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Why does Akiha have a physical reaction to Shiki's collapse?
In chapter 36 of the Tsukihime manga, Akiha doubles over in pain while Shiki is collapsing at the site of the incident eight years ago. The pacing and a remark from Akiha indicating worry for Shiki imply that this is related to Shiki's collapse.

Why would Akiha have a physical reaction to Shiki's collapse? I do not recall seeing any indication of the two being linked physically or mentally in the way Shiki and SHIKI are. (Shiki eventually sees murders from SHIKI's eyes. We don't see Akiha undergo the same experiences as Shiki in this maner.) Alternatively, am I misunderstanding what happens here?

I do not recall seeing any indication of the two being linked

Actually they are. In the visual novel, in Akiha's Route, what really happened when Shiki collpased is revealed. SHIKI inverted and attacked Akiha but Shiki protected her and died; however, Akiha gave up some of her life force to save Shiki.

She was outside playing with Shiki, her adopted brother, and her real brother, also named SHIKI. But the Tohno blood was much stronger in her real brother and he inverted to his non-human form. In this uncontrollable state, he lost control of himself and attempted to attack Akiha. Shiki jumped in the way to protect her and took the full force of the attack. Shiki died protecting Akiha, but Akiha used powers granted to her by her non-human blood to give him half of her life, allowing him to survive.

Source: Akiha Tohno - Personality (2nd Paragraph)
Akiha's pained expression is most likely from the strain of maintaining Shiki's
life alongside resisting the Inversion Impulse of the Tohno Demon Blood inside her, which she requires Kohaku's help for.

Akiha often struggles to maintain control over her Tohno blood and resisting her Inversion Impulse, which she has difficulty with due to her also maintaining Shiki's life, to the point she also had to drink Kohaku’s blood.

Source: Akiha Tohno - Personality (3rd Paragraph)
In her route however, it becomes too much as she succumbs to her Inversion Impulse in the end. In the True End of her route:

 [Shiki] decides to kill himself instead (so that she will regain the life energy she gave Shiki when he died eight years ago, and then will be restored to her full strength so she can more easily resist her Tohno blood impulses and restore her mind).

Source: Akiha Tohno - Role - Akiha's Roue (8th Paragraph)
Suffice to say that there is more to the True Ending than what I have quoted, which you can read up on the site in the quoted paragraphs and those that follow.

At some point I thought it might be that Shiki's survival in the incident was linked to Akiha giving up some life force for him, but since this never came up in the manga (and since it's been a while since I've played the VN, so I don't remember that well), I figured that this was wrong and that I must have mixed up Tsukihime with another series.

But in any case, so you mean that Akiha is continuously protecting Shiki, and that that transfer of life-force wasn't a one-off event from the incident eight years ago?

@Maroon edited. she's maintaining his life. not sure what happened to Shiki's life at the end of Akiha's True End but it seems Ciel was involved given in Kagetsu Tohya she's the one who sends the letter to Akiha saying that she saved him


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What piano piece is Emil Nekola skating to in his short program?
In episode 8 of Yuri!!! on Ice, Emil Nekola skates his short program to a piano piece. (This is around the eight-minute mark in the episode.) The music sounded like a classical work that I have heard before, but I was unable to place it. The most I have been able to gather is that if this is indeed a classical composition, it would have to be from the Romantic period in music at the earliest. (I also have a sense of which composers wouldn't have written something like this, but that's less useful.)
Is the music in Emil's short program an original composition? If not, what is its title and composer?

It seems silly that I figured this out pretty quickly after throwing out my earlier guesses for the piano piece and guessing that it was Mussorgsky, but since I didn't see anyone discuss the section of the soundtrack when I ran some preliminary searches, and since I couldn't find any useful Google results for "yuri!!! on ice" "mussorgsky" once I'd located my answer, I'll leave this here.

I found an answer after some additional guesswork and checking with some music recordings.
The piano music is an excerpt from Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, specifically "The Hut on Hen's Legs" section. The soundtrack before the episode cuts away to the end of Emil's performance clearly matches this; the piano music starts where this section of Pictures at an Exhibition begins and follows it (before the cut) without any alterations.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How did Izuna Uchiha die?
How did Izuna Uchiha -younger brother of Madara Uchiha die? Was he killed by Tobirama Senju or by Madara himself when he seized his eyes?

According to Itachi, who was trying to scare Sasuke, it was Madara taking Izuna's eyes, But according to Hashirama, the guy who was there, it was Tobirama.

So then how did Madara get eternal mangekyou sharingan?

obviously, he took Izuna's eyes after izuna died, exactly like sasuke did. the battle had Tobirama fatally wound him, and they retreated. We find out Izuna died in the next battle.

During a battle with Tobirama, Izuna was mortally wounded by Tobirama's technique.

With Madara quickly rushing to Izuna's aid, Hashirama pleaded with Madara to come to peaceful terms. Seeing his brother begin to consider this offer, Izuna told his brother not to listen to their lies, ultimately making Madara retreat with Izuna.
Madara later revealed that Izuna died from the injury. At the last moments of his life, the dying Izuna had given Madara his eyes so his brother could obtain the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan to protect their clan.
Because of the blindness caused by overuse of a Mangekyō Sharingan, many people came to believe that Madara took Izuna's eyes by force to regain his sight.
Source:
Izuna Uchiha | Narutopedia

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


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What is the extent of Haki's power?
I know it allows you to defeat logia users and gives your hits more strenth, but is it the only thing it can do?

There are 3 main types of haki
Kenbunshoku: Allows prediction and to sense people hiding
Busoshoku: Armament strengthens attack and defense penetrates logia types
Haoshoku: King's haki, breaks the will of weaker people rendering them unable to function.
As for the limits of each we cannot judge that at this time. The concept of haki didn't become public knowledge until the new world came into the scene.
We do know 2 things so far. The first is from Zoro vs Pica and Tra vs Vergo. If one person's haki is stronger than another's it will allow you to penetrate it.
The second is from Luffy vs Doflamingo and that's that haki can run out and a user won't be able to use it for awhile once it does. How long and how much is still pretty unclear.

@trafalgarlaw    If my answer solves your question please click the check-mark so that it gets accepted and removed from the open queue.

Like what I just did?

@trafalgarlaw yup that's perfect. Thank you.

There's four, you forgot the shield one.

No the shield one is part of buso. It augments attack and defense

Busoshoku also has another application called "hardening". That's Buso Koka. The one where objects become black. The invisible shield/armour, is just normal Busoshoku.  Shanks KIng's Haki also damaged Whitebeard's ship.

@TobiAlafin busoshoku is always blackened in the new world. The blackening only serves for visual distinction to the reader  and due to the main characters being exposed to and understanding what Haki is now. It's similar to nen from hunter x hunter where it was invisible until learned then you can see it. Also hardening translates roughly into armament which is what I was describing.

This is not true. Sabaody arc. Luffy used a Haki jet pistol on the Pacifista. It wasn't blackened.


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What is the Hitotsubashi faction?
It was clear that they were a traitorous faction within the Shogunate. In Gintama' episode 16, it's stated by Sougo that it's basically known that the Hitotsubashi were behind some bad stuff, but if they were called out for it, they could cause a lot of trouble for Shigeshige. But if they're only a part of the Shogunate, how could they have enough power to overthrow it, and how would that not be noticed?
In the same episode, Sougo says the Bakufu/Shogunate doesn't want any trouble with the Hitotsubashi. So if they're so dangerous, why weren't they taken out already? Just what kind of powerful organization are they?
I'm just having trouble understanding the premise of the Hitotsubashi.

Hitotsubashi faction is a faction within the shogunate that supports Tokugawa Nobunobu instead of the current (current as of that part of the story) shogun, Tokugawa Shigeshige. Think of them as the opposition party.
The very fact that Sougo said it means that the government knows about it. However, while they are dangerous, the shogunate can't just kill them all since the leader is a part of the Tokugawa clan. Also, the number of the supporters is quite big, thus any attempt to eliminate them would be met with hostile resistance which would throw Edo into chaos.
It should also be noted that while Edo appears to be at peace, they are under the occupation of a foreign force, the Amanto. The shogunate also have the Jouishishi rebels problem. An internal war between the shogunate faction and the Hitotsubashi faction would only weaken the government's position. Thus, the option that Shigeshige has is to appease the Hitotsubashi through political deals.


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What is the name of this song in ep1 Hibike Euphonium 2
Between 24:00 to 26:00, can someone telling me what is the song name?
Hibike! Euphonium 2 Episode 1

The song is Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin.
Funny that the first Youtube video that hits on Google seems to also have attracted other fans of the anime as well.

thank you so much !!! I tried to find for sometimes but no hope until today !


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What is Acnologia's element?
Okay so all the other dragon slayers have an obvious element to their magic. Even with Acnologia's roar on Tenrou Island, there was no direct element to his magic. The only thing I could think of is just that his name is "The dragon of the apocolypse". So do we know what it is yet or not?

Just a guess, possibly Void.

The dragons we have seen so far do follow a unique theme and magic which is not necessary an "element". This table on the wiki sums it up pretty nicely. Acnologia is known as "The Black Dragon". (There is also a white dragon, Weisslogia). So the theme of Acnologia is "Black". What exactly are the limitations of its "black" magic are haven't been shown in the anime/manga.
However, there is a reason why Acnologia is "different" from other dragons.

 Acnologia is a cataclysmically powerful Dragon Slayer that can take the form of a Dragon.  Born over 400 years ago, Acnologia was one of the first Dragon Slayers to come into being, entering the Dragon Civil War on the side supporting coexistence. Acnologia and a group of other Dragon Slayers, however, disregarded the cause their comrades fought for, and killed every Dragon they could, bathing in their blood. Due to the overuse of his Magic, Acnologia's physique eventually turned into that of a Dragon's, and he proclaimed himself to be the Dragon King. This event was forever etched into history as the Dragon King Festival.

You can read more about Acnologia's history and the Dragon King Festival on the wiki (it has a decent summary) or read the manga. This is discussed in Chapter 301 of Manga.

Acnologia's element is etherious. Which is the combination of all other elements of magic. He can eat up any magic.

There is a theory that has a great explanation on what it might be. It is said in this theory that Acnologia is the Etherion Dragon Slayer. Basically Etherion also known as Ethernano is the mix of multiple different elements. You remember when natsu ate the part of the lacrima? Well, that was Ethernano. (Honestly the video below explains it 10x better than I can).
Here is a like to the YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exDA3rQF9Zk

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


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How long does it typically take for popular anime to be dubbed in English?
There are a lot of new seasons of anime coming out soon, and I was wondering how long does it take for popular anime to get dubbed in English?
If it helps, the two main ones I am thinking of are Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale and Attack on Titan Season 2.

AoT's second season looks to be slated for Spring 2017 and SAO's movie is coming in February.  Dubbing a series is different to dubbing a movie.

Depends on who has the western rights to it. If it's Funimation it'll either be a broadcast dub then that'll be 3-5 weeks for the first dub episode to air or they'll dub it for the home release roughly a year later. For the others (Sentai, Aniplex etc..) it'll be roughly a year later for the home release, if it even gets a dub.


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Is there a particular café that does anime coffee art?
I've seen a lot of coffee art of anime characters on social media, and I'd love to get my own anime-coffee - or even find out the location so I can see more of their art.

Is there somewhere specific that serves these anime coffees or is this just individuals creating the art?

Coffee art is commonly refered to as "Latte art" (ラテ・アート in japanese). By searching this term in japanese along with "anime" (アニメ) on the internet, you will be able to find many results (such as this blog where you will find many anime latte arts), and even many tutorials to make your own latte arts!
If you want to go see by yourself in a café, you can probably use this article as reference as it lists many recommended places in Japan where you can enjoy latte art. However, arts such as characters representations usually require lot of preparation/work/tries, so I would not expect too complex arts by going there in the first place.

One of the latte art cafés has started putting watermarks on their images, now I can tell everyone about this amazing place, which is the source of a lot of the images currently circulating
Belcorno
It is a pizzaria that also does latte art. By reservation only, for about 1050 Yen.
Here is their facebook page

Along with this mix they have entire sets of characters from series like IdolM@ster, etc.


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Who is the biological mother of Gon?
It is not Mito obviously.
When Gon is listening to the tape that Ging leave him, Gon stop the taped when Ging ask if Gon want's to know about his mother. I've waited so far but until the last episode of the anime it is not yet revealed.
If Gon just listen to the tape, then the mistery should already solved. Is there any answer that can be found in the Manga? I'm prepared for spoilers.
If Leorio was mad about how Ging acted when he knows the condition of Gon, I'm sure Leorio will be more mad if he knows that there's a mother to Gon.
If she is ever alive, then who is she.

i bet his mother is still alive and  a high ranking hunter like his father as well.

Unfortunately, this question cannot be answered right now.
When Gon was younger, Mito told him that both of his parents were dead. However, it is later found out that it was a lie, because his father Ging was obviously alive and well.
Before the Greed Island Arc, Gon got a tape from Ging. At the end of the tape, when Ging was going to tell him about his mother, instead of listening to it to the end, Gon just stopped the tape and stated that Mito was his mother.
There is a lot of speculation as to whom his mother could be, but until Togashi supplies the answer, we will never know.

Even in the manga? I'm not updated in the manga series.

Even in the manga, but i think i read somewhere that even ging stated that her mother was dead and in the tape he only wanted to describe her, but i can be completely wrong the series is advancing at snail speed


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How many people kiss Usagi in the Sailor Moon anime and manga respectively?
My wife is a big fan of Sailor Moon, a series I know little about.
How many people kiss Usagi in the manga and anime respectively?

In the manga, Usagi/Sailor Moon/Princess Serenity/Neo Queen Serenity is kissed by:

Prince Endymion kissed Princess Serenity (Moon Kingdom, consensual)
Chiba Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen kissed Usagi/Sailor Moon (present day, in every story arc, non-consensual and consensual)
Prince Demande kissed Usagi (Black Moon arc, non-consensual)
Neo Queen Serenity kissed King Endymion (Black Moon arc, the King was asleep so technically non-consensual)
Sailor Uranus kissed Sailor Moon (Mugen [Infinty] arc, done by Uranus before Sailor Moon could react, so technically non-consensual, but Sailor Moon did not seem to mind). Tenou Haruka also almost kissed Usagi (consensual) but they were interrupted by Mamoru. Usagi also imagined herself being kissed by surprise by Haruka (her face expression in her mind's eye is one of shock, so she was imagining a non-consensual kiss, but since she is the one who thought it up, it could be that she subconsciously wouldn't mind if it happened).
Seiya Kou (Stars arc, done by Seiya before Usagi could react, so technically non-consensual, but Usagi did not seem to mind)

In the classic 90s anime:

Prince Endymion kissed Princess Serenity (Moon Kingdom, consensual)
Chiba Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen kissed Usagi/Sailor Moon (present day, in every season, non-consensual and consensual)
Prince Demande kissed Usagi (R season, non-consensual)
Sailor Chibi-Moon kissed Sailor Moon (SuperS season, during transformation sequence, non-romantic on the cheek, consensual)
Seiya Kou kissed Usagi (SailorStars season, on the cheek, Usagi pulled back so technically non-consensual, but Usagi seemed more sad to have to reject him than disturbed by his farewell kiss)

In Sailor Moon Crystal:

Prince Endymion kissed Princess Serenity (Moon Kingdom, consensual)
Chiba Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen kissed Usagi/Sailor Moon (present day, non-consensual and consensual)
Prince Demande kissed Usagi (non-consensual)
Neo Queen Serenity kissed King Endymion (the King was asleep so technically non-consensual)
Sailor Uranus kissed Sailor Moon (Mugen [Infinty] season, done by Uranus before Sailor Moon could react, so technically non-consensual, but Sailor Moon did not seem to mind). Usagi also imagined herself being kissed by Haruka.

A few examples:
Non-Consensual:
(Tuxedo Kamen kisses drunk sleeping Sailor Moon)

Consensual:

Haruka kisses Usagi without warning (both while in Sailor Guardian form) in ep. 3 of the new SMC season.

@Maroon, thanks, your comment made me realize I'd written "Usagi" instead of "Sailor Moon" in the manga section. I fixed that, and added mention of when, in the manga, Usagi imagined getting kissed without warning by Haruka. (On another note, despite Crystal purporting to rather religiously follow the manga, where almost all of Uranus/Haruka's romantic scenes were with Sailor Moon/Usagi rather than with Neptune/Michiru, the 3rd season ED seems to be another case of Crystal deviating, like it did by pairing guardians with Shitenou. It could try to be more up-front about this tendency...)

@StevenStadnicki I would hesitate to replace "Selenity" with "Serenity" - a brief bit of googling suggests that both are viable transliterations. (Pun on "Selene" and all.)

@senshin I would agree more (a) if one weren't a relatively common word where the other is at best an obscure phrase, and (b) more to the point, if there weren't a canonical English transliteration with literally two decades of precedent behind it.

There is no official consensus on whether she's Serenity or Selenity; the official Japanese merchandise used both spellings:  trading cards 1, 2 & 3, figure, VHS. Ian Andreas Miller’s in-depth analysis of the two options is here


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What does W.I.S.E. stand for in Psyren?
I may have missed this in the manga somewhere, but what does W.I.S.E. stand for in Psyren?

The organization's name W.I.S.E is not an acronym. It is simply called WISE (ワイズ) in original Japanese.

Note the missing dot at the end, suggesting that the dots between the letters are only used for decoration.

Note: I have researched on English sites (Wikipedia & Wikia), and also Japanese sites (Wikipedia, atwiki, NicoNicoPedia), and no sites mention the full form of W.I.S.E


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What movie could Trimmau have watched?
in Trimmau's Wikia Page it says she's developed a fault where

she rampages around occasionally thinking that she is a "killer robot from the future" due to the movie she watched in development.

I am wondering if this is a real movie or a reference to Type-Moon's 2012 April Fool's joke?
i have chosen Fate/Zero as the tag because Trimmau was originally Kayneth's  Volumen Hydrargyrum Mystic Code until Waver reprogrammed it after the forth war

Since her features resembles a certain liquid metal Terminator, it's very likely this is a reference to Terminator 2.
From IMDB:

A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her young son, John Connor, from a more advanced cyborg, made out of liquid metal.


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How did so many people get away with cheating during the written portion of the Chunin Exam?
Disclaimer: I never read past the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, so it is possible that my question may be answered if I had read further. However, I do believe that the Chunin Exam arc, which is what my question is about, is far enough from the Sasuke Retrieval Arc that my question would have already been answered by the time the story arrives at the Sasuke Retrieval Arc.
I will be referencing the part of the Chunin Exam Arc where the characters take the written portion of the exam. This is in volume 5 of the Naruto tankoban (which covers chapters 37 - 45).
During my trip down memory lane with my re-reading of what I have read of Naruto, this question occurred to me: how did so many characters get away with, at least to me, seemingly obvious, cheats during the written portion of the Chunin exam?
Here is a list of cheats in particular that went unnoticed that I would like to know how they managed to do so:

Akamaru was barking the answers to Kiba. We know that dogs are used a fair amount by skilled ninja, including Kakashi himself, so would it not be logical for the proctors to assume that a dog could be used to cheat? I can believe Shino's insect trick because ninja-insect interaction is much rarer than ninja-dog interaction since it is an ability exclusive to Shino's clan and also a fly buzzing is much more inaudible than a dog barking.
Naruto and Hinata were having a full-blown conversation, it was whispering, but still a conversation nonetheless. How did none of the proctors notice?
Also going along the lines of communication with other ninja in the room, how did Tenten manage to communicate to Rock Lee to raise his head band to notify her that he was able to see her mirrors in the ceiling/how did she communicate to him that the mirrors were even there without getting caught?
How did Tenten get those mirrors up in the ceiling undetected in the first place? I cannot imagine that it was done before the exam started, unless she was planning to cheat from the very start, without knowing what the exam was going to be like. I can believe Kankuro and his Crow cheat because it is much easier to set-up Crow as a proctor undetected in the masses of ninja in the room than it is to set-up a mirror system in the ceiling.
Ino's Mind Body Switch Technique requires hand seals. How did she get away with using it on Sakura without being seen? I would imagine that hand seals would be the very first thing that the proctors would look out for considering it is an exam for ninja.
Proctor Ibiki himself actually SEES Gaara making a hand gesture that could pass as a hand seal if the next panel had not revealed that he was just using that hand gesture to cover his eye so he could create the sand eye. But even so, Ibiki did claim to count "anything out of the ordinary" as cheating, and a suspicious hand gesture resembling a hand seal, I would say, qualifies as "out of the ordinary", so why did he not call Gaara out?
I realize that this last point is a bit too hypothetical and assumes too much, but  we do know that there are ninja who can sense chakra usage. I do not recall this directly from the manga, but taking a look at Ino's Wiki page here, it says that she is one of such ninja (eventually, but that is not the point; I am just linking to show that there does exist chakra sensing ninja). Surely [I know, this is a large assumption here], there must be some proctor in the room who would have such an ability since it is a ninja exam, so why did no one detect the chakra expenditure that was going on in the room?

remember that people would be called out after they are caught cheating twice which is what caught Sakura's attention (as normally in an exam being caught cheating even once will get you disqualified). also a team member could distract examiners on purpose by doing something suspicious (ie. Akamaru whisper barks to Kiba, a couple of examiners notice but don't realize Akamaru is saying "yummy yummy monkey butts dancing dongo dogbites" giving Shino and/or Hinata for freedom to act)

it is not that you are free to cheat but you can cheat using your power without getting caught, whole chunnin exam is to select chunnin, pass fail are just there for deception, main is how good you are at using your power, as Shikamaru was chosen chunnin though he forfeited.same is with writing exam, use your power and of course brain

I watched this in the anime recently and this is what I recall.  Most of this is actually explained throughout the exam or at the end.
First, the exam was set up that each person started off with a full 10/10 score one the test.  For each answer they got wrong they lost 1 point.  For each time they were caught cheating they lost 2 points.  Anyone caught cheating 5 times failed and he and his team were disqualified.
As Sasuke realized early on, the questions were so hard that no one would know all the answers and that cheating was actually encouraged (this is also confirmed by the fact that there were "students" planted in the room who had all the answers to cheat off of).  The test really wasn't one of knowing the answers (as the end of the exam proves), but rather one of how well they could gather information.  I don't believe it was expected that they would never get caught, but rather that if they were doing this on a real mission that they wouldn't be so sloppy as to get themselves killed.
So is it possible that someone noticed Gara or Tenten cheating?  Certainly.  Did they get caught enough to get thrown out? No.  And that's the key.

not being about "knowing answers" is further confirm by naruto passing without filling a single answer xD


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Is there any real world equivalent measurement to a Gomu Gomu?
So we all know that Luffy ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi Devil fruit and I found in the Gomu Gomu no Mi's wiki page that Luffy is able to stretch a length of 72 Gomu Gomu's. So is there any real way to turn 72 Gomu Gomu's into a real world measurement of length?

Note that this was explained in an SBS (the very first one) which are usually more humorous than anything (but often still canon).

There are a bunch of mathematics on how rubber elasticity is measured, as well as models that approximate elasticity. I doubt Oda have those in mind when writing OP though. Essentially, by giving vague answers like Gomu Gomu measurements, Luffy's power is just whatever the plot requires of him.

I would imagine a gomu gomu is about 10 feet because luffy can stretch pretty far

No there is not. At the SBS of chapter 30, Oda was asked how far Luffy's arm can stretch. He humorously replied

O: Pretty far. Right now it can stretch about 72 Gomu Gomus. Luffy was telling me before how he wanted to try hard and reach 100 Gomu Gomus.

Later at the SBS of chapter 47, he was asked how many liters go into 1 Gomu Gomu and he replied

O: Oh, you've come again! Gaimon's son. In "1 Gomu Gomu" there are "10 Fairy Tale Gomu Gomus". And in each "Fairy Tale Gomu Gomu" there are "10 Funky Gomu Gomus" so, in other words Luffy's arm can stretch around 7200 Funky Gomu Gomus. Understood?

When reading the SBS's you will see more of these funny replies and measurements come up, but you will never get a real world comparison.
The problem is that Luffy moves around too much. Oda was never able to measure how long one Gomu Gomu is. We will just have to trust Luffy's word, that it really is 72 Gomu Gomus and we can only imagine the real world distance.

I think either the quote is wrong, or Oda messed up with the maths. If 1 GG == 10 FTGG and 1 FTGG == 100 FGG, then 72 GG == 720 FTGG == 72000 FGG. He missed a zero.

@nolonar thanks for the comment. I quoted from the wikia where the numbers indeed dont add up. I checked again on the actual chapter and there it says (in english) that 1FTGG==10FGG instead of 100FGG. So unless someone shows me a japanese counter example i am assuming the wikia folks put a zero too much.


text:
Why are llamas/alpacas so popular in anime?
This has been something that has been bugging me for a while:
Why are there so many llamas in anime and in anime fan culture?
Some specific anime examples:

You can buy alpacas at conventions too:

Where is this coming from? Why do I keep seeing llamas?! I don't believe llamas/alpaca are even native to Japan? (Although I did find a farm in Nasu)

please forgive my lack of knowledge on how to distinguish between the two

I found a similar topic of this on reddit, and theres an answer there that's rather interesting conserning the alpacamania.
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1mfgs8/why_are_alpacas_so_popular_in_animeconventions/cc8tvok

I believe it's alpaca, not llama, which is popular in Japan culture. I also often see the Japanese refer to alpaca while watching videos on NicoDou... though I'm not sure if NicoNicoPedia (Japanese) could give a hint why alpaca is popular there.

@ChenOrihara's link seems to be correct - it's not just an anime thing, there is an overall trend in Japan that sees alpacas being included in unlikely situations.
There's even a company that leases alpacas for weddings:

Their popularity may have been triggered when the alpaca farm in Nasu was built in 1999 - bringing 200 alpacas into the country. Subsequent farms have been built also. The Nasu farm currently has >400 alpacas

I DO want an apalca for my wedding


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Which level of Super Saiyan was Vegeta in Episode 8 of Dragon Ball Super?
Vegeta was able to hit Beerus a few times in his episode 8 Super Saiyan level while Goku at Super Saiyan 3 was not able to. Canonically, Vegeta has never gone Super Saiyan 2 before (unless you consider Majin Vegeta to be Super Saiyan 2).
So which level did he go to in this episode? Super Saiyan 2 or something ascended?

He was at Super Saiyan 2, as you can clearly see the lightning/sparks around him. His hair didn't change its size. So SS3 is excluded.
This is probably the reason why Goku said Vegeta had surpassed him (in the Battle of Gods movie) at that specific time. Because at SS2, Vegeta was stronger than SS3 Goku.
And yes, Majin Vegeta was Super Saiyan 2 as well :)

He was also stronger than SS3 Gotenks. So I guess SS3 > SS2 is not always true.

Oh it's been a long time since I watched the Battle of Gods movie. Didn't know/remember Goku acknowledged that Vegeta surpassed him. Thanks.


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Why couldn't Kousei hear himself play?
In the beginning, there were several times when Kousei was playing the piano, and he suddenly felt that he was at the bottom of the ocean and couldn't hear what he was playing. Why did that happen, and was he able to hear himself play at the end?

The reason is because of the psychological trauma he suffered from being forced by his mother to play exactly as the notes book dictates and punish him for every wrong notes. He felt frustated as even when he did his best and won competition by competition, her mother still wasn't satisfied as he still made a few mistakes here and there, despite already called as the human metronome for his astounding accuracy by others. And the when he's fed up, he burst in anger at his mom and soon after his mom died, making him feel shocked and guilty which shown in his mother's ghastly appearance in when he played his piano. This psychological trauma is the cause and it doesn't immediately kick in too, which explains why he can hear the first few notes and when he's getting into it, he lost it.

The more he focuses, the more he gets into it, and the more the traumatic memories kick in. It's probably some sort of side affect from maybe PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that only occurs in Kousei's case, because his mother introduced him to the piano and now since she is gone, part of the piano left with her.


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What's the meaning of 'slice of life' animation?
I recently joined this manga and anime forum and stumbled across this term numerous times. People reviewing different parameters of animes and calling that a "typical" slice of life anime.
Is this pretty common sort of anime?
What does this mean?

This term actually originates outside of anime, but it's rather common for anime to have slice of life elements, so it's a common term in the anime fandom. Toshinou-san's answer covers the general sense of the term very well, so in this answer, I'm going to try and fit it more into a critical framework, which can be helpful for understanding whether a given individual work is slice of life. Like everything in literary and film criticism, this is all pretty subjective, so people will differ on whether they think an individual series qualifies as slice of life under this definition or not, but the concepts should be pretty universal.

You can think of all media as falling on a spectrum between theatrical and naturalistic. Theatrical works use dramatic conflicts, larger-than-life characters, architected plotlines, and other artificial manipulations of events and causality to tell a story which the audience will find interesting. By contrast, naturalistic works try to tell stories which develop the way things tend to develop in real life. They can still have conflicts, plots, and interesting characters, but those things will all tend to be truer to life and less artificed.
Here are some examples. (It's hard to find examples of naturalistic anime which aren't also slice of life, because, well, it's anime; it's inherently unnatural. So I've used American films as examples of naturalism, because I want to be clear that slice of life is a subset of naturalist, not an equivalent term.)

Rurouni Kenshin is theatrical. Although it (for the most part) sticks to the realm of possibility, the characters, their internal struggles, and their interpersonal conflicts, are highly dramatized and expressed through epic clashes that affect the fate of an entire nation. Most other shounen action shows (Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho) are also theatrical.
The shoujo manga Hana Yori Dango is also theatrical. The conflicts here are interpersonal and revolve around romance rather than the physical conflicts of Rurouni Kenshin, but the characters are nonetheless larger than life and the plotlines carefully architected. Most other shoujo romances are also theatrical.
The American films The Hurt Locker and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel are naturalistic, despite the former taking place in a war zone. There is no sense of dramatic import or fate behind the events of The Hurt Locker—at least, the film does not attempt to impose one on the audience. The events of the film mean what the viewer thinks they mean; there's no sense of a writer behind it, more of an editor or reporter, who presents certain "factual" events for our consideration. In film, the style of The Hurt Locker is called cinema verité; it's also used to interesting effect in the far less realistic District 9.

Note that this has nothing to do with genre. Some fantasy and science fiction works are naturalistic. Some works which never reach outside the bounds of real life are nevertheless theatrical, as we see with Hana Yori Dango and Rurouni Kenshin (to an extent).
So what does this have to do with slice of life? Wikipedia defines slice of life as "the use of mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment." Essentially, slice of life works are naturalist works which are about mundane, everyday experiences. They might be naturalist works about everyday experiences somewhere where every day is very different from what audiences know. That's still slice of life; the important thing is that the experience is mundane to the characters, within the setting. For this reason, The Hurt Locker is not slice of life. It is naturalist, and in some sense it's about everyday experiences in a war zone, but the war zone setting is not mundane to the characters at all. One could argue that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is slice of life, though I consider it more of a drama. (Pure slice of life is vanishingly rare; almost all slice of life shows have drama or comedy elements, but they're the kind of little dramas and jokes that arise in mundane life, not huge scripted events.)
The classical examples for slice of life in anime are shows like K-On, Yotsuba&!, and Ichigo Marshmallow. These are slow-paced shows about everyday life. We see the characters go to school, go shopping, go on trips, spend time together at home or in a club after school. There are jokes, but they're either jokes the characters themselves make, or they're jokes arising from everyday situations. Slice of life shows don't usually use high concept jokes like having a Pixxchu pop up and get beaten to death, or having former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi suddenly appear above Tokyo on a flying saucer, or telling us halfway through the show that the heroine's desire to be an idol stems from her past life in a vanished human civilization which was exterminated by aliens in the mists of prehistory. Slice of life shows also can have drama, but it's quiet, everyday sort of drama; K-On, for example, has some drama around Azusa's feelings when her upperclassmen graduate. Aria (discussed below) has drama around Alice's feeling of separation when she becomes a Prima and doesn't have time to spend with her friends. A slice of life show wouldn't usually have the heroine's ex-boyfriend suddenly back in town and looking to rekindle his feelings just as the heroine is about to move her relationship with her new boyfriend to the next level; that sequence of events is just too convenient for the writers.
Aria, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Haibane Renmei, and Kiki's Delivery Service are usually also considered slice of life, even though the first two are science fiction and the last two are fantasy. Much of what we see in these shows is mundane and everyday to the characters. There are no dramatic conflicts, no epic clashes, nothing extraordinary or unusual (from the characters' standpoint); its just people (and Martian gondoliers, and androids, and grey-winged angels, and witches) going about their everyday lives. Haibane Renmei and Kiki's Delivery Service do actually have plots, and some of the events in Haibane Renmei are unusual from the characters' perspectives, but all the events of the plot come about in the course of a natural, everyday life in the world of the series.

In anime, the concept of iyashikei is also related to slice of life. Iyashikei is, as far as I know, completely unique to anime and rather characteristic of Japanese culture in general. Many slice of life anime have greater or lesser elements of iyashikei; Aria and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou are practically the epitome of the genre. Not all slice of life is iyashikei, and not all iyashikei is slice of life; however, the two are closely bound, and the desire for iyashikei may have driven the prevalence of slice of life.

woah you were right :D

@ToshinouKyouko I felt better posting this with your answer in place; people who look at my answer and think "There's no way this is that complicated" can just look at your answer and get the whole dish in an eighth the words :) But at least, for people who care enough, my answer gives them a way to determine if some show they're thinking of is slice of life or not.

wow! :D You must have seen a lot of these animes. I am flabbergasted by how clearly you remember the minute details and these conventional things you mentioned that happen in these shows. Awesome. Thank you.

@JonyAgarwal Thanks for the compliments! It's my absolute favorite genre, so I've seen a lot of them and wasted a lot of hours thinking about this stuff.

From Wikipedia:

Slice of life is a phrase describing the use of mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment.

Generally in anime/manga, slice of life shows are shows about everyday life. Usually this rotates around school life in anime - like Lucky Star, Nichijou or K-On! but this can extend to other stories such as people living in apartments, working a day job, etc.
Slice of Life shows are usually plotless as they are mostly day-to-day happenings (usually with humourous effects).

I had started on some rambling academic paper of an answer, and Toshinou-san beat me to it with a much more succinct explanation...Note that Aria, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, and Haibane Renmei are usually considered at least partially slice of life, even though they're fantasy/science fiction and sort of have plots.

you can still post it ;)
And yes, slice of life shows aren't all plotless - K-On! has some plot (although a lot of the show does center around having tea parties)

does 'Doraemon' fit into this category?

@JonyAgarwal Doraemon is not slice of life. Slice of life anime emphasizes realism.

You could add that dramas can sometimes feel like Slice of Life because japanese dramas (movies aswell) have a slow pace. Just as an example, this could be the case of clannad in my opinion

Would Planates fit into this category? Only the last few episodes advanced the plot.

comments aren't a place for extended discussion, please move your questions elsewhere - maybe try our chat


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What is the name of the song Alex sings?
In the anime Gangsta, while in Bastard, Alex recognizes a song she knows from her childhood. Later in the anime, by the end of episode 8, she sings that song to entertain the guests in Bastard. What is the name of that song?

According to MAL, the track is called With You (featuring Alex Bendetto) by Mamiko Noto.

Note that Mamiko Noto is Alex's voice actor.


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What is carved into Toko's leg?
DanganRonpa: Ultra Despair Girls came out today in Europe and there's something I noticed about the 3D model of Toko Fukawa.

 A.K.A Genocider Jack

There's something cut into her leg. I'm not sure that picture is an official model from the game, but I have definitely seen it while playing (screenshot below):

In the other games, we mostly see her waist-up - or in an uncut skirt, so I've never noticed it before:

What has she got carved into her leg?
I've only been playing the games - is there another source that describes how it got there?

looks like a tally marking to me, using the five-stroke kanji.

It's tally marks of how many people Genocider Syo killed

The mark seen on Genocider Syo is the Japanese Kanji 正
Wiktionary has a page on this character explaining its use as a tally mark by the Japanese.
Genocider Syo uses the tally to count the amount of victims she has killed. There is also a small section on this on the Wikia.
Since each one represents 5 kills, you can see she has killed quite a few!


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Did Videl go Super Saiyan in Episode 9 of Dragon Ball Super?
At first I thought it was just glowing from the others' Ki but her hair remained yellow after all the Ki glowing stopped. So did she go Super Saiyan?

i haven't seen Super but could it actually be Pan's Ki Energy? Pan was one of the Saiyen's needed to allow Goku to become Super Saiyen God in Battle of Gods, despite not actually being born

Videl didn't go Super Saiyan. In order to become a Super Saiyan, you kind of need to be part of the Saiyan race.
In the movie Battle of the Gods, Videl joined the circle to pass energy to Goku to turn him into a Super Saiyan God since 5 Saiyans needed to pass their energy to a single Saiyan recipient. Videl joined because Pan is in her womb, and the latter is quarter-Saiyan.
Most likely Videl's hair is just showing off residual energy from Pan. Does this mean Pan will become a Super Saiyan this time? We don't know.
Though, largely, the reason I'm saying Videl didn't transform into a Super Saiyan is because she isn't a member of the Saiyan race, so even if she can, "Use" Pan's power as a Super Saiyan to fight at some point later in DBSuper (which, talk about dangerous things for mothers to do while pregnant lol), Videl still won't be a Super Saiyan. She'd be a human borrowing the power of one until that child is born.

I would like to add that she only turned Super Saiyan in the anime. In chapter 4 of the manga, she stayed the same old Videl. If Akira did not participate in the making of the anime I would have said that Videl turning Super Saiyan would not be canon, but he does participate. So now it just is confusing why they chose to approach it differently.

Videl is clearly a human, not a Saiyan. She doesn't have Saiyan blood inside of her, she has human blood genes. Pan is inside Videl's womb, giving her power to her grandfather, Goku to become a Super Saiyan God. But we might going to see Pan going to transform into a Super Saiyan later in the Dragon Ball Super series.


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What's the meaning of the 'Out' suffix in "Mental Out" and "Skill Out"?
What's the meaning of the 'Out' suffix in "Mental Out" and "Skill-Out"?

Most likely the same meaning as in "Knock-Out", aka. "KO".

Looking at the kanji name of the 'mental out' attack,'心理掌握,' a literal translation could be something like 'mind arrangement manipulation grip' (source).
So where did the 'out' come from? Presumably, as Nolonar suggested in the comments, it came from the 'out' in 'knock-out,' which would be in line with a fighting theme.
As for the 'out' in 'Skill-out,' it probably has something to do with the fact that the organisation is made up of those 'without' psychic abilities ('out' is in this case like it is in the phrase 'out of,' which signifies a lack of something).


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MMO RPG anime are great! Is this a new trend, or are there older anime in this genre?
I got hooked on the lost-in-the-MMO genre with SAO (Sword Art Online), but I didn't even know it was a genre until a few weeks ago.  I caught up on Log Horizon, and now I'm watching Overlord.  Obviously, MMOs are a relatively new phenomenon, but approximately how old is this genre of anime?
I am curious because I'm about to go looking for more titles and I'd like to know how far back to search and/or when to stop looking.

are you asking what the first MMORPG Themed anime/manga is? because currently how i am reading this is a recommendation request which is off topic

@Memor-X: It's asking for the start of the lost-in-MMO genre, not asking for recommendation.

The earliest show I can think of where a character is trapped inside a video game is .Hack//Sign, which aired in 2002.
However, this isn't purely an anime feature - I read many books with similar situations, some dating before 2002. Example 2002, Example 1998
Presumably this genre is a type of mutation of the 'Trapped in the TV' trope.
It's an easy way to legitimize a fantasy world for an author, so it's become a common staple in teen/young fiction.
Whilst not exactly the same, there are earlier media like The 1980's Dungeons & Dragons cartoon that have characters magically transported to a fantasy world. Or even books like Type Writer in the Sky (1940s) in which characters are transported to a foreign land through the pages of a novel. It's simply modernization of this trope.
So, to answer your question - 2000s and onwards is a good starting point, but you might find similar shows with a slightly different approach earlier than that if you want.


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Are the mid-episode transitions in One Piece random?
In OP episodes there is a small transition/break mid-episode that shows one of the main characters picking up their most recognized item/weapon (prior it was a hat floating away or something or there were two of these). I used to think this was done using the character who appears in the main scene(s) for that episode but I just chanced across a few that had had Brooke picking up his violin and Chopper his backpack and no appearance of them. So I ask is it completely random or does it relate at time?

they are show twice don't they , one picking and 2nd all in front of thousand sunny go , it might not be random , coz initial eyecatchers about crew standing in front of merry go are only those who were introduced

@mirroroftruth They definitely did seem deliberate in earlier seasons.  In the current season, however, several characters (Sanji, Nami, Chopper, and Brook) are largely absent yet I think they keep showing their eyecatchers.  Note: it would be weird if they didn't.

On One Piece Wiki there is this page about the Eyecatchers, which seems to confirm your guess:

In One Piece, there are two eyecatchers in every episode, and each one shows one of the Straw Hat Pirates, usually the ones who had the most significance in the episode, accompanied by a short excerpt of their respective themes.

Moreover there are a lot informations, as the number of appearance of each character in the transitions and some trivia about the criteria behind the choice of the character, e.g.

The characters of One Piece get a personal eyecatcher only after they join the Straw Hat Pirates. For example, Brook, despite fighting alongside the Straw Hats for the entirety of the Thriller Bark Arc, had no eyecatcher until his official recruitment. Sanji is the exception, having an eyecatcher just two episodes after his initial appearance, long before joining the crew.

In every anime I've seen with mid-episode transactions (MT) I've noticed five types of MTs.

Fixed - The same MT since episode 1 untill the end (very rare);
Changing by season - It changes depending on the season
Changing by arc - It changes depending on the arc;;
Changing by character reference - It focus on one or more characters of the anime (like One Piece);
Mix of 2, 3 and/or 4 - It is what is is (LOL).

There isn't any source that comproves this at least I haven't found any.
However, as in One Piece or any other animes that use MTs 3, 4 and 5, the MT seems to focus on the "main character of that specific episode" or the "Location of the episode" (this happens a lot in Fairy Tail S2, just an example though).
One Piece follows the same pattern, and the MT focus on the main character.
However, other characters can't be "forgotten" therefore they appear in the respective MTs.
Once again, I haven't found any official source that confirms this it's just a pattern I have seen in several animes not only one piece.
The fact that there isn't any official source might be a proof that it's not that important to be mentioned and it's just plain random.

Would you consider the fancy decorated episode numbers in Bleach to fall under these as well?

@iKlsR I guess so, I haven't watched Bleach tho


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What did the girls from Usagi Team watch on Final Eve?
At the night before Final Battle against Kuromorimine Girls High School on episode 10, all girls from Usagi Team are seen watching a movie, and it looks like a movie about tank.

What movie was it?

They were watching Kelly's Heroes.  It's an old war movie in 1970 about a group of American soldier who tried to rob a bank far behind enemy line.

While the original poster looks different, it match with Japanese poster for the movie

The scene they were watching is around 1:56:00 when Oddball and Kelly, the main character, shoot down a Tiger, the same tank with Kuromorimine's tank.

Notes:

The girls seems to use the same tactic against Elefant, they manages to outmaneuver Elefant, and shoot it down from behind in a narrow road. Initially, they shouted, "Operation: Kelly's Heroes".
When Yukari infiltrated Saunders, she called herself "Sgt. Oddball, third class" from the "6th Armored Division." Which I believe came from Oddball from Kelly's Heroes


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Is the painting in Jatoro's room a reference to an existing work?
During Chapter 5: Absolute Despair Girls in Danganronpa: Ultra Despair girls, we get to visit Jatoro's room.
I noticed a painting there that seemed like it could be a reference or an existing work.

Is this an original painting, or is it an existing work - or a reference to one?

This is a take on Woman with a Parasol, turned to the left by painter Claude Monet. Although in this version the woman has pink hair - possibly referring to Junko Enoshima or Kotoko Utsugi.

I'd say it's more likely to be Junko because:

 Firstly the hair length is similar to Junkos, Also Jataro confesses to Komaru and Toko that Junko was the only person who had ever shown him affection and love. It's also implied he has a childlike crush on her.

The original painting is of Alice Hoschedé

 who was later to become Monet's wife. Possibly a desire of Jotaro's brought out in his painting.

She was one of Monet's favourite models.
Reference


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Mikoto started at Level 1. Is she a Gemstone or a kid with 'idiosyncracies', or neither?
According to the Wiki, Mikoto was a child prodigy, and started at Level 1 instead of Level 0. Is she a Gemstone or a person with 'idiosyncracies', or neither?

No, she is not.
She has been recognized by the system as someone with high potential, and as such was given funds and research to develop her powers all the way up to level 5. Also, Mikoto's own nature and hard-working personality contributed to her ascent.
Mikoto isn't a gemstone, and wasn't born with any sort of abilities, she got them at Academy City.

Mmm... True... But how do you "start" at Level 1, without being a Gemstone or something? ... I'm guessing that they measure it after an initial Esperization Process, but that's my fanon. I think...


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What is Marisa doing underground with a device on her back?

There is an unusual scene in the opening of "The Memories of Phantasm", in which we see Kirisame Marisa with some kind of measurement or detection device on her back. Does it have a reference in any Touhou anime, manga or novel?

It is probably referencing to a Touhou game which will be later adapted into an anime in the series.
A lot of the openings for "Memories of Phantasm" incorporate scenes from later episodes. For example, the opening of the first episode has scenes which later appeared in the next 3 episodes.
This scene:

Was in episode 2.
In the 5 openings so far there's lots of sneak previews of what appears to be references to other Touhou games: for example, Subterranean Animism and  Imperishable Night.

The scene with Marisa with a measurement devise on her back is almost certainly another reference Subterranean Animism to as the three characters shown - Nitori, Patchouli and Alice - are Marisa's partner's in the game. It is also underground which is where Subterranean Animism is set.
Furthermore in the game, the protagonists are given a device that Yukari made:

But others got worried, and wanted them to go down into the Underworld, with a device Yukari Yakumo made so they could talk even underground.

Additional note: Those 3 characters are Marisa partners in the game as well, so it's certainly referring to Subterranean Animism, though they should not be on underground actually.

I edited it. is it alright?

Yep, no problem :)


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How much does the spider-girl show up in MonMusu?
I watched the first episode of Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou. It was a thrilling experience. However, it came to my attention that one of the monster girls is, in fact, a spider-girl. My tolerance for invertebrates - and in particular, for those with too many legs - is very low. So I stopped watching MonMusu.
In order to help me evaluate whether I will be able to tolerate watching the rest of the show, I would like to know how much the spider-girl appears in the show. Answer this however you would like; some parameters that would interest me are:

When does she first appear? (i.e. are the first n episodes safe to watch?)
Is the show structured so that each girl gets her own block of episodes (like an "omnibus")? If so, which episodes are the spider-girl's episodes? (so I can avoid them)
If not, is the show structured in any other way that makes it easy to avoid the parts in which she appears? (e.g. multiple clearly delineated segments per episode?)
Roughly what fraction of the show following her first appearance has her appearing on-screen?

According to wikia, the spider girl first shows up in Episode 6 and is a major character, so she probably shows up at least once per episode thereafter.

As mentioned in Torisuda's comment, Rachnera first appears in episode 6, but this is only right at the very end of the episode for a very short amount of time. It would be safe to say that the first 6 are spider free, the last one included so long as you turn it off right after Miia shows what she's made for dinner.
While the episodes aren't centred on one girl at each time, they all have an 'introductory episode' in which they each feature more heavily. In the case of Rachnera, this is the latter half of episode 7.
As for your other questions, I'll stick below what times she appears. The timings are taken from Crunchyroll.

Episode 6
21:18 - 21:23, 21:32 - 21:35 and 21:40 - 21:50 for a total of 18 seconds screentime. This episode should be safe to watch due to her lack of presence. The only information that you're missing out on by skipping the last few minutes is that

 The man with the camera is selling Rachnera's spider webs as thread for an easy way of making money.

Episode 7
12:53 - 12:54, 13:18 - 13:25, 13:29-13:31, in which

 the MON special forces team raid the house of the director. Rachnera escapes during this time.

plus 14:41 - 15:54, 15:58 - 16:24, 16:29 - 17:31, 17:38 - 18:20, 18:34 - 19:58, 20:23 - 20:33, 20:36 - 21:00, 21:04 - 21:09 and 21:13 - 22:10 for a combined total of 363 seconds of screentime.
During this time,

 Rachnera first torments Kimihito a little, before explaining how she didn't get along with her host family, and ended up moving in with the director from episode 6. Smith and co. surround the building the two are in, but the situation is resolved with Rachnera moving in with Kimihito and the others.

Episode 8
1:52 - 1:55, 1:57 - 2:04, 2:08 - 2:45, 3:32 - 3:35, 4:00 - 4:19, 4:32 - 5:10, 5:25 - 5:30, 8:11 - 8:40, 8:45 - 8:52, 8:54 - 9:08, 9:24 - 9:47, 9:55 - 10:17, 10:23 - 10:27, 10:33 - 10:35 and 10:45 - 11:21 in which Rachnera

 torments Kimihito, getting Cerea jealous in the process. At the end of this half, she saves Cerea and Kimihito from some thugs by tying them up.

plus 11:26 - 11:32, 12:34 - 12:46, 13:00 - 13:07, 13:30 - 14:01, 14:24 - 14:28, 15:27 - 15:34, 18:22 - 18:29, 18:38 - 18:50, 20:38 - 20:40, 20:45 - 20:47, 20:59 - 21:08 and 21:17 - 21:30 for a total of 361 seconds of screentime. In the latter half, Rachnera has no major impact on the story.

Episode 9
9:16 - 9:29, 9:32 - 10:35, 10:50 - 10:57 and 11:12 - 11:15 for a total of 86 seconds of screentime.
In which

 Rachnera and Miia climb up the side of the building the Smith and Kimihito are in, only to discover that the date is a ruse to attempt to lure out the sender of a threatening letter.

There's a nice Metal Gear Solid reference as Rachnera appears for the first time in this episode, if you can stomach a bit of spider-ness.

Episode 10
14:00 - 14:08, 14:15 - 14:21, 14:37 - 14:39, 19:02 - 19:25, 19:29 - 19:40, 19:54 - 20:09, 21:26 - 21:46, for a total of 85 seconds screentime. Rachnera has no major impact on this episode.

Episode 11
13:52 - 14:06, 14:29 - 14:35, 18:28 - 18:41, 19:35 - 19:41, 20:35 - 20:46, 21:02 - 21:06, 21:22 - 21:30, 21:31 - 21:36,  for a total of 67 seconds screentime. Rachnera again has no major impact on the story here. The only thing you might miss is

 the explanation of the Dullahan being the writer of the second letter, and that Kimihito is "on the verge of death".

Episode 12
0:09 - 0:13, 0:30 - 0:36, 0:43 - 0:49, 06:24 - 06:28, 06:31 - 06:49, 06:54 - 06:57, 07:03 - 07:10, 07:28 - 07:35, 07:38 - 07:43, 08:01 - 08:07, 08:32 - 08:35, 08:43 - 08:48, 09:00 - 09:03 and 10:36 - 10:42
In which Rachnera

 First ties up Lala the Dullahan to allow Kimihito to escape, before changing her outlook on the situation, siding with her to 'put Kimihito out of his misery without making him suffer more than he has to'. Naturally, the situation is resolved peacefully with no real harm coming to Kimihito, and the Dullahan being placed under his care.

Additionally, (notes on the Dullahan specifically)

 It's revealed that Lala doesn't really see Kimihito as one marked by death, but is instead intrigued by his ability to live through the countless near death situations from the previous episodes. The first half ends ominously, with Lala stating that while Kimihito may be safe for now, Dullahans are still omens of death.

plus 12:04 - 12:12, 12:23 - 12:32, 15:01 - 15:16 and 20:24 - 20:27 for a total of 118 seconds of screentime. In the second half of this episode, Rachnera has no major impact on the story.

Splendidly detailed answer! In the name of all arachnophobes, I award you a bounty.

@senshin Glad to help - I had fun watching the show as well, so it was an answer I enjoyed writing


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What did the past winners of the Holy Grail Wars wish for?
It is implied that there were five wars in total, and it's likely that their winners would each have wished for something epic, like immortality or godlike powers, but throughout Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night the world doesn't appear to have been affected at all by previous wishes. Am I missing something?

Funny story - there weren't any past winners of the Holy Grail War. The first three wars all ended without anybody successfully manifesting the grail. If I'm not mistaken, this is an important point in Fate/hollow ataraxia. (I forget the details, though.)

@senshin. I think it was mentioned in Fate/Zero too. If I'm not mistaken, Kiritsugu said so himself, "no one had ever won the war" or something like that.

Note the Holy Grail War was originally a means to get to the Root, although only the Tohsaka family has retained this goal. (This appears either in "Heaven's Feel" or "Unlimited Blade Works".) The Holy Grail as a granter of wishes is described as "only an excuse made for outsiders" in UBW. Thus, in some sense, the wish-granting component is very secondary. That said, the Grail can materialise and grant wishes if enough servants have been destroyed.
Somewhat more importantly then, in UBW section of the VN, we learn about the Einzberns' failure to complete the Grail. Supplementing this with the Wiki, we thus have:

The First Holy Grail War seems to have been a failure: the Wiki states that a conflict of interests among participants ended the ritual before it could be completed. This would make sense, as it otherwise would be odd for all three families to continue in the ritual had they succeeded.

 This is particularly true of Zouken Matou, who has been around since the beginning.

This description is ambiguous enough that it's possible that one of the external participants had a wish granted. However, it sounds more likely that the entire ritual failed.
The Second Holy Grail War is said to have developed into a murder spree which nobody survived, so there was no winner. (As a result, the Church got involved as a mediator.)
The Wiki states that in the Third Holy Grail War, "the Lesser Grail was destroyed during the battles before the victor could be decided, so the ritual became meaningless and failed." (Also mentioned here -- the effect was that the Einzberns started using homunculi to contain the Grail.)
What happened in the Fourth Holy Grail War is obvious if you've seen Fate/zero.


text:
Why should I skip the first episode of Gungrave?
I've seen advice on the internet indicating that one should start watching Gungrave at episode 2, and possibly come back to episode 1 at some later point in the series.
Before I start watching this show, I would like to know whether this advice makes sense. In a spoiler-free way, can someone explain why I should skip episode 1? (Feel free to include more detailed explanations in a spoiler block.)
And should I come back to episode 1 at some later point in the series?

The first episode is almost exactly like the eighteenth episode. What it does is confuse the viewer with out of context content in addition to spoiling a lot of the anime.
Many animes like to show an ambiguous later scene in the first episode, and then build towards that story line, like in Psycho-pass. Gungrave is an example of where this failed miserably. The episode is detailed to the point where it is just plain confusing and spoiled.
It's best to watch episode 1 after episode 17.

would you then watch Episode 18? or skip it entirely?

@Memor-X Yeah, I would watch 2-17, 1, then 18 despite 1 and 18 being nearly identical. If you had to choose between 1 and 18 however, choose 18 and skip 1. Gungrave decided to take 95% of episode 18 and put it into episode 1.

I watched Gungrave without reading first. And I agree with this. I would go so far to say that ep1 ruined it for me totally.


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Is there a reason Gotou and Menthuthuyoupi look so similar?
Is there a correlation between these two characters? I was wondering if the same illustrator drew both characters or if perhaps one of them was sort of a homage to the other.

Here are some possible answer you might get a) Author influence b) Limit in number of designs, so finding 2 characters with similar design is normal (birthday paradox) c) Tracing (very unlikely)

This is likely just cooincedince and an aglomeration of features that seem tough/serious (sharp features, strong jawline, tight lips, narrow intense eyes)..  Nevertheless +1 for noticing that.

I am just referencing nhahtdh's comment as the answer since it seems he does not want to post it as an answer.
But the reason that there could be similar character design in two different animes could be due to:

Author Influence
Limit in number of designs(birthday paradox)
Tracing(unlikely)

Actually, both characters are rather similar.
They both were extraordinry beings, created by not one, but multiple creatures. Both tend to find interest in Humanity but wont lose sight of their goals, I'm sure there are even more similarities between them

Would you care to elaborate on your answer, preferably by citing sources to support your claims? 'I'm sure there are even more similarities between them' The OP is not sure so if there are even more similarities, then list and explain them.


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Did Monet's Yuki-Yuki fruit turn her into a harpy?
Did Monet's Yuki Yuki fruit turn her into a harpy or was she part of Caesar's experiments that turned her into a harpy?

As far as I remember, it was due to Law's power.

I looked it up and according to the wikia Law did indeed turn her into a Harpy, but the panel they are basing this on just says that "Monet transformed", so that's not really enough evidence to say Law was the one transforming here. Nothing more about this has been said in the series though.

In SBS vol 77. Oda reveals that Monet is the big sister of Suger and shes officially human, her harpy-like appearence is all artificially. The Cause however I'm unaware of.

It was Law who turned her into a harpy. The Yuki Yuki no Mi had nothing to do with it. Much like the pirates who lost the use of their legs became centaurs, it was Law who turned Monet into a harpy; the only difference is that the change happened willingly in Monet's case; the reasons weren't explained as far as I can remember, but it was most likely to make her stronger.

Check this out:

I know this has been pointed out before in the flashback that Monet had normal human limbs, but I still like to think that there is a harpy race out there.
Perhaps harpies have a similar aging system to mermaids.
*She could be switching between human and harpy form like Kokoro does. We've learned that mermaids over the age of 30 can do that. That could possibly also correlate to harpies. After all, we don't know Monet's age.
  *First you start as a normal human, then when you reach a certain age you grow wings and a tail. But you can change back and forth freely from human to harpy limbs.
  *To me, Monet's wings seem too similar to Lafitte's wings for it to be a coincidence, so Lafitte might be a Harpy too. I also don't know how sure I am since there might be some sort of angel devil fruit that Laffitte could have ate to explain his wings.
But when I checked I found something. Monet's picture in volume cover, her legs look normal. While when you look at her other pics, her legs are in form of limbs of a harpy/bird.I have provided the pic below.

So ,I think Monet is able to transform her normal limbs to Harpy limbs whenever she wants. Similar to that of mermaids.
Another thing to note, the tips of her wings match her hair color which would not really make sense if those wings were not hers to start with. Yeah it looks more like genetic relation between wings & hairs, both being green.

Furthermore, the word "Happy" on her t-shirt could be a play on words with harpy, too much like Oda.
Just, speculating that she might belong to a Harpy race .:D


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What is the origin of the "this is a work of fiction" explanation? Is it a trope?
At the beginning or end of episodes of anime I sometimes see a disclaimer similar to this:
This program is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to people, parties,
or situations is purely coincidental.

Is this a trope? Or is there some Japanese regulation that sometimes applies to these shows?
The above quote was taken from the end of Durarara! ep 1x13 to be exact.

This happens in the US, too (and, I would imagine, in various other television/film industries around the world). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_persons_fictitious_disclaimer

@senshin is correct and it's a general media thing. you see it a lot in crime dramas like Law and Order, one episode of SVU particularly was very similar to a Michael Jackson trail. to my understanding it's to avoid deformation lawsuits or messing up ongoing trails/investergations by broadcasting a point of view on one party's guilt or innocence with no factual evidence (eg. a crime show shows a parody of Bill Cosby raping women, going to trial and then agreeing to a plea bargain in which he says he's a sex addict).

Related, on Movies.SE: http://movies.stackexchange.com/q/8388/

This is less of a trope and more of a copyright catch-all claim.
As a reference from the All persons fictitious disclaimer, the main reason that this is done is to prevent another person from suing for libel.
It isn't unrealistic to think that someone's family name could be Orihara, and would take grievance with the way Izaya is portrayed.  So, to prevent them from suing, the works are made to be fiction and not based on any one person or any one real event.
This can also used to cover up for factual inaccuracies as well, per Samurai Champloo:

This work of fiction is not an accurate historical portrayal.
Like we care.
Now shut up and enjoy the show!


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What does this Treaty have to do with Ecchi Girls?
In an email I got from JList talking about "ecchi girls" (their blog post), it talks about a Treaty of San Francisco

Then there's one of the most entertaining character types, the ecchi girl who can't think of anything besides sex, which -- in accordance with the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco -- must always be paired with a dull-witted male main characters who's unwilling or unable to take her up on her offers.

What exactly is this treaty? and does it really have so much control over anime in which all "ecchi girls" have to be paired with dull male character?

You have two questions here:

What exactly is this treaty?

and

Does it really have so much control over anime?

The Treaty of San Francisco they reference is otherwise known as the Treaty of Peace with Japan. Representatives from 51 countries worked together to create this treaty at an opera house in San Francisco, CA. The treaty was ratified by 48 of the 51 attending countries, including Japan, on September 8, 1951. This treaty marks the conclusion of World War II and the world's reorganization of Japan as an imperial power.
As far as its effects on the anime industry, this is merely a joke that J-LIST is making.  The treaty has no effect on the anime industry.  If you are interested in learning more about the treaty you can read the document itself on the UN Websitepdf.
I followed up with Peter Payne owner of J-LIST about your question and his response was:

It was just a random joke. That’s the treaty that officially ends WWII, so I pretended Japan was required to put dumb main charactors in all future harem anime to balance out the ecchi girls.

His reply in context can be seen here:
https://twitter.com/giraffesyo/status/647764344525053952


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In which Death Note manga chapter does L die?
I want to start reading Death Note manga but I have already seen the anime till L's death. Which manga chapter should I start reading from?

L dies in chapter 58 named "Feelings Within".


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For anime series without source material, can the plot be changed while airing?
Like is the plot and scenes determined beforehand, or is it still possible to change details in the story while an anime is airing. If so are there any series?

I am assuming you are asking about the type of anime that is made by an animation company where the plot and story details are all made by the writers and directing staff.
The straight answer is Yes. The plot can be altered as the series is airing if it was not completed prior to its airing on television or it was affected by external factors.
A famous example would be Pokemon: Best Wishes. Where the plot was altered when the episodes Team Plasma VS Team Rocket had to be put on hold due to the Tohoku 2011 Earthquake. Originally the two episodes would have been crucial to the plot of Pokemon BW, the earthquake forced the production staff to change the plot of the series in order to avoid airing the episodes that depicted earth-shaking scenes. This is a case where the plot was altered due to external resons.

This episode was originally scheduled to air in Japan on March 17, 2011, but was postponed, along with the original BW024, indefinitely because of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. As of Team Plasma's Pokémon Power Plot!, its events have been removed from continuity. Unlike the only other skipped episodes in Japan, this two-parter was supposed to be important to the overall storyline instead of being a stand-alone episode.

However, these cases are rare and some of the time, the anime is being manufactured as it is airing, so the plot would likely to be undetermined until just a month or later before airing for really late production crew.
A good example would be Neon Genesis Evangelion, where its plot was changed from having 28 angels to just 18, counting the humans. This was mostly due to Anno Hideaki failing to complete scenarios on time, changing plots due to his new experiences as the show was airing which resulted in the production hell of NGE, and its plot change.

By episode 13 the series began to deviate significantly from the original story, and the initial script was abandoned. The number of Angels was reduced to 17 instead of the original 28, and the writers changed the story's ending, which had originally described the failure of the Human Instrumentality Project after an Angel attack from the moon. Starting with episode 16, the show changed drastically, discarding the grand narrative concerning salvation for a narrative focusing on the individual characters.

Not related to the answer, but I would recommend watching Shirobako, which is basically an anime documentary on making anime. Its first season depicts a reality where plot changes and late scripts can occur, which would likely be a more enjoyable way to get an answer to your question than reading.


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Should I know who Tsutsukawa Azusa is as of the end of Durarara!! ×2 Ten?
When Anri dials Mika at the end of the last episode of Durarara!! ×2 Ten (episode 24 of ×2), we see a shot of some of the contacts on her phone.

Entry #6, highlighted in the screenshot above, is someone named Tsutsukawa Azusa (筒川アズサ). As of this point in the story, am I supposed to know who that is? It's awfully difficult to keep track, what with DRRR having so many characters.
(Incidentally, the rest of that list is, in order: Akabayashi; Kadota; Karisawa; Shinra; Kida; Aoba; (Tsutsukawa); Togusa; Harima. Curiously, she only has 12 contacts in her phone.)

She is one of Karisawa's cosplayer friends, the girl that made Anri cosplay in one of the episodes.

A screenshot of Azurin and Reh-chan.

Azurin and Reh-chan were amongst Karisawa’s fellow cosplayers, and were about the same age as Anri.

A quote from Volume 10 Chapter 2.

Ah, I remember her now. That was episode 10 of Ten when she's with Karisawa and they invite Anri to cosplay with them.

She is not a important character so it is actually fine for you to forget her.


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What did Izaya hire Vorona to do?
In episode 24 of Durarara!! ×2 (the last episode of Ten), Izaya identifies himself to Vorona as one of her previous clients.
What did Izaya actually hire Vorona to do?
It was Yodogiri who hired her and Slon to abduct Awakusu Akane, and I don't seem to recall having been told who hired them to attack Anri (and in any case, I don't see what Izaya's motive for having Anri killed would be, though his motives are admittedly a little bit opaque at times). Am I forgetting something?

Unfortunately, it was Izaya that ordered them to hurt Anri, which happened in the Akane arc.

Varona arrives at their hideout and Sloan tells her of another job given to them by Izaya Orihara to neutralize, but not kill, Anri Sonohara

As for the reason, it was not mentioned, but it was probably to make sure she would not interfere with Haruna Niekawa as she controlled the Saika children.
Another reason is that Haruna Niekawa wants revenge on Anri and also wants to know the location of Takashi Nasujima. Izaya has promised her both. So it would be logical for Izaya to use Varona to fulfill his promise to Haruna.


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Is Akaza Akari the same grade as Toshinou Kyouko and Funami Yui?
The wikia page stated that Toshinou Kyouko is 14 years old, Funami Yui is 14, Akaza Akari is 13 and Chinatsu is 13. Chinatsu added the honorific senpai when she called Kyouko and Yui's name. However Akari who is of the same age as her did not.
Is this because Akari is close enough to Kyouko and Yui that she dropped the honorific despite being the kouhai (junior)? Or is she actually the same grade as Kyouko and Yui despite being one year younger?

I belive they are different years as on the Wikia there are 2 categories for First Year and Second Year Students
you'll notice that Akari, Chinatsu, Himawari and Sakurako are all first year students with Akari's profile on Wikiapedia saying that...

Chinatsu, Sakurako and Himawari are her classmates.

For Second Year Students we Ayano and Chitose however we don't see Yui or Kyoko on there but their character songs, but in the first years category Akari's and Chinatsu's character songs appeared here aswell.
Also in Yui's trivia section it says

Although she is arguably the most mature, she is the youngest of the Second-Year students.

While Kyoko is 25 days older

Oddly enough, as well as being best friends with Yui since they were very little, they were also born only 25 days apart.

also in this My Anime List forum post

Well, you know, I guess this is may be because of the difference of school cultures between Japan and Western countries, it seems translaters changed and translated from 'top in her grade' to 'top in her class'.
  But actually, 'gakunen top' meant 'She always wins the top in her second grade'
  Well, at any rate, just studying one night and getting such a high grade every time is so amazing.

while further down

In the US at least class generally refers to your grade level. When you refer to top of the class, that would be the top student of your year. Saying top of your grade is pretty much never used (I've never heard anyone use it personally). So that's a logical translation, it still means the same thing but is phrased appropriately for the US, which is CrunchyRoll's main target audience.

these are talking about what happened in Season 1 - Episode 2: The Student Council Meeting

Ayano, as Kyouko's rival, is upset that Kyouko beat her in the placement test. Ayano bursts into the Amusement Club room, followed by Chitose. Ayano is annoyed at Kyouko because although she hardy studies, she always gains top of the class.

Logically it would not make sense for Ayano, a Second Year, to be beaten by Kyoko if she was a first year.
Thus all this seems to indicate that Kyoko is a Second Year with Yui.
As for Akari not using -senpai to address Yui and Kyoko like what Chinatsu does this is probably as you suggest due to their closeness as later in the series

 we see Akari, Yui and Kyoko as children when they were young with Kyoko being bullied by a young Chinatsu (who they don't recognize when they are older) and Akari standing up for Kyoko

I know this is an old post but I have to point out a mistake in your answer: Yui is actually the eldest of the three girls and Kyoko is younger than Yui by almost one year. To make this more clear, let us assume that Akari starts her middle school life in April 2011, then the three girls' dates of birth are as follows: _Funami Yui: April 22, 1997; Toshino Kyoko: March 28, 1998 and Akaza Akari: July 24, 1998. As a matter of fact, children born between April 2nd, year x and April 1st, year x+1 go to the same grade according to Japanese law.

The following site calculates when one should enter school given one's date of birth: http://keisan.casio.jp/exec/system/1183101742

@user23823 i would like to see a citation of those birthdates as it does conflict with my linked reference and quote stating that Toshino is 28 days older and Yui

I am afraid that no official source mentions the exact years these characters are born, and the trivia page does not cite any official source either. The author of the trivia page seems to assume that Kyoko and Yui are born in the same year since they are both of age 14, but this assumption can be wrong if you consider your birthday as the day when your age increase by 1. My view is based on common practice in Japan and this unofficial blog page (in Japanese) seems to agree with me.

@user23823 true the wikia doesn't have any citation and you present a valid point but i also like to believe that aside being being best friends when they were little they are so close is because they were born so close together in terms of time which is why i am more inclined to believe the wikia

Yes, so maybe I should not have called your point a "mistake" because both of us do not have decisive supporting evidence. Will come back to this discussion if I find new info. Thank you for being involved anyways!


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Who came first? Pokemon or Digimon?
The idea of not asking and promote one or the other, just a healthy curiosity to know who came before, given the shortage of reliable sources.
Digimon
Creation.

Digimon, short for "Digital Monsters" literally Digital Monsters) is a
  franchise of digital toys, anime, manga and video games launched in
  1995 and covers the history of creatures called Digimon.

Conception.

Akiyoshi Hongo is assigned as the creator of the concept of Digimon,
  but in fact it is a group of people.
There was also a rumor that Digimon started in a game of cards with
  the similar name, but who actually created Digimon Aki Maita was a
  woman of only thirty years. Aki Maita had the idea in the early 90s to
  create virtual monsters. Digimon originated the Tamagotchi which are
  also a creation of Aki Maita, an innovation that Aki gave his monsters
  called Digital Monsters.

Translated from here
Pokémon
Creation.

Pokémon is a media franchise owned by The Pokémon Company, having been
  created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995. It centers on fictional creatures
  called "Pokémon", that humans capture and train them to fight against
  each other as a sport.

Conception.

Tajiri had the idea of Pokémon around 1989 or 1990 when the Game
  Boy was released. The concept of the Pokémon universe was inspired by
  the Hobby executive director Satoshi Tajiri collecting insects as a
  child.

Translated from here

Can you be a bit more specific on the criteria of being first? Who first published their idea? Who first spoke out about them? Who first achieved major success? Who first thought of the concept?

Pokemon came before Digimon. The conceptualization of Pokemon predates the conceptualization of Digimon, the game release of Pokemon predates the game release of Digimon, and the anime broadcast date of Pokemon predates the anime film release of Digimon. The Digimon game release happened after the Pokemon anime had started airing.
The details:
Pokemon was conceptualized by 田尻智 (Satoshi Tajiri). He came up with 『ゲームフリーク』(GAME FREAK) as a doujin (self-published) print magazine in 1983 in cooperation with 杉森建 (Sugimori Ken), and the first game produced by GAME FREAK was 『クインティ』 (Quinty, known as Mendel Palace in English) on June 27th, 1989. Using the earnings from this game, GAME FREAK became its own company under the name 株式会社ゲームフリーク (Kabushiki Gaisha Geemu Furiiku) on April 26th, 1989 under Tajiri, Sugimori, and 増田順一 (Masuda Junichi). GAME FREAK intended to begin production of Pokemon as soon as it commenced operation in 1989, but due to a variety of interruptions, the game was not completed and released until 1996 (in the meantime, GAME FREAK released other games).
Pokemon was finally released as an RPG-style video game for Nintendo's Game Boy on February 27th, 1996, by the team of Tajiri, Sugimori, Masuda, 森本茂樹 (Morimoto Shigeki, who appears in some of the games as a non-playable character), 藤原基史 (Fujiwara Motofumi), 太田健程 (Oota Takenori), and 渡辺哲也 (Watanabe Tetsuya). This was 『ポケットモンスター 赤・緑』 (Pocket Monster Red・Green.『ポケットモンスター 青』[Blue] was released October 15th, 1996). The TV anime started to be broadcast on April 1st, 1997.
ウィズ (WiZ Co., Ltd.) toy manufacturer and バンダイ (BANDAI Co., Ltd.) produced たまごっち (Tamagotchi) keychain digital pet game together and released it on November 23rd, 1996. Maita Aki, a BANDAI employee has been credited with coming up with it, saying in an interview that she "hatched the idea for a virtual pet about a year ago while watching a television commercial about a little boy who insisted on taking his turtle to kindergarten" (the date of the interview is not mentioned, but the article records, "Last October, Maita took Tamagotchi prototypes to the streets of Tokyo's Shibuya district for a consumer test. . . . By November, the Tamagotchi was on the market in Japan"). She says,

. . . it wasn't my accomplishment alone. I only came up with the idea, developed the concept and took charge of the marketing program. It also took a technician and public relations person to make it into a product . . .

Alternately, in an interview asking how he came up with the idea of Tamagotchi, WiZ's Yokoi Akihiro takes credit for its conceptualization, saying

Aquarium fish simulation was popular software back in ‘93 and ‘94 in Japan. However, (the) personal computer itself was not popular within the Japanese community (at) that time. Personally, I love all sorts of animals, so I was trying to create a toy which gives users a chance to raise their own pet, a toy that owners will enjoy the process (of) and feel empathy with their pet.
  When I was working in Bandai, the leading toy maker, one of my roles was to develop handheld games, and among all those LCD handheld games that I created, I chose to focus on virtual pet handheld(s).

Digimon was conceptualized in 1996 as a simple Tamagotchi-style raising-monsters-as-digital-pets game and released by the same pair of companies as the 『デジタルモンスター』(Digital Monster) cell phone game on June 26th, 1997. The copyright is held by a 擬人名称, a.k.a. ハウスネーム (kijin meishou or "housename" --- that is, a non-human entity given a personified name) called 本郷あきよし (Hongo Akiyoshi) but is owned jointly by WiZ and BANDAI. Most of the character designs for Digimon were by 渡辺けんじ (Watanabe Kenji), ボルケーノ太田 (Oota Volcano), and 北川原真 (Kitagawa [not sure of romanization of his/her first name]). An anime theatrical film titled 『デジモンアドベンチャー』(Digimon Adventure) was released on March 6th, 1999 and then the TV anime of the same name started to be broadcast on March 7th, 1999.


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How did Xandes survive?
In episode 12, Farangis (or however we wanna spell the priestess' name) shoots Xandes in the back while he's running away after facing Daryun in battle and losing to him. After the arrow lands on his back, Xandes falls off a cliff to what I thought was his death:

However, in 19 I saw a character that looked like Xandes again:

And that was then confirmed to be him indeed:

How exactly did Xandes survive? Is it mentioned in the previous adaptations or in the original novel?

Unfortunately, the details behind his survival are not mentioned in the original novels either as he is a minor character. Therefore, all they wrote is that he survived, that is all.

Xandes survived the encounter, and at the beginning of the next year he joins Hilmes's Army of Parsians after the latter is task by Guiscard to subdue the rebellious Temple Knights of Bodin.

My first intuition is that, judging from the fact that he can swing such giant weapons, it shows he does have amazing physical strength and probably dexterity and this allowed him to survive a non-fatal arrow to the shoulder and get back to Hilmes.

Xandes carries a very large sword and stated that he is a great warrior.

My second guess would be Arzhang saving him after he fell off the cliff, like how he saved Hilmes in the 2nd last episode. Arzhang also collected Xandes after he was wounded in his duel with Daryun, so we can say that Arzhang probably saved him when he was hit by the arrow.


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Should I watch the K movie ("Missing Kings") before watching the second season ("Return of Kings")?
The show K: Return of Kings is going to be airing in fall 2015. I've seen the first season (K), but I haven't gotten around to watching the movie (K: Missing Kings) yet.
Am I good to start watching the second season right away, or do I need to watch the movie first?
(While it's often the case that movies incidental to a TV series are just sidestories that you don't have to watch to follow the TV series, the naming scheme here makes me wonder if that's actually the case with K.)

You should watch the movie, as it is related to the storyline of Return of The Kings (ROTK). If you don't, you will not know the major changes that have been made, nor the main villain of ROTK, nor will you know what happened to Shiro. These were all revealed in the movie. They would just allow Shiro to show up and you would not know what happened to him or how he was revived. Though it's just him

 using his powers to regenerate a body and being collected by the dying Golden king.

So yes, you should watch the movie before ROTK in order to avoid being confused by all the sudden changes in ROTK, since even the movie occurs after a time skip after the ending of the first season.


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Where does the 'lewd' meme come from?
Occasionally someone posts a ecchi/H picture on the internet and users reply with a prudish anime/manga girl with a sign saying 'LEWD'.
Definition of Lewd:

crude and offensive in a sexual way.

Where does this meme originate? what was the original lewd picture?

KnowYourMeme is always great for meme origin questions :D

Etymology
Etymologically speaking, the word takes its root from the Old English lǣwede : ignorant, unlearned.
Then in the Middle English it got transformed into leud/lewed (found those two ways to write it): belonging to the common people, vulgar.
It then derived into the mean worthless, vile, evil, leading to its current usage and connotations.

Meaning
Even thought there are a lot of slightly different definitions of the word lewd, I decided to provide the KnowYourMeme's definition because it does correspond to the meme definition and not the word definition :

Lewd is an adjective often used to describe something of erotic nature, or otherwise obscene or indecent. It is generally being used to represent the reaction of a character who is ingenuous or timid.

Origin
The first known meme use of this word is, like a lot of Western memes, on 4chan in 2008.
On the chans /jp and /a (Respectively the Japanese Culture and Anime & Manga 4chan communities), the word was used in several conversations.
In 2008, the chan /jp was created in order to split general Japanese Culture from /a which then became the Otaku board.
On /jp, the meme was associated with pictures of Eiki Shiki from Touhou in order to criticize lewd anime content which was judged as "not suitable" for the board.
The post on November 19th, 2008 that most likely created this meme, according to KnowYourMeme, is this comic and its reaction :
The comic:

The reaction:

Other details
Google Trends
According to Google Trends, the peak of research of the word lewd is in 2011. I didn't find any rationnal explanation; I will edit the post to add things if I find anything interesting.

Lewd but I approve
A trend emerged from the meme lewd, to express the fact that a user finds the below content lewd but still approves of the content. It is presented the same way as the lewd meme, but on the pancart there is written: Lewd but I approve

Bonus: Gardevoir
The pokemon Gardevoir has became a meme because of the feminized look it has. The meme is used at different ways (Tsundere Gardevoir, Shy Gardevoir, Totally NSFW Gardevoir). A lewd version of Gardevoir frequently used on 4chan :


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How much was Sawako's guitar worth?
In Season 2 Episode 2 English Dub when the Light Music Club gets Sawako's old guitar appraised at the music store the value is $5,000.
I am assuming that originally the price would be in ¥ but because it's the English dub it was changed to $. I had hoped that during the episode I would see a hint as to how much it actually was but the notes Rizu flashes to the club in the cafe all have 1,000 printed on them and the receipt showed only 4 digits where I assume the value of the guitar is.
So I am wondering what the actual value of the guitar?

Well...5000 yen ain't a lot of USD...

it is 500000 ¥  Gojyuman yen. That what shopkeeper says.

The item, which appears to be a 60's Gibson SG, sold for 500,000 yen.


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In Attack on Titan, how did the river barge escape Shiganshina in episode 2?
In episode 2 of the anime, the characters start off in the Shiganshina district.  When and how did they get inside wall Maria?  It shows them on a river barge with other refugees, but I do not think that explains it.  Is there a gate on the river for the barge to go through?  If so, is the gate ever shown, explained or attacked?

The refugees just sailed into wall Maria. There isn't much more to it than that. As far as I know the river gates were never explained, but they have been shown. In chapter 1 you can see the river flow through the walls and in chapter 73 you can see in more detail how the river flows freely in and out the walls through bars. I assume them to be able to open similarly to the regular gates. They have not been attacked and it has not been explained why. At this point it makes more sense to attack the regular gates than the bars, seeing we don't even known whether Titans can even swim.

Ok, fair enough.  I am glad there is a picture of it.  Thanks.

The boat wasn't in Shinganshina District, it was in Wall Maria. The people living in Shinganshina had to run through the inner gate to get to the boat. In the anime a Garrison Regiment person yells for everyone to go through the inner gate and that there will be a boat on the other side that will take them to safety. Then the Garrison Regiment sets up cannons in front of the inner gate to protect the people trying to get onto the boat. A couple minutes later the Armored Titan appears, and breaches the inner gate. All the people see that the inner gate has been breached and they realize that their only option is to try to jump onto the boat.

They simply ran through the open gates of Wall Maria and then to the boat. Since Shiganshina was a safe place before the Colossal Titan breached the outer wall, the gate was open. So when the wall was breached the Garrison protected the gate and let the people of Shiganshina inside as long as they could. When the threat got to big they closed the gate (which the armored Titan then breached).


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What are the credits for "Doubutsukee" in K: Missing Kings for?
Towards the end of the credit roll for K: Missing Kings (the movie), there's this:

Unlike the rest of the credits, which are in a standard serif'd font (Mincho-like), these credits are in a rounded, handwriting-esque font. The header for the section reads どうぶつけー doubutsukee, which I imagine has something to do with 動物 doubutsu "animals". Then, it lists the names of 24 people, all of which are written in pure kana, which looks kind of "childish".
What are these credits for? I suspect this is really more a question about K than it is about the Japanese language, since when I DuckDuckGo for どうぶつけー, all of the results are related to K in someway. I did a bit of clicking around, but I wasn't able to figure out what's going on here.

This is unrelated to the film in any way, its referring to the people that designed the animal characters that are based on the characters. They are referring to the goods designers for the goods depicted here. By the way, just to add in, the products are called Dōbutsu K, literally Animal K.

Oh geez. I didn't see the "Doubutsukee" = "Doubutsu K" joke. Nice!