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Why does Shurelia appear in Misha's and Aurica's Cosmosphere's?
In Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia in both Misha's and Aurica's Cosmospheres a girl with white hair appears

In Level 4 of Aurica's Cosmosphere where she appear as Rei-chan
In Level 4 of Misha's Cosmosphere where she appears as Misha's Mother
In Levels 5 and 7 she appears as Misha's Sister

In Stage 3 we find out that the girl seen in Aurica's and Misha's Cosmospheres have to be Shurelia as they have the same hair style and also in Shurelia's Virtual World she looks the exact same as Misha's sister
Now i could understand why she would appear in Misha's Cosmosphere if the 2 met before Misha became the Star Singer must like how Harmonica appears in Misha's Cosmosphere but not in Aurica's, but Aurica had never met Shurelia before and even thought she was a robot (up until Mir's 3rd attack). while the Cosmosphere is also a mechanic of the game to Develop Misha and Aurica, both have to have passed Level 4 in order to be installed with Purger so regardless of route or personal choice the player will see Shurelia not wearing LINKER as apart of the story.
So why was Shurelia appearing in both of their Cosmospheres?

It's because Shurelia's will and personality can subconsciously seep in trace amounts into the other Reyvateils' Cosmospheres due to her being the Tower Administrator and residing into the Tower's Binary Field.
That said, she herself can't consciously see the events taking place in the Cosmospheres or interfere in them because her SH Server (the storage device where the Cosmospheres are lodged) is separate from Beta-6D's, which is the one where all other Reyvateils have their minds stored. And since the Beta-6D SH Server was added after her Administrator training was complete, she doesn't have any power to interfere with it either
(Reference: http://artonelico.wikia.com/wiki/ARM_Backup/Ar_Portal_translation/Toukousphere/Issue_46)


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Is getting hit by Perishables/Food worse?
In Nichijou episode one, Yuuko gets hit by a Kokeshi, and then by an Akabeko on her head. She says that it could've been worse if she were struck by a Perishable, before actually getting hit on the head with a piece of Salmon.
I'm not sure if I get this. Why would it be worse? Why would she even say that? Is this some cultural reference, or am I just reading too much into this?

I should be glad nothing perishable struck me. It could have been worse.

I'm pretty sure the humour is supposed to have an absurdity factor (that that's "how the joke works"): After Yuuko's "at least it wasn't..." comment, (just like it happened for you (and also for me)) the viewer probably thinks to themselves "... okay, but why on earth would that even happen? Why would one's mind even go there?" and then it happens. The absurdity comes from the fact that there's no logic to it. The odds of it happening in the real world are virtualy zero. And then it happens. Almost like that universe wanted to spite her.

Perishables are worse because kokeshi is a solid wooden item and does not stain or make your hair dirty, whereas salmon would smell, and soil the hair. The joke is in the fact that she mentions the possibility of something like salmon falling on her head right before it happens. She mentions that because it is very unlikely that any object would fall from the sky and hit one's head, and it happens twice in a row, which is supposed to add to comic effect.

After this Salmon strike, the next scene in continuation shows Nano's fist rocketing towards Yukko's head! (Which is probably the most unlikely event to ever happen!)  xD

source: Stack Exchange

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What does K.Y. mean?
There's this scene in Nichijou episode one where a Grim Reaper is asking everyone:

Do you know what K.Y. means?

Nobody replies him, maybe because they're scared of him. Finally he asks another reaper dressed in blue, and he replies:

Someone clueless, like you.

Is this supposed to be a joke? I don't really understand what happened.

K.Y. stands for Kuuki Yomenai or "can't read the atmosphere/situation".
The joke is that the Grim Reaper does not realize that he is a scary sight in the human world, and that asking questions like that isn't appropriate. The second Grim Reaper knows what it means and is basically saying that he isn't reading the atmosphere.
Another translation could be "not taking hints" - like when you start cleaning up after a party and some of the guests fail to read the atmosphere and get ready to leave.
Reference: Japan Talk - Why You Need To Read The Air in Japan

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


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What race/species is Narberal?
One underling of Momonga, Narberal Gamma (aka "Nabe"), accompanies him when he starts adventuring in episode 5. I'm guessing he chose her since she looks human and hence can blend in without needing full-body armor or illusion magic, as Momonga does, and as someone like Albedo or Demiurge would.
That's all well and good, but Narberal clearly isn't actually human - she expresses her disgust for humankind on multiple occasions, and it's pretty clear that this isn't self-loathing. What is she?

@ton.yeung I guess. If her species is revealed later on, you could post that as an answer and stick spoilery things behind spoiler formatting.

According to the Overlord Wiki, Narberal Gamma's race is:

 a doppleganger battle maid

Narberal gamma is a doppelganger, her normal appearance is different than that of a human.  She looks similar to Pandora's Actor.  Oddly between a human and a skeleton, but none the less she is able to use her ability to change her form and look like a normal human.
A secondary reason not really mentioned in the Anime and mostly only a supporting reason after the fact, but it is hinted at a few times in the light novel.  She is a battle maid, most of the times that Ainz leaves Nazarick or even the new capital of the Sorcerer Kingdom the maids complain saying that Ainz should always have a maid, blah blah blah basically they think he needs a maid to do everything for him because he is a supreme being and he shouldn't have to worry about the little details.

According to Overlord Combat Maid Chibi Comedy Spinoff Episode 8, she's a werewolf, if you haven't watched the series, their three minutes each, so don't just watch the 8th episode, but basically it names off all the different species of the maids, however, the translator might have been a fu~~, I mean, he might have had a terrible sense of humor and decided to put the species names in random order.

I believe you are mistaken. The order they are named are Undead (Ainz), Imp (Albedo), Dullahan (Yuri), Werewolf (Lupusregina), Doppelganger (Narberal), and so on. Take note if when the arrows appear above the mentioned races.


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Does Chika have a side effect?
I recently started World Trigger and I was wondering if Chika Amatori has a side effect. It seems that she is able to sense the presence of Neighbors before they come through a portal. Does this count as a side effect or is it just something that people with high amounts of Trion already have?

Yes, at least in the anime Chika Amatori has a side effect.  This is shown is episode 6 which was called "Chika Amatori's Side Effect".  Her side effect appears to be at least the ability to sense neighbors searching for her with hostel intent. Note: all sensory improvements due to high amounts of Trion are called side effects and no one so far seems to have the same ones.

I need to start paying attention to the titles. Thanks for your answer.

@SWard, I rarely read titles as they can spoil the episode.  I remembered this one though as I noticed how much they focused on the other dude's side effect instead of hers.

In the manga, if she has the side effect it’s not explicitly stated.


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In the anime, how many girls did Itou Makoto sleep with and are they all emotionally tied?
Did Itou Makoto sleep with all the girls in the anime? And if so, did all those girls were affectionate towards Itou? I'm not sure if Itou really played dirty with all the girls. I'm too slow with this kind of thing and I just happened to watch this anime because of Kotonoha.

Related? https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/3987/how-many-endings-are-there-in-the-school-days-visual-novel

My answer refers to the anime series only:
No, not all of them; remember, he was in a class wherein about half of all the 50 or so students were female. The only girls Makoto became intimate with were: Kotonoha Katsura, Sekai Saionji, Setsuna Kiyoura, Hikari Kuroda, Otome Katou, Minami Obuchi, Natsumi Koizumi and Kumi Mori.
And out of all of those, it was really only Kotonoha and Sekai who were affectionate towards him. The others were only interested in him for carnal pleasures or some sort of manipulation.

It's a reasonable assumption to make, considering how many girls were keen on sleeping with the lucky bastard! But in the end, School Days takes an extremely cynical and pessimistic view about love, sex and interpersonal relations...

Wait Makoto had sex with all of them EXCEPT Kotonoha?

'And out of all of those, it was really only Kotonoha and Sekai who were affectionate towards him.' --> I think this is wrong too. Otome liked Makoto since middle school or something, iirc.

I believe Meir Illumination's answer is incorrect for 2 reasons, but Meir Illumination hasn't been around for a year, so:

Actually in the anime, Makoto did not have sex with Kotonoha.

'And out of all of those, it was really only Kotonoha and Sekai who were affectionate towards him.' --> I think this is wrong too. Otome liked Makoto since middle school or something, iirc.

Makoto had sex with

Sekai Saionji: Makoto's seatmate
Setsuna Kiyoura: Sekai's 'friend' (meaning that they were friends at least up to the point Makoto cheated on Sekai with Setsuna)
Hikari Kuroda: Sekai's 'friend' (meaning that they were friends at least up to the point Makoto cheated on Sekai with Setsuna)
Otome Katou: who knew Makoto in middle school
5-8. and then the 'trio' Minami Obuchi, Natsumi Koizumi and Kumi Mori

From the fandom:

There is a trio of 3 girls who are Otome's friend and serve as minor characters.

They generally bully Kotonoha for no reason other than their jealousy of her beauty and breast size and make up assumptions about her, such as her dating Makoto for money or lying about Makoto being her boyfriend.

In Episode 11, they are curious about "how good" Makoto is and come over to his apartment for a foursome between them. They're apparently satisfied with his performance, exhibiting disappoint at having to avoid him after Sekai's announcement.


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Why Ran did not recognise Shinichi right away?
I recently started watching Detective Conan and I learned that Ran and Shinichi are in fact childhood friends. So my question is,  when Shinichi, due to the side effects of the drug he was forced to take, end up with the appearance of an elementary school student, why did Ran, who has known him since childhood not see the resemblance right away?

In the first period, it is really a problem and there are many stories to describe how Conan could keep the secret. However, the author seems to ignore this problem, and Ran became a character that has almost no special position in the story

She may well have noticed the resemblance, but seeing an elementary school student who looks a lot like how a friend of yours used to look in the past, does not immediately lead one to the conclusion that that student is in fact your actual friend! It is never explicitly stated, but in all likelihood she simply noted (subconsciously?) the similarity (if she were paying attention in the first place) and moved on.

i agreee to this. I thought i remember an episode in which she look to Conan and said he remembers someone which could mean that Conan actually resembles Sinichi..could also mean its subconsciously.

Ran had a few suspicion arcs, where she believed (Desperate revival) or suspected Conan's true identity. The truth is quite nonsense, if someone comes and says your friend has shrinked from 17 years to 7 years, would you believe? It is very illogical and hard to believe. Plus Conan always fools her into some kind of trick at the end of suspicion arcs and he has a lot of other people to help him out (Professor, Heiji, His parents, Ai), and moreover Conan tries to act like a kid around her and wears big glasses. So it shouldn't trigger more suspicion than we see. She just thinks his big resemblance to Shinichi is some kind of coincidence, though she suspects at times, and there shouldn't be more suspicion than this logically.


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What are Sage Beans in Dragon Ball Super?
In episode 6 of DBS, Goku says he got a "Sage Bean" from King Kai. What exactly are Sage Beans? Are they the same as Korin's Senzu Beans?

Sage Beans are simply another name for Senzu Beans, they are not a separate category of power-items.
The kanji for senzu (仙豆) is simply 'wizard' or 'hermit' (仙) and a generic 'bean' (豆). As such, it is only a broad name, and could be variously translated as Wizard/Hermit/Sage Beans. The wizard/sage/etc is possibly a reference to Korin who grows them, since he is both brilliant and reclusive.


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Why is episode 12 of Kekkai Sensen severely delayed?
Episode 11 of Kekkai Sensen aired on 20 June 2015. One would expect episode 12 (the last episode) to have aired a week later, on 27 June 2015. That... did not happen.
At present (17 Aug 2015), the last episode still hasn't aired. This is hugely abnormal - the last time I recall a delay of this magnitude this happening was when the Tohoku earthquake hit back in March 2011 and delayed the last few episodes of a number of winter 2011 shows.
Why is episode 12 over a month delayed?

Wish I would have came across this question back when things were airing lol

The current reason listed on the show's website (link in Japanese) is that the final episode is planned to be longer than the 30 minute time slot it was originally allotted. The production committee has postponed the airing of the 12th episode until further notice (perhaps as they attempt to secure a longer time slot), when its Twitter and official pages will be updated with the decided date.

Is that mean we more to be likely get a movie instead normal animation because it will be more than 30 min for episode 12 ?

That wasn't mentioned, but I'd expect something more along the lines of a double episode, like Fate/Zero's pilot. They're only wrapping it up, so a movie seems excessive.

Yup, they announced today-ish that it's going to be a double-length episode (46 minutes), initially airing Oct 3.


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Is Ussop based on Aesop?
Aesop was an Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Here is a description of Aesop:

"of loathsome aspect... potbellied, misshapen of head, snub-nosed,
  swarthy, dwarfish, bandy-legged, short-armed, squint-eyed,
  liver-lipped—a portentous monstrosity,"

Here are somethings that they have in common.

They both tell fictitious stories.
They both have liver-lips.
Their names are pronounced the same.

I believe that Ussop might be a combination of Pinocchio and Aesop.

Ussop's name is probably based on "Isoppu" which is the Japanese pronunciation of Aesop. (One Piece Wiki)

The Wiki also claims "uso" means "lie" in Japanese so Ussop is a combination of "liar" and "storyteller" (Aesop). Basically this says it is likley but the source is not at all canon. We don't know as Oda hasn't definitively said, but probably.

ussoppu mean ... liar I'm rather sure it isn't the case.

Thanks.  There is a reason i stress that the wiki is not canon:  "considering that uso and usoppu mean "lie" and "liar" respectively in Japanese.... "Ore wa Usopp" can mean either "I am Usopp" or "I am a Liar"."  If you japanese enough to know that is wrong, you could probably edit it out of the wiki.

I agree with @nhahtdh. I can't find any source (dictionary, slang, blog, etc.) besides the Wiki that suggests it means "liar". ("liar" in this context would be usotsuki.)

It does seem the Uso part is right (google translate) so I will edit the answer a little.

Usopp's name was inspired by Aesop. Aesop told made up stories called fables, much like Usopp. Also, Aesop is the author of "the boy who cried wolf", the story of the boy who lies to the villagers about a wolf appearance in order to alarm the villagers for fun, but because of his history of lying, the villagers don't believe him when the wolf actually appears. This is parallel to Usopp lying about pirates arriving in order to prank the villagers, but they don't believe him when he's telling the truth.


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Why did Killua kill the opponent of Leorio?
I'm currently watching the anime series Hunter x Hunter. I'm currently on the episode 30. But looking back, I get confused why exactly did Killua kill the opponent of Leorio.
Before the fight, his brother was seemingly hypnotizing him that he will need to step back if he know that his opponent is stronger than him, thus making him protecting Killua.
His brother also stated that a certain day will come that Killua will leave Gon to die. I don't get the point why such action will be done to Kill the opponent of Leorio.

Congratulations OP (hey cool initials), you get the answer straight from the source (Killua not the Mangaka).

Yay, I watched this again yesterday:

He felt he had to quit the exam due to pressure from his brother (which involves literal and quite horrific mind control that is explained in more detail in the chimera ants arc).
Disqualification is a faster way to quit than waiting to the end.
He wanted to kill something as he is quite a blood thirsty individual and wanted to reaffirm his strength and control over the world.
He lost most of his self control because of his emotional state.  Note that he truely believed that Illumi would kill Gon and that his losing the match without fighting proved his was not fit to be a normal human. He was not willing to fight to protect his only friend from being killed.

While he might have considered that killing that opponent helped Leoreo that was determined not to be why he did it.  If it was why he killed him, Leoreo would have been disqualified as was explained when Leoreo (and later Killua too) wanted to step in against Hanso to protect Gon.

I believe the answer comes down to two factors:

Killua could not just quit the hunter exam at that point
By killing the opponent he did, he helped Leorio while also furthering his own goal (i.e. being disqualified)

It's more like this furthered his brother's goal. Why he would do this for his brother, is another question (which might lead to spoilers).


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What is EXEC_PAJA/.#Misya extracting?
So i got all the Ar Tonelico Soundtracks in the mail and going though them i can ID the Songs that are downloaded into Aurica, Misha and Shurelia as they all have the prefix EXEC_ (ie. EXEC_CHRONICLE_KEY is the song Misha sings to seal Mir, EXEC_SUSPEND is what Shurelia uses to shut down Ar Tonelico and EXEC_RE_NATION is the song sang to restart it)
I got the soundtracks so i could listen to the boss music for when one fights ELMA_DS at the SPU and i found the track in the Soundtrack Singing the Stars ~Hoshiyomi~ Ar Tonelico Hymmnos concert Side Ao and it has EXEC_CHRONICLE_KEY and EXEC_HARMONIUS but the song i was looking for is titled EXEC_PAJA/.#Misya extracting
From the looks of the track name it seems like it's supposed to be Song Magic but if it is Song Magic who's it is and what does it do? because i don't remember there being a mention of a Song/Hymn Crystal called Paja.

All the examples where a Reyvateils sings a Hymmnos Extract and then uses Song Magic in battle (having Misha in the battle party when she sings the Purger or Harmonius, Luca using Song Magic while she sings EXEC_METAFALICA/., Cloche singing METHOD_REPLEKIA/. while singing any song magic during battle, Jakuri singing EXEC_HARMONIOUS_FUSION/. while also using Song Magic in the battle against Zodom, and also she using Song Magic while singing EXEC_DESPEDIA/.).

EXEC_PAJA is in fact the Hymn Crystal Purger, which was the overall plot to Phase 1. In  Chanting the Moon ~Tsukikanade~ Ar Tonelico Hymmnos concert Side Kurenai there is a track called EXEC_PAJA/.#Orica extracting.
Orica sounds very much like how Aurica's name is pronounced so one can assume that Misya is supposed to be Misha (they sound much the same as well). Also listening to EXEC_PAJA/.#Orica extracting sounds much like the music that plays when one battles ELMA_DS the first time and the music in the background is supposed to be the Reyvateil Purger was downloaded into sing to prevent ELMA_DS escaping into the Binary Field.
So EXEC_PAJA is the song from the Hymn Crystal Purger and .#Misya extracting indicates it's Misha's version of it. The reason she sings it is so that ELMA_DS won't flee. Just how Misha is singing that and the healing song at the same time is unknown as to my knowledge they can only sing one song at a time.
This is also backed up in EXEC_PURGER's Wikia page where the fourth paragraph says

Also known by the name EXEC_PAJA/.

The page also lists the unaltered names for both songs matching that of the tracks on the soundtracks, more than likely bring the untranslated romaji from the Japanese Version.

Also, Reyvateils can sing multiple songs at a time because singing Song Magic doesn't actually depend on their vocal cords: they just focus on the feeling forming the Song and the Tower does the rest of the work of providing the vocals and instrumentation. Also, Misya is Misha's original Japanese name, while Orica is Aurica's.

@aquagon i don't believe i have came across a situation where a Reyvateil is sings more than 1 song magic in the first 2 games (so it could be something in one of the other 3 games) unless you count Song Evolution but i assumed it's a different song when it changes. could you indicate where it's been documented (in game or in extened canon material) when a single Reyvateil sings 2 songs at the same time?


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How are Kars' features described in this image?
When Kars becomes the ultimate life form, There is an image which points out each of Kars' new features - 400 IQ, 18m jumping etc.

Can someone help translate what his other skills are?

This 2ch post has bigger image.

Intelligence: IQ is 400.
Haptic sense: Can feel the movement of heat and air.
Hearing ability: Can here the ululation of animals from bats to whales.
Visual acuity: Like astrometric telescope.
Born: Breakdown to each cell and transform into many breeds.
Muscle: Recuperate from wounds very soon, then can transform/heal very quickly.
Gripping power: 900 kg/cm^2
Jumping power: 18m
Favourite food: Humans that became bloodsuckers. (Can survive without the need of any food and drink for 1 year.)
Sleep: No need.
Objective of breed: Other breed has a objective that creates descendants. But in his case creates a world that he thinks.
SEX: No need. lower forms of life need many children. It's easy to die. No need for child or friend for perfect life. "Top" is always only one.
Baby of the human was transformed 9 hundred million evolution in 10 month.
DNA know it. Like this, cell of his body know all DNA of all breed. he can transform to any breed.


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Was Kodomo no Jikan controversial in Japan?
I recently read the Kodomo no Jikan manga. Then I read about the massive controversy when Seven Seas tried to release the series in the US, explained in excruciating detail by Seven Seas's Jason DeAngelis here, and summarized here. I also read about Kaworu Watashiya's response, showing that she absolutely did not one bit understand why the series was so controversial over here, and that machine translation still has a long way to go, since Watashiya got all her information from reading American forums passed through Google Translate. (I was particularly puzzled by her comments, made with an authoritative tone, that "An adult, even a parent, who takes a bath with a child would be arrested" in the United States.) This source also claims the series is only regarded as "mildly risqué" in Japan.
Maybe I'm just too American, but Kojikan seemed like it would be at least somewhat controversial in almost any country. Rin is only in third grade when the series starts, and the later chapters deal with issues like sex ed, masturbation, menstruation, and sexual assault in a fairly realistic way. Was there any public controversy around the series in Japan? Did it raise any eyebrows at all?
I'd appreciate sources. Obviously, if the answer is "no", there is no such evidence, so my threshold for "no controversy" is "nothing visible in a major media outlet". If the United Moral Guardians of Podunksville, Hokkaido published a statement condemning Kojikan, I do not expect anyone to find it. (Though good job if you do.) I'm asking for evidence of a reasonably high-profile controversy, around the same scale as the one surrounding the US release.

For Americans that read this. The post by Kaworu Watashiya says However, in America, a small child can only take a bath alone. What age are we talking about here, because letting a child alone in the bathroom, sounds dangerous.

@PeterRaeves In the manga, Rin takes baths with or in the presence of her guardian (and distant cousin) Reiji from age 5 up to about age 9 or so, when she decides she wants her privacy. That's pretty average for a child here in the US too. My eight-year-old sister still has her mother help her operate the shower. Watashiya's statement was deeply misinformed; American parents do customarily take baths with their children, or help their children in the bath, and are not arrested for it.

But later on in the manga, the bath scenes take on a weird dimension because we find out that Reiji views Rin as an extension of her mother Aki, with whom Reiji had a sexual relationship, and starts doing things to Rin that border on sexual assault (such as sneaking into her bed and giving her a hickey) while thinking of her as a substitute for Aki. That's the part that many Americans would find offensive, not the bath scenes themselves.

Ow okay. 9yo would make sense to start caring about ur privacy. I wonder how europe received this manga.

@PeterRaeves I'm curious how Europe received Kojikan too. Anime is so low-profile in the US that our celebrated moral guardians usually ignore it; consequently, we've had some pretty vile stuff, like Night Shift Nurses and MD Geist, come out here with no complaints in sight. I feel like the fans themselves killed Kodomo no Jikan's release, and that it was a one-time thing; I wouldn't expect the same thing to happen in Europe. But like I said, I would think the series would be controversial almost anywhere.

I can't speak for whole Europe, but here in Flemish Belgium, I doubt it was much of a controversy. Here it's even more low-profile than in the states. The animes you see on TV are only those that are already popular in the US. They don't even bother translating and usually just air them in American anyway. Unless they are so popular that we could use a translation from the Netherlands, but again not much translation is done here and most of the controversy would be dealt in other countries.

At least for anime version, there are some discussion and some TV station cancelled the series.
From Wikipedia:

[...] two television stations — TV Saitama and Mie TV — removed it from their broadcast schedules. In an official press release, TV Saitama stated that their decision was heavily influenced by the then-recent capture of Takayuki Hosoda, a notorious Japanese child  pornographer who was revealed to be an elementary school vice principal.

I haven't read Kodomo no Jikan yet. In my understanding, Kodomo no Jikan contains two taboos. One is sexual interest from child, and the other one is love relationship between teacher and student.
First one is also controversial in Japan.
But for second one, it doesn't get any attention in Japan (if it's in fiction).
Other example of teacher-student taboo in US is Cardcaptor Sakura.
This anime was aired by NHK (BBC or PBS equivalent in Japan). It's not controversial in Japan.
But the NA version was heavy edited.
All love relationship between teacher and student was removed with same-sex love relationship.
(e.g. father and mother of protagonist met each other when the mother entered university that the father worked as professor.)

Interesting! So Japan isn't so different from the US in this regard. All the info I found suggested it was the sexual content involving a child that scuttled the US release of Kodomo no Jikan. The US release of the Cardcaptor Sakura manga, and the DVD releases, were not edited, and no one here cared that much about Fujitaka and Nadeshiko's relationship. There was a little discussion about Rika's relationship with her teacher, which was similar to the relationship in Kodomo no Jikan since it involved an underage character, but lacked the sexual content. Very good answer, +1 from me.


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Who is the main target audience of yuri titles?
I know that yaoi is famous for its fangirls, but I was wondering what the case was for yuri.
I have only occasionally seen yuri fangirls being referenced in anime, and these shows have a cast that is fully female.

Inspiration!
Researching it, there seems to be many subcategorys of yuri, which are targetted towards men, women and younger girls. But I was wondering - which is the main target audience for this genre?

Don't forget there are some fan guys of yaoi too....just in hiding. :p

Lesbians? Or people who are into lesbians?

And I don’t even want to get to traps... :-)

@PeterRaeves well, yes. but i mean more of a men/women & age group thing

boys, of course. yuri to fanboys is just like yaoi to fangirls

The origin of yuri comes from Class S novels.
This genre was created 100 years ago.
In this time, the main readers of Class S novels were girls.
In 70s, the word yuri is created by the editor of Barazoku (rose tribe, the magazine for gays). But Yuri still targets girl or lesbians.
In 90s to 00s, these yuri novels/manga were found by fanboys.
Ex. Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena and Maria-sama ga Miteru.
These novels/manga were targeted for girls, but got interest from fanboys also.
In 00s, many yuri manga/anime were created for fanboys, like Kannazuki no Miko, Kashimashi and others.
Currently, yuri for boys has bigger market than yuri for girls.
Wikipedia's history of yuri section has more details.
Added: I forgot to mention about Yuri Danshi (The yuri man).

Hanadera is a high school boy who loves yuri to the point he
  constantly watches his female classmates and just lets his imagination
  run wild. He's living the fabulous life of a man obsessed with yuri,
  but this is also source of personal conflict: if a yuri-filled world
  is so perfect, where does he fit in as a man?

Yuri Danshi is meta fiction story about a man who likes yuri.
One of the chapters is about a yuri-only conference.
(Sorry I didn't remember the chapter number.)
The protagonist is planning to visit the yuri conference, but he is afraid that he will be the only male visitor of that conference. But finally he found most visitors were male.

By "funboy" and "finboy", do you mean "fanboy"?

Oh no, I forgot about yuri danshi. Added.

Apart from the imagination running wild bit Hanadera sounds like me. ofcause back in High School i was in the closet about being an Otaku because i was already being bullied

Yuri is a genre.  It, like any other genre - drama, action, romance, adventure, slice-of-life, etc - is part of what will define the particular plot the show will have.
It by itself isn't a demographic, which is what defines the target audience.
Many yuri-centric works actually do have a demographic attached to it explicitly.  For example, Girl Friends is listed as seinen,  and Collectors is listed as Josei.  They may also have a demographic attached by virtue of the manga that they're published in, such as Kannazuki no Miko being a shounen manga, due to it being published in a shounen magazine.
In general, the demographic will vary, but I've noticed it by and large be seinen.


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Are there any academic journals that focus on anime/manga?
Are there any places that regularly publish anime or manga related academic papers?
I'd be interested in reading them and possibly submitting one myself.

Mechademia is an annual publication published by Minnesota Press.  It also covers fan practices and other surrounding activities and media of anime/manga
There is currently a call for papers for a conference on Asian Pop Culture, but none for the next edition. The last volume was published in 2014 and they are still active.
Larger conventions occasionally have calls for papers and a good source of finding them is on the Fan Studies Network site. They hold their own conference with cfps annually also. Arguably the largest of these is at Anime Expo
Other resources for finding articles on anime & manga can be found here:

The "Let's Manga" Project , (also here)
Academia.edu
Anime & Manga Studies group

Some of my thoughts on this topic are at https://animemangastudies.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/where-do-we-publish-on-animemanga-a-select-list. Basically, just some of the journals that regularly publish articles on anime/manga, organized by subject, include:
/Animation

Animation Journal
Animation Studies
Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal

/Comics

The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship
Image [&] Narrative
ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies
International Journal of Comic Art
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics
Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art
Studies in Comics

/Film Studies

Cinephile: The University of British Columbia's Film Journal
Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema
Journal of Religion and Film
Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities
Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies

/Japanese, East Asian, Asian Studies

The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
Asian Studies Review
Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies
Japan Forum
Japanese Studies
The Journal of Asian Studies
The Journal of Japanese Studies
Intersections: Gender, History & Culture in the Asian Context
Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique

/Media and Popular Culture

East Asian Journal of Popular Culture
Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media
Journal of Fandom Studies
Journal of Religion and Popular Culture
M/C Journal
The Phoenix Papers
Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media
The Journal of Popular Culture
Transformative Works and Cultures

/Science Fiction

Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction
Science Fiction Film and Television
Science Fiction Studies

Hope this helps!

Yes, there are.
Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is an annual on the study of Anime and Manga, which was firstly issued in 2020. As the official description says,

The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) is an open-access journal dedicated to providing an ethical, peer-reviewed space for academics, students, and independent researchers examining the field of anime, manga, cosplay, and fandom studies to share their research with others. JAMS is peer reviewed by scholars with experience in these areas. The goal of JAMS is to explore anime as an art form and bring visibility to the deeper meanings, understandings, and/or cultural significance of anime, manga, cosplay, and their fandoms.
The use of “anime” as a descriptor in all principles includes manga, cosplay, and its fandoms.

You may find articles on any serious topic in this journal. There are some critical analyses on anime like those on traditional literature works. For example, Existentialism and Death Education in Anime did a detailed analysis on the existentialism in the anime Cells at Work!. There are also researches on the behaviour of the audience, for example, Japanese Anime Fandoms in the UAE: An Exploratory Study on Media Accessibility, Habits and Cultural Perceptions. And of course there are studies on the content of an anime genre, like A Survey of the Story Elements of Isekai Manga.
What's more, it's free for the time being! You can download any paper on this journal for free up till now.
There are surely more journals to come in the future, considering the rapid growth of the anime fandom. This is a good start for a trend of systematic analysis and critique of the anime-related stuff. It can be imagined that some anime might get the position as serious literature works in the near future.

I would have a look here: https://journal.animationstudies.org/
It's not restricted to anime as such, but animation in general.
The article which first caught my attention some time ago was this:
https://journal.animationstudies.org/daisuke-akimoto-a-pig-the-state-and-war-porco-rosso/
More (from the same author) https://www.soka.ac.jp/files/ja/20170513_055728.pdf
I was thinking of eventually writing a similar semi-scholarly article on how a certain isekai protagonist does or does not conform to the principles of Machiavelli, Sun Tsu's The Art of War, and Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power.


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Why Killua didn't use Knov abilities?
After watching episode 143 I wondered.
Assuming Knov also wishes to Gon full recovery, If Killua would contact Knov from the start he could use his abilities to teleport himself to Alluka and take her directly to Gon, or at least plan with him in advance to meet him on the road to the hospital and by that he will no longer needed to struggle escaping Illumi.

AFAIK knov cannot teleport himself what he have as ability is the ability to create a space of its own within a certain area along with multiple entrances and exits so its limit and would not be reachable from killua's home to the hospital. I do agree that it would be of help using that to meet killua somewhere within the skirts of the city but.

Not to mention, this episode it was mentioned that if alluka was spotted by anyone that they would take her home immediately which is also why they were asked to have the hospital completely empty.

@Prix Knov can move himself as well. He is shown doing so earlier in the series.

@キルア he needs to set entrance and exit points? Isn't the distance of entrance and exits area limited based on the start point? wouldn't he need to keep coming out and in to set up new points? if all that would be required illumi and hisoka would get him at some point

@Prix I'm not saying it's feasible in this case, but during the Chimera Ant arc, when he was creating portals for the team to move about, he was seen using them as well.

I think so too I am more curious in regards its limitations which I am not sure of, but it seemed he was tied to a start point to me where his dungeon was set

@Prix It is well known that Knov can create portals in advance. So like I said earlier, They could at least meet in the middle of the road to the hospital. Besides, Killua could use him for a fail safe solution.
The only question is why he didn't do it (consider how much easy it will be)?.

2 factors you are not considering 1) the limitations of knov ability 2) the fact that if alluka was to be in touch to anyone outside Killua's family they would return her home immediately as said in the last episode.

@Prix 1. What limitations are there? Knov could place his long range portal in the hospital (like he did in the ant palace) and wait for Killua on a planned location.
2. Maybe Alluka should have to return home, But at least Killua will able to cure Gon (I believe it's more important to him...)

Knov limits aside, breaking family rules is a direct conflict with his Dad & Gramps. Killua's disobedience would unnecessarily raise Alluka's (who isn't considered family) risk of being recaptured or exterminated. Illumi is one thing, the parents are another. So Risk assessment is one reason not to use Knov's abilities.

During all that arc, Killua is under the surveillance of his family and he is forbidden to show the abilities of Alluka or even talk about her or let people see her (e.g. a butler of the family interrupted a phone call where Killua could talk about Alluka, nobody except persons related to her family saw Alluka when she went in the hospital). If Killua disobeys them, Alluka and also himself will be forced to return at their family mansion.
Like you said in a comment, he could still have tried to cure Gon that way and return home with Alluka then but there are some points for which he can't let that happen :
1) There was still a risk that his family caught him before he cured Gon, so if he failed he couldn't help him anymore.
2) Alluka is the only member of his family that Killua really likes and she sees her brother as a good person so he doesn't want to disappoint her.
3) If Alluka was caught by Illumi, he would use the power of his sister for himself without caring about her. And Killua couldn't allow that to happen.

I see, from your answer it's looks like he have to choose cure Gon or protect Alluka or trying extremely hard to save both of them.


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Why did the man steal the protagonist's lump?
In the 1929 anime Kobu Tori, The protagonist has his facial deformation taken away by the tengu for being good entertainment and a welcome guest.
When the antagonist follows in his footsteps, he goes to the tengu also to get rid of the lump on his own face.

Kobu Tori is a silent film, so I wasn't able to translate the dialogue and I don't understand why does the antagonist steals the protagonist's lump

Is it to return it to him? To sell it?

According to Wikipedia:

An old man has a lump or tumor on his face. In the mountains he encounters a band of tengu making merry and joins their dancing. He pleases them so much that they want him to join them the next night, and offer a gift for him. In addition, they take the lump off his face, thinking that he will want it back and therefore have to join them the next night. An unpleasant neighbor, who also has a lump, hears of the old man's good fortune and attempts to repeat it, and steal the gift. The tengu, however, simply give him the first lump in addition to his own, because they are disgusted by his bad dancing, and because he tried to steal the gift.

The mean old man doesn't want to steal it, he wants to get rid of it like the protagonist did.

Oh so he stole a gift, not the lump. It all makes sense now :)


text:
How are things purchased in AoT?
In Attack on Titans, how exactly was everything paid for? Not once in AoT so far did I ever see any exchanging of currency. For example the Markets:

How do businesses make money then? Is there a type of currency in AoT that they officially use?
For example do they just give away meat for free?

Are Potatoes, Vegetables and cutlery such as plates, bowls and cups free or have I just missed something?

Note: I think food is free for the survey corps or the people that are training to enlist in the army and be able to leave outside of the walls but what about everyone else? Is it free or is it paid for? If it is then whats the currency? Coins, notes (obviously probably not :P) or is there some sort of system where they trade for example their bit of farm land for a lot of cured meat or fish or vegetables for example.
So my question is how exactly are things purchased in AoT?

I'd say it is irrelevant to the storyline. The story is more about physical fighting rather than political/economy war, so I think the author would put more thought into making the physical fights more interesting than giving details to how people live their lives normally (like anyone could live normally after the titans invades the walls).

There's definitely a monetary system in place (note I'm on mobile so I can't link any sources yet).
In episode 1, after the incident where Moses's arm is handed to his mother, there is a person saying "its like our taxes go to fatten them up". This clearly indicates some form of tax system.
In episode 6, the titans yet again breach another wall. There's a scene where merchants are blocking the passageway trying to get their goods through. This shows an obvious ownership of goods.
In the same episode, we see Mikasa and her mom targeted by slave traders. The slave traders planned to sell them to some rich folk, demonstrating value and a need for some form of money.
In episode 23, we can clearly see corrupt military police selling goods for what is obviously currency.
Over all we see several trends that point to the use of currency within Attack on Titan.

Actually in episode 23 two members of the Military Police are seen selling some 3DMG for what is most definitely coin

Mind showing a snippet of this and at what part in the episode?

from about 7:30 i'd get a screenshot but crunchyroll is being anal

I saw some characters use a paper currency to buy passage onto the surface from the Underground in an OVA.

Which OVA? What episode? When?


text:
Can Formula One prodigies like Haruka (Sailor Uranus) drive younger than Japan's legal driving age?
Japanese can drive cars from age 18, though many don’t (many who even bother to get their licenses are called “paper drivers” — meaning they can drive on paper but don’t make use of them and don’t have behind-the-wheel experience); they can drive motorcycles from age 16.
Is there an exception for Formula One prodigies, allowing Haruka (Sailor Uranus) to legally drive both on racecourses and on regular roads?
Taiki Kou (Sailor Star Maker) is seen driving a car in episode 178.  This is illegal since he’s 16 years old, correct?
(Japanese legally become adults at age 20; this is when they can start to vote, drink, and smoke.  They have a seijinshiki [成人式, Coming-of-Age ceremony] on Seijin no Hi [成人の日, or Coming-of-Age Day], a national January 2nd holiday on which most individuals return to their hometowns.  See episode 160 for more information.)

Wikipedia says Haruka is a racecar driver, even though she is barely sixteen years old when she appears. However, the timing of her birthday to the Japanese school year means she is one grade ahead of the Sailor Soldiers., since it's all one paragraph i think her Grade has something to do with it

Can anyone clarify this by answering: WHERE is she driving the car in the episode 178?

Taiki is driving a compact minivan-like boxy-shaped car on the highway in episode 178 starting at about 9 minutes 35 seconds in and lasting until the eyecatch in the middle of the episode.

@seijitsu I've removed the link to the external online streaming site. Please consider posting links like that only when they add significant value to your post. Try to use screenshots whenever possible. Thanks, and welcome to [anime.se] :)

No, There are no legal way for a 16-year-old to drive on public roads.
As Memor-X pointed out Wikipedia has a sentence about it.

Haruka is a racecar driver, even though she is barely sixteen years
old when she appears. However, the timing of her birthday to the
Japanese school year means she is one grade ahead of the Sailor
Soldiers.

And the Japanese version of Wikipedia has a annotation.

高校一年なのだが、制服姿でスポーツカーを愛車として公道で走らせている[4]。
She is first grade of high school, but she ride a sports car as beloved car.
4^ 国際運転免許証をもっていると考えれば合法であるが日本国内においては18歳までは公道では運転できない。北米版では留年しているという設定。
Legally she can drive a car with an international driver's licence, but in Japan, she can't drive on a public road until the age of 18. In the North American version, she has a scene where it's stated that she repeated a grade of school.

There is the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic.
Japan and US both signed this convention.
For example, I can drive a car in US with a Japanese driver's licence but without US driver's licence.
But the converse is little bit more difficult.
In Japan, the registration is required before driving a car.
(The convention says that the government can't have a test, but can have a registration.)
And Japanese government can't accept registration from people younger than 18 years old.
Thus a 16-year-old girl who has a US driver's licence can't drive a car in Japan.
Added: more research.
The author Naoko Takeuchi misunderstand the law; she thought a 16-year-old international driver licence holder can drive on public roads in Japan, and created the character and scene.
But the law doesn't allow it.
To fix the problem, in the North American version, Uranus was stated to be 18 years old.
For racer licence.
In Japanese law, there are no restrictions for driving inside private space.
For example, most Japanese get driver's licences in driving schools that have large space with fake road. You can get training to drive inside the school before getting your licence.
If the racing course allows it, children of any age can drive.
But (according to the Wikipedia article) most racing courses require racer licence.
Racer licence is certified by a company or agency (not the government).
The requirement is different between each company.
From Wikipedia's example, JAF (Japanese Automobile Federation) requires a normal driving licence to get a racer's licence, but MFJ (Motorcycle Federation of Japan) doesn't require a normal driving licence.
And racing course will accept international racer licences.

I edited your post for grammar - if I've somehow changed the meaning of something, feel free to change it back.

This goes for Europe too. You basically have to fulfill all requirements of the destination country to be able to drive.

Great one, kumagoro

Does anyone have a source for the age rules regarding Formula One racers in Japan? A Japanese site is fine.
To confirm: since 1) Haruka has never been said to have spent time abroad and 2) even if she had done so and had acquired an international license while abroad, it still would not legally permit her to drive within Japan, the conclusion is that she is always driving illegally throughout the span of the flashback within episode 106 (see about 17:30 and 21:42 in) until the final episode 200 (see about 20:30 in)?  If arrested, would she be disqualified from racing competitions for life?

Is there any earlier episode than 106 in which Haruka is shown driving a car?

@seijitsu Add information about F1 racers from wikipedia page.

+1 i didn't realize the crap dub which made Haruka and Michiru cousins had also made Haruka 18

authors: ისტორიები ფეხბურთელებზე


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What was happening to Joshu Kasei at Sybil's core?
Spoilers for the latest episodes of Psycho-Pass.

During the riots, Kagari and Choe enter Sybil's core. There, Joshu Kasei forces a dominator into lethal mode to kill Choe. Then, she kind of melts down before killing Kagari as well.

Why was she melting down (her chin kind of falls down)? At first I'd have guessed it was because she was forcing the dominator, but later we see she can change their behavior with ease.

Choe attacks her with some acid just before that. It obviously didn't work quite as expected.


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Apart from Momotaro's Sea Eagles, did any other animated propaganda survive WWII?
The question is mostly in the title; When discussing propaganda through anime, most articles refer to Momotaro's Divine Sea Eagles.

There was definitely other anime which were produced during wartime to promote the army's cause - but a lot of it was destroyed by the Americans after Japan's defeat.
Is there any other surviving animated Japanese propaganda from WWII?

1934 Japanese cartoon with evil Mickey Mouse

@user1306322 I've turned the comment into an answer, with a working YouTube link. Unfortunately, I don't know enough to provide any commentary or analysis about the anime films.

"Toy Box Series Episode 3: Picture Book 1936" (オモチャ箱シリーズ第3話 絵本一九三六年) could count, depending on when you regard WWII and the second Sino-Japanese war as starting. (1934 in Anime English Wikipedia page listing it)
Here's a YouTube link. Warning: some of the comments in the comment section are racist.
From Boing Boing: 1936 1934 Japanese cartoon with evil Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse flies in with a squadron of mouse-headed pterodactyls to
  attack an island populated with cute Japanese animals, including a
  surreal Felix the Cat with sausage-link arms. Link (Via Pink Tentacle)

[I]n the aftermath of the Mukden (Manchurian) Incident and Japan’s
    announced withdrawal from the League of Nations after the League
    concluded they were the aggressor, right wing elements in the country
    started an opinion campaign that once the Five Power naval limitation
    treaty ran out in 1936, America was planning to attack Japanese
    possessions, so Japan needed to expand its military… just in case..
    Apparently, this cartoon was an attempt to stir the pot."'

Browsing Wikipedia's XXXX in anime list, I came across Sankichi the Monkey: The Air Combat in the 1942 year. Here's a YouTube link featuring English subtitles.


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What is this promotioner giving out all year round?
In the episode 20 of the first season of Bakuman, there's a promotioner lady giving out something (somewhat iPhone shaped), but the surroundings are static and it doesn't look like anyone is taking whatever she has.

Considering the anime is about manga production, I suppose the square where this lady is standing might be close to the Yuueisha building, or even the promotion is directly affiliated with the company, but I have no idea what this item could be.

Looks like a pack of tissue with a pretty case perhaps.

Although I agree with you based on the size of the item in her palm that it looks like the size of a smartphone, it makes most sense to assume this is supposed to be a packet of white tissues (which should be drawn slightly smaller than it is in the close-up shots) because 1) tissues are the most common of such items to be handed out in public places throughout Japan, 2) many Japanese blatantly ignore and walk past the people giving out tissues without taking them, 3) they are often carried in a small plastic basket (though her basket visually looks like it might be wicker or some other material I've never seen one of these workers use in real life), and 4) they are given out year-round. I have on a couple of occasions seen clear files or lotion samples given out, and of course flyers without a take-home goodie, but I have never seen something on offer that looked like a white cell phone slightly larger than a packet of tissue.


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Which novels does the Bungaku Shoujo movie cover?
I would like to watch the Bungaku Shoujo movie at some point, but I don't want spoilers for the novels. Skimming over the Wikipedia page, it seems that some events haven't happened yet as of the end of the fourth novel, while other events seem to correspond to earlier novels. There may be other spoilers, some of them major, and that also makes me afraid to research this topic too deeply on my own.
Which novels provide the major plot points for the movie? Please use spoiler tags as appropriate.

+1, while kinda irrelevant to add the picture to the question it does make the question look better with it (or i suppose the question's usefulness too)

@Memor-X I couldn't resist, I love Miho Takeoka's art for Bungaku Shoujo. I was hoping a few people might see the picture and decide to check out this under-appreciated series. If you think it's too irrelevant, I'll edit to remove.

you certainly achieved that, light novel sounds interesting and since Yen Press has released them in English i might just hunt down the books myself. by irrelevant i mainly mean that normally if an image is post it's normally related to the point of the question/answer, in this case i can't really see that but as i said it makes the question look better so don't remove it!

@Memor-X They've got some pretty intense shoujo melodrama to them, which might drive off some people, but I didn't mind, and I loved the art and all the references to classical literature.

I've read the first 5 novels and from what I see, the main plot of the movie is basically the 5th novel (which is also the thickest one), though there are some parts of the other novels in there too, especially in the beginning and in the end (after the scene in the planetarium).


text:
When do Japanese high schools have midterms?
Exactly which days of which month do Japanese high schools that use a 3-semester format (which can cause students to repeat a grade) typically hold midterms in the first semester? And how many days pass between taking the midterms and the posting of the grades?
In episode 177 of Sailor Moon, Ami (Mercury) and Taiki (Star Maker) tie for top grade when grades are posted in the hallway. Taiki mentions in this episode that the (fictional) comet they see is visible at the same time as the (real-life) Centarus constellation, which is visible in Tokyo from mid-March until mid-May, with its maximum visibility around the first week of April.
However, in the previous episode, 176, Nezu (Sailor Iron Mouse) is reading issue 7 of STAGE芸能 magazine, implying that it is mid- to late-June (since Japanese magazines come out a month, or half a month, before their publication date: 7 = July) and class 1-1 has a sho tesuto (quiz) in Math.
In the following episode, 178, it must be before June 1 because the students have not done koromogae yet (changing from long-sleeved school uniform to short-sleeved, which I read on the web takes place on June 1st every year). On the other hand, in this episode, Yaten (Star Healer) is taping a TV show, and I read online that Japan has four television seasons: winter (January–March), spring (April–June), summer (July–September), and autumn (October–December), and that each episode of Japanese dramas are usually shot only a few (two to three) weeks before they are actually aired. The minor character Noriko accuses Yaten of "itsumo" (always) heading straight home after a taping, so they're a number of episodes into the series. This would indicate that episode 178 is, at the earliest, in early June so that the episodes can air starting in July.
I imagine that episode 177 is correct regarding the time of year for grade posting, and that episodes 176 and 178 are the ones that makes a mistake about the timeline.
I found this info about the Japanese high school academic year online:
Typically, the first day of a new school year is around April 8th, 9th. Summer vacation usually starts just before July 20th and usually lasts til the last day of August.
The students take their midterm exams at the end of May. Since the finals are given in July, that means the students only have a month and a half between midterms and final exams.
While midterm exams go on for two days, final exams last three days. For a week before both midterms and finals, school club meetings and other after-school activities are canceled. Students are also not allowed in the teacher's workroom or the copying room.
In high school, there are 5 periodical tests in a year (the midterm and the finals). There are some subjects which only require 1 test per term, some 2, others give no test at all, and some would base the student’s grade on classroom performance alone. Periodical exams are usually held within 3 to 5 days. There are some schools that give take-home exams or evaluation exams.

You've done a good amount of research on this question, but you've phrased it in a somewhat problematic way. The question of what month exams occur in Sailor Moon is a good one for this site. But the question of what month exams occur in Japan is only tangentially about anime. The answer to that question could be used as evidence towards an answer of the former, but it isn't part of our scope. It belongs somewhere like the proposed Japanese culture site. If you modify your question to this effect it would be a better fit for this site.

@Logan M, how would you rephrase the question? I want to know if the info in episode 177 of Sailor Moon is accurate to the Japanese school year, seeing as some of its other episodes have content that does not match the real-life year.

I agree this question is more culture question than just anime question. but I'm very interesting. for me, magazine usually published different from titled date. (Ex, Do you read October afternoon?) I feel "aha".

Your quoted info is right.
Most high school have first mid-term exam around May 20th.
The problem is magazine system.
As you think, most magazine's release date of issue 7 (July issue) is some day of June,
because no one buy July issue in August.
But some magazine have more wider shift from titled date.
JMPA (Japan Magazine Publisher Associates, which most Japanese magazines are members of) has the less than 40 day guideline for monthly magazine.
Publisher (and book store) can sell magazine 40 days before the titled release date or month.
(Weekly magazine have 15 days guideline.)
If the titled date is July 1st, publisher can sell the magazine after mid May.
Of course, this is most extreme case, but it's possible that people can read issue 7 in May.
To evidence, you can find example from Amazon.co.jp magazine corner.
For example, this magazine is July issue (07月号) but Amazon starts sending that magazine mid May (2014/5/17).
(Yes Amazon starts earlier than 40 days rule, and some book stores are angry about this, but Amazon says customer will receive the magazine after the date).
I think fashion magazine has earlier selling start date.
Using the above example, the magazine features topic on how to select swimwear, which most people prepares before summer but uses it in summer. The date rule fits the use case.
Weekly Shounen Jump is officially release on Monday, but some store selling it from Saturday.


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Artwork from ending of Monster?
In the first ending song of Monster, what is the significance of the artwork and who made it?
Important: I am only halfway through Monster. Please no spoilers!

This is going to be all spoilers.

 Those are pictures are from the book Obluda, Která Nemá Své
 Jméno or "A monster without a
 name" by Franz Bonaparta under the alias Emil Scherbe in the Czech
 language. It was first introduced in the anime at episode 37 and in
 chapter 71 in the manga.

 Though the book itself is created by a fictional character from Monster, I believe you can actually buy a real copy of it.

 See also: The nameless monster article.


text:
What game are Mio and Yuko playing on the train?
In Nichijou Episode 0 (OVA), Mio and Yuko are playing a game on the train:

They push and feint at each other but the game doesn't finish as they are distracted by Mai sleeping in the baggage area.

How does this game work? What's the objective?

It kinda looks like a low key version of Sumo Wrestling

The objective is to make your opponent move their feet or otherwise lose their footing.  There are a wide variety of rulesets and variations.  This one seems to be pretty basic:

Each player stands feet apart with toes pointing at each other.
Hands are placed palm to palm, palms of your opponent are the only part of them you can touch.
Push or pull your hands to throw your opponent off balance.
Whoever shifts their feet first loses.

Some varieties include:

Clasp right hands and try and shift your opponent's footing.
Push anywhere to shift your opponents footing.


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Why does Sailor Moon Crystal not air weekly?
Sailor Moon Crystal is "airing" (online) every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Not only is this not every week, but not every other week.
Why is this?

I would say its a similar answer to http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/9709/why-is-sailor-moon-2014-not-airing-on-tv

Sailor Moon Crystal is not expected to make money among the Japanese (its main hope to turn a profit is to make it available to viewers outside of Japan, such as by selling a license to stream it). (Please also see my answer to a similar question, which Toshinou Kyouko linked in the comments, for details on why.)
Airing episodes weekly would mean that either 1) the series ends after only 26 weeks, or 2) that the animation company would need to animate 2 to 3 times as many episodes to run for the same number of weeks.  Since it is not necessarily profitable to produce the series, animating more episodes would be too costly.
Only the first 2 episodes were made available to view for free on NicoNico Douga in Japan; to see all subsequent episodes, Japanese are required to buy a subscription to NicoNico. Spreading out the episodes more sparsely over time forces the fans who buy a subscription for the sole sake of watching Sailor Moon Crystal to pay for about a year's worth of subscription, rather than only 26 weeks' worth. The number of such fans is probably low, but the company needs to milk the amount of money it can get from them. Stretching it out also can provide a longer time frame in which said fans could decide to buy some collectible merchandise before it ends and they move on to avidly watching another series.


text:
Where is it mentioned the Accelerator's Vector Transformation works on all 11 dimensions?
The wiki says this about Accelerator's Vector Transformation:

It is said to even be able to reflect teleportation vectors in the 11th dimension, though a strange phenomenon would occur in the 3-dimensional world, so thus people could not teleport harmful objects into his body, as most Teleporters would do in a battle.

However, no source is cited. I've searched the entire light novel for it, and haven't found where "It is said".
Is their claim true? Where is that stated in the series?

Probably a good place to start searching: http://forums.animesuki.com/archive/index.php/t-68255-p-18.html

In To Aru Majutsu no Index light novel volume 6, page 57, it is explained how teleporters use the 11th dimension to move objects:

[...] Though the phrase “to teleport within space” sounded simple, the theory behind it was to get away from the three dimensions, find her position in the eleventh dimension, and then calculate the vectors to teleport. [...]

In volume 20, page 107, it is specifically explained that:

When he reflected teleportation powers, a strange phenomenon occurred in the 3
  dimensional world, [...]


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Is kuroneko from Oreimo considered dandere?

from Urban dictionary,
Dandere

A dandere is a character archtype that entails someone being quiet
  which is usually associated with shyness. "Dan" comes from the word
  "danmari" which means silent and taciturn. "Dere" means to become
  "lovey dovey"
Not to be confused with Kuudere which is a cool person that becomes
  lovey dovey. They are very similar in appearence and possibly
  behavior, but their underlying character reasoning is different. Being
  silent for the sake of being silent vs being cool

I have a problem placing her as a dandere because she sometimes acts playful as the image above (not antisocial). Am I correct considering her dandere ?

I never get tired of that image since it gets re-posted in the chat room here alot of the time

Yes, she can be considered a Dandere character.

A dandere character is one who is normally quiet and silent, possibly to the point of coming across as emotionless at times, but will suddenly become talkative and sweet and cute when alone with the right person if they manage to push the right button to get them to pour their heart out, revealing that they're actually just shy.
A dandere will be more or less a normal person, but, will not talk unless spoken to/required to. They will avoid talking because of their shyness, but if need be, they will speak. Also, a dandere tends to feel more power in numbers. If they're with a group that they're comfortable with, then the shyness factor of said dandere will very likely decrease if another, unfamiliar person is introduced at that time.

At the first otaku meeting of Kirino, Ruri (a.k.a. Kuroneko) was silent and passed her time with her cell phone, but later when Saori introduced them to each other, Ruri was talking (quarreling) with Kirino.

Ruri was comfortable with Kyosuke. She was talking normally with him and

 confessed her love to Kyosuke.

She also talks and enjoy herself when she is with members of Saori's circle and with school club.

These are, however, only some examples of her behavior. Throughout the entire series, there are many occasions where her character matches the description of a Dandere as stated above.

She should be considered kudere because of her lack of emotion...most of the time

"Lack of emotion" is not a term I'd ever think appropriate to describe Kuroneko. The first time she and Kirino get in a room together, they get in a fight, with Kuroneko fighting just as passionately as Kirino. They're not fire and ice; they're a red flame and a blue flame, each as hot as the other.


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How is a guild mark removed?

After failing to win, Yukino faces the anger of Sabertooth's Guild Master, Jiemma. Displeased by the failure of Team Sabertooth on the second day, Jiemma throws grapes at Yukino's head and forces her to strip, telling her to erase her guild mark,

How exactly does a person remove a guild mark? Is there a special magic for this?

I don't think they showed this in the anime. Maybe not in the Mangas ever.

Wasn't it a fake tattoo?

We really don't know how the guild mark is removed, but Yukino do it with her own magic.
Sabertooth's Guild Master order her to remove it by her own magic and she do it.
We know that guild marks are given by stamping someone with the rubber seal like thingy. When Lucy entered the guild, Mira used this device on Lucy to give her the mark.

 In the battle Lucy vs. Flare, Flare tried to burn the guild mark. {So I think any magic can remove it}.
 Future Lucy didn't had a guild mark. {Maybe because the guild was destroyed and the guild mark also vanished or someone removed it from her}

This answer is only based on the anime :)

Future Lucy didn't have her mark any more, because her right arm, the place that the mark was located on, was missing. She had lost her arm during her fights with the dragons.

Menaka gave a good answer but I want to add on:

No special magic is needed to remove a guild mark. Mainly because the mark and the guild are most likely connected. We can see this from how Future Lucy teared up after seeing the guild mark on Present Lucy's hand (as mentioned in menaka's answer).

Flare actually wanted to use her magic to engrave Raven Tail's mark on her

The mark can only be removed by the person themselves, I would assume. Or else, anyone with magic could easily remove another's guild mark which to some are their pride and joy like Lucy is with Fairy Tail's mark. This can also be seen from how Yukino has to remove the Mark herself in front of her guild at the time.

doesnt your second point contradict your 3th point ?

@Dimitrimx nope it does not what i was trying to point out on my second point was that flare wanted to give lucy a scar somewhere of raven tail's guild mark. She did not intend to remove Fairy Tail's mark. She wanted to humiliate Lucy more by making her bear the mark of the enemy guild.

No one's mentioned this, so I thought I would. When Fairy Tail disbanded after the Tartorous Ordeal, we can still clearly see that Lucy has her guild mark. Gray, Natsu, and Erza are also seen having the Fairy Tail Guild Mark in X792. If the Master had the power to remove guild marks, then I assume that Makarov would've taken away everyone's guild marks to make sure that they didn't have their heart still set upon Fairy Tail.
Because of this, then it's safe to say that it's not the Master who removes guild marks but the person. It seems like removing a guild mark is often traumatizing, based upon Yukino's experience with removing the mark. Of course, she was banished from the guild and in the story with Laxus and the Thunder Legion, we don't see the four showing much remorse about changing their guild marks.
Because of this, I'd go to say that you need to have the magic tool that places guild marks in order for the magic to work. Keeping this in mind, we can assume that a second party would remove the guild mark. I don't know if this is true or not seeing as Minerva also removed and changed her guild mark. So we don't really know a lot about it except that the guild marks can be removed and changed. It might have something to do with how a person identifies themselves? We just don't know a lot. But I just thought to point that out.

The guild mark will not really disappear unless the person is banished from the guild.
However, it's true about future Lucy not having one because Fairy Tail didn't exist, like when Wendy found out about her guild Cait Shelter didn't really exist, her guild mark disappeared.
On the other hand, Laxus was banished from the guild but still had his guild mark when he was allowed back, so it doesn't make sense.
In the end, I say it's really only something the master can do.

A person's mark is something that symbolises their part in a team or guild. This mark can't be wiped off easily because it's like a permanent marker stamp. We know this because we can see times when Lucy showers and her mark is still clearly visible.
However, a mark can be removed as shown when Wendy's mark was removed from Cait Shelter because the guild was not real or exist but also, the guild then disconnected. Powerful dark magic also is strong enough to do this. If the guild is no longer existing or 'standing', then the mark disappears as the seal is broken as the magic from the stamp is no longer valid. But nobody really knows how to remove a mark.


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Is no one looking for Kaneki?
In Tokyo Ghoul, during episode 1, Kaneki turns into a half-ghoul, and he is forced to abandon his old life, sans his good buddy Hide, though they do spend less time together.
However, we barely even get a glimpse of Kaneki's home life. We see him briefly in what appears to be an apartment or small home, but without roommates or family.

I think Kaneki is around 18, so it's possible he lives alone, but surely someone took care of him long enough to wonder where he is.
Why does no one seem to be looking for him?

I can't seem to remember when this is from but, it was revealed that in the later episodes, Kaneki's parents died when he was very young and ever since then he has been living alone. He grew up as a very lonely kid only having Hide as one of his closest and only friend. In his life before the accident of him becoming half-ghoul the only person close enough to care about him is Hide. In the later episodes, Hide makes his appearance multiple times and show some concern for Kaneki.
According to the Wiki:

His aunt's son, Yuuichi, who she always compared with him since Yuuichi did not do well at school. This greatly angered her. When comparing her son with Kaneki, she also compared Kaneki with his late mother, saying how alike they were. Her feelings of inferiority regarding Kaneki's mother were turned on him as spite. As time passed, the family became a place that did not give Kaneki any comfort for long because nobody in the family would look after or care for him

I think Kaneki has now moved to Anteiku. Since no one gives concern in regarding where Kaneki is, he could have moved out of the old house or still be staying there, but that would not make for any good content since, his hungers, desires are all satisfied at Anteiku to the extent that him in his home would just be watching TV or sleeping.

In Tokyo Ghoul A there were missing signs in the college that Kaneki went to, and there were also files on him missing. In an episode his friend always take down the missing flyers, and I guess the government kept this accident confidential since only the doves had access to the information. But he has no family because both of his parents died. I conclude that his friend kept his disappearance a secret and the government or doves kept this confidential from the public eyes, and nobody worried or is looking for Kaneki.
*according to the anime

Welcome to Anime & Manga SE! Do you remember what episode it was?

his friend kept his disappearance a secret Removing the posters serves to reduce the exposure, but it's not really keeping secret though.

Kaneki moved out when he turned 18 to get away from his abusive relatives who didn't really like him or want anything to do with him. After his mom died, her life insurance was left as a trust for him, which is where his living expenses came from. Upon graduating from high school, he was able to get the entire thing and moved out to live by himself.
His "family" didn't give a damn about him, and as we find out, aside from Hide, he had no close friends, since he was emotionally distant and withdrawn. Instead, he preferred to read in quiet places by himself, aside from the occasional friends by association with Hide.
However, in the manga, there were missing person flyers posted around after his sudden disappearance1 following his kidnapping by Aogiri. Even Touka didn't know where he was most of the time after that, because he distanced himself from them to protect them, while Hide was actually covering for him, saying he just had some family troubles and wasn't feeling well and just wanted some time alone. The coincidence between the disappearance of Kaneki and the appearance of Eyepatch became an important clue for the CCG to discover Kaneki's identity as Eyepatch. Although Hide had been covering up for Kaneki, once they had made the connection, Hide basically told them everything to try and get them to agree to help him, which was why he was trying to tell Kaneki to give it his all to try and impress the CCG enough to consider him worth keeping around.
1 Kaneki continued going to college all the way up until that point in the manga.


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Is One Week Friends manga still on going?
Finished the anime and very curious on whats gonna happen next. Is the manga complete or is it still on going?

No, it is still ongoing according to Wikipedia. At top right of the page under "Original run", it says "January 21, 2012 – ongoing".
Sometimes, Wikipedia doesn't update the information or the status is left like that when the series is on a long unexplained hiatus. Just to be sure, in the Volumes section of that page, it says that the release date for Volume 7 is April 22, 2015, which shows that the next volumes is in the works.
Also, Manga-Updates says the same thing under "Status in Country of Origin" (6 Volumes (Ongoing))
According to a post on Anime News Network provided by Torisuda, Volume 7 is the last one.

The sixth compiled volume of Matcha Hazuki's Isshūkan Friends. (One Week Friends) manga is announcing on Tuesday (26/07/2014) that the seventh and final volume of the manga will be released in Japan on April 22, 2015.

That long? Hahaha.

@NatsuDragneel i did expand the answer cause i wasn't very happy it being so short. it just gives a bit of a head up if you use wikipedia to look to see if something is ongoing or not

MangaFox is still on Volume 5. Volume 6 hasn't been translated?

@NatsuDragneel Manga-Updates lists "Latest Release(s)" with the latest being v.5 c.22 by Sense-Scans, which seems to be the first chapter of Volume 5, the Volume 6/7 info is the official japanese release information but it seems Manga-Updates only lists scanlation progress in that section

So it'll take a long time to release Vol 6 its been months since Vol 5 was release I think.

@NatsuDragneel more or less, though official translation releases are just as slow as Vampire Knight Volume 19 was released in May 24, 2013 but it's was released in English this year.

This Anime News Network post says Volume 7 will be the last volume and that it will come out in April 2015. But apparently the manga has been licensed (though I can't find out by whom), so a lot of the scanlators have stopped working on it.

@Torisuda i've altered my last sentence with the information you have provided. i have left out the licensed part for now as the link you provided only talks about the anime's licencing, you free to edit in info on English licensing of the manga if you find a link indicating who has it

@Memor-X I couldn't find out who has it. MangaFox (which I can't link to) claims it's licensed, but they said the same of Banana no Nana, which I'm 99% sure isn't licensed. I was kind of hoping someone who did know would see my comment and tell us all. (BTW, +1 for your answer.)

@NatsuDragneel Remember, you can accept this answer by clicking the green check mark if it answered your question. You and Memor-X both get reputation if you accept.


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What's the basis for the gender of Black Hanekawa as reported on the wikia?
The wikia for the Monogatari states that Black Hanekawa is

Male (Physically Female)

After seeing a blogger describe their experience of seeing this and concluding that Hanekawa is nonbinary (a conclusion which to be honest I was a bit suspicious of for reasons I'm not going into, since they're off-topic), I ended up with several questions:

Where is such a description of Black Hanekawa stated? Or is there no explicit in-text reference for this? Can this idea at least be drawn from other details in the "text"?
If such a conclusion about Black Hanekawa actually exists, why is the gender of Black Hanekawa what it is?

The most likely answer to me is that Black Hanekawa is based off of Hanekawa so the apparition will have female traits, but since the "sawari neko" itself has a gender, we have this discrepancy. But I'm not sure how true this is - it's possible that it was mentioned somewhere that the "sawari neko" is male (perhaps in Oshino's descriptions of it), but I don't remember this with complete certainty.

I don't remember anything about Black Hanekawa being a male but Hanekawa calls Black Hanekawa and Kako little sisters. (Kako has male voice)

@ShinobuOshino: Kako definitely has a male voice in my memory, though at least in that case the "sister" designation makes sense to me since the apparitions are from Hanekawa herself, in a sense. But somehow I feel like the concern here is specifically with Black Hanekawa. I wouldn't be surprised though if the wikia is wrong. (I honestly trust them less than I would Wikipedia at times, beyond using them as a general reference guide).

IIRC there are a number of comments on TVTropes to the effect that Black Hanekawa's pronoun usage is exclusively male - 'ore', etc. This should be an easy thing to check, particularly with the books.

Hope answers from the light novels are okay. I remember the anime following the LN very closely on this point, so it shouldn't affect the outcome.
Black Hanekawa's biological sex is female. Its body is the body of Hanekawa Tsubasa, who is most surely female. (If anyone has any doubt on this point—look at what Koyomi's always fixating on.)
Oshino does some speculating in Neko Black, but the most definite information comes from the later parts of Nekomonogatari White. The issue of its gender identity is far murkier, as it tells us itself in Nekomonogatari White, Chapter 61, just after it reads Tsubasa's letter on the origins of Kako, in which she calls Black Hanekawa her little sister:

Besides, I was male when when I was run over, so it's weird to call me a little sister—and in the first place, even though my base was the Hindering Cat, seeing as I was created by raw material cut off from Mistress, my gender isn't just vague, it's undeniably a grey area between being a sister and being a brother nyah.
What's the point of asking an abnormality about its gender, anyway?

Here, Black Hanekawa calls into question the idea that kaii even have genders or that the concept is meaningful for them. (After all, they don't seem to use sexual reproduction.) Even Shinobu, who is obviously female, seems to be pretty much the same as male vampires except for outward appearance; her sex is a holdover from her time as a human, when it did matter. (See Kizumonogatari on Shinobu once being human.)
Given the context of the above quote, it seems like Black Hanekawa was trying to mock Tsubasa for getting things wrong (against her usual inclination). Just before that remark, it says

That said, it looks like Mistress has still got a few misunderstandings nyah—though I suppose, seeing as she was conjecturing with a lack of data to base her decisions on, these mistakes couldn't have been avoided nyah.
Plus, both the style and content of the letter [that Tsubasa wrote to explain the situation to Black Hanekawa] are all over the place by Mistress's standards—it definitely wasn't something written while she was calm nyah.
It isn't a situation to be hoping for full marks anyway, so getting an 80 for an A-grade is good enough nyah.

So the above quote is in the spirit of continuing to call out Tsubasa on her minor mistakes—she calls Black Hanekawa her little sister, and it responds by nitpicking her for assuming it was female. That suggests this isn't a serious statement about Black Hanekawa's gender identity.
In Nekomongatari White, Chapter 60, Tsubasa speculates that Black Hanekawa existed inside her long before she ever encountered the Sawari Neko. In Neko Black, Oshino hypothesized something similar—that the Sawari Neko's consciousness is completely gone from the equation and it's really just its powers being directed by Tsubasa Hanekawa's unconscious will that comprise Black Hanekawa. If true, that makes the Sawari Neko's gender even more irrelevant. But none of this necessarily makes Black Hanekawa's gender identity female—it could be a suppressed masculine part of Tsubasa that expressed itself in the fusion of Sawari Neko and Hanekawa that created Black Hanekawa.
Kako, the Inflaming Tiger,

 is also a spinoff of Tsubasa, yet is always treated as male, except when Tsubasa calls it her "little sister".

But there's no evidence I can remember in the books or anime to say that Black Hanekawa actually identifies as male. It's murky, for lots of reasons, and I think it was presumptuous of the wikia to post that line as it did. Furthermore, it seems pretty far out there to assume that this means Tsubasa herself has a nonbinary gender identity, whatever the situation with Black Hanekawa is. Tsubasa is in love with a male, Koyomi. The imagery in the anime during Tsubasa Cat Part 5 even suggests she wants to have a sexual relationship with him. Tsubasa seems uncomfortable with Hitagi's grabbiness earlier in Neko White when they shower together. Nothing she ever says or does suggests that Tsubasa Hanekawa doesn't identify as female. The most we could say on that score is that there's a vague possibility she may have had something like a split personality inside her that identifies as male—and that's almost pure speculation.
Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but the evidence does not support the idea that Tsubasa Hanekawa is not biologically and psychologically female. And the evidence for Black Hanekawa is very ambiguous, and muddied by the irrelevance of gender for non-human kaii.

+1 for the informative answer (also for the very last bit, which pretty much covers a lot of the reasons why I was critical of such an exertion on the internet in the first place).


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Why does Yamada always say her name?
In Wagnaria AKA Working!! Yamada always says her name when she refers to herself (according to NISA's subtitles) ie.

Everyone is spoiling the lost girl, Yamada wants to be spoiled too!

this seems different from when characters refer to each other as "you" or "her" in the subtitles but we can hear them say the person's name. I am wondering why does Yamada keep saying her name?

maybe because she act like a kid and a kid usually calls themself from a third person view

@ShinobuOshino hmm, that might be a possibility though i've never encountered any children doing that which could mean it's a cultural thing

In Japanese culture, children often refer to themselves in the third person (see this question from Japanese Language Stack Exchange, and also the Wikipedia article on Illeism, which is the technical term for referring to yourself in the third person. This JLSE question also gives more of the nuances of using illeism in Japanese.) A Western example of this would be Elmo, the Sesame Street character, although in the West, illeism usually makes someone look big-headed rather than cute, like former WWE superstar The Rock, who always referred to himself in the third person as "The Rock".
In anime, older characters with childish personalities often also use the third person; for example, Bakemonogatari's Nadeko always refers to herself as "Nadeko". (If you see "I" or "me" in the subtitles, it was added by the translators.) Yamada claims to be sixteen if I recall correctly, so she should be too old for this (though the second comment on this JLSE answer claims that even women in their twenties will do this in real life), but she spends most of her time acting like she's much younger than she really is, trying to be cute and make people like her and praise her and overlook her mistakes. She tries to adopt a "poor orphan in search of a loving family" kind of persona and get people like Otou, Yachiyo, and Hiromi to feel sorry for her and join her ideal family. I think her use of her own name is meant to play up her assumed role as the cute, spoiled youngest child of her imaginary family.
You're right that this is different from other times when the subtitles translate a name as "you" or "her"; that usage is more in line with what's described in this Japanese Language Stack Exchange question, where you address someone by name instead of using a second-person or third-person pronoun, as a matter of respect. Going by Yamada's personality, I think it's a childish affectation.


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Did Kirei know about Kiritsugu's Origin Bullet, or was he just lucky?
In Kirei and Kiritsugu's final fight, Kirei uses Command Spells as his Mana source.
That rendered Kiritsugu's Origin Bullet ineffective. Was that on purpose? That is, did Kirei know about Kiritsugu's ability and use Command Spells as a Mana source to counter it?
To note:

Kiritsugu's Origin Bullet must have been a pretty well-guarded secret, or Archibald El-Melloi should not have been caught off guard by it;
Using Command Spells as a Mana source is pretty unconventional;
In the anime (have not read the Light Novel), there is no indication that Kirei knew about Kiritsugu's ability before the fight;

Most of Kotomine's Command Spells are actually inherited by his father and the previous supervisors of the Holy Grail Wars at the end of the war, since a Master can only obtain 3 from the Holy Grail.

In addition to his own Command Seals on his lower left arm, he also has Command Seals inherited from his father that cover his right arm from the elbow to the wrist. The supervisor of the Holy Grail War is entrusted with the Command Seals recollected from previous Holy Grail Wars, so he has access to a great number of them.

He of course got all of the Command Spells that Risei Kotomine had after Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi killed him. And because his Magic Circuit is still underdeveloped by the time of the Forth Holy Grail War, he uses Command Seals as makeshift Magic Circuits and sacrifices them, similar to how Shirou sacrifices the Magic Circuits he made during his training when he does Projections (as noted when he projects Excalibur).
The Origin Bullets utilizes Kiritsugu's Origin of "Severing and Binding"

The "Severing" aspect will cause prana stored within the Circuits to ignore the paths within the body, flowing chaotically and destroying it in the process. Afterward, the circuits will be bound together again with the "Binding" aspect, albeit in a chaotic and useless manner, thus rendering them permanently inoperable and destroying the target's magecraft abilities.

However, since Kotomine is using Command Spells as Magic Circuits, the Origin Bullets affects the Command Spell Kotomine used and leaving the others intact. Kotomine doesn't fight like an orthodox magus which Kiritsugu has fought in the past, and the fact he was even born with with Magic Circuits is abnormal by itself, so Kotomine isn't your typical Magus.
As for what Kotomine knew of Kiritsugu's abilities, while he probably didn't know them at the time he was still a skilled Executor, it's noted that he's skilled enough to judge the type of bullet by the sound of gunfire and able to analyze the situation calmly. Coupled with his own physical prowess and how he uses the Command Seals to reinforce his own body and equipment, he probably figured out Kiritsugu's bullets weren't normal and prepared a suitable Anti-Magus Defense (devised from experience hunting strange Magi in the past for the Church) backed by Command Spells as replacement for a Magic Circuit. And as we can see, he quickly worked out how to defend against Kiritsugu's bullets.

Ok, I guess that is clear enough - that is, I did not know that Kirei's Magic Circuits were underdeveloped. In that case it makes sense for him to use his Command Seals to do magecraft, even in the absence of intelligence regarding Kiritsugu's Origin Bullet.


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Which Trinity Universe Characters belong with each developer?
In Trinity Universe a number of characters from games developed by Gust and Nippoin Ichi Software (NIS) are featured in it. some are obvious but i am wondering which characters belong to which developers and which may be original characters.
Bellow is a List of characters:

Demon God (Dog) King Kanata
Fox Spirit Tsubaki
Suzaku
Dark Hero Lucius
Valkarie Rizelea
Mizuki
Violet
Pamala
Macaroon
Miyu
Recit
Pirate Queen Etna
Prinny (and in cutscenes, the Prinny Squad)
Flonne (Fallen Angel)

NOTE: i have tagged atelier and disgaea because i am assuming the characters would originate from these series

I haven't played the game, but according to its English-language Wikipedia page:

Demon God Kanata
Valkyrie Rizelea
Fox Spirit Tsubaki
The Dark Hero Lucius
Treasure Hunter Recit
Managraphic Artist Miyu
Mizuki
Suzaku
Macaroon
Shuten
Ashura

are all original characters.

Flonne
Etna
Prinny

are all Nippon Ichi characters from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. (I can personally vouch for this one, since I've played Disgaea.)

Pamela Ibis
Violet Platane

are Gust characters from Atelier Viorate: Alchemist of Gramnad 2.