be possessed by someone just like her? And if so, can that person be Kumagami?

Yes, seeing that Yusa's power is Spiritism, she can be a medium for the dead. Which is also mentioned in the wikia.

Yusa has the ability of Spiritism. She is understood to be a medium,
  seemingly capable of channeling and/or conversing with the dead.

So it is not entirely impossible so long as they have a way to communicate with Kumogami's soul.


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Why is Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki's Rinnegan of a different color?
In episodes 63-65 of the Boruto anime, Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki's Rinnegan has changed its color, compared with the color of the usual Rinnegans or from the movie Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? Could this mean Rinnegan also has variations?

Yes, Rinnegan has variations especially that of Momoshiki's where it is depicted in different colors:

 Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki has a pair of Rinnegan embedded in the palms of his hands. They are initially red, but after he consumes his guardian, Kinshiki, they become purple (in Boruto: Naruto the Movie) or yellow (in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations). This also grants him a third Rinnegan on his forehead, which matches the other two in colour. In the anime, Momoshiki's yellow Rinnegan temporarily turn red when he uses their power.

Source: https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Rinnegan


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Dragon Ball Super Goku Black vs Majin Buu?
Ok so this question has been bothering me for a long time: why didn't Majin Buu help Goku and Vegeta fight Goku Black/Zamasu? I honestly feel like he could have done at least some serious damage to Goku Black, either by just being the pink blob that is almost impossible to kill or by absorbing him. Goku Black would have almost no way to kill him other than simply overwhelming him, but Goku, Vegeta and Trunks would be there to help. It just makes no sense. It could be a plot hole or something I just missed in the anime.
If someone could take some time to answer this for me that would be great.

It isn't really a Plot Hole. Goku and Vegeta grew absurdly strong in Dragon Ball Super in comparison to Dragon Ball Z. In the Planet Potafu arc which was before the Goku Black Arc, we see Base Vegeta completely toy around with Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks.Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks was comparable to a Super Buu who is the strongest version of Buu(Disregarding the fusions). The current Majin Buu is the weakest iteration of Buu and clearly doesn't have the strength the hold his own against a Base Goku and Vegeta, let alone a Super Saiyan Blue tier character.With regard to his regenerative abilities, Buu can regenerate. However, he can be destroyed if he's hit by an attack of intense magnitude. The Spirit Bomb for example, was strong enough to defeat Kid Buu. Super Saiyan Rose Goku Black is more than strong enough to easily destroy Buu if he desired.Finally, With regard to being absorbed, A much stronger version of Buu (Buuhan), struggled to absorb Vegito and only managed to do the same when Vegito let him to. Goku Black is much stronger than the Vegito in the Buu Saga and Majin Buu is much weaker than Buuhan. So even that wouldn't have been possible.


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Song playing during My Hero Academia Episode 53 (The Test) at the end?
It starts around 22:00, specifically at the scene with Momo blocking the ball shots/when Mr. Aizawa is talking to Ms. Joke. It’s been played a lot in Season 3, especially in the beginning episodes, but I’m going crazy looking for the actual song and can’t find it anywhere.
Thanks :)
Also played in episode 55 here: https://youtu.be/ekyup0HPOes

Nope, neither! It’s more slow and dramatic, with some chanting lol. Thanks though :)

Here it is again in Episode 55 https://youtu.be/ekyup0HPOes

The song is : Tekkin Battle
Here is a link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_F_zfGNBBM
Check at 1:51


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Is there a way to indicate the action to remove a manga's cover to see the hidden cover?
Ok, maybe the question can look weird. And actually it is.
Let me explain further: a friend of mine removes a lot of times covers from his manga (tankōbon). I don't mean that he actually rips off the cover from the manga, but he removes the dust jacket (or, for me, the first layer) of the colored cover. Under this dust jacket, sometimes, there is another hidden non-colored cover page, that shows the author's easter eggs.
I don't have pictures now, but, for example, it happens with some volumes of Monster Musume and Made in Abyss. As Aki Tanaka said in the comment, One Piece also has this kind of easter eggs.
I didn't find anything about this on the web, and no one talks about it.
So I was asking: is there a term to describe this practice? Is it frequent to do it among collectors?
I am just curious to know about this.


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What is the icy humanoid creature?

At the beginning of the new Boruto opening theme, an ice humanoid creature (that bears an uncanny resemblance to the incomplete Juubi)  is seen using its tail to enclose Boruto.

Its tail looks like some form of wood release mixed with ice release! And it's big enough to make Boruto look like a speck from the distance. It seems around the size of, if not bigger than, a Tailed Beast.
What is this monster?

http://narutofanon.wikia.com/wiki/Cryofication_Technique ??

@AnkitSharma looks like that wiki is everything about fanon (fanmade) entries, I'd be very skeptical about its canonicity...


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What's the OST that plays in the last episode of season 3?
I want to know what's the OST that plays at the 12:56 minute mark when Mirio starts explaining his quirk.

Momo Yaoyorozu
From Disc 2 of the Season 3 OST. You can hear it on YouTube here.


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What do the sheep dolls represent in Mayo Chiki?

Are these sheep dolls mascots, or do they represent something in the series? From the look of it, the blood (?) drooling from their mouths is like Sakamachi Kinjirou's nose bleed.

It's a mascot for the series. Subaru is a butler, and in Japanese, "butler" (shitsuji) and "sheep" (hitsuji) sound the same, making it a play on words. The reason it is bleeding is itself a pun because a sheep bleats.

can you provide any links or cite it to back your answer

I'm going to have to call BS on that "bleeding" / "bleating" pun unless you can provide a source. That pun is pretty much exclusive to English--furthermore, it's exclusive to dialects of English that pronounce the t in "bleating" like a d, i.e. mainly dialects from the midwestern United States. It would be very obscure to Japanese viewers, and the creators would have needed extensive knowledge of English to come up with it.

In the original Japanese language of Mayo Chiki!, these sheep plushies are known as "Silent Lamb" (沈黙ヒツジ).

The "Silent Lamb" card from Precious Memories Trading Card Game
Not much information known regarding this thing other than it is Subaru's favorite sheep character.
Judging from its name, fans theorized that it refers to The Silence of the Lambs which features a cannibalistic character and a scene of the protagonist's childhood memory related to lambs.


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Requirements to be an Anbu Black Op
I am curious as to how is an Anbu chosen, what are the requirements, and does every one of them have like a certain backstory that makes them special or different from the normal ninjas (like how Yamato is able to do Wood style jutsu's and how Kakashi was one of the youngest Jounin in the village), or are they just trusted by the Kage's?

Anbu are recruited directly by the Hokage (or, in case of Root, by Danzou). There's no mention of a hard requirement, but generally excellent shinobi are chosen.

In general, they are chosen from the excellent jounins the village has. This is because the ANBU has to do missions like assassinating missing ninjas, and missing ninjas are more often than not, includes ninjas of jounin level. So if they are just so-so level jounin, they won't be able to do their missions well.
Of course, even though s/he is strong, doesn't necessarily qualifies them as ANBU. Notice that although Might Guy is a strong ninja, he never joined ANBU. I think one of the qualifications for entering ANBU is that even if you excels in one ability, your other abilities must be high-leveled too. Guy is very strong in taijutsu (even Uchiha Madara admitted that he never met someone remotely as good as Guy in taijutsu), but his ninjutsu and genjutsu is so so. Compared to Kakashi, although Kakashi is not as strong as Guy in taijutsu, he is quite high-leveled in it. His genjutsu is good and he is excellent in ninjutsu, being called the Copy Ninja.
The last requirement and the most important is the willingness. That they know what missions the ANBU conducts and they accept that if they join, they have to do it, even if that means you have to massacre your entire clan.

Guy actually requested to be in ANBU to keep an eye on Kakashi but the third hokage and Danzo didn't let him because they said he "Lacked the necessary darkness in his heart"

This is referencing a scene from Naruto Shippuden episode 357. This answer seems like more of a comment in response to 絢瀬絵里's answer, but it does make a valid point regarding the temperament required to join ANBU, seeing as they basically perform the equivalent of black ops missions in the real world.


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About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity)
The anime Elfen Lied is notorious for its one of a kind OP, featuring the mesmerizing theme song Lilium composed by MOKA and performed by Kumiko Noma, as well as sequences of art porn, a homage to Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. The idea to pose the characters as in Klimt's artworks came, as far as I know, from director Mamoru Kanbe, who continued this idea in the OP of Sora no Woto. (In my humble opinion, the OP of Sora no Woto is rather bland, and seriously, Klimt with Kalafina?)
This is a self-answered question and a modest attempt at unraveling the sources of and the symbolism represented in Elfen Lied's OP scenes. Other answers and/or suggestions are welcome.

@ardentMirage it would be better if you created a new question on the topic of your bounty instead of adding a bounty to increase the scope of one that is already very detailed, since the scopes doesn't exactly align with the topic at hand, even if it's in regard to the same series.

The Elfen Lied OP Code
This original analysis is built on previous works by Anime Afterglow, 莉露兜 and 知日部屋. For the meaning of Kaede's hand gesture that was once popular in manga, see What's the significance of the 'w' finger position in Elfen Lied and In the opening of the Elfen Lied anime why does Nyu/Lucy have her fingers positioned in a certain way? All names and dates of Klimt's artworks are taken from the Klimt Museum.
The Elfen Lied OP animation is sequential storytelling beginning in medias res:

 Kaede sheds her tears as she and Kouta embraces. (Episode 13)

os iusti meditabitur sapientiam et lingua eius loquetur iudicium — Psalmi 36:30
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. — Psalms 37:30

As the vocal sets in, we have a zoom out shot of Kaede hugging a mannequin (dummy). A close-up view reveals an uncomfortable suggestion that it is a headless dummy. If you still don't know what to make of the headless dummy, take a look at the surrounding black ravens: they signify death.

 Lucy killed Kouta's father and sister, thereby killing his feelings for her. Now, only death awaits her as the armed forces are soon approaching.

In the background, we can see ripe cereals ears, which are ubiquitous in Klimt's artworks presumably as phallic symbols, decorating the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life grows through reproduction and evolution, and bears its fruits, the ravens (deaths), that rest on its branches. Is the human race at the end of one of those branches? Or is it the Diclonius?

Stoclet Frieze — The Fulfillment (1905)

beatus vir qui suffert temptationem quia cum probatus fuerit accipiet coronam vitae — Iacobi 1:12
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life. — James 1:12

From here on is a flashback to the very beginning of the story of Elfen Lied, when Kaede was first conceived as a child. The first appearance of the title can be seen behind the rustling ripe cereal ears.

Notice here the horns on the female dummy whom we may identify as Kaede's mother. Despite being a human, she gave birth to the 'Queen' Diclonius and therefore is the true originator of the virus. The mysterious 'blemish' on the mother's abdomen may be tied to a manga-only plot:

 After Kaede's mother committed suicide, her abdomen was cut open and her ovaries and womb taken by Chief Kakuzawa.

However, this is not certain as the information was only revealed almost a year after the airing of the last episode of the anime, in Volume 11 of the manga, which was released on August 19, 2005.
The phallic symbols (which almost lit up completely before dimming again) around the private area of both the unconscious Nyu and Lucy, the Eve of the Diclonius race, allude to

 Professor Kakuzawa's unsuccessful attempt at raping Lucy/Nyu.

We can make one-to-one correspondences between the females in The Three Ages of Woman and Kaede, Lucy and Nyu. Out of the three, only the cuddling one is making the hand gesture, so she is Kaede, as she is the only one out of the three asking for forgiveness. Then the unconscious one is Nyu, and the facepalming one is Lucy.
Another possibility is that the baby girl is Nyu, the young woman is Lucy, the fertile Queen of the Diclonius, and the old woman is Kaede, who lost her favor with Kouta.
On a related note: Gustav Klimt uses circles, triangles and squares in his artworks, as does the famous Sengai Gibon, who might have had an indirect influence on him because Klimt also studied Japanese art profusely, but I don't have a source to cite for this. Sengai is well-known for his Circle, Triangle, and Square painting, the base of design for the Circle-Triangle-Square Garden at Kenninji, the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto.

In Zen Buddhist philosophy, the Circle, Square and Triangle represent these three elements [ten-chi-jin 天地人] and their relationship to each other: the square signifies Earth, the circle refers to Heaven, and the triangle is man, or the potential of humankind to stand on the Earth and reach toward Heaven – both physically and metaphorically. — Spirit of the Man: Mario Uribe

Sengai left the painting without a title or inscription (save for his signature), however the painting is often called "The Universe" when referred to in English.

While we don't know what Klimt had in mind when he drew those circles, triangles and squares, the workings of the universe do seem to be personified by The Three Ages of Woman and also Nyu, Kaede and Lucy. Isn't it interesting that the Fates also come in threes?

Bottom: The Three Ages of Woman (1905)
Top: Adam and Eve (1917), altered to look also like Medicine (1897) (image)
Then comes an interesting sequence of introductions to three important characters in the series: Yuka, Mayu and Nana, of ages approximately 19, 13 and 7 respectively (according to Wikia). In other words, from elder to younger, from least unfortunate to most unfortunate, and in the order of first appearance in the anime. It is curious to see three females of different ages (adulthood, adolescence and childhood), each getting their own portrait shots, make their appearances in The Three Ages of Woman scene, out of all scenes. Is this incidental or intentional?

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)
The origin for Mayu's portrait is not without much contention. It had been suggested to be Lady with Fan (1917), Portrait of Ria Munk III (1918) and Portrait of Serena Lederer (1899), but I concur only with the suggestion that is The Girlfriends. The two women, possibly lesbians, in The Girlfriends are close to each other just as Mayu is close to Nana whose portrait appears immediately after hers. The fact that Mayu prefers to be with girls lends more evidence to Mayu's artwork being based on The Girlfriends. However, instead of a naked Nana, we have the recurring phallic symbols in the background, which tell us some backgrounds about Mayu:

 She was subject to rape and sodomy by her stepfather.

The Girlfriends (1916)

Mäda Primavesi was, by her own account, an independent, assertive young girl, qualities amply captured in this portrait of her at about nine years old. — The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The age and personality of Mäda Primavesi indeed fit Nana's. It is the director's sympathetic portrait of a very real and willful little girl.
The lyrics sung just before Yuka's portrait, "beatus vir qui (blessed is the man)", refers to her good luck, while the lyrics before Mayu's and Nana's, "suffert temptationem (that endures temptation)", signals the pass in Mayu's and Nana's life challenges and in their resisting the temptation to give up and die.

Portrait of Mäda Primavesi (1912)

kyrie ignis divine eleison — ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 20:30–31
O Lord, Fire Divine, have mercy on us. — Matthew 20:30–31

Kyrie eleison is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy. The "ignis divine (Fire Divine)" line is added as a trope because "kyrie eleison" is too short.

A specialized use [of a trope] is the medieval amplification of texts from the liturgy, such as in the Kyrie Eleison (Kyrie, / magnae Deus potentia, / liberator hominis, / transgressoris mandati, / eleison).

The prolonged singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession is called melisma. As a side note, quoniam is used in the song in favor of quia because it means the same and sounds better.
This is the only artwork with moving characters: Kouta turns his face away from the viewer and kisses a dummy. Take notice of the human-like dummy Kouta is kissing: judging by her height and bust size, she is around 10 years old, clearly someone from his childhood memories. Is she child Yuka? Or is she child Kaede whom child Kouta treated as a human being?
The third and last scene of Kaede forgoing the hand gesture, and this time she is Kaede herself, not Lucy or Nyu. Ironically, Kaede finds her own fulfillment (not) in the event of The Fulfillment where she still had the hand gesture and where Lucy fulfilled her own desire and duty to kill humans, but in that of The Kiss. You could imagine the dummy kissing Kaede is God or the hypothetical Kouta who loves her / would have loved her in a different universe.

The Kiss (1908)

 Kaede's realization that Kouta had cheated on her by going out with Yuka drove her into a deep pit of sadness and madness.

The Three Ages of Woman (1905)
Fire Divine! Kaede was engulfed in a burning rage for revenge! The background is the same as Mayu's. This scene, the only other that looks like the one where the title is first shown, also marks the end of the flashback.

This and the first scene (tear drops) are the only two non-filler scenes without any known reference to an artwork. The two scenes both serve as section stops (almost perfectly at the 0:00 and 1:00 marks in the 1:30 long OP) that fade to black in similar ways, and therefore this is the end of the story of Elfen Lied.

Oh, quam sancta, quam serena, quam benigna, quam amoena! Oh, castitatis lilium.
O how holy, how serene, how kind, how pleasant! O, lily of chastity.
— Ave Mundi Spes Maria

From here on, the scenes are all about depicting Elfen Lied the work. The lyrics in this last section may also be a praise of the series.
Originally, Klimt named his work Water Serpents I as a pretext to show the feminine body in an erotic context without fearing censorship. The anime is certainly challenging and pushing the boundaries of censorship with its gore and nudity.

Water Serpents I (1904)
The last scene may have borrowed ideas from Water Serpents II (1904), but ultimately this is just a 90 degree rotation of The Fulfillment, with a slight change in Kaede's head and hands.

Stoclet Frieze — The Fulfillment (1905), altered to look like Water Serpents II (1904)
If you count the number of unique dummies that have appeared in the OP, and the number of artworks referenced or the number of appearances of Kaede, Lucy and Nyu, you get these numbers.
Walter De Maria once said,

"Every good work should have at least ten meanings."

In this regard, Elfen Lied is a good work of art.

The way in which "The three ages of women" has been cut makes me wonder whether this is more about "getting inspiration" / purely copying the pretty shapes, without much regard for the background of what was copied.


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Detailed explanation of CLAMP character relations?
I watched Cardcaptor Sakura, xxxHolic and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle a long time ago,
but I still don't understand the relationship between them.
I don't understand this: http://tsubasa.wikia.com/wiki/Crossover_Universe, who is whose father, who is who in an alternate universe, etc.
Can anyone give a character tree with details?

Temptd to vtc too broad... that's helluva complicated multiverse...

this might be of some relevance, through reading up on Sakura slightly i read the one in Tsubasa is actually a clone Clow Reed created but i havn't look to deep into it (cause i want to keep hope that Sakura's "sweetheart" Yūko mentions that she's living with is Tomoyo)

@Vogel612 there are some images one can find showing all the character relationships like one for the Nasuverse, however weather one exists or not for CLAMP is another thing. if not then one could just focus on the characters who appear multiple times in different series, ie. Clow Reed and Yūko

I can offer some details on Xxxholic, as I'm more familiar with that one than others, though I've also read all of Cardcaptor Sakura and the majority of Tsubasa REservoir Chronicle.
Spoilers ahead if you haven't read CCS, TRC or Xxxholic
Clow, who is deceased at the time of TRC and Xxxholic, is an ancestor of Sakura's (with no indication of how far back that is). Clow is sort of reincarnated in two characters in CCS, one of whom is Eriol (little kid with glasses who looks like a chibi Clow). The "original" Sakura and Syaoran, from CCS, grew up and married and apparently felt their son (I haven't seen any conclusive name, but he's a boy) was in danger, so they split him into "clones" (could be a bad translation) and sent each into different universes. Two that I know of are named Syaoran, and both show up in TRC. Watanuki from Xxxholic is a third. I don't know of any more, but I haven't read the entire CLAMPiverse and they're still writing. I can't draw a family tree here but if it were tipped on its side:
      Clow
        |
(unknown generations)
        |
     Sakura = Syaoran
            |
            |--------------------
            |                   |
       Watanuki          "Other Syaorans"

It's highly unlikely Clow and Yuuko had a child together. I get the impression she's quite old (her clothing, pipe and furnishings suggest late 19th century at the latest) but she seems not nearly as old and certainly not as powerful as Clow. Yuuko and Clow made Mokona (both of them) foreseeing they'd be needed for communication between Yuuko and the TSC main characters.
I hope this helps a bit.

Short Answer (Here's the Chart You're Looking For!)
The other answer is wrong; the Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura are not prominent characters in Tsubasa (though Sakura makes a cameo). Here's a picture to illustrate the familial relationships in Tsubasa and xxxHolic between the three Sakuras and four Syaorans who do appear:

Black lines are the obvious familial relationships, dotted blue lines are the clones, and the arrow green lines show reincarnation. Special note: I've used a normal black line to show Fujitaka adopting Fake Syaoran. This allows me to cover up the fact that I don't understand Fake Sakura's relationships, as I wouldn't know whether to use an adoption notation for her or not. As of right now, I am also uncertain whether the altered Clow Kingdom characters are actually the same as the original Clow Kingdom ones (There's complicated time travel stuff going on). See below for an explanation on the different Sakuras and Syaorans.
Long Answer (Some Complicated Explanations)
The Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura are not the same as any of the Sakuras and Syaorans who appear in Tsubasa. I know this for two reasons.

Cardcaptor Sakura Sakura does actually make a brief appearance in chapter 217, in which she gave up her staff to help her alternate reality counterpart (in the anime, she also appears as a phantom/hallucination in the Tokyo Revelations OVAs).
Backstory elements of the characters not matching up:

 The real Syaoran of Tsubasa is the son of the reincarnated fake Syaoran and fake Sakura. Fei-Wang Reed uses real Syaoran and real Sakura to create the fakes, the fakes die and are reincarnated in the past, creating a cycle. Real Sakura has the right parentage as her Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart, but she lives her life in the alternate reality of the Kingdom of Clow. This precludes the fakes or the real ones from being the Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura due to their parentage not matching up in Syaoran's case, or world in Sakura's. The reincarnated fake Sakura and fake Syaoran might be stronger contenders, having lived their lives in a world very similar to Cardcaptor Sakura (a modern Tokyo and Hong Kong), but they are shown to have met later in life than their Cardcaptor Sakura counterparts, when Sakura takes a school class trip to Hong Kong. Their physical appearance matches what they usually look like in Tsubasa, which means when they meet their age is around the same as we see them for most of the series; Fandom sites list this age as fourteen. In contrast, Syaoran and Sakura meet in grade school in Cardcaptor Sakura.

Having firmly established that the two main Sakuras and Syaorans of Tsubasa are alternate reality versions, I can also tell you that most of the characters from other series who appear are alternate reality versions (in fact, I'm 90% convinced Clamp never let the Tsubasa cast into any canonical version of their worlds, excluding xxxHolic, of course). I'll try to go through some characters and explain their place in the multiverse, but I can't go through them all, especially those from series I am not familiar with. Spoilers ahead. Since I think the Sakuras and Syaorans are where most of the confusion is going to be, I'm focusing on them, and I'm using some name designations I think will help.
Cardcaptor Sakura Sakura: Has only a minor role in Tsubasa, and no relation to the Sakuras in the story. Her parents are Fujitaka and Nadeshiko, she has a brother named Toya, and she lives in Tokyo.
Real Sakura: Daughter of Fujitaka and Nadeshiko in the Kingdom of Clow, sister to Toya. Her real name is Tsubasa (Don't ask me what that means. If it confuses you, you're better off with the more descriptive designation I've given her of "Real Sakura").
Fake Sakura: An image/clone Fei-Wang Reed created from Real Sakura. She lives in an altered Kingdom of Clow where Clow Reed is her father. She also has her brother Toya.
Reincarnated Fake Sakura: After Fake Sakura dies, she is reincarnated in the past, where she becomes the mother of Real Syaoran. In volume 24, Real Syaoran states that Real Sakura's mother looks just like his grandmother; thus we can be fairly certain Reincarnated Fake Sakura's parents are also Fujitaka and Nadeshiko, albeit alternate reality versions.
Cardcaptor Sakura Syaoran: Has no role in Tsubasa, as far as I'm aware.
Real Syaoran: He is the son of the Reincarnated Fake Syaoran and Reincarnated Fake Sakura. He lives in a modern world, but his parents send him to the Kingdom of Clow to meet Real Sakura. His real name is Tsubasa, but his father tells him to take his name when he sends him to the Kingdom of Clow (Unlike with Real Sakura, Real Syaoran's name being Tsubasa actually makes sense, given his father is already named Syaoran).
Watanuki (from xxxHolic): When Real Syaoran makes a wish to turn back time in order to save Real Sakura, Watanuki is born to take Real Syaoran's place as the son of Reincarnated Fake Sakura and Reincarnated Fake Syaoran, because that's apparently a consequence of messing with time. He is "another Syaoran". He resembles Clow Reed. And by the end of the series, due to all the wishing and time meddling, it is stated that he and Syaoran become two separate entities.
Fake Syaoran: An image created by Fei-Wang Reed from Real Syaoran. He is thrown into the altered Kingdom of Clow, where he meets Fake Sakura. He is initially adopted by Fujitaka, who is not Sakura's father in this Kingdom of Clow, since Clow Reed is.
Reincarnated Fake Syaoran: After Fake Syaoran dies, he is reincarnated in a more modern world, where he lives in Hong Kong. He meets Reincarnated Fake Sakura while she is on a class trip, and eventually the two of them become parents to the Real Syaoran.

Princess Tomoyo and President Tomoyo: Neither of these is the Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura. One is a princess in feudal Japan, and the other is the president of a company in Piffle World, a futuristic world.
Clow Reed: A version of him appears as the father of Fake Sakura in the past, however he is deceased when the story begins. I have no clue if any or all of the Clows are actually the same Clow Reed mentioned in Cardcaptor Sakura, and I don't think anyone else does either. There's nothing but a lot of speculation on that subject.
Yuko (xxxHolic): She is implied to be deeply connected to Clow Reed. When she was about to die, Clow made a wish to stop her from dying, and ended up stopping her time. Again, no idea if the Clow referred to in Tsubasa is the same as Cardcaptor Sakura.
Fei-Wang Reed: He is an image born as a personification of the wish Clow made to save Yuko.
King Ashura: Given that an alternate reality version of Chi from Chobits and Fai, an original character, are in his world, I suspect this is not the same King Ashura from RG Vega, though I have not read any of the series.
Piffle World Characters: Piffle world is unique, in the characters we see are all alternate reality counterparts to ones we've seen before (and those ones themselves mostly being alternate reality versions of real Clamp characters). Only the world-hopping Kyle turns out to be the one we saw before. I think Piffle World highlights the idea that, yes, these are all alternate reality characters, and not the actual characters from the original Clamp stories.
Fuu, Hikaru, and Umi: These are the classmates of Reincarnated Fake Sakura, who go on the class trip to Hong Kong with her. Magic Knight Rayearth takes place while they are in middle school, and Fandom sites list their ages as fourteen in Rayearth. Sicne Sakura supposedly is fourteen here, they are also fourteen, making their ages match that of Magic Knight Rayearth. In Magic Knight Rayearth they all attend different schools, but they're all on the same class trip here, so it is likely that these are alternate reality incarnations.
X Characters: X characters are featured prominently, often with multiple versions of the same characters appearing in other worlds, such as Piffle World, Oto, and the ruined Tokyo. Update: Having watched the X anime series, I am convinced that none of these characters are the originals. In X, Subaru and Kamui are not brothers, nor are they vampires, and Seishiro and Fuma are not brothers either.
Translator's notes in volume 15:

Clamp fans will recognize nearly all of [...] the Dragons of Heaven and Dragons of Earth from [...]  X (X/1999). However, fans will notice that the teams Kamui and Fuma are leading are reversed.

The other X characters don't seem to say anything about this development, so even though the apocalyptic setting is similar to X, these are all probably alternate reality versions.

The Reincarnated Fake Sakura and Syaoran do exist at the same time as the Fake Sakura and Fake Syaoran, for a long time, so I do feel it is necessary to list them as separate characters.

If the wiki is to be trusted, it seems the altered timeline Clow Kingdom characters really are the same characters.


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What are the relations between the level of power and abilities and the promotion of Pawn?
In chess, pawn can promote to any other chess piece except King and get all the corresponding abilities and power. Similarly, in High School DxD, when Pawn promotes, their power level increases and they get other abilities also. For example, when Issei got a direct hit from Yubelluna's attack, he was protected by the Queen Protection abilities.
Let's take Issei's promotion to Queen (Akeno) as an example.
Are the abilities and the increase in power level the same for all the Pawns regardless of the power and abilities of the actual Queen (Akeno), or do they depend on that of the Queen?
And if Issei is King of his pieces and promotes himself to Queen, gaining abilities and power from both King and Queen pieces, will he be more powerful than Akeno?

No, the ability doesn't depend on the Queen of the group. I forgot whether it was Rias herself, or Azazel-sensei that said that the stronger Issei is, the longer he can stay in promotion as the promotion takes its toll on his body. If the promotion depends on the power of the team's Queen, then there won't be any need for Issei to improve his physical strength.
In the light novel, it was explained that each piece has a value. Queen worth 9 pawn, Rook worth 5, Bishop and Knight 2. So, rather than the strength of the Queen, the promotion increases the strength according to those numbers, I think. Of course the improvement depends on which piece he's going to promote into.
For example, Knight is worth 2 Pawns, so the ability improvement is more or less 2x of his ability as Pawn. However, it is not distributed evenly. Most of it will be distributed to the Speed. Queen, being all-round piece, will get an even increment to all abilities.

Queen Protection is because of promotion or its akeno's power and according to your ans does it apply if it was not isse.

No, the ability doesn't depend on the Queen of the group. I think that's clear enough.

I can't be certain because I haven't read the source material nor am I sure that the author took this into consideration, but if I were to theorise I'd say power was more related to the sacred gear and number of peices consumed in the creation. By this I mean since Issei consumed 8 pawns his promotion to queen should be, hypothetically 8 times as strong as the promotion of a single pawn. I don't think the strength of his queen would impact this, but I cant tell for sure how powerful shed be in comparison. The other thing to consider is the sacred gear. Issei's Welsh dragon is inconsistent with its power, and thus he may be weaker than a normal queen on no stacks but stronger after some. I'm not sure what you mean by the king of peices thing.

would you try to elaborate a bit more and answer with different paragraph so it will help me to understand what you are trying to say

king of peices you mean last part of question.

Yeah, so essentially Issei consumed 8 pawns because of the nature of his sacred gear. Since the Welsh Dragon is such a powerful gear, it took all of Rias' pawns.
In chess terms, hypothetically 8 pawns can be promoted to make 8 queens, and it wouldn't be fair if each promotion was of equal power. Hence I believe that the power of said queen is directly proportional to the power of the pawn.
And yes, I'm not entirely sure what you mean in the last part of the question.

here issei is just for example as mentioned in question, i asking for general


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What was the purpose behind the personification of certain elements in The Wind Rises?
In The Wind Rises, certain elements of the story are personified. From the beginning, we see an earthquake and fire, both of which are given very humanlike sounds, as well as being shown very artistically (like the ground moving in waves instead of just shaking). Later, the planes in the movie are personified as well, their components and demonstrations being given very humanesque and biological sounds.

As Jiro and Honjo look around a plane in flight, an engine makes very gurgly sounds which are distinctly biological and not mechanical. Other planes do this as well, even in a scene which shows one of Jiro's designs as a conceptualization.
Obviously, the movie is very plane-centric and so the personification of the planes makes sense (to bring them to life). However, these other lifelike elements did not seem to fit into the more serious setting of this movie, compared to a movie like Ponyo.
What is the purpose of bringing these elements "to life" in The Wind Rises? And why was it these elements that were chosen?

Geoffrey Wexler, Studio Ghibli's "Chief Gaijin" who represented the company at the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. He answered an interesting fact about the sound production. He said Miyazaki wanted to do all the sound effects himself, but the staff denied him because he’s already too busy with all the other duties so someone else had to do it all. He also let it be known that the movie has Mono sound, which apparently no one ever believes but that's another thing Miyazaki wanted and won out on.

I don't have any sources so don't quote me on this (had to put as an answer cos I cannot comment on other posts...), but most, if not all, of the personification takes place within a dream state. Such as when he is talking to the designer from the other side of the world.

The following is more an interpretation of the film, rather than a solid source of undeniable truth. Because of this, there is unfortunately a lack of sources.
I believe Hayao Miyazaki could have insisted on this feature. @krazer's comment on your questions backs this up:

Geoffrey Wexler, Studio Ghibli's "Chief Gaijin" who represented the company at the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival  [...]  answered an interesting fact about the sound production. He said Miyazaki wanted to do all the sound effects himself, but the staff denied him because he’s already too busy with all the other duties so someone else had to do it all.
He also let it be known that the movie has Mono sound, which apparently no one ever believes but that's another thing Miyazaki wanted and won out on.

Miyazaki mentions in an interview that he has always wanted to make an anime about planes - and being his last movie before retirement, this was probably a very personal film.
Miyazaki is a plane fanatic, although not a plane otaku, as he emphasizes in the documentary Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. In the documentary, you can see him playing with a model plane and making up his own sound effects. His autobiographies Starting Point and Turning Point feature planes as a secondary interest to anime too.

I imagine Miyazaki wanted to create The Wind Rises with a certain element of nostaliga and insight into the appeal of aeroplanes for himself, and other plane fans.
The film is somewhat about the beauty of planes and their unfortunate setting. Caproni appears in Jiro's dreams speaking of their wonder, despite humanity's ill use of them.
In this vein, I think Miyazaki wanted to show audiences the splutterings, whirrings and ka-puts that make the machines beautiful for him, even if they didn't sit right with the tone of the film.

Just watched the movie and I tried to pay attention to where the realistic sound is replaced by  voice effects, and it seems like this mostly happens when the mood is supposed to be light-hearted, happy and dreamy. Planes are a child's dream for Jiro, and so he sees them (and certain events) as something childish and fun. Other people want to make those planes into weapons, and when the mood is not so light, more realistic sound effects come into play. But Jiro often finds himself in company of people who view planes as a realization of a blissful dream, and so we often hear these funny noises, reminding us that this is what his fun in life is really about.

While Miyazaki has never (to my knowledge) explained his thinking behind the 'personification' of inanimate objects in this film, he has spoken about the issue of 'anthropomorphism' in animation before. I think it not unreasonable to apply the discussion in Dani Cavallaro's "The Late Works of Hayao Miyazaki: A Critical Study, 2004-2013" (in relation to Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle and his collaborator Kazuo Oga's The Night of Taneyamagahara) to the representation of aeroplanes and the city in The Wind Rises:

"It is apposite, on this point, to appraise Miyazaki's own views on
  anthropomortphism. Miyazaki avers that depictions of both animals and
  fantastic creatures, such as dragons, are bound to be uninteresting as
  long as they capture featurs and expressions which make it easy for an
  audience to figure out without effort what is supposed to be going
  through their minds. "Something is far more likely to become an object
  of our longing," argues Miyazaki, "when we don't know what it is
  thinking. The more we humans anthropomorphize something and make it an
  easy target for empathy, the less interesting it becomes. From the
  beginning we seem to have a longing for a presence or a power that is
  far greater than ourselves and not easily understood, a presence
  beyond our current framework or whose origins are prehistoric." This
  yearning is "a memory repeated over and over from our ancestors" ...
  [There is a belief that] unless characteres somehow resemble humans,
  it is impossible to empathize with their situations and feelings.
  Miyazaki has never been interested in entities of this ilk. ... On the
  contrary, they embody that ungraspable "presence" or "power" for which
  humankind has been instinctively "longing" for time immemorial. ...
  one of the salient traits of the Japanese psyche is its tendency to
  perceive different dimensions as interpenetrating. "That the membrane
  between inner and outer or this and that world is paper thin" ...
  Likewise, the farmer's dream ... belongs at once to reality and to
  illusion. It articulates an impalpable fantasy, and yet it is endowed
  with the credibility of a lived event." (pp.38-40)

In this context, the visual design of the planes, locomotives and the city (especially during the earthquake scenes) and the use of human voices exclusively for their sound effects would be to convey the sense to the audience that these things are alive, have their own unique natures/personalities and their own 'lives', and yet are to some extent incomprehensible to us. This is consistent with Miyazaki's Shinto-inspired worldview about the vitality (i.e. the animate nature) of everything in the material universe, simultaneous with awareness of the profound mystery underlying it.


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Who is this person in Naruto Ch. 678 (spoiler)?

Who is this person that the current Mizukage is marrying?

I don't think it is any known character, or that it even matters.

@JNat Maybe Mangetsu?

The hairstyle does not seem to match, and I get the impression Mangetsu is shorter than that.

I have a pretty good idea on who this might be now. Let's see if anyone else can come to the same conclusion. We can also wait for the anime too to see his hair color :)

The character is unnamed and it really doesn't matter too.
The Fourth Mizukage's dream is to get married, and that's exactly what she got in her infinite dream.
She didn't really seem to have a preference of who to marry, but just to marry.

Every character in this chapter is a known character. Chances are, Mei is fantasizing about a known character too.

yeah i bet he is one of her supporter in Mizu Rebellion that died . . .


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Is Prelude to Paradise the same song as one of Hunter x Hunter (2011)'s soundtrack?
I recently listened to the song Prelude to Paradise by Immediate Music and I'm pretty sure that the beginning (until at least 00:45) is nearly exactly the same track as one of HxH's songs (OST 1 or 2). It's probably one of the Zoldyck Family's themes.
Am I wrong? If not, what song is it?
Finally, if I'm right, is there any link between those two? I'm pretty sure they are extremely similar (well, at least the beginning), but Prelude to Paradise came out more than 4 years ago....

Believe it was the Zoldyck Family theme Immediate Music - Prelude To Paradise. If I have some time ill look it up :)

I could not find an exact match to this song searching through the OST.
I will agree that it does seem familiar to the Zoldyck's Family Theme. At about 20 seconds into the Zoldyck theme, they sound very close but there is a difference.
As for the link, there is no real way to tell other than to ask the composer of Prelude to Paradise.

It kind of sounds like the Requiem during the Spider massacre.