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How could the four Hokage be reanimated by Orochimaru?
In Episode 264 of Naruto Shippuuden, Kabuto clearly states that the four Hokage can't be reanimated because their souls were sealed away in the Reaper Death Seal.
So how come Orochimaru can suddenly use the reanimation jutsu on them?
I kind of get the feeling that everyone just forgot that this shouldn't be allowed, or am I missing something that suddenly allows it?

Indeed Orochimaru could not reanimate the Hokages while their soul were not in the "Pure World", in other words, while they are sealed inside the Shinigami's stomach.
But at chapter 618, Orochimaru summoned and controled the Shinigami with the help of Shinigami's mask:

So he was able to remove the seal if he cuts his on stomach, using the technique: Dead Demon Consuming Seal: Release.

With the Hokage's souls relesead, he could reanimate them.
At Naruto Wiki, this technique is well explained:

This technique involves invoking the Shinigami using a mask from the
  Uzumaki Clan's Mask Storage Temple. From there, the summoner is
  possessed by the Shinigami allowing them control over it, they can
  then force it to cut its own stomach resulting in the release of the
  souls sealed inside. Due to the possession however, the same damage
  will reflect on the invoker's own body.
After the souls are released, however, persons are free to do as they
  please with the souls. Orochimaru used this technique to free the
souls of the Hokage along with that of his arms and then reincarnate
them.

I think you're referring to the fight between Sarutobi Hiruzen and Orochimaru, when Orochimaru resurrected 3 figures and Hiruzen stopped the summoning in Naruto episode 69 at around 15 minutes, and in page 18 and 19 of manga #117.
I think the story was alluding to the Yondaime Hokage, and it's probably another plot-hole. An alternative idea could be that it was some other character that we'll never uncover.


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Who are these two girl figures?
I am trying to identify these girls for a friend. Any lead would be most appreciated.

Welcome to the Anime/Manga SE. In the event that you suspect the figures might be from different sources, you should post two separate questions.

The first one looks like from Fortune Arterial. The second one I don't know, but definitely not from the same series. You should follow Maroon's advice and make a separate question.

yes 1st one is Erika sendou from Fortune Arterial and while asking try to add picture like the 1st one , where more detail are visible

You should check the figure (like on the bottom/base) for any markings such as the copyright. I will help in find details such as the maker or series.

As nhahtdh and mirroroftruth said, the first figure is Erika Sendou from Fortune Arterial. The piece of paper in the background appears to have the logo of Fortune Arterial on it, so you could have figured that one out by Googling for "Fortune Arterial".

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it does not include the minimum required information for identification. Please refer to our recent ruling on Image-based Identification request for more information http://meta.anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2736/image-only-id-request-cleanup?cb=1

As @Alchemist already pointed out the first figurine is Erika Sendou from the anime series Fortune Arterial.

The second figurine is a swimsuit version of the character Al Azif from the anime/game Kishin Houkou Demonbane.

The first one is Erika Sendou from Fortune Arterial.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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Where to continue after Berserk's movies?
A while back I have watched all three of the Berserk movies. Since I really enjoyed them, I decided to start watching the anime as well.
The anime, however, starts a while after the events in the movies since Guts already has his mark. Reading the Berserk wiki, it states that a lot of events are missing in the anime.
Now, since I especially care about Berserk's storyline, I was wondering if I should start watching the anime from start to end, jump in a few episodes of the anime to get the chronological order right, or skip the anime all together and just read the manga?

Related: http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/18397/how-to-start-the-berserk-manga-should-i-bother-with-chapters-000a-and-000b, http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/7335/how-much-of-the-berserk-storyline-do-the-anime-and-ova-cover and http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/6913/where-in-the-manga-does-the-anime-end.

If you're interested, there's a fan-made project that combines footage from both the anime and the movies into a four part package that delivers as close to the full story as possible. There's quite a lot of stuff in the story that neither the anime or the movies included, so once you watch them, it's recommended that you delve into the manga from the beginning.

@ʞɹɐzǝɹ Great, I shall look into that this afternoon.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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In what order should I read the Touhou Project manga?
After a little online search, I've found the following list, compiled from wikia and wiki (excluding the two short stories and including the two comics in the Artbooks section), of official Touhou Project manga related to ZUN's scenarios:

Eastern and Little Nature Deity
Strange and Bright Nature Deity
Oriental Sacred Place
Extra of the Wind
Memorizable Gensokyo
Silent Sinner in Blue
Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth
Wild and Horned Hermit
Forbidden Scrollery

In what order should I start reading these manga?

I've edited your question to include only the official manga, as fan comics of Touhou, as one might expect, are too numerous to list.

I heavily recommend reading the manga in release order, taking into consideration the release dates and plots of the official games. Most of the manga are standalone (with some exceptions) in the same way that the games are standalone to an extent, but keeping everything in line with game release dates will allow for better understanding of the plot context.
Note that the manga focusing on the three fairies are directly associated with the Great Fairy Wars game, and note that Kasen did not have her first appearance in a game until WaHH had been going on for quite a while.
In general however, feel free to read them in any order (aside from the ones that are direct sequels, etc). Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth for example is entirely made up of separate comics, and as long as you are familiar with the dynamic of the characters, it is an enjoyable experience.

I recommend reading the fairy saga manga while listening the CD music of them and then proceed to play Fairy Wars 12.8

Good point on the music. Definitely read with the music - that goes for the other manga with music tracks as well (SSiB and some others I think?)

In any way you like each stories revolve around individual incidents, there is no particular order to them, but if you really care about the time chronology.. I think its almost correct with exception of Wild and Horned Hermit events taking longer than Forbidden Scrollery, you must understand that most of the Fairies manga, Forbidden Scrollery and Wild and Horned hermit as well as Visionary fairies in a shrine happen in between at the same time line, these comics aren't sequels but rather concentrate on different view points and characters and are complementary both to themselves and the games but also concentrate on exclusive plot lines that nevertheless are cannon through them all, so there is no particular order for you to read them and is more like whose story you are interested in at the moment.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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What is the stance of Evangelion creators (Including but not limited to Hideaki Anno) on the "Death of Author" concept, regarding the series?
The Evangelion franchise is full of unknowns, most were never explained or given any "word of god" statement.
Some examples:

What Gendo whispered to Ritsuko after: "I truly... (muted)" to prompt her to answer: "Liar!"

What is real the motivation for Asuka to tell Shinji "気持ち悪い" at the ending of the End?

Hideaki Anno then made this statement:

We all have to find our own answers.

Can we truly say that they left these blanks intentionally?
What is the stance of Evangelion creators on the "Death of Author" concept, regarding the series?
Please use references.

In a week I will add a bounty on this question.

Doubt you'll ever find a specific quote about the series, the staff was mostly mum about answering questions about the series years after its release, but these days, the copyright holders are totally fine releasing supplimental materials everywhere (including the classified info from the NGE2 game), some of which strongly augment interpretation.

From what little I know of the matter, it seems that Anno does believe in "Death of the Author", even if he doesn't think of it that way, since he's always telling people to find their own interpretations instead of asking him for one. I suspect that in at least some of these cases, Anno did have his own interpretation which he chose not to share, while in other cases even he may not have known exactly what certain things meant.

@Torisuda yes, I browsed evageeks more than I would care to admit. I created this question to try and get a reputable post on the subject. That is why I am setting the bounty next week.

The answer to your question must be a resounding "Yes, as far as Shinseki Evangelion is concerned, Anno Hideaki and team are firmly in the 'Author is Dead' camp when it comes to explanations for the franchise." The broader context of the quote from Anno that you've provided in your question, goes into more detail:

Evangelion is like a puzzle, you know. Any person can see it and give
  his/her own answer. In other words, we’re offering viewers to think by
  themselves, so that each person can imagine his/her own world. We will
  never offer the answers, even in the theatrical version. As for many
  Evangelion viewers, they may expect us to provide the ‘all-about Eva’
  manuals, but there is no such thing. Don’t expect to get answers by
  someone. Don’t expect to be catered to all the time. We all have to
  find our own answers.”
  – Anno Hideaki

This is not really surprising, as it's the only stance consistent with the themes and aims of the franchise itself, being based as it is on the philosophical platform of 'postmodern existentialism.' In this schema, there is no such thing as 'objective meaning', only meanings constructed by each individual as a function of their own existence.


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Does the Bleach anime stick to the manga's plot?
Does the anime series of Bleach stick to the manga's plot? Or is it like the original Fullmetal Alchemist series where the anime is its own thing and doesn't follow the story of the manga?

The anime pretty much stick to the manga, except of course during the filler arcs. The filler arcs are the Bounto Arc, Third Squad New Captain Amagai Shuusuke, Zanpakutou Rebellion, and the Gotei 13 Invading Army arc. There are also occasionally filler episodes among the canon arcs. A detailed comparison is available on Bleach Wiki.

For the most part, the anime does stick to the content found in the manga. It does have a few filler arcs here and there and some slight changes, but for the most part it is the same. (For specific comparison episode-by-episode, you can head to the Bleach Wiki here.)
To cite your question, the reason why the Bleach anime sticks better to the manga than the original Fullmetal Alchemist is because of timing. The original Fullmetal Alchemist anime started shortly after the manga, and since it was faster to turn precreated content into a new format than it was to create new content, the anime quickly outpaced the manga and thus they had to start making up their own material in order to keep producing the show. The Bleach manga on the other hand, for a while it stayed about level with the anime. But at the end of the The Lost Substitute Shinigami arc (episode 366/chapters 476-479) the anime stopped airing (for more information on why, look at a previously asked question here). So as of that point, there is no more anime to stay with the manga. But the manga is still going, according to mangaupdates chapter 635 was just released on 7/15/15 by means of MangaStream.
So in review, yes. For the most part the anime does follow the manga... until the anime stopped.


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How did the Incubators start making Magical Girls?
The deal the Incubators make to girls is that by granting one wish that a girl desires they become a Magical Girl and fight Witches.
We know that Witches are in fact Magical Girls, so I am wondering how did the Incubators first start making the Magical Girls when there were no Witches to fight (as there were no Magical Girls to become Witches)?

Chicken and egg problem. Nice question.

@nhahtdh Presumably, the first magical girl had no witches to fight and as a result their soul gems would get tainted and they would turn into witches. The subsequent magical girls would presumably be more lucky.

Witches are not needed for the Incubators. Witches are needed for the survival of the magical girls. The Incubators could not care less about what happens to the magical girls as long as there are enough girls to turn into Puella Magis.
The sole purpose of the Incubators making Puella Magis is to generate energy. There would be no need to have witches.
Of course, there is another explanation. Familiars can form from Puella Magis before they turn into a witch. Since Familiars can become witches themselves, it's possible for the first Puella Magis to encounter witches.

This answer is somewhat speculative, but, I think, not completely off-base.
As Frosteeze's answer says, the Incubators don't really care at all about witches; the witches are sort of a nasty byproduct of the energy creation process, the same way that burning fossil fuels creates carbon emissions. If I recall correctly, the energy that the Incubators need is released as the magical girl becomes a witch, at the height of her despair. It doesn't matter to them that there's a witch left over afterwards.
We know the Incubators have no compunctions about hiding information from girls they make contracts with, so I always imagined the first magical girls were created in a scenario like the following:

The Incubators land in ancient Sumeria and find some young girls whose emotions are in turmoil. There was a lot for young girls to be in turmoil about in ancient Sumeria, so this was probably not hard.
The Incubators offer to grant the girls' wishes and give them magical powers.
The girls agree. They become magical girls, but there are no witches to fight, so they go off and become prophets or great warriors. This requires them to use magic, which causes their soul gems to cloud.
Eventually, these girls succumb to despair due to events in their own lives. This was probably quicker and easier to achieve in ancient Sumeria, where life was harder overall.
The first crop of magical girls become witches.
The next crop of magical girls kills off these witches and starts the whole cycle.

(We know the Incubators go back at least to ancient Egypt, since, as we discover in Episode 11, Cleopatra was a magical girl. And nothing about the scenario substantially changes if we assume it was in Egypt instead of Sumeria.)
The Incubators may not care about witches, but having the magical girls fight them is a useful thing for three reasons:

It makes the energy harvesting more sustainable. Witches kill people or cause them to kill themselves, as we see in Episodes 2 and 4. If the world gets overrun with witches, the number of potential magical girls reduces. The witches also seem to cause emotional disturbances that, if widespread enough, could discourage people from reproducing, reducing the number of potential magical girls in the world.
It speeds up the process of pushing the magical girls into despair, which also speeds up energy gathering. This is especially relevant in modern day. An ancient Sumerian girl might have her village razed by bandits once per fortnight; a modern Japanese girl's greatest worry is whether her allowance stretches far enough to buy new shoes.
It stops the girls from getting suspicious about the deal. As soon as a girl thinks "This is too good to be true", the Incubator mentions the requirement to fight witches. That's not the only caveat, but it's enough to make the deal sound more like a bargain and less like a trap.

At end of the series, Homura is in a world without witches, yet she is fighting Majuu. It is hinted that they are coagulated form of bad emotions. But unlike witches, they don't seem to grow that strong, being more numerous than witches. This can be seen in their "Grief cubes" being smaller but being more of them.
I would assume that first magical girls were fighting those same Majuu, but the moment they started turning into witches, the Majuu started disappearing, because Witches absorbed all the bad emotions, leaving nothing for Majuu to form from.

AFAIK, there is no requirement for making magical girls except the wish. The wish is a "requirement" for payment of the contract. Thus the very first occurrence only needed the wish. Perhaps subsequent girls have the added "benefit" of destroying witches, but the first one just needed a wish granted, and that could simply be how it started.


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What does the title of Cowboy Bebop's eighth episode—"Waltz for Venus"—mean?
I think you can have two (or possibly more) interpretations for this. One being a dance or music; the other being to accomplish something with little to no effort. Are these two interpretations correct or is it just the former that's correct?

As a note, I did recommend this question be asked here. It was originally asked (without context) on ELU. I've tried to cover the definitions in my answer over there but thought you all might have more insight into the specific episode, as I can't remember it very well.

I couldn't find a source that explicitly stated the meaning to the name of the episode. I agree with your interpretations with both of them fitting moments in the episode. So let's break down the episode:
"Waltz for Venus"
Venus is the setting for most of this episode so that fits just fine, the challenge is what the waltz stands for as. Stated on Merriam Webster the word Waltz can be a dance/music with a time signature of 3/4. This particular definition doesn't seem to have any real relevance to the episode, but if we take the whole timeframe in which Rocco Bonnaro is eluding Piccaro Calvino this could be considered a "dance".
The reason I say this because dance as a verb can mean to move quickly or nimbly. This is why sometimes in sports, for example American football, sometimes sports announcers will say a player "danced around the defense", meaning they eluded the defense. So I don't think it is that much a stretch to say Rocco was "dancing" away from Piccaro.
Another reference from the episode that can be used is when Spike and Faye take a commercial shuttle into Venus. They are doing this to catch some hijackers and defeat them very easily. This ties into the other definition of waltz being used as a verb and means to "to succeed at something easily".
Now this is in no way 100% the reason as to why the episode is titled this way but merely an interpretation as to why it could be.

"The Singing Sea," the song played by the music box, is in a compound meter. Without seeing the sheet music, my guess is 6/8 instead of 3/4. So, it's not really waltz music, but maybe the writers were just looking for another genre of music to use for an episode title.

@PaulRowe I looked up a score of "The Sining Sea" and its time signature is indeed  6/8


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What are the order of events between Fuka, Desco and Des-X?
In Disgaea 4 - A Promise Unforgotten/Revisted Fuka believes everything is a dream or nightmare. When she first meets Desco she recognizes her to be the one who attacked her and believes the dream/nightmare is a result of being knocked out.
When the Hades Party goes to Earth Fuka found out that Des-X was the one who killed her, and since Des-X looks the exact same as Desco it explains why Fuka thought it was Desco.
But before invading the Information Bureau Desco admits she never met Fuka before, yet from the moment she was released she knew who she was (wanting to demonstrate her power to her Big Sis) and it seems Desco had been sealed up for quite some time given the other inmates and Axel knew about her (so she hadn't just arrived).
What I would like to know is the order of events between Fuka, Desco and Des-X such as which came first, Desco being locked away in Hades or Fuka being killed? And also how Desco knew who Fuka was despite never seeing her before?

Desco was probably built with the image of Fuka in her mind from the get-go; she was intended to be her little sister after all. Plus, even if she wasn't, Genjuro (Fuka's dad) showed Desco photos and videos of Fuka as a little girl, so Desco knew roughly what her Big Sis looked like before meeting her in person. As for the order in which those events happened, it's hard to say, but I assume Des-X killed Fuka then defeated Desco, causing her to end up in Hades; otherwise Desco would have found and met Fuka before ending up in Hades.


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Why is it that the Skull Knight and Void are against each other?
In the manga, the Skull Night foils many of the God's Hand's plans, and also attempts to kill Void specifically. Why did the Skull Knight do these things? Is there a past between Void and the Skull Knight? And what are his intentions as far as killing Void?

The manga  hasn't revealed details about Skull Knight other than the hint that he once don the Berserker armor, has some relation with Flora, is enemy of Godhand and its followers, and was possibly the great king Gaiseric. A presumption has been given about the issue you raised: see the second point of trivia here.


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Which episode features Natsu joining Fairy Tail and Erza teaching him to write?
I know there was one episode where it says how Natsu joined Fairy Tail and then he found some mission and Erza started teaching him reading and writing, but I forgot which one it was....

I think you're referring to Episode 27. Also note that that was an anime only scene, and you aren't quite remembering it right. Natsu already knew how to read thanks to Igneel. Erza just expanded his vocabulary.


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What's the song they are playing before Kaneki sees the news reports in season 2, episode 9?
The track is played again at the end of the same episode when Kaneki is on the rooftop with Nishio and Tsukiyama.

The song is called Das zweite Kapitel, which, according to Google Translate, means "the second chapter" in German. It is track 26 from the first disc of Tokyo Ghoul Original Soundtrack.


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How can somebody have so many talents?
Somewhere around episode 7, we learned that the average power user has about 160 talents, and we were even introduced to someone with 215 talents (the diamond head guy).
But as far as I understood, you start out with 10 and lose one whenever you beat an innocent person and gain one when you beat a power user.
There are also only 100 participants. And to get 215 talents you would need to beat 205 people.
So is there another way to gain talents?


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What is this song that plays in Hunter x Hunter?
I can't find it anywhere, but it's played 3 separate times...

20:48 season 1 episode 26 "then x and x after"
16:44 season 2 episode 11 "ging x and x gon"
18:47 season 3 episode 10 "very x sharp x eye"

This might help other people identify soundtracks, it has a list of every soundtrack used in each episode with their timestamps: HxH 2011 OST list Source of the list

I don't have names but, the other guy covered it pretty much. These playlists would be to your liking most likely: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7636F65EA6C7228C, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeYG_GYxoQ&list=PL24ACDF1A713BEE0B
The ones that closely matched to the ones in query were:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jABvp01nr2E
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCgGDxHjqD4

The soundtrack isn't included in the original soundtrack CD, so it is unreleased, you can't search it by soundtrack name. This list shows you soundtracks included in every episodes. See ep. 37 because ep. 26 doesn't have a list (cuz it's a filler, doesn't include in either Blu-ray or DVD).

If you’re talking about the slow song that played with Gon and Aunt Mito, it’s the slow version of “Departure” in the intro of Hunter x Hunter. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/_WxStK8Puz0

The song is "JUST AWAKE" from "FEAR, and Loathing in Las Vegas".
Here a YouTube link.

Certainly not this. "Just Awake" is the ending song.


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In what episode of the anime does Natsu become a demon?
Just like the title says: in what episode of the anime does Natsu become a demon (E.N.D)? I was wondering if that even happened in the anime or only in the manga?

Sadly it has'nt been revealed yet , the anime is on TARTAROS ARC and it manga it focus Zeref's planning to have war (spoiler) It has'nt been released Natsu becoming END but still it has a long way to go for that part and too early for Natsu becoming END (I'm curious though)

[Spoilers] Episode 308.

The last episode of the Tartaros arc is where we learn that Natsu is E.N.D. Zeref is holding the Book of E.N.D. at the end of Episode 265 when he pronounces Natsu's full name: Etherious Natsu Dragneel.

However, after this, the anime went to Fairy Tail Zero material, which relates the backstory for Mavis, Zeref, and others.

The current Anime Episode is shortly after the Tartaros Arc.
Right now it is unknown to Natsu that he has something to do with any Demons inside of him.

Put simple, Natsu has not become a demon yet in any form of media. It has been revealed that he is END in both the manga and anime, but Even in the manga he has not transformed. It may never happen.

I'm pretty sure that the show wouldn't end without Natsu finding out that he is not only E.N.D, but that he is Zeref's Brother who passed away 400 years ago when they were only little kids. One person that should be included (if the show digs deeper into Natsu's background,) is Larcade Dragneel. I'm not really sure what his connection is with Natsu, although it would be a nice addition to the show and it would keep things interesting.

In the manga Natsu turns into his demon form in chapter 500 and it is revealed that he is E.N.D after his older brother(Zeref) reveals his full name: Etherious Natsu Dragneel at the end of the Tartaros arc. Although his demon form has not been revealed in the anime and Natsu has no clue about what he truly is but it is highly anticipated that it will show up...
eventually.


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What exactly is the deal with Black Blades?
Zoro recently (in the anime) unleashed an impressive torrent of attacks using Busoshoku (Armament) Haki infused blades. This was not all that surprising but his flashback was (to me).
Zoro flashed back to both his training with Dracule Mihawk and his fight with him in the Baratie arc. Mihawk's main blade, Yoru apparently, is clearly shown to be black throughout this fight and the flashback stresses the fact that it is the strongest Black Blade.  Yet, the episode seems to say that Black Blades refer to swords turning black when infused with Haki.  As Mihawk is the strongest swordsman, it seems guaranteed that the world's strongest "Black Blade" may or may not have anything to do with Yoru's color itself.
In addition, you can note that both replicas of Yoru we see (Mihawk's mini sword and the one wielded by the Mihawk-like monkey Zoro trained against) have silver blades.
This all leads to 3 closely inter-related questions:

Did I understand this right? Does "Black Blade" refer to the sword or the technique?
Did Mihawk use Haki on Zoro so early in the series?
Does Yoru (as we've seen it but in universe) look black, silver, or does it vary from person to person? What if Yoru is not wielded by Mihawk?

In chapter 937 which is quite recent, there is some strong indication that Black Blades may become black due to the swordsman's use of it rather than it being originally created that way.

Firstly, I would like to reply to this:

In addition, you can note that both replicas of Yuro we see (Mihawk's mini sword and the one wielded by the Mihawk-like monkey Zoro trained against) have silver blades.

Mihawk's pocket knife, also known as Kogatana is not a replica of Yoru:

It is an ordinary knife, so bland and small that Mihawk enjoys demonstrating his skill with it.

As for the Human Drill having the same sword as Mihawk, it was a filler. There is no mention of the Human Drills in the manga. Hence, it doesn't have much relevance to the story, and it's assumed that the sword carried by it is nothing but a replica.
From the One Piece Wiki page on Yoru:

The blade itself is pitch-black with a very strong sheen..

Some conclusive evidence in favor of this is:

It has been black since the start of the series when the blackening effect of Haki wasn't introduced
It is black even when it's on Mihawk's back
As you pointed out, if it were Haki, even Mihawk's short knife would have appeared black in color to the audience.
It's not the only black sword shown in the series. Zoro's Shusui is also shown to be black in color (and in this case, it's definitely not the Haki that makes it black).

Hence, I'm inclined to say that it refers to the sword rather than the  technique.

Based on this image:

It may have been clad in Haki even during the earliest part of the series, but I doubt that he actually used Haki against Zoro during their first fight, simply because he didn't have to. We saw him defeat Zoro using his short knife, so there was no need for him to actually worry about getting his sword nicked.
However, there's no conclusive evidence on this. It may have been clad in Haki or it may have not. I believe that it wasn't.

Yuro being a black sword appears black even in-universe. Tashigi even describes it as a Black Sword, although I don't seem to remember in which chapter. Not only that, the name of the sword is "Yoru", which means "Night" and can also be translated as "Black Sword".

For all we, the audience know, the black color we see when people use Haki, could potentially be there solely to inform the audience of when it is being used.  This is reinforced by the fact that we never saw the black color before the timeskip despite seeing powerful Haki used by various characters.  I, however, wouldn't be surprised if the black color of Haki was acknowledged by the characters in-world, proving that it was actually a thing.
"Black blade" refers to the sword, and yes the sword is black.  It is likely still black, even when Mihawk is not holding it, just like his coat is still red when he's not wearing it, etc.
I kinda doubt that Oda had thought about Haki at the time Zoro fought Mihawk, but It's almost a certainty that Oda would retroactively say "Yeah, that was Haki".


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Why are anime girls drawn without pubic hair?
Why are there no hair drawn down there or anywhere apart from FEMALE character's heads in anime?
I heard it was illegal from my friend. Were they making it up?

If you are referring to Hentai then it's not illegal to draw hair down at their private parts per se but from what my basic understanding is Japan does impose censors on genitalia in general and some H Doujin on websites get tagged as "Uncensored" but my source is unsure if this uncensoring is done by translation teams

Page 143 of "Geisha" by Liza Dalby, written in 1983, says that obscenity laws (of real-life photos) ban the depiction of pubic hair.

"How would the minimal censor bar appear on a girl?" seems irrelevant to the original question posed. Perhaps if this subject interests you asking a new question might be appropriate, however such a question is borderline and the community might close it.

@MichaelMcQuade My original question had nothing to do with a penis banana. I wanted a female example as well as a banana.

The banana provided by Toushinou Kyouko is an example of how mangaka's make their own interpretation of censorship. Edits to questions should be used for clarification purposes, not to change the original question. Changes to the original question invalidate current answers, that's why I recommended asking a new question.

Someone (the OP?) recently asked the same question of Answerman. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-12-28/.96983

@Torisuda I asked mine first.

I believe Japan's obscenity laws have some particular rules regarding pubic hair. Also, often hentai artists prefer a hairless body for their particular demographic / fetish / etc.
Up until the mid 1990s, pubic hair had to be censored in Japanese media. The law has been relaxed since, but as it had been common to do without hair, many artists continued with it.
Saying that, there are some hentai works that contain pubic hair - but whether they are complying with the law is another topic, as mangaka's regularly 'interpret' the law loosely. Such as opting for a very minimal censor bar:

A female version would be similarly censored to a minimal interpretation of the law. Unfortunately I don't have any appropriate pictures of fruit on hand.
Further Reading
An Overview of Censorship in Anime (This is my own article on the subject, broadly covering the topic)
"Obscenity, Pornography, and the Law in Japan:
Reconsidering Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses" (Heavier in content, but perhaps more specific for your question)

This has nothing to do with Japanese obscenity law afaik.

@senshin Perhaps it is not that particular law, but up until the mid 1990s, pubic hair had to be censored in Japanese media. The law has been relaxed since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Japan

Related: What are the anime censorship laws in Japan?

@Jen As krazr has mentioned elsewhere it's pretty broad and both context and artist dependant. Some artists use bars and vary on the styles/sizes used. The thing is, censorship is often hard to enforce with many artists being self-published, and the rules are vague enough as is, so there's no exact minimum - artists just try their luck.
(I can talk about this more on chat if you would like) http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/6697/maid-cafe-

Probably because it is faster to draw. There are a bunch of non-pornographic anime that show pubic hair, though.
Linked, since I'm not sure if you are allowed to post these images here.
In anime porn on the other hand pubic hair is not rare.


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Why don't anime seasons have a standard amount of episodes?
Anime seasons are generally 12/13 episodes long. There are quite a number of exceptions though, where more or fewer episodes are fitted into the same timeslots. Most notably, however, a season can have 11,12 or 13 episodes a season. I've seen this discrepancy occur regularly.
I would have thought that keeping the episode amount standard is good for keeping the seasons aligned — 52 weeks in a year / 4 seasons in a year = 13 episodes per season. The variant I see most is 12 episodes at a time or 12 episodes with a bonus DVD-only OVA. What do they do with the 1 week gap?
Do stations plan their seasons far enough in advance to make it even out overall? What if a show is cancelled?
Why does this anomaly exist? Surely it makes it awkward to schedule TV.

In my little experience, I noticed 12 episode long series rather than 13, just like you said before your edit

This seems to happen in most regions. The typical reasons I've seen given are:

shows don't all start on the same day or even the same week
sometimes airtime slots are occupied by sports, seasonal, or other non-regular programs
networks may choose not to broadcast new episodes on holidays with historically low viewership
shows are sometimes only given an awkward number of slots like SuperGirl here.

I would also hope that some studios choose to show more or less episodes to ensure they have the right pacing and tell the whole story without an obnoxious amount of filler.
I imagine networks know pretty far in advance what their lineup will look like. Pilot episodes or other proposal material is submitted to the network far in advance for them to review before agreeing to broadcast. It is also important to remember that a large portion of every day's slots belong to re-runs so cancellations just call for more of those.

Actually, anime airing is usually divided in 4 "seasons" each year, following the earth's seasons. TV schedules get defined only close to the start of next season, and usually there are shows which were supposed to air that won't or they might get delayed.
Also, most of the time shows don't start airing on the same day/week within a season, and might get a one-week break during the season (i.e. non-planned event on TV, holiday in Japan).
To answer your question, anime TV scheduling isn't done that much in advance, and is honestly a complicated mess. TV networks won't plan a year ahead because they still don't know which series they are going to air and when they will be ready, so having a different number of episodes per show doesn't really screw up their scheduling.

"A complicated mess" sounds much more realistic than "known far in advance"... :)

Correction: while the names of the anime airing seasons are named after the four seasons, the actual scheduling is much closer to fiscal quarters

As you say, there are enough weeks in a year for there to be four 13-episode parts. This is true, and each of these parts is a season. However, there aren't always exactly 13 days of each day of the week in season. For example, the summer 2016 season (July-September) will have 14 Saturdays.
As to why shows go for 12 or 13 episodes, it's generally something the anime production companies decide early on in creating an anime (a few months prior to the show airing). Different studios and shows will have their reasons, but either way, there we are. Unless we were there when the decision was made in some board room, we don't know why a show got 12 episodes over 13.
When the planned season where the show will be airing is about to start, the anime production companies will call the TV stations and ask for time slots. (Generally, TV stations themselves aren't involved in producing anime, only just putting them on TV.) For example, one will call to say "we want to air a show on Saturday nights at 24:30 for the next 12 Saturdays". Another will call asking "we want to air a show on Thursday nights at 24:00 for the next 13 Thursdays". Whether or not they get the slot depends entirely upon whether or not someone else took it yet (and if the price for the slot is worth it).
Anime TV scheduling is competitive, as is a number of things in the anime production world. Anime production companies will try to be as quick as they can about getting a TV slot, but it usually isn't until relatively close to the start of the anime season that TV stations get a full schedule figured out. TV stations can count on their slots being filled, though, with the wide amount of anime coming out each season nowadays (and they can always rely on reruns otherwise).
So, to sum it up, anime production companies know from early on how many episodes they want. How they decide that is dependent upon the show. When it comes to the TV stations, they just offer up the time slots, that's it. The anime companies take them as soon as they can, for as many nights as they want them.


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Name of the song in episode 11 of Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins)?
I am searching for the name of a song or soundtrack which plays in the background in episode 11 of Nanatsu no Taizai. It starts at 17:48. I have already searched through the whole Nanatsu no Taizai OST, but I couldn't find it, so if someone knows the name please let me know.

There are two OST CDs, did you check both? Otherwise it's also possible, it was never released.

yes i checked both but i didn't find it. And i thought every song that plays in the anime has to be in the ost...but maybe i am wrong..

No, not necessarily unfortunately. However, that doesn't mean this has to be the case here, maybe there are more albums not listed on vgmdb.

Did you ever find it? If not, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOHKyGrD_v8.
The name of the song is Kurai & Setsunai-4 Taizai (9雷&セ2内-4:罪), track 11 of The Seven Deadly Sins ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 2.


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What does Yuuma want to do on Earth?
I want to know what does Yuuma want to do on Earth. Wherever I see it, it's not full episodes so I couldn't see if he knew he was dying, or there are other reasons he came to Japan?

Yuma is a Neighbour form another world.
He comes to Earth (also named otherwise in the multiverse used in World Trigger) searching for a friend of his father.

as his father gives up his life to save Yuma, granting him a constant trion body and producing a black trigger at the same time, Yuma remembers his father speaking very fondly of a "friend" on Earth, which he helped to turn away other neighbours...

FYI, you can hide spoilers but putting ">!" before the appropriate section.

Yuma comes to Japan not only because his late father told him so

But also for his personal reason:

 He wants to resurrect his father

Sources: Volume 3 Chapter 18 & Chapter 20


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Is there an out-of-universe reason for the Gundam series mech head designs?
As I watch the shows I am constantly noticing the patterns in the head designs of the mobile suits.
Any true Gundam, or otherwise important mech, will always have two eyes and usually the V horns.
Any generic suit, or one belonging to a more shallow villain, will only have one eye.
Is this any kind of cultural reference?
EDIT
In Unicorn characters say that a mech becomes a Gundam when the horn opens into a V.  As if the V horns are something very specific.

This question is a bit broad. What are you basing this off of? Certain series might share a mech designer.

looking at the gundams here seem very similar to samurai helmets and one could see any human piloted mecha as giant futuristic samurai armour

According to Kunio Okawara, the mecha designer for the series:

"I also put the form of the chonmage, which is a form of Japanese traditional haircut worn by men, and kabuto, which is a type of helmet first used by ancient Japanese warriors, into the design of Gundam. They are my inspirations that are concealed behind the creation of Gundam."

the gundam head design is supposed to be a homage to samurai helmets: designed to intimidate opponents (which is why a lot of characters get scared seeing a gundam head).
prettymuch all gundam head designs have a V shaped antenna on the forhead (barring the turn A gundam, which reminds me of world war 1 german nobility/soldier); two vents on the moutpiece (barring zeta, exia, 00 Qan[t] and a few others); generally have white as the main colour, a red/black small beard, blue/green/yellow eyes, and a square element atop the head
quite bizzarely a lot of japanese car designers pay homage to gundam for their car design


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Who do I contact regarding rights licenses of specific manga/anime characters?
My company runs a card game in Europe, but we want to start including manga and anime characters. How would we start going about obtaining licences?
We want Akira, Fist of the North Star, Ako, Tank Police, Appleseed, etc.
It's just one image character per card. Does anyone have any details on doing this legally and respectfully, with links, etc?

I'm not that sure, but I think you should contact the publisher, which in case of for example Akira is 株式会社講談社, Kodansha LTD.

Note that you may run afoul of existing license agreements in some cases, if someone else in your region holds the appropriate license.  For example, the fact there's a Pokémon card game likely makes using any characters from that series more difficult.  Note that there's already a card game using characters from multiple series, at least here in Japan (possibly all from the same publisher), so don't be too surprised if the answer is "no".

We can't really help you with the process licensing (since we have no expertise on it, so it's off topic), but we can tell you who the primary IP holder are for their respective media.
Akira, Kodansha
Fist of the North Star, Shueisha
Project A-ko, Seishinsha, A.P.P.P.
Tank Police, Hakusensha
Appleseed, Kodansha
Essentially you'll have to contact the IP holder directly to work things out. You might be able to contact your local license holder to get the contact information of the IP holder. Additionally, if you can reach out to the series creators, they can better refer you to the right person.


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Why did the older Tetsujin brother become shorter in the anime?
I was reading about the characters of Arakawa Under the Bridge, hoping to learn some of their background stories. From there, I found out that the older Tetsujin brother grew younger later in the series.
I took a look to verify and found out that this was true, indeed.
In episode 2,

In episode 13,

Did this ever occur in the manga? Is there any explanation to this? Could this be some sort of hint about the show or perhaps just an animation flaw?

From my experience with Arakawa Under the Bridge (and it's been quite a bit of time), the two brothers (along with a number of other characters at Rec's welcoming party) don't get a proper introduction until later on in the first or second seasons.
I would say it was Shaft making an animation mistake, since the two of them weren't characters they were focusing on yet, so they could draw them without as much attention to detail/quality.
Perhaps it was something with the manga though; whether the author hadn't made a final decision on their appearances until later on, she just drew them like that for the time being. Shaft, for whatever reason, could've replicated this. (Part of me finds that unlikely because they would've received the characters' heights and such from the manga publishers by the time they started the anime, but part of me think it may be possible because it's Shaft lol.)
I could look through the manga and see what I could find, but right now, I'd say it was Shaft just making a mistake.


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Why weren't Hikari and Takeru with the 2nd generation Digi-destined in Digimon Tri?
In the beginning of episode 1 of Digimon Tri, we see glimpses of the second generation Digi-destined (Davis, Yolei, Cody and Ken; sorry I only know their English dubbed names) being destroyed by what looks like Alphamon.
Hikari and Takeru are technically also 2nd generation Digi-destined, so why weren't they with Davis and the rest when they confronted Alphamon?

Reduced to one question. Asking the other ones separately

Could you provide a link to the video clip?

Now that the last movie has been released, we learn that

 Daisuke and the second generation DigiDestined discovered Yggdrasil's plans quickly, and were quickly dispatched of at the orders of Himekawa.  As it turns out, Mr. Nishijima placed them in the Digital World at Himekawa's orders.

During the events of the final move, we learn that

 They are in the Digital World, in a life-support chamber room of sorts.  It is not entirely clear if they were on the verge of death, or if they were deliberately hidden there, but it is implied that they did sustain some physical injuries.  They are transmitted back to the real world as a dying act by Nishijima, since the room they were in blew up after they had been transmitted.

Unfortunately, they don't feature much at all during this movie series.

Hikari and Takeru are both 1st and 2nd generation Digi-destined, so they were probably with the former group while the latter group was destroyed by Alphamon. Otherwise, I'm not very sure, and it's a question that will be answered in the next few movies.


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What is the status of the Valvrave the Liberator English Dubs?
Since last licensed to Aniplex of North America, there has been only one English dubbed episode of Valvrave the Liberator. What is the current situation surrounding the English dubbed production of the anime? Will the entire series be completed? What is taking so long for the series to be completed?


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What are the real world locations for the Districts mentioned in From the New World?
Given that in the series, Tokyo is visited, I assumed that the districts mentioned have real world locations.
According to the Wikia Page,

Although Kamisu 66 is the only district that appears in the actual story, there are other district names known, such as Shiroishi 71 in a location called Tohoku, Tainai 84 in Hokuriku, and Koumi 95 in Chuubu.

so I tried plotting them on a Google Map (static image), but when I tried and search for Tohoku, Hokuriku and Chuubu I didn't get a single place/prefecture to be confident that it is the district, and Shiroishi 71 to me seems a bit too close to Tokyo.
So I am wondering: what are the real world locations of the districts?
NOTE: I won't be allowing people to edit the map I have linked to as I have and plan to add other points which only are useful to myself. You can use Google My Maps to plot out the locations for your answer if it helps.

See this answer for additional details. You also need to grant permission to the map.


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Why would Hinata leave Naruto in 'The Last'?
In Naruto: The Last, why did Hinata leave Naruto for Toneri? Just when Naruto was beginning to develop feelings for her, too. I don't get it.

have you seen the entire movie? remember that Naruto: The Last is set before Chapter 700 of the Manga, before Hinata and Naruto have their children Boruto and Himawari. Hinata leaving Naruto, at least to my understanding (having not seen the movie myself, going off the wiki), was to help Hanabe as Toneri agreed to spare her and the eventual return of her Byakugan if Hinata accepted his marriage proposal.

Hmm, I dont know, But it is probably to save her sister and learn what Toneri plans to do in the future,

Hinata chose to left Naruto and went with Toneri because..

Hinata and the others doesn't know where Toneri's castle in which Hanabi is in.
She did that to save her sister.
And to learn what other future plans Toneri intends to do.


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How are weapons formed?
I will try to make this brief. I know Soul Eater ended ages ago and I just started watching it. I'm at season 3. I'm just curious about how they become weapons? I know that one is born as a weapon, but what happens physically? I might be overthinking it, but I am just curious.

What do you mean by Season 3? to my understanding there are only 2 Seasons indicated by the change of Opening

The so called weapons are a artificial race, created due to inhumane human/witch experimentation. We do not know how the actual physical transformation happens. Nor how the experimentation ultimatetly led to this race
These experiments known to create these weapons was originally discovered by Eibon and Death, whilst trying to find a way to create peace between the humans and the witches. Due to the inhumane practices required to create such demon weapons they decided to lock the exact steps away.
But as you learn later on in the story as well. Arachnid, with her spiders, managed to obtain this information, and started her own experimentation. Ultimatly leading to the race currently known as Demon Weapons

The ´weapons´ Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics
This particular race came to be 800 years before the start of the series, during the time Eibon and Death sought a way to create peace between humans and witches.
Inspired by the Great Old one (Excalibur) they decided to start human experimentation to create something similar. They managed to find out that by killing a witch and extracting a soul they could create a demon weapon.
Due to the inhumanity they sealed away the instructions for doing so. Yet Arachne using her spiders managed to oversee this, and started her own experimentation. Leading her to combining a weapon, and a witches soul. This concluded in a new 'race' now known as the 'demon weapons' or weapons for short. Or as we known them, the humans transforming into weapons. - SE Wiki

Excalibur is a Great old one? well it certainly explains why he keeps calling us "Fools!"

Important to note that, by taking the spin off "Soul Eater NOT" in account, the experiment unlocked the weapon potential in humanity, be it by genes or magic.
So people that have the ability to become weapons seem to awaken during their childhood and adolescence.


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Why is Bertolt's Titan form so much bigger than the other Titan Shifters?
Bertolt's Titan form is unusually big, approaching nearly 50 meters. Was there any particular reason given for why it is so large in comparison to the rest?

The humans become Titans through the use of an injected medicine, and the Titan form they take is due to the type of medicine injected. Therefore, it can be deduced Bertolt Hoover got an injection that gave him the gigantic form.
Case evidence is Rod Reiss, who became a Titan that is even bigger than Bertolt after he licked the spilled injection that he was trying to give to Historia.

Compared to the wall, you can see that Rod Reiss became even bigger than Bertolt's Titan form.

We also have Eren as case evidence, who originally was incapable of hardening, but gained that ability after drinking a bottle that had the word "Armour" on it. The bottle was from Rod Reiss's bag that contained several vials of injection that could make a human a Titan Shifter and even all had labels so it therefore can be said that the Titan form a person takes is based on the type of Medicine and it can even be augmented by consuming other types of Medicine.

Yeah its not from medicine you prob know this now but its from the titan shifter powers originating from the first titan Frieda or howecer her names spelt which was split into 7 different types, hell based on the images from the manga you used you should def have already known its not from medicine


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What's the name of the song that played in the last few minutes of episode 13 of Charlotte?
It's towards the end of the episode, something about Sinking Ships but I can't find the song.

「君の文字」 Kimi no Moji "Your Glyphs", sung by Kumaki Anri. It ought to be out as part of the OST on 4 Nov 2015.
"Sinking Ships" is the one that starts at around 12:50 into the episode.


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Which manga chapter of Natsume Yuujinchou has a mask youkai that possesses people?
Which chapter was the chapter where Natsume pretends to be Matoba's blind shiki so that he can feel people's faces and determine whether they are being possessed by a youkai?
From my memory, the youkai was a mask that attached itself to people or something...

Manga chapter 53-54. Anime season 5 (Natsume Yuujinchou Go) episode 4.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Why is it stated arbiters don't feel human emotions?
Decim shows empathy. Ginty is angry with the choice the fangirl he judges makes. The rest of the arbiters show human emotions, too. So why does a rule say they don't have human emotions because they're dummies?

They're not dummies though. If I'm not mistaken, they're something like angels/demons but for the neutral limbo realm. They can't control their emotions 100% and do selfish things sometimes, keep secrets from each other, form alliances, etc. So that rule is there to govern their work of sorting dead people out, but it doesn't mean it can't be broken.

If it is simply a rule why isnt it enforced? It seemed to me everybody was shocked Decim would be able to hve human emotions

Who's gonna enforce it? The old guy? It looks like there's no real enforcement there. I'm not sure I remember them discussing a mechanism for firing the "bad employees".

Thats a good one


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How did Zeref "Black Wizard" get cursed?
How did Zeref get cursed? Some people think it was Mard Geer. I'm so sorry to trample on that thesis, but Zeref created Mard Geer and it is said that E.N.D, I mean Natsu, is the strongest demon who so happens to be Zeref's brother.
I was thinking that maybe Natsu cursed Zeref, but Natsu was out searching the world for his foster parent Igneel, right? Then I thought maybe Mavis cursed him? Not true either, because in the little flashback, Zeref already had the Death curse when he met Mavis and Mavis is way too sweet! Yeah some of you may be thinking "Mavis is the Fairy Tatican and she has won many wars" but I'm a Zervis shipper, sorry!
Then that had me thinking: does anybody remember that crucial detail (it happened fast but not fast enough) that Zeref 'lived' with all the monks, so maybe they cursed him? So then I did my research and some monks are, umm I don't wanna type evil, umm BAD. Most of the monks back then worshipped god. I watched a lot of religous anime! So that was soon to be proven wrong.
Yep, I can't answer my own question. I wonder if Hiro Mashima wanted us to think this?

Related: Who cursed poor Zeref?

Zeref experimented on forbidden magic which gave him the Contradictory Curse. So the more he values life, the more uncontrollable his power becomes. And when he doesn't value life, the less destructive he gets.
The same curse happened with Mavis who also used the forbidden magic. So basically anyone who experiments or conducts black magic is automatically cursed with the Contradictory Curse.

Arigato Mr! Why didn't I think of that dang it but Arigato x 10!

As Richard Thomas said, Zeref was researching and experimenting with forbidden magic in order to resurrect Natsu. It was this research that angered Ankhseram, the god that (as far as I am aware) the monks were worshiping. It was Ankhseram who is said to have cursed Zeref with the curse of contradictions, which is also known as Ankhseram Black Magic. This is stated in chapter 436 of the manga.


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Did the following characters of Gotei 13 make it alive?
Did ...

Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihōin

survive the Thousand Year Blood War Arc?
The manga did not mention anything about them in the last chapter. They are both very important characters to the Bleach universe.
I am wondering if there were any subtle hints left by the author of Bleach  manga, Tite Kubo, to assert their death (or survival) in anyway.

The conclusion didn't conclude quite a lot of things.  I've not heard of any indication of that being rectified, but possibly there will be a data book or something.

Urahara's status is unknown; however it is safe to presume he is dead. During his fight with Askin, although he defeats Askin (with a little help from Grimmjow), he collapses at the end and says that he apologizes for leaving. everything to Ichigo and Rukia.
Yoruichi is also unknown; after Askin activates his Vollstandig and approaches both of them, she does not appear after that. Her drug was wearing off, but Kubo did not reference back to her after that. With her, it isn't safe to assume her death or survival.

Though we do know that Nel was going to try and Rescue them.

@Ryan, yes, but I doubt Nel would be enough to overpower Askin.

Though, Askin was kind of already dead by then, you know, heart ripped out and everything. Nel just needed to pick them up and carry them out, in an unspecified but short period of time, through a small hole.

In the light novel WE DO knot ALWAYS LOVE YOU, it is shown that Yoruichi Shihoin

 has become an instructor in the Soul Reaper Academy. While I forgot about Kisuke but he is alive as well.

As for Grimmjow and Nelliel, as shown in the novel Can't Fear Your Own World,

 they are shown to be alive and well. They also unlock a power beyond that of Resurreccion.


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What is the background on this painting that appears in both Angel Beats! and Charlotte?
It is well known that Charlotte is the second anime created by Key in collaboration with P.A.Works, the first being Angel Beats!. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Charlotte makes passing references to Angel Beats!, most of which can be found in episode 7.
This is the scene at 08:19 of episode 10 of Charlotte:

The painting behind the school principal is the same as the painting hanging in the Anti-Angel Headquarters in Angel Beats!.
This piqued my interest: has this painting appeared in any other fictional work? Is it based on a real-world painting, or is it an original created specifically for the anime? What is the title of the painting and what does it depict? Basically any background information about the painting is much appreciated.


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Who is Mizuki Kusanagi's father?
Mizuki Kusanagi is Suito Kusanagi's daugher who is about to outgrow her soon.
At first I thought her father would be Kurita Jinroh. However he only arrived at the base 7 months prior to the start of the movie. Does this mean:

Suito Kusanagi has been alive since Mizuki was born? And the father is unknown?
Mizuki grows very fast?


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How was it SHIKI saved Shiki?
In Kara no Kyoukai 4: The Hollow Shrine when Ryougi Shiki is in a coma after throwing herself in front of a truck, her other persona, SHIKI, seems to trade places with Shiki as she's falling. It's later revealed by Touko that SHIKI gave his life to save Shiki.
So how was it SHIKI saved Shiki while she was in a coma? What was happening to Shiki that would allow SHIKI to trade places and cease to exist?

From the novel, the doctor said that Shiki jumped the instant before the collision, so there wasn't much physical injury. The head experienced some collision thus put her into a coma. Aozaki also states later that SHIKI died spiritually.
From the narrative it seemed that SHIKI died during the collision.
At the end of the chapter, Shiki herself states that SHIKI probably died in a suicidal sense, because he wanted to avoid himself harming Kokutō.


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What's the song in Tokyo Ghoul when Tsukiyama tries to stop Kaneki?
It's also played when Anteiku is on fire and Touka runs to Kaneki. Please help, I've been looking for so long.

have you tried music recognition apps? What about anime's soundtrack listing?

@Hakase I have to ask, though - have you ever had success using a music recognition app to identify something off an anime's soundtrack? OPs/EDs generally work pretty well, but I've never had any luck with instrumental pieces.

@senshin Never tried it, I'm just putting out any available options I can think of. We should probably make a go-to list of things to try.

Pretty sure it was an acoustic version of Unravel, season 1's OP.

Song ON MY OWN
by Yutaka Yamada


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Is there a connection between the Sephirot and Tales of the Abyss?
While I was playing Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3, I was doing an extra lesson on the tarot and Mr Edogawa started talking about the Sephirot. He then went and mentioned one of its branches and I recognized three from Tales of the Abyss:

Malkuth => the Malkuth Empire which opposes the Kindom of Kimlasca
Hod => the country that Guy and Mary came from that was destroyed in the previous war
Chokhmah => as in Grand Chokhmah being the capital of the Malkuth Empire

There was also the fact that Sephirot can be transliterated to English as Sephiroth, which is the name of the tree that keeps the world up and out of the Qliphoth.
This got me wondering: is there a connection between the Sephirot and Tales of the Abyss? Or are all of these just coincidences?

I believe, there is no real connection at all. Simply usage of some known names, which happens always and everywhere. So, connection between Sephirot and Tales of the Abyss is very same to connection between Final Fantasy VII and Norse mythology because of name of town Nibelheim.

Sephiroth in Tales of the Abyss.(TotA) is the name of the stream of energy that supports the upper world. In TotA, the lower world was filled with Miasma so they build a world above it and migrated there. Sephiroth is the collective name of the pillars that branches out to support the above land.
You can read more about Tales of the Abyss' Sephiroth here.


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What is the main purpose of Portgas D. Ace's death?
I want to know what turn of events did it take by the death of Portgas D. Ace in One Piece. I don't seem to understand.

did you mean the effect to the main story after Ace death?

yes I believe it should mean something

How far you read manga or watch anime?

Not far Up to where they escape from the port after aces death also where shanks appear and stop the war

Well, I think you should read or watch until the latest chapter, so you can understand, but I will post an answer soon

Ok if that would explain everything

Out of universe reason: the capture and death of Ace seems to setup the War of the Best and ensure that Luffy unequivocally lost it. This moment of loss is like "The Ordeal" in "The Hero's Journey".  Think the Empire Strikes Back for Luke.  By having the main character lose and recover, it deepens the character and makes what comes next more meaningful.
This arc is analogous to the Loguetown arc.  Both arcs are the last ones in their particular sea before the short arc to enter the new one, reintroduce characters from earlier in that sea, and introduces some characters who will be important in the future. More importantly, they show some characters who are so overpowered compared to Luffy it is hard to see how he will beat them and has Luffy lose that fight. This shows Luffy needs to get stronger in the next sea quickly or he will die.
In Loguetown, Luffy is the one on the exection platform. He has to be saved by his daddy, loses a fight to an enemy he can't lay a finger on, and runs away. He even needed help to run away.  This teaches the audience that the Grand Line will be far harder than the East Blue.
In the War of the Best, it is worse.  Luffy plays the role of the lightning bolt to release Ace from the Execution platform but is proven to be no where near strong enough to protect Ace. Even to get that far Luffy needed the help of strangers. This clearly shows the audience what the new World will be like.  It also motivates Luffy to get stronger...once he recovers his composure.

So far, as I remember, Ace death are impact to some event on One Piece time line.

 -From this, It's revealed about Luffy's backstory about how he met and began his brotherhood with Ace is shown.

 -Luffy and Ace's foster mother is revealed to be Curly Dadan.

 -In the flashback, his second brother Sabo who is presumed deceased is shown.

 -In the flashback, Sabo's parents adopt another boy in the case Sabo would fail named Stelly who, as revealed in the Totto Land Arc is now the King of the Goa Kingdom.

 -The S crossed out on Ace's arm is not an error but a homage to Sabo.

 -During this flashback, Bartholomew Kuma is seen with Dragon and Ivankov as a revolutionary.

 -Sabo's talk with Dragon would foreshadow his return in the Dressrosa Arc and his involvement with the Revolutionary Army.

And also from this,

 -Ace is killed by Admiral Akainu, the third admiral to be introduced, which causes Luffy to fall into a coma until he recovers in Post-War Arc. Before his death, Ace mentioned Sabo, who is introduced in the flashbacks Luffy has after he awakes, and later plays a major role in the story.

 -As revealed in the Dressrosa Arc, Ace's death would have an effect on Sabo who unknown to both Ace and Luffy at the time was still alive. As a result this helps Sabo recover his memories after being stricken with amnesia for ten years. It is also the reason why he is so determined to protect Luffy so he would not have to lose another "sworn brother".

 -After Ace dies, Whitebeard predicts that someone will "come to inherit his will". This prediction later comes true as Sabo eats Ace's Devil Fruit after he dies and specifically voices his desire to inherit the late pirate's will, mirroring Whitebeard's prediction exactly.

 -Ace's death would cause his Devil Fruit, the Mera Mera no Mi, to resurface later and be in the possession of Donquixote Doflamingo in the Dressrosa Arc as a means to lure Luffy to him.

 -Because of Blackbeard murdering Whitebeard, the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates would later fight the Blackbeard Pirates one year after the war at Marineford. The Whitebeard Pirates suffered a complete defeat and have not been seen since.

Please someone add some spoiler alert, I don't know how to used spoiler tag on the phone :D


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Are Hollows defeated by humans who are not Quincies considered as destroyed or "purified"?
If I remember correctly, Shinigami are "purifying" Hollows with Zanpakuto, cleansing souls and sending them to Soul Society (not counting cases when souls are going to Hell). And regarding Quincy, it was said that the main conflict between Quincies and Shinigami was that, unlike Shinigami, Quincies were destroying souls when killing Hollows, which was bad for balance.
In series, it was shown numerous times that Hollows can also be defeated by humans having certain abilities, for example, Yasutora Sado, Orihime Inoue, Hanakari Jinta, etc. So, what happens with Hollow soul in this case? Is it exorcised, or destroyed, just like by Quincy hand?

just going off the animations in the anime when Chad, Orihime and the Non-Soul Reapers of the Urahara Shoop kill a Hollow the Hollow vanishes the same way it does when a Soul Reaper kill it (from the bottom up). when we see a Quincy kill one there is a slightly different animation in which the Hollow vanishes (outward from where the last Arrow hit and there's a small light in the center plus white particles). could be an indication

I still consider that only way to purify a soul is by a zanpakto. Even kidou would destroy a soul, the same way as a Quincy. Only reason why Shinigami would use zanpakto instead of a cool ranged laser attack to destroy a hollow.

This was actually answered in one of the episodes.
There needs to be a balance between people dying and souls going into Soul Society and Quincy's were disrupting that balance by erasing the souls altogether instead of cleansing them.
This disruption took such proportions that soul reapers and quincy's went to war.
It seems to follow that, since shinigami are apparantly the only ones actually sending the soul somewhere, all other forms of combating Hollows will result in the destruction of the soul, rather than the relocation of it.
I do not have an episode number but I do have a backup source:
http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Quincy
See chapter 3.2 Fall of the Quincy for more info.

If killed by a Soul Reaper they go to Soul Society if they were actually good, so only the bad ones go to Hell. Quincy destroy them completely. Humans just kill them and send them to Hell. Only Soul Reapers purify them.

Not a source, but I watched all episodes of Bleach and finished the manga. At one point they are talking about how Chad's or Orihime's powers are special. Chad said something about his spiritual pressure doing something when he went to Hueco Mundo, and Hachigan was a Soul Reaper/Vizard with Orihime's power.
Captain Kurotsuchi also said it when he realized the Quincy were invading.

Is there any source to back-up your answer?

All things considered, this answer is correct.  Just adding the episode information would make is verifiable, and an edit for grammar would make it good.

They would be destroyed, chad is closer to a hollows, and a soul reapers zanpaktou is meant to purify/condemn hollows.  Ex.  Other groups, either absorb the people, and the world around them in soul society, are Quincy, or just have a different specification.  They never mention ichigos friends purifying them, as far as I am aware, so it's either a plot hole, or they die.  Since, in usual cases, they have soul reaper assigned to the area, it would be reasonable to liken them to a Quincy.


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Did Obito let Kakashi win?
So, during Obito and Kakashi's fight in the Kamui dimension, Obito gets a hole in his chest. After watching the episode, most of the viewers commented that Obito "was defeated" even though he had the Rinnegan. But wasn't it because Obito "let" Kakashi win to undo Madara's Seal (as we see in chapter 675, Obito gets to know about the seal and wishes to undo it) and become the Ten Tails Jinchuuriki? Also, I wanted to know that would Kakashi (a non-Uchiha and a non-Senju) have been able to actually defeat Obito? Because during their fight, Obito didn't use Izanagi or even one Rinnegan ability (even though, just moments later, he seals the Ten Tails inside him with the Rinnegan). I am compelled to say this, but Obito's abilities are no joke.
Please provide a convincing answer to explain exactly what happened during the fight and what would've happened if Obito was really serious.

Yes, he did. Though it was not completely intentional. Specifically, he need a hole through his heart, because Madara placed a Seal on his heart, which he planned on using to control him. Obito later noted that he could not become the 10-tailed Jinchuriki because of that Seal. So Obito forced Kakashi to use his Raikiri to pierce his heart, destroying the seal. However, it was not a simple, let him do it kind of deal.
The Wiki unfortunately leaves out most of these details, but the Curse Mark's Entry on the Wiki has some of them, it is called The Forbidden Individual Cursed Tag. It forced Obito to not betray Madara, so in that respect, Obito could not just let it happen. However, he could indirectly let it happen, by forcing it, and otherwise weakening himself so that he could not stop it. In the Kamui Dimension, he could not use his intangibility, which would have been his main and possibly only solid defense against Raikiri. He also restricted his Chakra usage, saving it for future battles in the war, rather than using it to win against Kakashi, as he used almost no ninjutsu, and almost no Rinnegan techniques.

Obito does NOT have the same abilities as Pain. The only Rinnegan ability Obito has is to summon the Gedo statue. This, him having only one eye Rinnegan, he mentioned he doesn't have enough chakra to have both.
Secondly, in the fight between Obito vs Kakashi, they both were somewhat holding back until the end. Kakashi decided there was no reason with Obito to come back to the Leaf, so his Chidori was to kill Obito. Obito was seriously fighting but not to kill, and he saw an opening to kill Kakashi and still had his seal broken and he took it, but his rod wasn't enough to kill, and Obito didn't think Kakashi's Chidori almost kill him.

Obito definitely let Kakashi win because once he got the Rinnegan, he could use all the powers that Pain had, and Kakashi DIED after defeating only one Pain.

Yes, that is true, though it is a weak explanation...

Of course he did. Obito is an Uchiha, so he possesses the Sharingan, and he even got the Rinnegan from Nagato. By the end of Shippuden, it's basically: Kurama, Sharingan, or you're weak.


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Why are some Titan Shifters able to harden their Titan bodies when most can't?
How can the Armored Titan and Annie in the Titan form harden their bodies, while Eren and the other Titan Shifters can't?

It appears that you're asking two different questions (one about Annie, and one about Eren); if so, it's best to split those up into separate posts.

Why should they all have the same ability? Also, Eren can harden his body. He use that to plug the hole in the wall that I forget what the name is.

I think the question is narrow enough now, please reopen it.

The fact that Annie can harden her Titan form and Eren couldn't is because there are different types of Titan power in existence.
The complete explanation is as below.
Massive Spoiler Alert

 In the manga it is later revealed that all Titan powers came from Ymir Fritz, an ancient Fritz family monarch. According to Eldian mythology, over 1,820 years ago, Ymir came across what is only described as the "source of all organic material". With this discovery, Ymir gained the power of the Titans, becoming the 'Progenitor of all Titans'.

 After 13 years Ymir met her death, and her "soul" was split between nine successors, giving these nine Titan powers. Throughout history, these powers are inherited by the 'Eldians' or the 'Subjects of Ymir'.

 The Titan power that Eren possesses is called the 'Attack Titan'(進撃の巨人 Shingeki no Kyojin). The names of powers of other Titan Shifters is not yet revealed but they are also among the nine.

 This the reason that the Titan Shifters possess different powers.

Sources

Ymir Fritz
Eren Yeager

If you aren't aware, the name of Eren's titan is a namedrop for the Japanesr name of the series. The localization did not make it make note of the significance. I. E., Eren is literally the "Shingeki no Kyojin".


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Were there more than two Death Notes?
I am watching the anime right now and can't understand this part of the plot:
there were two notebooks out of which one had been returned to the Shinigami that came to Ryuk to get his notebook back. That leaves one which was with T as he was doing Kira's killings. Now suddenly that notebook reaches Light Yagami and his team locked in a safe. How did that happen?

There were 4 Deathnotes in the real world. Ryuk has 2, Rem has 1 and another of Rem's friend who died to save Misa. Rem gave that Notebook to Misa.
At the beginning of the story, Ryuk gives his additional notebook to Light. Meanwhile after L's death Light got another notebook which was Rem's since Rem also died.
Mello stole one of the Notebooks for which the shinigami came and is supposedly the one originally dropped by Ryuk to be picked up by Light. This still leaves Rem's notebook in Light's possesion and Misa's with her.
TL;DR Humans in the series use 3 Notebooks. Sidoh's orginal which he took back. Jealous's original which Rem gave to Misa and Rem's Notebook which Light picked up after he/she disintegrated.

Every Shinigami holds a death note, so yes, multiple death notes have been used throughout the series.


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Why is Law unable to use Shambles against Doflamingo and simply drown him in the ocean?
He could've simply replaced a fish in the ocean for Doflamingo. Unless I've missed something.

Being the DF's weakness, I wouldn't be surprised if Law has no control of anything underwater.

If I am not wrong, Shambles is nothing but a technique which interchanges positions of two objects! DF can operate on almost anything in the world, but as we know its weakness is sea and sea related things like Sea Stone. Your power becomes null when you interact with the sea. Pushing Doflamingo into the sea will require pulling out some sea water and exchanging its position with Doffy, which clearly is not possible. Think about it: the guy Señor Pink has the ability to swim anywhere and the irony is he can't swim in the sea.

Then how did Aokiji froze the sea ? How could Luffy use "elephant gun" against kraken ?

Doflamingo is well aware of how Law's powers work, and he made sure for most of their interactions that Law coulst set uo his Room by keeping him on the defensive. And along with that, he'd need to be near the water first for that to happen and Doflamingo probably wouldn't let that happen.
Also, DF powers don't instantly become inactive when they, or the user touch sea water. This was proven when Aokiji touched the ocean physically, then froze it for miles across when first meeting the Straw Hats.


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Does Sasuke really need a new arm?
So we all know that Sasuke does not have an arm. And after his fight, Sakura was saying something about making an arm out of Hashirama's cells. Thing is—Sasuke has the Rinnegan, and knows how to use it. So, he can use the Asura Path technique to get a new arm. So what was the need for an arm made of Hashirama's cells anyway? Why did they make one for Sasuke if he can get a new arm himself? And why is Sasuke missing an arm in the first place? He should have had his own new arm by now.

What episode have Sasuke without arm? It would help if you're to include it in your question.

@AyaseEri Though Its hard pressed to say which ones specifically, Its pretty much all of them that take place after the final Naruto vs Sasuke Fight, when he looses it. Even 12+ years later in the Boruto Movie, he only has one arm.

@Ryan I uploaded an image from the Boruto Movie in my answer. Arigato.

Maybe, he just doesn't want an arm. I was wondering the samething, but there might be no difference if he has an arm and if he doesn't.

Didn't Naruto and Sasuke both lose an arm in the final battle? I heard that from a friend but I haven't seen it yet. So I can't confirm.

as some of others said Sasuke rejected the arm because he wnted to punish himself and also as a reminder for his past mistakes and his current rule as the protector of the village.

When Naruto and Sasuke battle after they defeat Kaguya, they end up both losing an arm. Tsunade implants a certain cell inside Naruto's missing arm's side to let it grow back. But Sasuke does not want his arm to be recovered because he wants to punish (-ish) himself for all the harm he had caused.
Since, as EIPsyKongroo said, he only received the Magatama Rinnegan when he got the Sage of Six Path chakra, and I don't think it has the ability to recover any lost/damaged cells.

I could have sworn they talked about growing the arm and then attaching it, like Madara did to the Zetsu which gave him his first Rinnegan eye.

I think it's because Sasuke lost a lot of his powers after he sealed Kaguya. (Naruto even lost his Sage of Six Paths more).
Sasuke only had his Rinnegan, so, I don't think he can restore his arm using the Asura path technique.

Nagato only had the rinnegan as well, but he had all 6 paths. As well, if you argue he lost his power, then he would have lost if after he sealed kaguya, but he then went and did 9 planetary devistations at once, as well as absorbed chakra, both related to 2 of the 6 paths, but after he lost his SOSP power.

You're right. But that aside, i have never seen sasuke using any powers related to healing.

I also wanted to add that, Naruto, on the other hand could heal kakashi's eye using his light style, i.e. Asura's power. So maybe healing is a power that only asura incarnates have? Even Hashirama Senju , an Asura incarnate had healing powers

Sasuke is of Uchiha blood line. If he implants Hashirama's cells in his arm, he will activate a Rinnegan in the right eye. He doesn't trust himself yet. So he doesn't attach a new arm like Naruto.

As Troll dé Mage said,

Maybe he wants to punish himself for all the harm he had caused OR
He thinks that having Hashirama chakra in him would make him too OP and he is afraid that he may turn on the wrong side.

Please provide additional details or sources to elaborate on and back up your answer.

Sasuke thinks he's cooler with one arm or this is his way of atonement or his trying to be more emo or maybe he thinks he doesnt need it yet

I don't think so...


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Did Yuno torture Yukiteru's mother in the first world?
After meeting Yukki's mom, Yuno is glad that she didn't have to use her "tools" to convince her. But at the end we know that this was the second time she went through her life, which means that she already passed by her first meeting with Yukki's mom. Yet she didn't expect to be accepted and therefore brought "tools" along with her....
Does that mean that in the first world she actually forced Yukiteru's mother to accept her in some way?

We don't know the details of what happend in the first world, just the general lines. Therefore, we can't say for sure how the meet between Yuno and Yuki's mother went for sure. IIRC there is no detail about this on the manga and the anime. If no one answers the question, I will post it tonight.


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How old were Sting and Rogue relative to the other Dragon Slayers at this key point in the timeline?
So anyway, in the latest chapter, it was revealed that:

 Natsu and the 4 other Dragon Slayers from 400 years ago actually met some time before they were sent to the future. Quoting Zeref, most likely because of the dragons in their bodies making this stuff (I forgot the name) to prevent them from turning into dragons themselves, they have mostly forgotten about meeting.

 Before they time travelled, they all seemed the same age. And Lucy's mother opened the gateway (I assume) just once for them all. She didn't have all keys and became ill until she died, so I think we can definitely assume she didn't do it again.

 Then how is it that Sting & Rogue are generally the same age as Natsu in the past, yet have to catch up to Natsu, Gajeel and Wendy who are frozen (petrified, Fairy Sphere'd) for 7 years?

I mean, it could be a reason we don't know yet. Or am I just missing something VERY simple?

Did you know?  This site has special markup for spoilers.

"as for Sting and Rogue, who were around the same age as Wendy, They Idolized the two of you as their adopted older brothers". They certainly look the same age, but it was clearly stated that Natsu and Gajeel were older than Sting and Rogue.

@Ryan that is correct as per the latest Manga chapter. Natsu, Gajeel were the same age. Sting, Rogue and Wendy were the same age. Sting and Rogue grew up to look like the same age as that of Natsu and Gajeel and older than Wendy when they were frozen in time for 7 years in Fairy Sphere.

Okay it may be very likely that they were never all the same age but all traveled at the same time Natsu and Gajeel are 7 years older than Sting,Rogue,and Wendy. The three 20 and the other two 27 but all traveled at the same time some part about it doesn't make sense.

Sting and Rogue are the same age as Wendy, in the manga the three are currently about "20" in the latest chapter (I am excluding the +400 years). If my memory serves right, Natsu & Gajeel are both "27".
Now the problem is working out the age different in the past, this isn't all to hard. Wendy was "12" when she was first introduced (x784). The Dragon Slayers arrived in (x777), so it's 12-7=5. Wendy was "5" years of age. Now Sting and Rogue are the same age as her, so those three were "5" years old. Now assuming I'm correct about Natsu's & Gajeel's age, they would've been 12 at the time.
Now I'm not sure if this answers the question, but I hope it does. Just keep in mind that Fairy Tail has a habit of making 12 year old kids look even younger than what they are. Easy way to tell is watch the Fairy Tail OVA 8.

Basically Wendy, Sting and Rogue were five before they got sent four hundred years into the future, Natsu and Gajeel were, if you go by the guesstimated ages, were eleven back then in x777. In x784, it's estimated that Wendy, Sting and Rogue are 12 and Natsu and Gajeel are 18 along with Gray, while Lucy is 17 confirmed. In x791 Wendy would remain 12 while Natsu and Gajeel are still 18 and Sting and Rogue are 19.
So there you have it, I don't know what their age would be in the manga currently, but these are my estimates till year x791.

Hi and Welcome to Anime & Manga SE! It would be nice if you could provide references to the source material/author's notes/external references (wiki etc...) to support your answer.


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What's the name Hakumen no Mono wanted to be called as?
In the anime climax, Hakumen no Mono vaporizes, saying

My name is not Hakumen.
  The name I wanted to be called is...

What was that name? I don't see any reference anywhere on what that name was.

"Hakumen no Mono" is a title/epithet, meaning "the white-faced one". My inference is that Hakumen had an actual personal name (which is never revealed) by which it wanted to be called.

so theres no name? is there any reference to hokumen no mono in japanese myth, which the anime the took upon?

My theory about its "real name" is, either Towako, the name of hakumen's avatar, maybe Hakumen named its avatar the real name for self-satisfaction? and the second probable name, is kirio/Inasa, as in Kirio Inasa, the boy whom it kidnapped. after the kidnapping, it probably change his name as it likes.
I personally think, Towako is the "Real name".

Thanks, but am not familiar with Japanese, can you provide the meaning behind the names?

In my opinion i think Hakumen’s real name might have something to do with the baby shown as he vaporizes and yin/yang because in the end he does not fall as negative ki which creates other youkai, but he floats upwards as positive ki. Maybe in the end he died a peaceful death and he could now be reborn as a human, not a mass of hate.We can also assume he would have a woman name since his voice when he whispers “The name i was called was...” is a feminine one.


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Where to continue from the manga after two seasons of "A Certain Magical Index" and "A Certain Scientific Railgun"?
I finished A Certain Magical Index I and A Certain Magical Index II as well as A Certain Scientific Railgun and A Certain Scientific Railgun S.
I'd like to buy the mangas so I can keep up with the franchise, but I don't know where to continue. Where should I start from?
I'm not interested in the light novels or any kind of novel, thank you.

I've read up to volume 11 of the manga of A Certain Scientific Railgun and volume 5 of the manga of A Certain Magical Index. As of volume 5 of Index, the manga has not caught up to the conclusion of the anime. For Railgun, the Sisters Arc concludes in volume 7. A new arc also begins in volume 7, so that's the one you'll want to start with that, chapter 40, called Clique.
Going back to Index, only the first seven volumes have been published in English. Despite not having read two of them, I'm fairly confident that none of them passes the point the anime got to just by looking at the covers and reading summaries. From the Wiki page, I would guess you would start at volume 17 for the Index manga since the second arc involving the Catholic nuns ends in 16.
Edit:
I didn't recognize the Academy City Invasion Arc at first since it's been a while since I watched the anime, but it appears this arc was in the anime. Volume 17 is the latest Index volume and it covers this arc. So, I have to change my conclusion.
As a side note, none of the A Certain Scientific Accelerator manga has been animated, so if you need to know where to start at that one, it would just be the first volume.
Summary:

A Certain Magical Index Manga: volume ? (as of volume 17, it doesn't appear that the manga has passed the anime)
A Certain Scientific Railgun Manga: volume 7
A Certain Scientific Accelerator Manga: volume 1


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Why did Infinite Stratos light novel change publishers?
The first 7 volumes of Infinite Stratos light novel was published by Media Factory under Kadokawa. Later it was suspended, but in 2013, volume 8 was released by Overlap (under Kodansha). They in turn hired a new illustrator to redo all the covers.
Some speculate that the reason was that the author argued with fans on Twitter, giving bad publicity. If that's the case, can said tweet be found now?
Some also said that Overlap was formed by former Media Factory employees. Could the conflict be higher up?

I forget where I read it, but it was said that the problem was between the publisher and the author. IIRC, Izumi-sensei asked for a bigger royalty, media factory disagree, Izumi-sensei brought it to other publisher.


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Why was Gai resurrected?
If Daath was after the king's power, they could have taken it from Shu anytime they wanted. Why wait so long and resurrect Gai for taking the king's power? They had someone else who could use king's power as well. Why does it have to be Gai?
And what caused a change of plans? Keido tried to be the "Adam". Then it was Gai.

As this is opinion, I will leave this as comment:  It could be due to the fact that Daath seems to, i don't know, have a thing for manipulating things from the outside, that is, to have others do their work for them.  That, and it would make the story less interesting.  Kind of like why didn't certain hobbits just get the giant eagles to FLY them to a certain mountain to fulfill a certain task.

It was revealed that Gai was the original Adam, the mate created for Mana. The plan was to resurrect Gai in order to get him to obtain the power of kings from Shu which meant severing his arm. Haruka Ouma, Shu's step mom went along with this plan because she didn't want Shu's fate to be the fate of the King.
Gai also mentioned to Shu in the final battle that they would not allow Mana to just die in peace, they would keeping resurrecting her. Gai was in love with Mana and believed that to free her he must of offered to be her Adam and die with her.
Gai revealed to Shu that he was the true "King" and that Shu was nothing more than an Upsurper and pretty much this whole time was a victim in this whole mess that kept just getting chosen.

Please include relevant sources/references.


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How many girls does the main character conquer?
In the manga The World God Only Knows, how many girls does the main character actually conquer after all 268 chapters?

If you count the girls he conquered in the games he played then the answer would be countless. Otherwise it is like Torisuda said in his answer.

13 - 18, depending on what you count as a conquest.
The wiki front page lists 18 girls as “captured targets”.
Thirteen girls were “conquered” according to the initial setup: there was a hole in their hearts, Keima romanced them, the hole was filled and the Loose Soul left to be captured by Elsie in her bottle.

Ayumi Takahara
Mio Aoyama
Kanon Nakagawa
Shiori Shiomiya
Kusunoki Kasuga
Chihiro Kosaka
Jun Nagase
Tsukiyo Kujo
Minami Ikoma
Sumire Uemoto
Nanaka Haibara
Yui Goidou
Hinoki Kasuga

As for the rest:

Tenri Ayukawa was never really “conquered”. She was already in love with Keima, and she never had a Loose Soul; she was pursued by mistake by Nora and Ryou. She was the host of the goddess Diana from her first appearance.
Rieko Hinaga had a Loose Soul in her, but Keima didn’t romance her; Elsie convinced it to leave because Rieko was too old to have children.
Akari Kurakawa is actually the demon Rimyuel, and never succumbs to Keima’s romantic advances.
Urara Shiratori does get romanced by Keima, but there’s no Loose Soul involved. The Jupiter Sisters story arc at the end of the manga where she appears has a completely different plot structure.
Kaori Yuuzaki is more of a villain who Keima defeats than a “conquest target”.

Five of the “conquered” girls were “reconquered” during the Goddesses Arc to bring out their hosted goddess:

Kanon Nakagawa, host of Apollo
Tsukiyo Kujo, host of Vulcan
Shiori Shiomiya, host of Minerva
Yui Goidou, host of Mars
Ayumi Takahara, host of Mercury

Though Kanon comes straight to Keima, so there wasn’t much effort there.
Keima also “reconquers” Chihiro because he isn’t sure whether she or Ayumi is the host of Mercury. While doing this, he discovers that Chihiro had already fallen in love with him on her own, even before the first “conquest”.
Haqua, Chihiro, Tenri, and Diana fall in love with Keima without any effort on his part, so these don’t quite count as “conquests” either. Nor would Elsie’s sisterly feelings of devotion.
So the final count is:

13 unambiguous “conquests”
1 Loose Soul exorcism without a romantic “conquest” (Rieko)
1 romantic “conquest” without a Loose Soul exorcism (Urara)
1 attempted romantic “conquest” which failed, of a wrongfully chosen target (Akari)
5 “reconquests” to awaken a goddess
4 girls who fall in love with Keima on their own accord
1 girl who develops feelings of sisterly devotion towards Keima on her own accord.


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Was the Flare-Flare Fruit that Sabo ate real? Or was it a fake made by Caesar?
How did Doffy get that Flare-Flare Fruit? Because until now I am still confused how the Devil Fruits spread around the world. Everything about the Devil Fruits is still unclear, like:

Do they grow in the same tree or each of them has their own tree (Flare-Flare Tree maybe)?
After the users died, will the fruit grow in the same tree or just fall to random places like Dragon Balls?

Well, previous owner of fruit was dead for 2 years, so it is really possible, that fruit was regrown, and taken into certain place in the world. But, without knowing actual source of devil fruits, it is hard to tell.

We do know that when the user dies, the fruit reincarnates, almost instantly in at least one case (Smiley). It could be the nearest fruit, or it could be some random fruit in the area, or much of anything. All we know is some fruit somewhere becomes the Flare Flare Fruit eventually, and Doflamingo runs a Black Market, so getting his hands on it is unlikely, but very possible.

To answer your 1st question

How did Doffy get that Flare-Flare Fruit?

just like Kaz Rodgers said

Doflamingo was a black market dealer so naturally his connections probably ended up finding it.

2nd, three of your questions together:

until now I am still confused how the Devil Fruits spread around the world

Do they grow in the same tree or each of them has their own tree (Flare-Flare Tree maybe)?

After the users died, will the fruit grow in the same tree or just fall to random places like Dragon Balls?

For starters, 2. and 3. we don't know much about Devil Fruits either, besides what we have told so far and seen. For example:

When a Devil Fruit user dies, their ability is reborn into another Fruit of the same kind. Instead of growing from a plant, the ability simply regenerates inside another existing Fruit

Spoiler

  As seen when Smiley "died" and the Sara Sara no Mi, Model: Axolotl transplanted itself into a nearby apple.

BUT Oda has pointed out in SBS Volume 48
"For more detail, you'll just have to wait for a certain professor to make his appearance in the story, and explain exactly what the Devil Fruits REALLY are... eventually."

Yes it is the real flare-flare fruit. The logic behind it is because Blackbeard and his men desperately wanted to have the power of the flare-flare fruit along with the power of the earth-quake fruit and the other dfs that they have been working so hard to amass.
Doflamingo was a black market dealer so naturally his connections probably ended up finding it.
When the user of a fruit dies the fruit reincarnates somewhere else in the world for someone else to go for how that is determined specifically is unknown at least for now.