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What is happening at the end of the Another manga?
I've just finished the Another manga and I don't really understand the final 2 pages.
What are the clanging noises, and who is the mysterious figure in the hallway?

Well from my understanding of the anime, the Calamity is only stopped for that year. It will occur again, so the figure could be who will become the next Extra in the class.
Apart from that, my only other basis is the top left frame, if the seating positions are the same in the manga then figure where is sitting in Mei's seat which the class uses as a counter measure to make someone non existent and, I think it is also the same seat of the first student who died, but was allowed to graduate which caused the Calamity to begin the year after.
of course take this with a grain of salt since

 the anime ends with 2 people of the class re-recording the message in how to stop the calamity as a means to prevent the insanity that engulfed the class when the original recording was made public

i've no idea how different the anime is from the manga or the Light Novel

It could also be Misaki, the student who was forever stuck in Yomiyama.
From the Wiki:

Misaki's final appearance in the manga was in the final chapter, walking around the school, suggesting he is still stuck on earth.

Meaning that he is the reason that the calamity would continue to occur, since he is trapped on earth.

Actually there's a prequel to this in manga.
Before dying, Ritsuko (Kouichi's mother) saw the same shadow as this one and calls out 'Misaki-kun'.
So the shadow is in fact MISAKI.


text:
What's the medical condition Whitebeard has?
Whitebeard had a clear medical condition and it seemingly wasn't just old age. What was it, and why does he have it?
What did it impact?

I dont think this can't be answered as of yet. Since as far as i know there hasn't been told any specifics about what is ailing him.

According to the One Piece Wikia, it is just old age.

While not in battle, Whitebeard was typically on oxygen and attached
  to several medical sensor machines, due to health issues concerning
  his age.

If I had to guess it would be something akin to COPD. His large body and age might've kept him from absorbing all the oxygen he needed easily which would explain the oxygen tanks

Is this based on anything canonical other than the oxygen tanks?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Other than Madara, who among the Uchiha Clan possesses or successfully awaken the Rinnegan?
I'm just curious whether if only Madara possesses the Rinnegan and if not how many are there?
What are the chances that Sasuke can awaken his Rinnegan?

If it's about awakening, then I think it's only Madara and Sasuke (only known Uchihas having successfully transplanted DNA of both Indra and Ashura)

I just realized that the correct answer may be potentially wrong.
As we have seen thus far, Madara and Obito are the only 2 Uchiha to have used the Rinnegan. Aside from them, Sasuke is the only other Uchiha clan member that is still alive, whom hasn't awaken the Rinnegan yet.
With that said, Sasuke is potentially capable of awakening the Rinnegan any second now. Sasuke has bitten Karin many times. Karin is an Uzumaki, which is a distant relative of the Senju. That means Sasuke has Senju cells inside of him!
With the DNA requirements fulfilled, Sasuke can pull a quick one and activate Rinnegan stunning Madara, the Shinobi alliance, and all of us readers :)
Updated with known Rinnegan users:
Madara,
Obito,
Sasuke,
Sage of 6 Paths,
Kaguya

This is the reason why I love Kishimoto as an author. He is able to connect past events to future events very well as he creates these small, but important details. Then if he ever wants to, he can just apply the details in the future.

I never said that Sasuke is not capable of awakening the Rinnegan, he's just not yet capable of it. And the purpose of biting Karin is to absorb chakra from her, not cells from her.

@NixR.Eyes You specifically said Sasuke will only be able to activate rinnegan if he has Hashirama's cells with him , which is not true. As for Karin's situation, we understand the purpose was not to gain Rinnegan, but like I said in my previous comment, Kishi likes to connect the past and the future with specific details. Sometimes actions can serve one purpose, and then lead to a totally new result.

Kaguya doesn't have a Rinnegan. She has a Rinne Sharingan.

So far as the manga goes, only Madara was seen to activate the Rinnegan. Even Nagato's rinnegan was given to him by Madara before his death.
And so all the rinnegan shown belongs to Madara.
Sasuke will only be able to activate rinnegan if he has Hashirama's cells with him. And i guess he currently don't have it.

can you please point out where it has been indicated that yo awaken the rinnegan you need to have hashirama's cells?

It is stated here http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Rinnegan#cite_ref-4

You don't need Hashirama's cells per se. What you need is some form of Senju DNA combined with the Uchiha Sharingan.

I far as I remember, Nagato has "normal eyes" when he was young. When he saw his parents killed by a Konoha Shinobi, he awaken the Rinnegan and killed them. Isn't that event accounted for?

So why doesn't Obito have it?

@TAAPSogeking - Even obito has the Rinnegan. He took it from Nagato's body after he died.

@R.J But why didn't/couldn't he get it on his own like Madara?

@TAAPSogeking - He couldn't awaken it. Though he had both the Uchiha and Senju DNA, he wasn't as powerful as Madara, plus his mastery over both the DNA wasn't that great. Also, Madara himself awakened the Rinnegan in the very last days of his life. Its natural process and not exactly in the hands of Obito.

According to the wiki, it's not Uchiha and Senju DNA mixing but Asura's and Indra's chakra mixing, meaning ONLY Madara / Sasuke would ever be capable of awakening it. Both of them were able to through acquiring Hashirama cells which had traces of Asura's chakra. Every Rinnegan we've seen ((Besides Sasuke's Shar-Rinnegan)) was Madara's eyes implanted in another -- It's a somewhat major plot point in the 4th War, and led to Konan's death as well.

As an updated answer, It turns out it was not as simple as we thought, though it took the Sage himself to explain it.
Based on the Musings of Hagoromo (the Sage of Six paths) He inherited His rinnegan from his mother, which was then split to each of his children, Indra and Ashura. It is the combination of their chakras that result in the rinnegan (Indra + Asura = Hagoromo). The brothers however had a Feud, which somehow caused their Unique chakras to reincarnate into their decedents. Coincidentally, they happen to be Uchiha and Senju respectively, which is where the initial confusion happened with only need Uchiha and Senju DNA. This is shown best with Danzo, who had Uchiha and Senju DNA for Years, possibly around the time of Narutos birth, but does not have any Rinnegan eyes in that collection.
Eventually, the Chakras reincarnated into Madara and Hashirama. Madara obtained the Rinnegan because he was Indras reincarnation and therefor had Indras charkra, and then he took on Asuras chakra from Hashirama, who was Asuras Reincarnation. This mix (Asura and Indra) becomes the Sage of Six paths, with the Rinnegan.
Madara then gave both of his eyes to Nagato, since Nagato could not naturally obtain them. Rinnegan appear to work like all other Dojutsu in that the eyes themselves retain their form even after transplanting, as Nagato could never undo them, they were permanently rinnegan. After Nagatos death, Obito took his eyes. Obito is unable to awaken the Rinnegan naturally because he is not Indras reincarnation, and so is still missing Indras chakra despite having Uchiha and Asura's charkas. he had to implant the Rinnegan, which he could only implant one of due to their power.
This boils down to meaning that Only Madara and Hashirama could obtain the Rinnegan from the older characters, And the current generation of Reincarnations, Naruto and Sasuke as well. Of course, if someone could implant Sasukes eyes and implement Narutos DNA, they could also obtain the rinnegan eventually.

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

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Is there a Sword Art Online manga?
So I was wondering if there is a Sword Art Online manga, and if so which is the original, the manga or the anime?

Sword Art Online started as a light novel series (in 2009), and spawned five manga adaptations (starting in 2010) and an anime (in 2012). However, to my knowledge, the anime is based entirely on the first four volumes of the light novels and does not borrow from the manga material  at all.

Are the mangas based on the light novels?

@Cyberson Somewhat. The Aincrad and Fairy Dance manga are based on the main arcs from the light novels, and the Progressive manga is based on the Progressive light novel. The others are only based on the universe, not the story.

At the time of writing (July 2014), there are currently 8 manga adaptations of the series, all written by Kawahara Reki, the original author of Sword Art Online light novel series.

Sword Art Online: Aincrad 『ソードアート・オンライン アインクラッド』
Illustrated by [中村]{Nakamura} [貯子]{Tamako}. Serialized from September 2010 to May 2012.
Adapt the Aincrad arc (volume 1 and 2 of the light novel series).
Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance 『ソードアート・オンライン フェアリィ・ダンス』
Illustrated by [葉月]{Hazuki} [翼]{Tsubasa}. Serialized from May 2012 to May 2014.
Adapt Fairy Dance arc (volume 3 and 4 of the light novel series).
Sword Art Online: Phantom Bullet 『ソードアート・オンライン ファントム・バレット』
Illustrated by [山田]{Yamada} [孝太郎]{Koutarou}. Serialize from May 2014.
Adapt the Phantom Bullet arc (volume 5 and 6 of the light novel series).
Sword Art Online: Caliber 『ソードアート・オンライン キャリバー』
Illustrated by [木谷]{Kiya} [椎]{Shii}. Serialize from September 2014.
Adapt the Caliber arc, a chapter from volume 8 Sword Art Online: Early and Late of the light novel series.
Sword Art Online: Mother's Rosario 『ソードアート・オンライン マザーズ・ロザリオ』
Illustrated by [葉月]{Hazuki} [翼]{Tsubasa}. Serialize from July 2014.
Adapt the Mother's Rosario arc (volume 7 of the light novel series).
Sword Art Online: Girls Ops 『ソードアート・オンライン ガールズ・オプス』
Illustrated by [猫猫]{Nekobyou} [猫]{Neko}. Serialize from July 2013.
An original story starring Leafa, Silica, Lizbeth with ALO as the stage.
Sword Art Online: Progressive 『ソードアート・オンライン プログレッシブ』
Illustrated by [比村]{Himura} [奇石]{Kiseki}. Serialize from August 2013.
Adapt Sword Art Online: Progressive light novels, but from Asuna's point of view.
Sword Art☆Online 『そーどあーと☆おんらいん。』
Illustrated by 南十字星. Serialize from September 2010.
A comedy 4-panel manga.


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How can Oga be separated from baby Beel?
In the most recent chapters (Ch. 232), Oga is finally completely separated from Beel. I do recall minor incidents in the past where they were separated as well, but in the very beginning, Oga would get shocked if he was a too far of a distance away from Beel.
When did this change and what allowed them to separate?

I think it depend on Baby Beel maturity. As long as Beel world's is wider, The Range become larger either. In Baby Driver Chapter, It extended to 15 meter and 8 centimeter and more.

+1 Good evidence, but it doesn't explain the separation unless it is a plothole. I agree that it has to do with maturity, but baby Beel is still far from mature as he is still a baby !! He is definitely not at that stage where he can leave his guardian Oga.


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Does Suguru even have voice acting?
In Non Non Biyori, Koshigaya Suguru is the older brother of Komari and Natsumi. Most sources note that he has essentially no presence and very little speaking in the series. This is played for humorous effect a number of times.
I'm wondering if he even has any spoken lines or voice acting in the anime. If so, who is his voice actor? Most sources (e.g. Wikipedia) don't list a voice actor at all, but also don't explicitly say that he is totally unvoiced.

He's never had a single line in the manga, so It's doubtful he will in the anime.

Well, here's an album of all the cast credits from the first 9 episodes of Non Non Biyori: link. None of them list Suguru.
At minimum, then, we know that he hasn't had any lines so far. Maybe we'll have a big reveal in the final episode or something that Suguru actually does speak, but for the time being, I think it's safe to say that he doesn't have a voice actor.

His "voice actor" is stated as "???" on the official TV anime site, and indeed, he doesn't have any lines at all.


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Is there an official Otaku day?
I've stumbled upon many posts on G+ and FB (example) that state that December 15th is some sort of official Otaku Day.
I've also found this page which is from 2012, which means this was celebrated, at least, in 2012 too.
However, I found no reliable pages that say that this is a thing, much like the person who posted the first post on this forum.
I found this ANN article that puts this year's Otaku Day on August 17th (2012's was on the 18th). Furthermore, the second link provided there links to a Facebook page, in which it is stated that this event takes place on the third Saturday of August every year.
The event announced on the first paragraph is, apparently, called "World Otaku Day". The one announced on the second is the "(Annual) International Otaku Day". However, I find no reference of any of these two, nor of any "official" Otaku day on Wikipedia.
So, is there a day that is really (official, or something of the sort) regarded as Otaku Day? Are there any more reliable sources that have a fixed date for this event?
Or are these two events relatively official and both recognised as two different Otaku days?

Every day is otaku day.

@Eric +1, and yeah Jnat is tomorrow :D

Nearly 3k Views in 22 hours. Not bad.

I've been searching for official answers, as you said, this is probably new, started on 2012 (or at most, 2011). All what I could find are some personal posts.
I have searched Google for similar images of the one below (the one below is used to advertise for OtakuDay):

And so, I found the original drawing here with title "coffee-kizoku-shibuya_rin-the_idolm-ster-the_idolm", which is a fan-art of an anime/manga character, but it has nothing to do with the OtakuDay.
I've searched twitter for #OtakuDay, there is really nothing official even on that hash tag, all I found is personal posts again (and it is probably started on 2011).
So far, the only official (non-personal) thing is actually what you posted from the AnimeNewsNetwork.com:
2nd Annual International Otaku Day = 3rd Saturday of August = "August 18, 2012"
3rd Annual International Otaku Day = 3rd Saturday of August = "August 17, 2013"
So, the 1st Annual International Otaku Day = 3rd Saturday of August = "August 20, 2011"
As for the Dec 15 it's made up in 2010 and it has been spreading since then. I finally could find the source, the oldest and very first one is this: here in tumblr posted on 14th Jul 2010
EDIT:
So, the 1st Annual International Otaku Day - 3rd Saturday of August = "August 20, 2011" is by the ANN. And the December 15th is World Day of Otaku is made by anime/manga fans.


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How could Nunnaly see Lelouch's memories?

 In the end, when Lelouch is about to die, Nunally holds his hands and is able to see his memories. How? The theory that Lelouch is immortal explains this, but that isn't official.

Is there any official explanation for this?

This comment contains spoilers! um. on what exactly do you base, that nunnaly sees his memories?? This is a commonly known technique in any moving picture you could think of. it's called flashback. Noone ever said she saw his actual memories. One could speculate though, concerning how he stayed alive after being stabbed through the stomach.

Hmmmm.... I thought what happened was that she was holding his hands and realized what his true intentions were from that.

i think she does see his memories as she sees what his plan was, also would she be able to trust the Zero who killed the brother she loved unless she knew why Zero killed Lelouch and that Zero was Suzaku

as for how, my guess would be The Code, remember that in the first season C.C forces Suzaku to remember what he did to his father not to mention Lelouch saw C.C's memories at that same time when he touched her, it could be one of the many powers associated with The Code which could support the theory that Lelouch is alive through having taken Charles's Code and that his "death" was staged (his dead body moved away from the public for him to then wake up and disappear)

There is no official explanation about this. Thus, everything falls into the realm of speculation. Your guess is as good as mine. Think of End of Evangelion here.

As stated in my answer on this question, Nunnally saw no visions, that was officially and explicitly confirmed in an interview from 2009. It has also been officially confirmed that Lelouch is truly dead, over the past 10 years there have been many statements, live commentaries, interviews, tweets, etc about that. For an overview of these, go to https://www.reddit.com/user/GeassedbyLelouch/comments/8hklfr/evaluating_code_theory_main_body_index/ I would also advise not to spread that debunked code theory anymore as it confuses people, or at least add it has been contradicted by word of God

First of all. Nunnally most likely did not see Lelouch memories.
One of the abilities Nunnaly has is her extreme perceptiveness and intelligence

Nunnally has shown to be not only perceptive, but also intelligent by
  coming up with a similar plan as Lelouch (using the Damocles as an
  object of hatred). source

With this information given and the fact she had a similar plan to begin with she might have seen through Lelouch motives the moment he fell down right next to her

 being taken to witness the execution of the U.F.N. leaders. When Suzaku, in the guise of Zero, appears and impales Lelouch on his sword, Nunnally can only watch in shock. When Lelouch falls near her, she takes his hand and realizes that he has sacrificed himself on purpose

Therefore it is more plausible that Nunnally grasped Lelouch's intentions at the moment of his death, instead of finding out what actually happened through a direct memory transfer.

Disagree. The flashing images shown during that scene were a big giveaway. If only they put the sequence where nunnaly is sucked thorugh the blue vortex like Susaku were in season 1. But "plausible" really does not fit the series...

A perceptive/intelligent person cannot really see the memories like that IMHO. Then, she would've been able to see that he was Zero a long time ago. That last scene was just a BIG hint like @Mindwin says.

I am not that sure if there is any official explanation about this. But from what I understand and have answered here,

Lelouch got his dad's code. He beckoned
  the World of C to lend him its powers, and he took Charles's code
  before Charles passed on. The reason why Lelouch still has his Geass
  is because he didn't take the Code from the same person who gave him
  his Geass: he took his Geass from CC, and he took his Code from
  Charles. Thus, he now possesses both immortality and a Geass.
To further corroborate this, however, remember that when Nunnally held
  Lelouch's hand he transferred his memories to her. CC also did it when
  Lelouch touched her accidentally back then, so it could be assumed
  that people with Codes are indeliberate telepaths. This leaves us with
  both immortals traversing the world for the rest of eternity.

There is one shot at the ending of R2 that was cut out in order to make the ending more open to viewer interpretation. Your answer is not wrong. The official answer does not exists. Might be a bit of a stretch stating that R.R. took the code from his father, but as there is no official ansewer, yours is as good as any. +1'd

@Mindwin do you have a sharable link to that shot?

@aitchnyu This video seems to be the uncut japanese ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhyzoq4mxo - There is also this answer: http://anime.stackexchange.com/a/2438/2808 - People has been interpreting that as a sign that the canon is Lelouch dies, but it is open-ended indeed. The director, person that would have the final saying on the issue, is assuming the same stance as Hideaki Anno with Eva: the ending is up to YOUR (viewer) interpretation.

@Mindwin The video you linked is a known fake, it was fan made. please don't post that while saying it was the Japanese ending. It's just wrong

@xjshiya That is incorrect. As my answer on this question shows, it has been explicitly, officially denied in an interview that Nunnally saw code visions and/or memories. Please edit your reply to update and correct in order to prevent spreading confusion and disinformation. The same applies the fan theory that Lelouch has a code, this has been contradicted numerous times by "Word of God". Lelouch is truly dead, that has been officially confirmed. For more info, see: https://www.reddit.com/user/GeassedbyLelouch/comments/8hklfr/evaluating_code_theory_main_body_index/

@LelouchviBritannia that user handle.... - - see? I knew you were alive.

Actually, I'm dead, but C's World just happens to have great wifi.

Nunnally did NOT see any memories or code visions, this was explicitly denied by the creators of the show.
(The following is taken from the compilation post which gathers all of the official statements regarding Code Geass and

 Lelouch's officially confirmed death.)

For a full overview, follow the link.
In Mook Animedia (28 January 2009, p.89-90) there was an interview (see 2 pictures below) which explicitly denied that Nunnally was seeing visions or that those images had anything to do with codes or geasses.

Q: "How did Nunnally managed to realize Lelouch true intention, when she touched his hand at the end?"
Staff member K: "The way Nunnally can tell that someone is lying, just like she was able to tell that Lohmeyer was lying to her, is that she can feel the hand of the person she is talking to is sweating or lightly trembling. It's nothing like Geass or some special ability like that."
Staff member Y: "Yes. So, she simply came to conclusion [Lelouch was lying] by herself, because of this ability."
Staff member K: "She is Marianne's daughter and Lelouch's little sister. Two months have passed since that defeat of Schneizel and for this two months she's been wondering constantly about what had happened, like "why it happened?" and so on. So when she touched Lelouch's hand at the end she felt that he is calm, she put the two and two together and realized the truth. Of course, we know that in anime, it's hard to explain things like that, but yeah, please accept it like this kind of romantic idea we had."

The anime itself also makes it clear that Nunnally did not see anything:
In R1 episode 11, when C.C. is feeding shock images to Suzaku she says:

C.C.: "I'm just feeding him some shock images, I can't tell what he's seeing, though."

In R2 episode 21 C.C. and Suzaku have the following conversation:

Suzaku: "Was that what I saw when we met at Narita?"
C.C: "There, it was mixed with your personal consciousness. I'm merely guessing as I don't know what it was you saw."

Thus, the anime tells us twice that C.C. had no idea what Suzaku was seeing. That means she did not choose the images she was sending. If code bearers can't choose what the recipient of their visions is seeing, than neither can Lelouch, thus Nunnally seeing exactly THOSE images is highly suspicious.
But the real nail in the coffin of this argument is what exactly is shown during these visions: the recipient's own memories mixed with random shock images.
Not only do the images which Nunnally allegedly sees not contain any shock images and is the tone and stability of her images entirely different from what Suzaku sees (no bright lights, no nerves tunnel vision), but the images which she allegedly sees are NOT her memories because she was not present during the shown scenes. Therefore it is entirely impossible for those images to be code visions.
C.C.'s words are confirmed when Lelouch touches her when she's feeding visions to Suzaku, she loses control and shortcircuits, making all three people recipients and as a result all three see a mix of shock images and memories of Suzaku, Lelouch and C.C. This is evidenced by the following images: we see Lelouch inside the vision, and a fraction of a second later we see both Lelouch and Suzaku together inside the same vision. Lelouch is right there, with Suzaku in a shared vision. Fortunately for Lelouch, Suzaku is too busy having the freak out of his life to be aware of anything. (Or maybe this was Suzaku's first clue on Zero's identity? Who knows?)
On top of C.C.'s words we also have audio and visual cues. Nunnally's alleged vision doesn't sound at all like the visions C.C. gave to her targets, and the animation style is completely different too.
Lastly, the chronology of the events just doesn't allow the images to be a vision she reacts to. Putting the events in chronological order we get: Nunnally touches a dying Lelouch, Nunnally acts shocked and gasps audibly, images are shown, Nunnally starts crying. It is clear that Nunnally's reaction started BEFORE the images are shown. How can she react to something she hasn't seen yet? Obviously she can't. And if she saw the images before her shocked reaction and her gasp, then why did they put the images after it? It's fully within the animators' power to show the images first, but they CHOSE not to. The only conclusion we can draw is that Nunnally's realization and shock do not stem from the images.
So, what does Nunnally see when she touches Lelouch?
The answer is simple, she sees nothing. If she truly would suddenly begin hallucinating because someone gave her visions, she'd freak out (like people did when C.C. gave them visions), but she didn't react AT ALL. If characters don't react to information, that means the information is non-diegetic.
To quote wikipedia: "Diegetic elements are part of the fictional world ("part of the story"), as opposed to non-diegetic elements which are stylistic elements of how the narrator tells the story ("part of the storytelling").
Simply put, non-diegetic information is information for the audience only, it does not exist in the fictional universe. All fiction make liberal use of this technique, the examples are legio. Non-diegetic information can be auditive (e.g. background music which tells the audience when a scene is sad/romantic/...) or visual (e.g. people's excessive grinning when they lie so that the audience knows it's a lie, but the victim doesn't)
Code Geass, too, uses loads of non-diegetic information. Examples are the red rings around people's eyes when they are geassed, Rolo's locket swinging which symbolically shows he is using his geass, the red sphere in which Rolo "stops time", etc.
Likewise is Nunnally's "vision" non-diegetic. She sees nothing, the creators want to make clear we understand that she finally understood her brother's intentions.
It is no coincidence that they show this "vision" when Nunnally touches his hand, it fits thematically with Nunnally's ability to know when people are lying by touching their hand. She does this several times in the show, for example with Suzaku and Alicia Lohmeyer. Here are screenshots of these scenes from R2 episode 7, R2 episode 15 (2 screenshots), and R2 episode 15 again.

We can even add the commentary track from the actors themselves. They were talking about Nunnally understanding her brother, but they never mentioned any form of vision or memory transfer.
In short, the anime itself fully contradicts the interpretation that Lelouch was sending his sister code visions, because it violates everything the show has told us about these visions.

Nunnally is able to see a person's intentions by touching their hand. This is stated early on in the show, and she is shown using it on Alicia Lohmeyer when they were discussing the plans for redeveloping the ghettos. Alicia said that it wouldn't be a big deal for the Japanese citizens, but Nunnally asked Alice to touch her hand and saw that she was lying, which prompted her to demand that the plans be rewritten so as not to hurt the Japanese anymore. (Season 2 Episode 8, I believe)
The flashback could have been for the viewers rather than something Nunnally actually saw directly.

I'm not sure how the event in Season 2 Episode 8 leads you to conclude that the flashback is for the viewer and not what Nunnally saw directly.

You are correct, this was even officially confirmed in an interview, but there's a tiny inaccuracy. We see Nunnally touch hands in R2 episodes 7 and 15, not 8.

Since Lelouch had activated the Code, Nunnally could see his memories when she touched him, exactly like what would happen if you touch C.C. Lelouch is alive. In fact, he is now immortal

This is factually untrue. There's a whole mountain of official statements, going from 2008 to a month ago, which all say the exact same thing: Lelouch is dead. There's interviews, live commentary, tweets, the official guide book, etc, they remade the epilogue https://streamable.com/d8dji to make it clear Lelouch is truly dead. And when Word of God says "dead", they mean truly dead, not for 2 minutes, their words make no sense if you see it as "dead for 2 minutes". For sources and more info, https://www.reddit.com/user/GeassedbyLelouch/comments/8hklfr/evaluating_code_theory_main_body_index/


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Why do people sneeze when someone talks about them?
Where did this trope originate from and why sneezing? It must be something only in Asian culture because I have never seen this in any US television shows. And yet sneezing when being talked about occurs in both anime and dramas.

This is something that got featured in the Book of songs, this was a poem book out of ancient china (1000BC) and still is occasionally found in Anime/Manga now a days

In certain parts of Eastern Asia, particularly in Japanese culture and Vietnamese culture, a sneeze without an obvious cause was generally perceived as a sign that someone was talking about the sneezer at that very moment - a belief that is still depicted in present-day manga and anime. In China, Vietnam and Japan, for instance, there is a superstition that if talking behind someone's back causes the person being talked about to sneeze; as such, the sneezer can tell if something good is being said (one sneeze), something bad is being said (two sneezes in a row), or if this is a sign that they are about to catch a cold (multiple sneezes).  source

Small side note to "It must be something only in Asian culture because I have never seen this in any US television shows". Although not used as often in movies/series nowadays, they still feature this trope once in a while and is mainly used in a comedic sense. A sample would be Scrubs and NCIS where it got featured a few times.

I find it incredibly unlikely that the Japanese superstition has anything to do with Greece.

@senshin As far as I know the sneeze originated from Greece as a sign of the gods. This later on got adopted into other parts of the world such as Asia which gave their own twist. It also might have been China. But I am not sure how the Greek/Chineese calender collide in ancient time.

Wait a second... your new wiki link explains the origin of the trope. Please correct you answer then I can mark it correct.

@krikara seems like I totally missed that part ;) added the correct information

In Homers Odyssey Telemachus sneezes when his mother speaks about him or what he is doing. So there is western precedent.


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What happened to Suguru at the end?
At the end of Mahoromatic (second season), what happened to Suguru?

 After Mahoro dies, the final episode reveals that Suguru was so distraught over Mahoro's death that he becomes a cyber bounty hunter who hates robots now. So he was wounded after being betrayed by his partner and then he sees Mahoro again. We know she died, but not in a way one normally would. We find that she has become the "Id" (I may be remembering incorrectly these terms) of humanity, so she's sort of still around. Does Suguru die and he's just hallucinating Mahoror or is he somehow metaphysically reunited with Mahoro?

This is a classic Gainax Ending, i.e. an ending where a lot of things happen which are ambiguous or just plain don't make sense. The trope is named after the studio Gainax, famous for these sorts of endings (see also "Neon Genesis Evangelion" or "Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt"), the same studio which produced Mahoromatic. To put it simply, things happen in the anime, but there's no explanation for exactly what happened.
In the case of Mahoromatic, this is understandable. The second season of the anime ended in 2003, while the manga continued until 2004, so at some point the anime studio was forced to either wait to create another season concluding the anime or else come up with their own ending (they chose the latter). Anime-original endings are not uncommon among manga adaptations.
Anyway, here's everything that I've managed to gather from it:

 Suguru is now a bounty hunter on the Saint-Earth colony. He works with a comrade, but that comrade later backstabs Suguru in an attempt to collect the bounty on his head. As he is seriously wounded or dying, he sees Mahoro again. Matthew also makes a vauge related comment related to "leaving something behind" as she leaves the Earth to search for more life, which seems like it may be a reference to Mahoro. It's not clear in what form she has been reborn (human, android, or something else entirely), or if she's just a hallucination. Even if she's alive, Suguru is most definitely seriously injured, and it is not explained whether or how he survives.

If one browses through forums and blogs, there are tons of speculative interpretations of this, and none seem to have any official sources backing them up. The only conclusion I can come to is that the ending is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. There do not seem to be canonical answers to any of these questions.
For what it's worth, the manga ending is somewhat easier to understand, but it is quite different from the anime ending in terms of the points you have mentioned. There are some similar details, so it may be that the author had some rough idea what he wanted to do but had not finalized the details at the time of the anime's ending.

 Matthew (the leader of Saint) was the original basis for Mahoro and the one who proposed her to Suguru's grandfather originally. 20 years after the events of the main story, Suguru is now a Vesper agent and works tirelessly to defeat their enemies. Matthew meanwhile is leaving Earth to search for new life somewhere else, but decides to give birth to a human girl who is the reborn version of Mahoro. As Mahoro ages she begins to remember about Suguru. After one mission, Suguru returns to his home on the Earth, only to be greeted by the reborn and newly human Mahoro. It's implied that they live happily ever after. In this ending it's clear how Mahoro was reborn, and that Suguru did not die and was not hallucinating.

This is an old question, but I recently re-watched the ending and I wanted to give my point of view of what happen.
Before beginning the last episode...

Mahoro death left a heartbroken Suguru who feels betrayed after he has been left alone again without family. Even if he was able to get some of his old life back with his good friends and school, he decided to leave his hometown to never return again, trying to erase the memories of that time that causes him so much pain.

Then, in the last episode...

After 20 years, Suguru is a 34 years old bounty hunter based on the new Saint-Terran colony established in a planet assumed to be near Earth. We learn soon that many of his body parts have been replaced by cybernetic components, rendering him as a cyborg rather than a human, but also enabling him to do dangerous jobs as hunting down and destroying any remaining of Management androids. The only mood relief of this whole dark episode is a fleeting encounter with Shikijo-sensei, who after seeing she has not changed a bit, Suguru suspects she is an android also; something she notices and clarify she is 100% human. Then Shikijo notices Suguru's sword and the odd look of Jils, his business partner; get a bit scared and decides to left him behind, vowing to meet him again "if he is still alive".

And finally...

Suguru get backstabbed by Jils, who does so just because there is a bounty on Suguru's head. Suguru pain a suffering over these 20 years have been followed by Ryoga and Lisa (his grandmother and only family member still alive), without taking any particular action on it. With Suguru in the edge between life and death, prompts Lisa to take action and talk to Matthew, the collective consciousness of Saint. Mahoro was an android built with Saint technology, so it means that she has a true hearth and memories, connected to Matthew; so after Mahoro destruction, her memories and conciousness when back to him/her. Lisa makes a request to Matthew so they can do something for Suguru, and Matthew tells how 20 years ago a memory born inside him that he were not able to cope with -clearly talking about Mahoro-. As Matthew and some Saints are about to embark on a new journey into deep space, and this uneasy memory will be of no use, he decides to leave it back for Suguru...

This creates a totally misplaced Mahoro in the Saint-Terran colony near Suguru's whereabouts but not directly in front of him (it is not clear this new Mahoro is an android, human or whatever), so Mahoro start looking for Suguru and asking people she finds about him. Finally, she finds Suguru but she is not able to recognize him, as she is still looking for the 14-years old kid. Suguru, who is on the verge of death, thinks that Mahoro is the Angel of Death, the Grim Reaper, or plain simple that he is dying (ironically, he doesn't seems to care much about it). After several really funny interactions between the misplaced Mahoro and the old Suguru, she finally notices he is the person who is looking for, and Suguru realizes the Mahoro that is in front of him is real. She tells Suguru to go back home, where he can get his happy life back and never be alone again.

About Suguru's fate:

It is heavily hinted that Suguru survives and return safely to Earth with Mahoro: first in the epilogue dialogue and second, because Lisa states to Ryoga that "nobody will die tonight". Finally, I think the change in the final scene from 34 years-old Suguru to 14 years old one is just to avoid the weird view it would be Mahoro embracing a 34 years-old man.

This last episode can look grim and many people may hate it, but I really loved it and I think on it as a proper ending to the series as...

...Suguru suffering and sacrifice during 20 years is what triggers Lisa to request Matthew -something that seems to be highly taboo- to do something about it and bring Mahoro back. If Suguru didn't go this dark way, he could have been happier during the 20 years, but he would never had Mahoro back as Lisa wouldn't sense the need to act.

As i checked in anime what i got is suguru is half saint and half human and he's upgraded his body by mechanising himself .He's now in a colony shared by both humans and saints outside earth but he's an vesper agent who kills the battle androids for bounty most of them were keepers who enhanched themselves during the last stage of their end .
But suguru gets betrayed by his own comrade who stabs him from back whereas he slices the traitor to half finding out he's a droid to .During this time matthew and lisa discuss to move further in the space. While lisa whos a saint worry's about suguru her grandson as she was the women who gave birth to sugurus mother and was lover of sugurus grand father .This reveals suguru is hybrid of saint and human whereas matthew says she wants to leave her sweet memories behind as they wont be needed in her further journey but will be helpful to someone and assures lisa that suguru is fine and he wont be lonely anymore .Here mahoro is revived by matthew as her sweet memories are left in her she finds suguru in the colony and injured suguru thinks he's hallucinating in his death only to find out she has come back again for real this time as mentioned by matthew sugur is fine despite being injured that means he's well and lives with mahoro goes back to earth to live happily ever after


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At what point in the timeline does the Steins;Gate movie take place?
The new Steins;Gate movie, Steins;Gate: Fuka Ryōiki no Déjà vu, is set to come out in Japan on April 20th this year. Wikipedia says it is "based on the video game and anime series", but does not say whether it replaces the series, or if it's before, concurrent, or after the existing series.
When will this new movie take place in the Steins;Gate timeline?

Now that the movie is out, we can definitively say exactly when it takes place in the series. According to Wikipedia:

The film takes place in August 2011, one year after the events of the anime series.

Having seen the film myself, I can confirm this. The events in the film occur in August 2011, a year after the ending of the anime where Okabe is ostensibly on the Steins;gate timeline. For obvious reasons, it's only compatible with the true ending of the VN (the one which the anime followed most closely).
It is worth pointing out that this is not compatible with the official non-canon sequel Steins;Gate: Hen'i Kuukan no Octet.

According to Wikipedia:

The movie, featuring an original storyline taking place after the events of the series, is titled Steins;Gate: Fuka Ryōiki no Déjà vu (劇場版 シュタインズ・ゲート 負荷領域のデジャヴ Gekijōban Shutainzu Gēto Fuka Ryōiki no Dejabu?, lit. Steins;Gate the Movie: Loading Area of Déjà vu) and is scheduled to premiere in Japanese theatres on April 20, 2013.

That Wikipedia page cites this, which says:

The sequel to the 2011 Steins;Gate television anime series will open in at least 30 theaters across Japan.

To summarize, the movie takes place after the anime series.

This is the translated story description:

Okabe Rintarou—a self-proclaimed "insane mad scientist" and chuunibyou college student. With a coincidence, he created the "D-mail" with his friends, a mail that can be sent to the past. This led him to a cruel future resulting in the death of his friends, despite how many times the past was being changed (the shift of worldline)... Then a daylight appeared before the despaired Okabe, a future that no one will die, the worldline called "Steins Gate". After crossing timelines and solving all the mysteries, Okabe had finally arrived at the "Steins Gate". But being crossed so many worldlines, Okabe's mind has begun to severely "overload"...

I just changed your link to a picture to the actual picture.


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Anime/Manga Cons
So me and my friends have been wanting to cosplay up and go to an Anime Con. Does anyone know some of the really really fun and popular ones? I know that ComicCon is for comics, and basically everything nerdy including anime stuff, but anything else?

So are you looking for convention recommendations (recommendations are off-topic for this site) or looking to find out what the biggest and most popular anime convention are? Are you looking more into viewing anime content or cosplaying? There are a lot of conventions, each with thier own criteria.

Let's not assume everyone is from the USA. Please be explicit about your location, because I'm entirely sure that we will have different conventions in the Netherlands.

Uden-its not just USA--I just hear a lot about Comic Con. I don't have enough money to go that far to U.S. anyways. Do YOU have any suggestions about conventions?

I just assumed that you were from the USA? If you're not, please edit your question and mention in which country/area you live. That way, your question can be answered in the proper fashion - something tailored to your situation. Otherwise we can sit here and tell you all about the big conventions in , while that might be useless for you being in ?

Without any knowledge of what your whereabouts are your best chance of finding anime conventions would be by checking out lists like this Do note they do not list all conventions. They only cover the conventions that are broadly known and announced through magazines TV ads and such.
Another source for you to find conventions would be directly asking a shop employee at your local manga/anime reseller. They tend to receive notifications of local events to draw more attention/public to it.


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Relationship between the Shin Sekai Yori manga and anime?
I have seen the anime series and I just discovered that there is a manga.
It seems to be publishing at this moment, and I could not determine where the manga fits in.
WIthout spoiling the actual manga story, can someone elaborate if this is a different story or not?

SeventhStyle's review (quoted in Dimitri mx's answer) touches on the major issue with the Shinsekai Yori manga. The manga has brazenly explicit visuals, unsurprisingly almost entirely of Maria and Saki3 engaging in lesbian antics.1 Sure, (homo)sexuality was a major theme of the novel, but the manga really is just in bad taste, going out of its way to have Maria and Saki fornicate whenever they get a free moment. It's pretty clear that the manga isn't targeted at the same mature demographic as the novel was.2
In any case, the plot of the manga isn't identical to the novel plot, though it is similar. For example, just from volume 1 of the manga, we have the following major differences:

 When the gang is on the excursion trip at the beginning, they don't find the false minoshiro; when the queerats attack later on, Rijin isn't there to help them; and they don't get split up or taken captive during the queerat attack, and hence all five of them are present when they meet Squealer. Also, there are 3 random sex scenes featuring Maria and Saki.

Summary: if you like lesbian antics, read the manga. If not, feel free to skip it. The novel and anime are pretty much objectively superior.

Notes
1 Why them and not, say, Satoru and Shun, or Shun and Saki? Well, who do you think is reading this? (Answer: teenage boys, for the most part)
2 The Shinsekai Yori novel was a proper novel, targeted at people with excellent reading knowledge of the Japanese language. The manga, on the other hand, is replete with furigana (phonetic reading aids), which are used primarily in works targeted at people who have not yet mastered reading Japanese, i.e. school-age children.
3 See spoiler below:

 And also Reiko when she's still around.

Indeed, I was excited to see a manga out there, opened a random page, and the first thing you see is Saki and Maria fornicating.

As reviewed here, the manga seems to be a "Mockery of the anime". The manga loses to the serious atmosphere presented in the anime and the novel.

Whilst the anime series is handling it with a proper heavy mood, the
  yuri inclined manga is making a joke of it – Shinsekai Yori is
  portraying the disappearance of one of its side-characters as a
  whimsical gag.
For those unfamiliar with this series’ origin, Shinsekai Yori begins
  as a standard novel – the novel is a respected work, with quite a
  thought-provoking premise and tale. Based on the novel, Japan’s
  largest publishing firm, Kodansha, decided to create an exploitive
  pocket stuffer of a manga under the same name, which simply features
  excess and brazen yuri antics. It’s essentially a mockery of the
  original novel, and the anime is, thankfully, based on that novel –
  not the manga series, which as one can see below, isn’t even taking
  itself too seriously.

I think that the manga does have its own set pros and cons, as does the anime.
The one thing I think the manga does better than the anime is Saki's and Satoru's relationship. They actually showed how Satoru feels about her while in the anime they just

 end up together at the end.

That leads into another thing I think they did better in the anime and that was showing other character's perspectives besides just Saki's. They make Maria look like a terrible person in the beginning, but over time you generally grow to like her because you see the world from her perspective. They also show more of Reiko who nobody seemed to care about at all in the anime. I mean yeah they forgot about her, but Saki and Satoru managed to remember everyone else they knew who died. A major downfall for me though was the fact that

 Shun, Maria, and Mamoru's deaths

seemed way less serious and they actually made fun of them later on.
Other than that, they did explain the ecchi moments as something the characters do as a greeting rather than when they're just under stress like in the anime. Still, it will turn a lot of people off even though the anime did that too with just a couple of homosexual scenes.
Bottom line, if you are homophobic, don't watch or read either of them.


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Was there any reference to Shigure's brother before Chapter 545?
This chapter came to me as a real shocker. I always thought Shigure was an only child. As the title says, were there any references or perhaps even hints or foreshadowing that Shigure had a brother?

I'm about to reread the whole manga...

There was a reference when Akisame dropped off Shigure at the Kousaka household.
It was confusing, however, because at the time, we learned of her so called "brother" as Kousaka's number 1 apprentice. Therefore he is not actually her brother by family register.
Chapter 545 has Shigure calling him Nii-san (for the first time), which made me think he was actually the son of Kousaka when he really wasn't.

Since he knows Kosaka style, I want to say he's the biological son of her adoptive father, Hachirobe Kosaka. Pretty sure he alluded to his son being dead.

I have no recollection of this whatsoever, partially because I never really paid that much attention to this series. But let's talk about the mouse since the brother seems to know him. Did that mouse first show up from Shigure's real father or adoptive father? Also, would you happen to have the chapter where it was stated that the adoptive father's son was dead?


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How does Nincada evolve into Shedinja?
Nincada can evolve into both Ninjask as well as Shedinja.
But under what conditions it evolves to either one of these?

Do you mean in the games? If so, this question is off-topic here. If you want to know the lore on this though (either from the games or anime or any other medium) then it's an acceptable question here.

No.I am asking in the anime series.

So far I believe we have only seen a sort of evolution happen once and this was in the Pokemon Adventures manga.

Shedinja first appeared when Aqua Admin Amber, having been deprived of his Pokémon after being abandoned by Archie, borrows a Nincada from his comrade Shelly, which then immediately evolves into a Ninjask, putting Wattson in quite a pinch with the incredible speed it gained by the minute. Although the old Gym Leader eventually managed to defeat it, a Shedinja formed from the shell Ninjask shed and attacked him from behind, sending him sinking into the ocean.

In the highlighted part, it states that the Shedinja formed from the shell of the defeated Ninjask shed. This also does explain why Shedinja is a Ghost Pokemon instead of a Flying Pokemon like Ninjask.
So my final conclusion is that in the story for a Shedinja to be created, a Ninjask has to be defeated/die.
Source: Bulbapedia

But the shell of a Ninjask is black whereas the shell of Shedinja is brown. How is that possible?

@HariNandha it is a evolution. Their form does not have to stay the same neither do their colors have to stay the same. Dont forget his original form (pre-evolution) is totaly greenish. Also the appearance of allot of pokemon seem to differ from each other. ment in the way, in the anime and the manga they might look different from the games and so on. So there is no real explaination from the appearence change except that is A evolution


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Why do characters always wear the same clothes?
In most anime, most of the time, the characters wear the same clothes. Why is that?
I'm sure they are easier to draw but are there any other reasons?

This is not really unique to anime, and in fact I would say that more anime provide new clothing for characters than Western shows (Killua in HxH comes to mind). That said, I suspect the two reasons behind this are design budget (new clothes require money to design) and identifiability (so viewers can always recognize their favorite hero).

This isn't necessarily strange depending on the show. For a lot of the shows I watch, the characters always wear the same clothes because it's their school uniform and they have to wear it at school. When they aren't at school they wear different clothes.

One factor is character familiarization.
Another is that the artist can use the same "template" for his/her creations.
Another is that it will be more economical to produce toys and other merchandise.

it will be more economical to produce toys and other merchandise... very good point!

There's many reasons -

Many manga artists draw all their characters with a standard male or standard female face.  The only way then to distinguish their characters is by hair style and clothing, if they wear a recognizable outfit.
Branding - as other people said, characters become more recognizable, like a brand when they always wear the same clothes.
Coming up with new outfits is hard.  Manga artists have really strict deadlines, so it's important for them to save time when they can, and designing new outfits that aren't terrible take time.
For those manga that have the same clothes all the time, their intended audience isn't really interested in fashion, and fashion isn't really a focus of the manga, and so it's not really worth it to invest time/effort in coming up with new outfits anyways.

I actually think more economical merchandising is not a motivating factor.  For every outfit you come up with you can sell another toy to the same group of people who bought the last toy (Look at Card Captor Sakura, with lots of merchandise of her many outfits).
Shoujo manga publishers are much more likely to pressure artists into drawing new clothes regularly because they're more likely to have a storyline relating to fashion (like all those "become an idol" manga), and their intended audience is more likely to be interested in fashion (why else would they be reading a manga where that's a focus?)  For example, I know for a fact though the manga author for Skip Beat! was not particularly interested in fashion, she was pressured to come up with new trendy outfits for her characters since she was, after all, writing a manga about movie stars.

I believe that is to keep familiarity with the character throughout the series. Plus when they  do add a change no matter how small it's usually very noticeable giving them a significant definition without actually changing the overall appearance.
As @eric mentioned it's not unique to anime. One of the things to consider is most of the anime and cartoon's originate from sketches and that makes it relatively difficult to iterate with significant changes.
Also, it saves time and money with editing and reconstruction while developing it into moving picture.

You could justify it by utility, like warriors not being comfortable with wearing other things in combat/not being able to store their weapons/supplies as efficiently and such.
Or by making it a sort of uniform. Literal, or like making a self-conscious character who knows they're forgettable, so they wear the same thing everyday to avoid being not recognized. Or to draw attention. Or something.
Or in the case of ghosts, it may be the outfit that they died in. Or shapeshifters - having a limited understanding of society, so they see nothing wrong with wearing the same stuff.


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What was Zangetsu's Task for Ichigo to get Bankai?
When Ichigo is about to start his training to obtain Bankai, Zangetsu fills the area with different swords and tells Ichigo that only one is his true self and all other would break indicating that Zangetsu wanted Ichigo to find his true form and defeat him with it.
During the training Ichigo is just grabbing swords at random, at one point after being pushed back he just grabs another without looking. Yoruichi also comments on how at the beginning any sword Ichigo took broke after receiving a single attack but now they seem to last longer almost indicating that Ichigo was not meant to be finding Zangetsu's true form but instead get stronger using the fakes, also Yoruichi must have been able to hear Zangetsu's explanation to Ichigo because of how he was summoned (unlike before when Ichigo lost to Kenpachi)
So i am wondering, What was Zangetsu's Task for Ichigo to get Bankai? was it to defeat him with his true form or something else.

I don't understand what are you trying to ask here... are you looking to find out what role Zangetsu plays in Ichigo's Bankai training?

@Krazer More of less, at first it seems like Zangetsu is indicating his wants Ichigo to find his true self but Ichigo's actions and Yoruichi's Comments contradict this

It is mentioned that this method only worked once before. Hence, it is a tested but not used method. As for the training, the user was supposed to fight the personification of the Zanpakto, or Zangetsu for Ichigo, since for the Bankai one needs the 'materialization and submission of the Soul Cutter'.

It was mentioned beforehand that the sword around represent the weakness in his heart and with each broken sword he will get stronger. However, he has to survive the complete training first.


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What is the device in the garden in the first episode?
What is the device which the white shirted (unnamed) man was working on in his garden in episode 1?
In my opinion, it may be something for communicating with his wife, since they are not able to come close to each other. But I can't make sure of it.

The light novel doesn't give much context about the machine, and just describes it as a 小さな機械 (lit. small machine/apparatus).
One assume by the location ns accessories (hose) that it's for watering the garden. Since the inhabitants of this city are all hikikomori-types, it would make sense for machines to do all the work, life watering the plants.


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Does the usage of katakana in manga have any specific meaning?
I don't read japanese, but I can distinguish katakana/hiragana./kanji
I've noticed that some mangas use a mixture of both. Does the usage of katakana in a primarily hiragana/kanji manga mean anything?

Interesting question. Personally, I can't tell them apart, but would like to know the significance, if any.

@oded rule of thumb: katakana looks like it was written by someone in a hurry. But that's a rough rule.

@ton.yeung That's not katakana, but furigana (which is actually written using hiragana in the vast majority of cases).

@Manishearth The biggest notable difference is that katakana has sharper and "harder" edges, while Hiragana is "smoother" and rounder. e.g., アニメ (anime) vs まんが (manga)

Also note that Katakana isn't just used for Western type words. It also applies to other Asian countries as well (outside of Japan).

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about the Japanese language, and not anime or manga, per se. It might be better suited for Japanese.SE. (For precedent, see this closed question)

@senshin I disagree because the writing in Manga is different than the writing in other mediums. This question specifically pertains to how language is written in Manga, so it should be considered on topic. Ultimately, I think the question works for both SE's.

@krikara "the writing in Manga is different than the writing in other mediums" <- at least for the purposes of this question, I don't agree with this. If you look at all of the current answers, none of the points are specific to anime or manga (the closest are #2 and #4 in Krazer's answer, but these can be found in other media).

@LoganM Whoa, now we judge the question by the answers to it? Since when? IMO this is right on-topic.

@user1306322 The point is that we are a site about anime/manga. If a question is about anime/manga and involves knowledge of Japanese, it's a fine question. If a question is about Japanese and involves anime/manga, then it's not. The fact that this can be answered without reference to anime/manga is evidence that it's of the second category. Otherwise one could make literally any question about Japanese on-topic here just by finding a single reference to that in anime/manga...

My viewpoint is that if you don't know Japanese, you shouldn't come here asking a question about Japanese and hoping to learn about Japanese, in the same way that one shouldn't ask a question that's essentially pure math on SO. We're here to learn about anime, and there's already a site for those who want to learn about Japanese. In any event, you're free to nominate this for reopening, but you may want to see this meta post.

I see now that this question is indeed a better fit for JL. Guess it should be moved to there and opened.

These two answer covers the topic very well:

To describe (what feels like) Western origin words
To describe onomatopoeia (e.g. sounds effects)
To describe the fact that it is normally written in kanji, but that it is written without it because either the writer wants to write faster, has no access to the kanji form (as in the case where the writer is given the name in a romanized transcription or the writer just heard the name), forgot the kanji form, or does not want to bother to write in kanji for any other reason.
To give visual and/or very slight semantic emphasis.  Almost like using bold or italics in English.

Most commonly katakana seen to be used for the #4. Much like how we can write in lowercase and UPPERCASE to give emphasis. Because it's sometimes difficult to feel the atmosphere when reading such emphasis is generally used in the words.
What most people don't immediate pick up is that much like reason #1, you can use katakana to emphasize foreign-sounding of a particular character speech. It's hard to transcribe a foreign accent (including some but not all verbal tics) in Japanese, but using katakana can get this idea across to the user. It's like if I were to talk to you normally, I would perhaps use a combination of hiragana and kanji, but if I were to talk to you and sound foreign, perhaps LIKE A ROBOT, I would used katakana. This so-called "technique" is used commonly in visual and written novels in Japan, not just for foreign sounding words, but also to emphasize the foreign-ness of a particular person's dialogue.

Hiragana can also be used in a similar fashion. Hiragana is typically the first reading/writing language a kid learns as they start reading in Japan. This is sometimes used to indicated the simpleness or naivety of a character, in general or at a specific moment. In the Yotsuba& manga, the titular character Yotsuba's dialogue is written in hiragana without any kanji, emphasizing her simpler, childlike manner. She also has a slightly different sized and styled typeface to emphasize her intensity and energy as a kid. In addition much of these quirks like her pun-filled nuances are lost in subsequent localizations

Those are the most basic nuances to look for when reading manga. If you're interested in learning more about the language and manga I recommend checking out the book Japanese the Manga Way: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar and Structure by Wayne P. Lammers.

So firstly lets talk about difference between hiragana and katakana.
I found this on a question on a site.

Katakana is mainly used for a loanword, species of animal or plant, the sound generated in the nature or by a machine and so on.
-Loanword: コーヒー(coffee)、サラダ(salad)、パン(bread - derivative from Portuguese "paõ")
  -Species: イヌ(dog)、ネコ(cat)、コウテイペンギン(emperor penguin or "aptenodytes forsteri")
  -Sounds: ワンワン(bowwow)、ブーン(zoom)、チョキチョキ(snip-snap)
For other cases the mixture of kanji and hiragana is generally used.
  Using hiragana without kanji is all right, however, the mixed text is
  easier to understand if you gradually learn kanji.
-私は車で買い物に行きました。
  -わたしはくるまでかいものにいきました。  (I went shopping by car.)
In some cases a car is written 「クルマ」 in katakana. In this case a
  writer may have a kind of love to the object as much as they have to a
  pet animal. It is an extraordinary expression.
-私の家族(かぞく)はパパ、 ママ、 おねえさん、 イヌのトム、 このクルマ、 そして、 私です。  (My family members are Dad, Mom, Sister, Tom-a dog, this car, and me.)

Hiragana is used for all kinds of japanese words.
This also gives a nice explanation on the difference between them.
You can also refer to the Japanese writing system
The main reason of why they use katakana could be that the names/words they use in the manga are non-Japanese.
Then it could be a personal decision of the mangaka himself/herself!!

I half agree with this post. The usage of Katakana for words like dog and cat are hardly used. The second half of your post is pretty on point though.

yea, I'm searching for more references.

Katakana is used typically for non Japanese words. Common examples include non Japanese names as well as words taken from other languages and pronounced with the Japanese syllables.
Regular Japanese names like Matsumoto will be spelled with Kanji, but when you have a foreign name like Emily, that is spelled with Katakana.
The exception to this is that Japanese first or forenames in manga may be spelled with Katakana. This doesn't happen in real life though. Various celebrities may have their names published in Katakana through out different forms of media, such as magazines, websites, etc. However, their real (non Western) name written in their birth certificate will not contain Katakana.
Sometimes, words can have both an English and Japanese version. For example, the world apple in Japanese is Ringo spelled in Hiragana. However, it is also common for Japanese people to say Apporu (sounds like the actual English word) and this is would be written in Katakana.

I've never heard apporu　(アッポル) for apple. The standard pronunciation would be appuru (アップル).

Also, I don't agree that Japanese given names are never in Katakana. A few examples of famous people are 影山ヒロノブ, 今宮エビス, and 黒木マリナ. However, it is quite uncommon; I suspect less than 1% of people have katakana given names.

@LoganM In regards to your last comment, your first two links are stage names and the last one has the name Marina, which is arguably a Western style name. Nevertheless, all these people are related to the entertainment industry and thus would make sense having their names written in Katakana. I guess I should revise my post by explaining actual names do not contain Katakana, as in forenames given at birth.

True, they are all entertainment industry people (which is the only reason I know of any of them), and it's significantly more common for stage names to have katakana than birth names. I think there are examples of Japanese people born with given names in katakana, but it is quite rare (moreso than hiragana, which is already rather uncommon) and I can't think of any at the moment so I'll concede that point.

There's actually a reason why people don't write their family registers in Katakana. There was a period in history when Japanese people were illiterate and didn't know how to write Kanji, so instead they wrote Katakana. However, in modern times, it is a lot easier to find out or learn how to write the Kanji for a name, so it isn't an issue anymore. Writing your official name in Katakana these days will portray you and your family as illiterate and uneducated, and thus unheard of.


text:
Who is Lord of Hades?
This guy:

He's wearing same uniform with other student. His first appearance is when He knocked Akira down with a rock. He saw Kouhei Arita stabbed Masaru Tsuchiya (Pilot) in the chest. But his identity was never revealed, there are also several interesting theories about him. Who is this guy?

This is a question where we will mostly likely never get a proper answer on.

the publishers no longer liked cage of eden so the author was forced
  to rush everything. Therefore leaving a bunch a plot holes and having
  to come up with a conclusion as fast as possible. source
It probably has a rushed ending because the manga may have lost the
  required ranking to keep being published, which means they more than
  likely only gave for a few more releases to wrap the series up. source

Due to not making enough sales the manga has had a rushed ending forcing the writer to close it up as soon as posible. There for leaving indeed a bunch of plot holes and unused potentionals such as hades.

It sucks that this series was cancelled.

@krikara i think we all agree on that.


text:
What's so important about "Comptiq, october issue"?
Shinichi jumps into a burning building in Episode 12 to save a copy of this "rare" issue. He also mentions it in the classroom before it burns down. Given this is a show with parody and otaku historical moments, what event is this referring to?

This year's October issue of Comptiq magazine was in extremely high demand because it came with a bonus artbook for Kantai Collection, a web game featuring naval vessels as cute girls,1 which is the latest mega-craze among otaku in Japan.2 Apparently, tons of people were hoarding this issue in order to get multiple copies of the artbook.3 The character on the right side of the cover is a parody of Kongou, a popular character from Kantai Collection.
Quite a timely joke, really.

Addendum: here are the covers of the parody of Comptiq ("Comptiqle"?) shown in the show and the actual Oct 2013 issue of Comptiq. (Click to view full-size.)

Notes
1 Not to be confused with the other thing featuring naval vessels as cute girls, Arpeggio of Blue Steel.
2 It's getting an anime soon.
3 See, for example, this piece: Havoc Ensues Over Battleship Bishoujos (warning: SeventhStyle; NSFW). Because SeventhStyle is awful (but unfortunately the only English-language commentator on this I can find), here is some episodic commentary that mentions the joke (in Japanese): some blog; some other blog.


text:
Where does Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito fall in the story line?
I just finished the second OVA, and I have some doubts. Are the OVAs a spin-off of the series? If not, when in the story line are they set? Are they before R2 or after?.
There is a scene in the second OVA where we see Lelouch and Susaku in a train. Lelouch seems to be pretty hurt, and Suzaku looks at him with indifference. At the end of the second OVA they get out of the train and Lelouch calls himself as "Julius ...something." This actually blew my mind. I thought that the first scene was a connection with the end of the first season (when Suzaku and Lelouch fire each other), but apparently not.
What is the connection with this scenes? Or are the OVAs an spin-off?

In answer to your question, Code Geass: Akito of the Exiled (Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito) is set during the 1 year gap between the 2 Anime Series of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion set during the time when Britannia was putting pressure on their EU Front
Another peice of evidence to show that Code Geass: Akito of the Exiled is set in between the 2 series is Suzaku's apperance as he is a member of the Knights of the Round at this time and also

 at the end of R2 Suzaku is supposedly dead in the public and assumes the role of Zero. this ruse would be foiled if Suzaku is seen alive in puiblic

As for Julius Kingsley, he is infact a brainwashed Lelouch as revealed in Episode 3. the brainwashing however is somewhat unstable as "Lelouch" reappears briefly, also his Geass has yet to be sealed

From MAL forum:
Lelouch became immortal, so the theory of him with the wound in Akito, post R2 makes sense.
C2 started off a mortal who obtained geass and eventually became in an immortal when she obtain the highest level and the code from the nun. Lelouch obtained his V2 code when he murdered his immortal father who stole V2's code just before. So it is plausible that Lelouch is now immortal and also has given Suzaku a different geass ability as scene in the last scene in the series.
For Akito, I initially believed it was when Lelouch was a kid when the OVA was taking place due to the old version of Knightmare frames until I saw Lelouch on the train with Suzaku. However it makes lots of sense that this takes place after R2.

R3 does not take place after R2. See other answer


text:
When will the airing of Fairy Tail episode 176 begin?
Will the series be aired again? If yes then when?

Do you have any proof? And can you add what happened with Lucy's voice actor?

Yes, its definitely coming back!

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about future events http://meta.anime.stackexchange.com/questions/800/2014-edition-how-should-we-treat-questions-regarding-future-unannounced-events

@kuwaly She got caught in a huge scandal in Japan, she was fired from her agency. she been recruited by another agency now. and currently they are letting it settle a bit. I believe it was something like Sharing the bed with 3 of her band members, and it got posted online aswell.

Yes, it is definitely starting. It was on a hault because the anime had nearly caught up with the manga.
It will be coming anytime in 2014.
The dates hasn't been revealed yet.
This article from Crunchyroll has information about the return.
So Fairy Tail is definitely returning with advanced animation and some more suspense :P
----UPDATE----

This year's 13th issue of Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine announced
  on Wednesday that the new anime adaptation of Hiro Mashima's manga
  Fairy Tail will premiere in Japan on April 5. New episodes will air on
  6 TV Tokyo networks every Saturday at 10:30 a.m.
  Source

Since yesterday (2013-12-28) when the newest chapter in the manga was released, there was apparently a page which indicated that the anime will start airing again in April 2014. [Source]


text:
Do we know what Hana is sick with?
In Tokyo Godfathers, we know that Hana is sick. She's shown coughing up blood several times and ends up in the hospital at one point in the movie. It's not clear to me what it is that she's sick with. I wasn't paying attention to all the details, so it could have been said, or this could have just never been revealed.
Do we know what sickness was afflicting Hana?

It is never revealed outright but it is implied to be AIDS. We know that Hana used to have a boyfriend named Ken who died (and caused Hana to drift away from the drag queen club). When asked if Ken died of AIDS, Hana glibly replies "No, he slipped on the soap". So the implication is that Ken did die of AIDS and probably passed it on to Hana.

it could be Tuberculosis (or TB). anyone can get it, but it does spreads faster in people with AIDS. so says a quick google search. But Hana being homeless and not getting any treatment for TB (or also has AIDS) could make it worse.
it's like the Spanish THAT DOESN'T HAVE A SINGLE TRANSLATION AT ALL ANYWHERE (That I could find...)
But again who knows? Only the writers.

This is speculation not an actual answer.

Actually, no. While she may not have been serious when she said he 'slipped on the soap', that doesn't automatically mean he did die of AIDS. It could be the case that Hana just didn't want to talk about it, and given the lack of gravity in the scene, it doesn't seem likely that it would be where they reveal something like that. Furthermore, even if he did contracted AIDS and died from it, that doesn't mean he passed it on. They could have been having only safe sex.
Furthermore, since it's never revealed outright, and given the only information we get from the hospital scene — which was that the lifestyle of a homeless person is making it worse, it would make much more sense that her condition wouldn't have been anything serious if she hadn't been homeless. Especially since it would ruin the entire hopeful tone of the story, and the especially upbeat ending, if one of the characters was going to die anyway.
Bronchitis, for example, would be a very bad thing for a homeless person to get, but it would be completely non-fatal to someone able to get medical attention.

 As Hana would be able to by the end, because they won the lottery.


text:
How closely are the characters in Gintama related to their real life counterparts?
There were some gags like Kondou's fake sword etc. that were derived from real life rumors.
I want to know how much data we actually have about the real life counterparts of the characters in Gintama.
Are any of their personality traits known to historians?
How closely do the characters in the anime resemble them?
How about the historical accuracy of the Shinsengumi command structure?
And the Joi and Minawarigumi?

Don't know that much so I'll just contribute a bit.
Gintama really doesn't stay that true; it's more like taking bits from each real life character's known traits and either using that as inspiration or warping them into something vastly different. As far as Shinsengumi hierarchy, it is loyal- Hijikata was also known as the Demon Vice Commander, Kondo was commander & close with Hijikata, Sougo (Souji) was 1st unit captain. Shinpachi's real life counterpart, however, was part of the Shinsengumi and he obviously is not in Gintama (although he does don the uniform in several occasions xP).
A little other tidbit: Sougo died of tuberculosis pretty early and he had a sister who outlived him, but that was inverted:

with Mitsuba dying instead.

Also, Takasugi definitely had a deep bond with Shoyo-sensei's real life counterpart, Shoin, and grieved a lot after Shoin's beheading.
The Mimawarigumi was also considered to be elite, so that part was kept.
..I may come back to add more if I think of anything else.


text:
What are Arcueid's origin similarities with Caster?
In the Rani route in Fate Extra I recently beat Arcueid Brunestud while playing as Caster.
At the end if you look in Berserker's matrix under details than under True Ancestor, at the very bottom it says "And on a totally unrelated note, the fox-eared Caster gets along very well with her as it is believed that they share the same basic origins."
I have looked at both of their origin stories and I fail to see those similarities. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could reveal the similarities that would have led to them getting along well with each other.

Arcueid is a True Ancestor which are incarnated nature spirits akin to the Elementals where the term “Elemental” usually refers to spirits born from nature.
The playable Caster in Fate/Extra was said to be the human form of Kitsune and is a bit higher than an Earth Spirit because her soul was created by Amaterasu as a unique facet of herself. Because of that she would be classified as an Elemental so in a sense they are both Elementals.
Playable Caster was created by Amaterasu who is the goddess of the Sun while True Ancestor were created by Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, the Ultimate One of the Moon. Now if you know Shinto religion, Tsukuyomi, God of the Moon is Amaterasu's brother thus making the Sun and Moon related. So Playable Caster is like a child of the sun while Arcueid is the Princess of the children of the moon. This is a weak connection as we know Amaterasu exists in the Nasuverse but we don't know to what extent Tsukuyomi exists and if he has any connection to Brunestud.


text:
Where does Sword Art Online Extra Edition fit in?
I was browsing Anime News Networking getting names of Anime for searching for OSTs (because sometimes they get labeled by their original japanese name) and there was this add about some Sword Art Online Extra Edition.
The site has a teaser and it says it's going to start streaming on the 31st so it makes me think it's not just a different type of Collections Edition (to which i have all 4 from RightStuf), just looking at the images and the teaser it seems to be set around the second arc but i'm not entirely sure.
So i'm wondering, Where does Sword Art Online Extra Edition fit in.

It's a special that plays after the SAO-anime (after the alfheim arc). It has an original story not covered in the light novels.


text:
How sasuke is still able to use curse mark?
I saw that, Itachi caught orochimaru while coming out of sasuke's cursed mark with his Totsuka sword.
Naruto wiki says below,

During Sasuke's battle with Itachi Uchiha, he lost the cursed seal, along with Orochimaru (having earlier been absorbed into Sasuke's body), as they were removed with the Sword of Totsuka.

But, How did he use it with susanoo while fighting madara ?

It was not Sasuke's curse mark that was used, he's with Jugo when Susanoo was infused with sage chakra, so Jugo's chakra was used to gain Senjutsu Susanoo and form the same pattern as Sasuke's curse seal.
Jugo in Sasuke's Susano

Orochimaru explaining Jugo's chakra

Source: Ch. 648


text:
Why didn't Kira kill manipulate the mafia to kill Mello?
In the Mafia Arc, Kira was able to get hold of the names of the Mafia members under Mello's command, but the only thing he did was kill them. Couldn't he have manipulated them to help out in the assualt/kill Mello themselves?
Seems like a plot hole to me.
The same could be said for Mello killing the majority of the SPK members - he could have manipulated them to kill Near. However, this could be forgiven because he might have wanted to 'fight' Near 'mentally' with defeating Kira, the last boss.
Is there a rule that prevents them from manipulating to kill?

There is a rule indicating that someone's death must not cause another's:

Whether the cause of the individual’s death is either a suicide or
  accident. If the death leads to the death of more than the intended,
  the person will simply die of a heart attack. This is to ensure that
  other lives are not influenced.

From http://deathnote.wikia.com/wiki/Rules_of_the_Death_Note

Okay, then that explains it. Still, Kira could have probably manipulated the mafia members to handcuff the other members or something though, just to help out with the assault. But that's petty... :D

Oh wait, it says, "lead to the death of more than the intended." So I guess that takes care of it.

Quite possibly Mello and Near didn't reveal their real names to their groups and you couldn't use "Kill Near/Mello before dying of a heart attack" otherwise Light would have been able to kill L much sooner by controlling someone in the taskforce

Couldn't "Kill the person you know as 'Mello'" have worked? Or something like "Kill the Leader of your Mafia Group?"(Assuming Light assumes Mello is the leader). Also, I don't think Light could have been able to control someone in the taskforce, because L arranged it so that if he was to die, Light would take the blame (and Light knew this, so he didn't kill him).

@Secret your point with L would be correct, L did say to Light that if anything was to happen to him the Taskforce was instructed to assume Light was Kira

@Secret with the first 2 examples you provided i think the abstraction would have failed, the Death Note seems to have been designed to be accurate without any misinterpretation, however Omega has got the right answer, i never really had time to fully read the "How to use" at the breaks of the episodes

I guess you're right about Death Note being very accurate, so yeah that abstraction would have probably failed.


text:
How are people supposed to read and understand these part-second text frame scenes?
It's (relatively, still) easy for me on a computer to pause in time and read the text in every frame scene, but the show is supposed to be viewed on live TV channel. I bet that's impossible to do this in real-time.
Is there any official position on the approach to reading these frame scenes?

I can read them fine if I'm not paying attention to the main subtitles :o

I'm rewatching the first season and it's impossible to read the speeding up frames right before the episode's title frame without pausing. Glad they ditched this in later series.

I usually ignore those text, it's relatively easy to understand the story even without paying attention to those text. If you want to understand it better, maybe you can read the light novel.

Preface: I am unaware of any "official position" about how to read the split-second text screens that occur in the Monogatari Series. I would be surprised if such a thing existed.
It isn't always possible to read all of the text while the anime is rolling by at 24 frames per second. Sometimes, sure, you can pull it off because there isn't very much text, but some of them - like the ones in the first minute or so of ep01 of Bakemonogatari, or the synopses that accompany the titlecard in each episode of Nisemonogatari (example) - literally cannot be read in the time that they are on screen.
And us English readers have it easy, compared to people who have to read the original Japanese! It turns out that all the kanji are written using kyuujitai ("old character forms"), which were displaced by shinjitai ("new character forms") well over 50 years ago. Most Japanese people will have some reading knowledge of kyuujitai because of it use in literary contexts, but I'm guessing they wouldn't be able to read them as fast as they would be able to read shinjitai, since kyuujitai just aren't used very much anymore.1
Luckily for the people who watch it on TV, they aren't really missing out, in a sense. Certainly, the text screens often give us more information about a character's internal monologue or state of mind, or some background exposition lifted directly from the novels, or whatnot. Nonetheless, there is not (as far as I know) a single case in the series where things don't make sense unless you read the text screens. While the text screens do enhance the viewing experience, Monogatari is still a coherent story without them. And plus, even if you can't read every word of every screen, you can still read some words of some of the screens, and that's often good enough to get a good idea of what's going on in the text screens.
If you ever find yourself watching Monogatari without a pause button, you may as well sit back, relax, and let the text screens wash over you. Read what you can, ignore what you can't, and enjoy the show.

1 Also, all the hiragana is replaced by katakana, but I don't know if this would slow down a Japanese reader all that much.

Anecdotally, the streams of fast katakana in the Katamari games gave a number of native Japanese readers some trouble. So I think the katakana would indeed make it a bit harder.

Truly, the show can be appreciated well enough without taking the time to read the flash-frames. But I'm the kind of person who doesn't feel content without seeing everything I'm being shown, so I always watch it with my finger on the pause button.


text:
What differences are there between the manga and anime version of Coppelion?
I've just watched Coppelion. Was curious about the manga, and according to the Wikipedia page... it is still going on? Apparently it has nearly 200 chapters, so I guess that the anime doesn't cover a large portion of the story.
I don't know if there will be further anime adaptations (will there?), but right now I'm more interested in knowing how does the current anime portion differ from its manga counterpart.
How faithful is the anime, so far?

Briefly, the Coppelion anime is a pretty direct adaptation of the manga, i.e. the plots of the two versions are more or less the same. The anime ends at chapter "Mission 60" of the manga, which is the 81st chapter overall, and which is in volume 9. This corresponds to the end of the second "arc" (部 bu) of the manga. The manga is currently some ways into the fourth "arc". I'll maybe post a more detailed answer later.

I've just watched Coppelion. Was curious about the manga, and according to the Wikipedia page... it is still going on? Apparently it has nearly 200 chapters, so I guess that the anime doesn't cover a large portion of the story.

The Coppelion manga is broken down into "arcs" (部). As of this writing, the manga is part-way through the fourth arc, while the anime finished up at the end of the second arc. So the anime covers roughly half-ish of the manga released so far.

How faithful is the anime, so far?

The anime was generally very faithful to the manga. There are minor differences in the order in which things are presented, and there's a flashback featuring Naruse and Haruto in Mission.40 which I don't think appears in the anime, and some of the stuff towards the end of the second arc are kind of rushed, but all things considered, there aren't really many differences.

If you want to verify for yourself that the anime is highly faithful, see below for a table indicating which chapters corresponded to which episodes. Note that Coppelion has a strange chapter naming scheme, in which:

The first arc has 21 chapters, numbered "#1", ..., "#21", and not given names.
The second arc has 60 chapters, numbered "Mission.1", ..., "Mission.60", and given names.
The third arc has 99 chapters, numbered "Phase.1", ..., "Phase.99", and given names.
The fourth arc (in progress) has 12 chapters (as of volume 20), numbered "Act.1", ..., "Act.12", and given names.

Episode    Chapters
 1         # 1-# 3
 2         # 4-#11
 3         #11-#16
 4         #17-#21
 5         Mission. 1-Mission. 5
 6         Mission. 6-Mission.11
 7         Mission.12-Mission.15
 8         Mission.16-Mission.21
 9         Mission.22-Mission.25
10         Mission.26-Mission.34
11         Mission.35-Mission.47
12         Mission.47-Mission.53
13         Mission.54-Mission.61

I know a lot of the political nuances and information on radiation were omitted in at least the first or so episodes. Especially details about nuclear power plant disaster, the earthquake, the fact that Tokyo was sealed up for 20 years and 90% of the population died, why the the JSDF was in Tokyo, etc.


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AI conflict in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
In Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, I feel like the final conflict is trying to say something about AI in some way. But it feels very out of place from the AI depicted in episodes prior to the end few.
So is there more background, or is this explored more in another medium other than the half season anime series?
To dig a little deeper, Chamber seems no different than his pilot in his ability to assimilate into jobs on Gargantia. Where as Striker seems to have taken on a completely different persona. Unguided it doesn't seem like Chamber would end up the same place. I just feel like there is more to explored here that the authors would intend and I'm missing

Like you say, the AI follows whats best from machine's point of view. Chamber even recommends multiple times that taking over Gargantia and becoming a leader is best way to achieve his goals of survival and getting back to Alliance. But Ledo stops him. This is reason why there is still pilot. Leaving critical decisions on a machine can result in really bad situations.
There is also OVA that explains how things happened on Kugel's side. Simply said, Kugel starts in similar position as Ledo, yet circumstances and misunderstanding lead him to what we saw in anime. Striker just continues what Kugel started.
As for Chamber vs. Striker at the end, it is easily explained by AIs being able to learn. Chamber learned, that while Gargantia does things inefficiently from Aliance's standard, it leads to much higher satisfaction and lives of people, along with Ledo's happiness. What is what Chamber looks out for most. Striker on the other side got confirmed it's way of thinking, so it tries to defend that.


text:
Is there a way to tell the difference between an Arc and a Season?
With Sword Art Online Season 1, there are 25 episode split into 2 Arcs, the first Arc, Sword Art Online ends with episode 14 while the rest of the season is the second Arc which is Alfheim Online.
In original Rozen Maiden series there are 2 seasons, season 1 end on episode 12 while the second season known as Träumend ends at Episode 25, likewise with Spice and World, both seasons have about 12 episode.
Now i am wondering, is there a way to tell the difference between Arcs and Seasons, i know i can't relay on openings as Sword Art Online has different openings for it's 2 arcs likewise with Spice and Wolf and Rozen Maiden which had different openings for it's different seasons.

Seasons has to do with the broadcast of a show, it doesn't necessarily always equate to 12 episode per season, sometimes a show can only be 10 episodes. See: What defines one "season" of anime?
Arcs has to do with the story. Wikipedia defines a story arc as:

A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story arc is much more common in dramas than in comedies, especially in soap operas. Webcomics are more likely to use story arcs than newspaper comics, as most web comics have readable archives online that a newcomer to the strip can read in order to understand what is going on. Although story arcs have existed for decades, the term "story arc" was coined in 1988 in relation to the television series Wiseguy, and was quickly adapted for other uses.

The way to tell the difference between the two is how they are broadcast and how the story continuity flows from episode to episode. There could be many story arcs in a single season of an anime, or there could be many seasons in an anime that only has one overarching story arc.

"Overarching story arc" - even though it is in common usage, I think this expression sounds pleonastic.


text:
What happened to the outside world in Danganronpa?
In the last episode on Danganronpa, we get a glimpse of the outside world where a giant bear in wrecking havoc in the city. People are wearing bear masks and rioting in the streets.
What exactly  happened to world? Was the despair that Monokuma talking about actually a disease? Was everyone related to the characters in the school already dead?
PS: I'm not familiar with the game or novel I have only watched the anime.

As a note, this is a pretty big part of the prequel novel Danganronpa/Zero and the sequel Super Danganronpa 2.

From my understanding, there is a group (who is controlling Monokuma) who's goal is to have the world in a perpetual state of chaos by inciting despair and havoc through any means, but most seemed to be centered around subtle manipulation of people through influencing society.
Also, i think i read somewhere that the "murder" who everyone has to figure out the identity of is also a member of this group and faked her death early on to remain hidden.
This is from what little research i did into the game before i committed to pre-order it from NISA

At the end of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, it is revealed that the 'mastermind' behind the whole thing was Junko Enoshima. The reason she was still alive was because she switched positions with her twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba, but unfortunately, Mukuro met her end shortly. The last trial was to find out who killed Mukuro... but the remaining students find out the truth through this. Junko reveals herself and explains why this was even happening in the first place, the reason being because she wanted to spread despair to the entire world. Upon showing them the outside world, she shows them that her plans have worked, and that the world is meeting its end. Why? The whole world was watching what the students were doing in Hope's Peak. When they saw that the killing game had begun, they were influenced...
That's my best summary of the end of the game. I'm currently playing Danganronpa 2.

My guess is that influencers, politicians, and corrupt people in general created “despair” without knowing and Junko (bored with life) wanted to somewhat, broadcast despair on television. She’s rich and definitely has a lot of connections with influencers, politicians and corrupt people she used said connections to feel true despair loathing and anything at all. The students that were chosen by her were elites which is why some were influencers and politicians and corrupt people, Junko wanted to control despair and depression itself and just had to, ruin the world and more than 6 billion people’s lives to do that

This answer contains spoilers from the second game.

 Hinata, the protagonist of the second game, killed the 13 members of the student council. Hinata was a project of the school and a compilation of everyone's talents. If people found out they would expel him. The school tried to cover it up, but Junko took advantage and spread the rumour.

 The school started to have riots and became out of order. Because of this, the despair of the students began to be felt outside the school. Despair was a concept and not a disease and it became world-wide. Wars broke out. Untalented students from the reserve group of the schools committed mass suicide. What happened after that is not known, except that the person seen at the start of the anime was the principal.

Hope that helps.

In Super Danganronpa 2, there is a huge school building that looks exactly as the one in Danganronpa the animation. I think they where in the school building, and when they opened the door and go outside they will be on the same island as the students in Danganronpa 2. But maybe I think when the students of DR1 also will meet the students of DR2 and that they will have to survive with both group of students, maybe it will be a new game that will come out, I hope so.

Any sources to support your answer? Manga/anime snapshots can be helpful