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What exactly is a "Light Novel"?
I am only familiar with this term when I know about the anime.

Is this term only used in Japan?

Sometimes I read light novels on the internet but I never see the book myself. How is a light novel different from a regular novel? Except for light novels being... light, are there any other differences?
And usually I see the cover done in a manga-style drawing:

Are light novels used exclusively for anime or manga adaptations?
Are there any light novels that do not use manga-style drawings?

I tried to search "Light novel cover" and the result is as expected:

What is a light novel?
A light novel is a style of Japanese novel targeting teenagers and young adults. These novels contain mostly illustrations in anime or manga style. They are usually published in bunkobon size (A6 – 105 x 148mm). Light novels are not very long. The length is comparable to a novella in US publishing terms.
Light novels are very popular in Japan as you can see in Japanese bookstores.

Where does the term come from and what does it mean?
The word “light novel” is actually not an English word. It is a wasei-eigo (literally translated “Japanese-made English”) which is a Japanese term formed from words in the English language.
The term is everywhere used where you read such novels. In Japan you will use the word raito noberu (sometimes also ranobe or rainobe as an abbreviation) which is the Japanese term of light novel.
In the western culture light novels are normally called Japanese Novella.
What is the difference between a novel and a light novel?
In short: Light Novels are usually shorter and they also contain few illustrations. In addition they are easier to read. This is particular because the text contains much simpler and easier to read modern kanji.
The illustrations are mostly at the beginning of capitals or when a new characters respectively a new place is described. On the picture below you see an example on how a light novel is build up. Left an image from the scene and to the right the text to read.

In typical light novels you will find mostly black and white illustrations. But today you also find many novels that include colored illustrations.

Why is a light novel styled like an anime or manga?
The reason because light novels are styled like anime or manga is because of their history and they are actually from Japan.

Light novels are an evolution of pulp magazines. To please their
  audience, in the 1970s, most of the Japanese pulp magazines, which had
  already changed from the classic style to the popular anime style
  covers, began to put illustrations in the beginning of each story and
  included articles about popular movies, anime and video games.
The narrative evolved to please the new generations and became fully
  illustrated with the popular style. The popular serials are printed in
  novels.
In recent years, light novels' stories have been popular choices for
  adaptation into manga, anime, and live-action films, though in the
  case of the former two, usually only the first two novels are adapted.

Information from wikipedia, englishlightnovels, animanga.wikia, tvtropes.
Pictures from englishlightnovels, afrobonzai.unblog.

The definition of the light novel is ambiguous. It is close to the definition of Moe and soul. The general definition is follows. "あなたがライトノベルと思うものがライトノベルです。ただし、他人の賛同を得られるとは限りません" / "If you think so, that is a light novel. However, It is not a reason for the obtain the consent of the others.". If you have a Harry Potter, and you think that is a light novel, you have the non-manga style drawing light novel ;p

When referring to a novel, you'd be talking about...

A fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.

Therefore I always assumed a light novel to be a short story of sorts, something you could read on the bus or on the train. After looking it up, I was wrong. A light novel apparently is a Jenglish or wasei-eigo expression for a novella, which would be a short novel, but not as short as a short story according to it's wiki page.
So before I continue and answer your questions, I'll let wikipedia explain what a light novel would be.

A light novel (ライトノベル raito noberu?) is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting middle and high school students (young adult demographic). "Light novel" is a wasei-eigo, or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Such short, light novels are often called ranobe (ラノベ?) or LN in the West. They are typically not more than 40,000–50,000 words long (the shorter ones being equivalent to a novella in US publishing terms), rarely exceed 200 pages, often have dense publishing schedules, are usually published in bunkobon size, and are often illustrated. The text is often serialized in anthology magazines before collection in book form.

Is this term only use in Japan?
Yes it is. If you would use the term in the west, you would be referring to Japanese novella.
How is a light novel different from a regular novel?
I guess novels would printed in the A5 format, but a light novel would be printed in the Bunkobon format, which would be the A6 format.
Is a light novel used exclusively for anime or manga adaptation?
Since the target group of light novels are primarily middle and high school students, it wouldn't surprise me if most of them are. They aren't exclusively used for anime or manga adaptations though. If you read further on the wiki page it is mentioned that popular movies as Star Wars have also influenced the content. But they do mention that

In recent years, light novels' stories have been popular choices for adaptation into manga, anime, and live-action films, though in the case of the former two, usually only the first two novels are adapted.

While searching about Light novels I encountered the wiki how page on Light novels. So if you ever wanted to write one yourself, check it out.

Is this term only used in Japan?
This term originated in Japan as a 和製英語 (wasei eigo [meaning Japan-style English] = Japanese-invented words that "superficially appear to come from English, but in fact do not"). Wasei eigo differs from 外来語 (gairaigo = loanwords or real “words from abroad”) and Engrish (misuse or accidental corruption of the English language by native speakers of some East Asian languages).
The term "light novel" has been adapted from Japan for use in other Asian countries, where it refers to imported light novels from Japan as well as to locally-produced books of similar style (In Korea, it is called "라이트 노벨" [laiteu nobel], in China it is called "輕小說" [qīng xiǎoshuō] = "light fiction"), whereas in English-speaking countries, the term refers exclusively to Japanese light novels which are imported under that term. In the English usage, the term is only used to refer to such books produced in Japan (i.e. there cannot be a legitimate American light novel just in the same way as there cannot be American anime).
How is a light novel different from a regular novel? Except for light novels being... light, are there any other differences?

A light novel is short in page length and usually features intermittent manga-style illustrations --- but that same description can be said of many Japanese children's novels! In contrast, light novels are for all ages & demographics. Although it is approximately equivalent in length to the Western novella, the light novel cannot be called a Japanese novella: the Japanese term for "novella" is 「中編小説」(chuuhen shousetsu), and is not used to refer to light novels (it is used for short stories by Murakami Haruki, for example, which are considered high-quality literature).
Though each published volume is short, light novels can stretch into long series. Some of the series premier in magazines, so you can think of those like literary serials (think Charles Dickens); a serial is episodic, "a printed format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in sequential installments."  As such, a serial is written differently than a full-length novel that gets published into a chunky book at once. A serial must grab the reader's interest in the first chapter, and plot out the development so that at least one exciting thing happens in each chapter. It intentionally ends chapters with a cliff-hanger when possible. It cannot leisurely build to the climax, or take a whole chapter or so to only tell you what a minor character is doing somewhere else (which a novel printed all at once is free to do). Thus, the format of the story is structured in a specific way that other novels are not bound to.  This is another aspect in which the light novel differs from average Japanese children's novels. This is also why, if Harry Potter had been written in Japanese with manga-style illustrations, it still would not have been a light novel: it is not short in length and it was published all at once rather than serialized.
A large percent of light novels are read by people involved in some sort of sub-culture, such as manga, anime, and/or gaming. However, just because a certain percentage of light novels include moe, light novels are not limited to such content and tone; all genres are included, from horror to romance to sci-fi. Some are the novel-equivalent or adaption of shoujo manga and are marketed at young girls. Some genres are less likely to be exported based on the otaku demographics outside of Japan, so those genres are less well-known to the international subculture community.
In contrast to standard Japanese (and Western) novellas and novels for adults, light novels are often illustrated.

Are light novels used exclusively for anime or manga adaptations?

No, some light novels are serialized as their own original works in non-manga magazines and never have a relation to manga.
Some light novels now originate online and never have a relation to manga or any other mediums.
Some light novels are created as adaptions of manga/anime/games after the manga series or game has gained a lot of popularity.
Some light novels start as original works and then get adapted into manga/anime/games/live-action afterward.

Are there any light novels that do not use manga-style drawings?
Yes. Artists of the earliest light novels included those who worked in 油絵 (abura-e = oil painting) and 水彩画 (suisaiga = watercolor). In 1987, the 少女小説 (shoujo shosetsu = girl's novels) genre began, and for the first time shoujo manga style was used, which helped establish the trend of manga-style art as the standard for light novels from the 1990s.
While illustrations are a common feature, some light novels do not include any illustrations whatsoever. The ones without any illustrations are less likely to be exported to other countries and are therefore less well-known outside of Japan.

Is this term only use in Japan?

It originated in Japan but not exclusive of Japan. There are light novel writers in Korea and China, since it can be used for anything written within certain criteria.

How is light novel different from regular novel?

If I had to describe it in few words: a easier to read novel.
If you check out some novels, like Another and see most Light Novels the difference is evident. Light novels have shorter paragraphs, characters less complicated to read (i.e. the appearance of obscure Kanji in a sentence is rare), and generally shorter.

Is light novel use exclusively for anime or manga adaptation?

Actually, most light novels (LN from now on) don't make it to anime production, and some are adapted to manga to promote the novel itself rather than to make a illustrated carbon copy of the LN. This is, as with all business, mostly motivated by marketing reasons, rather than some secret rule. Granted, if your LN is popular, it will get advertised in more media (manga, anime, live action, etc.) than if it's not popular.

Is there any light novel that do not use manga style drawing?

Drawing depends on the artist, and most artist also do other things like doujins or the very manga. The drawing is merely a representation of what they know to do, rather than following a predefined style.

Light novels started in Japan, as physical books. But in this Internet era, light novels from China & Korea can also be found online. Here's my impression of what these novels are mostly about...

Japanese light novels: Main Character reincarnation / isekai into
another planet / dimension / video game
Chinese Light novels: Main Character leveling up 'Cultivation'(Tai chi inner force) & challenging higher level bosses  https://skdesu.com/en/as-10-best-light-novels-chinese/
Korean Light Novels: Main Character playing a Virtual Reality game / world turning into a game-like state  https://animeukiyo.com/best-korean-light-novels/

Japanese light novels/manga came first, got adapted into anime.
Chinese & Korean light novels came later, and are now being adapted into manhua/manhwa, and then anime. https://mangatoon.mobi/ is a good(legal) starting point for reading these comics. (ofcourse scanlations also exist)
https://www.iq.com/anime is a good starting point for watching Chinese anime

The expanded definition and description of "light novel" appears to correspond to pulp fiction which started as magazine serials in the 19th century in English and Western European language markets - with the exception of it having the sensibility to be age appropriate for young-adults or the modern YA market. The format length appears to be driven by the market, and series light novels are much like series pulps - but with aiming the stories to be age appropriate for 10 and 11 year olds (and up).


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What is the name of this really funny anime?
Video here. (4:37 long)
Does anyone know what anime it is? Also additionally (from the same video) does anyone know if this is an actual Boy's Love Manga? Does anyone know the English translation of the title in the picture? Is it even a real life manga that I can read?

What he is reading would probably be better as a new question as we would have 2 questions here, 1) the anime identification, 2) weather or not the manga being read on it exists and if so what is the name of it.

The top says "Anthology", but the rest is hard to make out

@JonLin: 微熱男子の脈動 seems to be the title on the cover, judging from an earlier part of the video. (I figured out the last two-thirds of the title and found the rest from Google and checking with the image.)

Update: nothing came up when I looked for that in Google Images.

Those words didn't show up in any doujin db either. Maybe it's just made up.

It's from Oniichan no koto nanka zenzen suki janain dakara ne or (I don't like you at all, Big Brother!), a 12 episode anime from January, 2011, that was adapted by a manga by Kouichi Kusano.
The main character is Shusuke Takanashi:

The plot (from the wikipedia page):

Nao Takanashi loves her brother Shūsuke despite the incest taboo. Nao thinks that Shūsuke is her blood relative, but in fact she is an adopted daughter, whose parents already died. After Nao learns the fact, she wants to normally fall in love with Shūsuke because siblings by adoption can marry under the family law in Japan. However, she finds herself competing with Shūsuke's childhood friend, Iroha Tsuchiura, and his class president and yaoi lover, Mayuka Kondō.

Mayuka Kondō is the "Kondou" that he's referring to in that video. From the wiki page:

Shūsuke's classmate and class president, with a strong interest in Boy's Love magazines. When Shūsuke tears up one of her magazines by accident, she makes him her 'pet'. She forces him to purchase and review explicit BL magazines which she interprets as having a shared interest. Despite Shūsuke's belief that she may ask him to do something more perverted at some point, she treats him more as a boyfriend - making him bentos and coming to wake him up in time for school. Over time her feelings for Shūsuke increase because of his apparent acceptance of her BL magazines. She becomes attracted to Shūsuke's pink and sensitive nipples due to the fact she has never seen a naked man before, though despite him being her pet, she doesn't use this to her advantage. Although she confesses that she has feelings of wanting to dominate Shūsuke, he loses memory of the incident after being hit by a truck.

More info:

My Anime List
Anime News Network

I can't make out what's on the cover of the manga, the video is really noisy.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Could a person do the shinigami deal without losing half his lifespan?
Quick question, if you trade half of your life for shinigami eyes and it happens to save your life, would you lose only half of the time you would have lived, or would you somehow lose half of the life that you would actually live since the eyes saved your life?
Bad example:

1 and 2 in a room
2 has 1's name and is about to write his name down in his Death Note
1 doesnt have 2's name and can't write his down in his Death Note
1 would only have about 30 seconds to live
1 Trades half of his life for Shinigami eyes
1 Writes 2's name down without him knowing and before he writes 1's name down.

Would 1 have 30(-15) seconds to live, or x(÷2)? And there's always the possibility of having his full life and only losing 15 seconds, x(-15).

I think your question would have been better if 2 wouldn't have had a DN. Like when Misa was about to be killed by her stalker. I think if at that point she would have had the DN, she could have indeed increased her lifespan and would only lose half of the original remaining lifespan, because at the time of the trade, it wasn't sure yet, whether she would write his name in time or would still end up dying

I am beginning to love those DN rules lawyering.

Asking for a friend?

There are a few things wrong with your theory:

Death by Death Note doesn't count in the user's lifespan. Even if you have 80 more years to live, if I write your name down now you die 30 seconds later.
A Death Note will not work on someone with 12 minutes or less left to live. According to How to Use: XXIX.

So no, the user would lose half of his original lifespan. The only way to extend a lifespan is to get a Shinigami to die for you.

What if 2 wouldn't have had a DN? Basically what would happen if Misa had a Death Note at the time she was about to be stabbed and asked for the Shinigami eyes at the particular point? Then i think her lifespan would indeed increase as OP points out.

Yes, that's actually sounds plausible.

@Peter Raeves i don't understand your comment.

@user6399 The situation would be different. In your situation you would pay half of your remaining life to survive the other half of that life. If the person is about to kill you with lets say a gun, then your lifespan would be really short and you would actually extend your life by using the Death God.

ah so if a person wants to kill me with a gun, and i would trade the half of my remaining lifespan to see his name and then i would kill him. would i then prolong my life?

Original lifespan has to do with a humans lifespan without any intervening of a deathnote or death god!
So if someone makes the deal for their eyes they lose half of their remaining lifespan.
(Getting the eyes to kill someone who is about to write your name down on a deathnote is a situation not counted in your "original lifespan"...

but your lifespan would have been shortened because to person would kill you. But if you could get the shinigami eyes, you could kill him. So i think this could work

If someone wrote their own name in the death note and then did the eye deal the shinigami will not be able to cut his lifespan as he has already written his name in one death note before the shinigami

Do you have any evidence for this? I don't remember them ever saying this. If you deduced it from the rules, can you explain which rules and how it works?

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


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Anime with a woman in a skimpy, futuristic suit?
Please help find the anime in this AMV at 0:33-0:37.
For the sake of convenience, below is a screenshot of the scene

looks like Platinumhugen Ordian. I'll try to verify the episode before I answer

After doing a Google image search I found that the gif comes from Platinumhugen Ordian episode one at about 4:55. If you were going for the fanservice, you might be disappointed as I hadn't seen much other scenes like these, while scrolling through the series.

Synopsis

Kananase Yu is just an ordinary high-school student. Since he has mysterious inside knowledge about piloting a mecha, he is recruited by the International Military Organization as a potential test pilot for a new mobile armor. However, apparently there are other young recruits around his age, including one of his classmates, were recruited as test pilot as well. Now Kananase Yu must prove that he is the best to be the test pilot.

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Wikipedia

No not for the fanservice they are other anime for that but thanks for finding it.

my bad new to the site.

@fatboy Welcome to Anime SE. You can go through the introductory tour to get to know the site and once you earned enough reputation you can join us in the chat. Have fun on the site.


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Which anime episodes of Aria correspond to which manga chapters?
The episodes of Aria (all 3 seasons + specials) were not broadcasted in the same order as in the manga (both Aqua and Aria, which were chronologically-ordered). Instead they were broadcasted in an order to make each season have certain overarching themes. This makes it difficult to compare the individual stories from the anime and manga, and also to determine which episodes are anime-original.
Which anime stories correspond to which manga chapters; which are anime-original; and which chapters of the manga were not adapted in the anime? Ideally I'd like the answer to be formatted in such a way so that I could watch the anime in the original manga order.

How many chapters/episodes are there? Because this could become a rather unwieldy question if there are a lot.

@kuwaly 75 chapters, 54 episodes. I agree it's a bit unwieldy, I wanted to start some discussion on what the limits should be and whether this is within them. In any case, I've been meaning to rewatch this series and reread the manga so if no one else can find the answer, I will answer it myself, but that may take a few months.

This is a very difficult question to answer, but I love this series, so I'll take a stab at it. I made this chart showing which manga chapters correspond to which anime episodes. It's ordered by manga chapter. At the bottom I included tables of manga-only chapters and anime-only episodes. Please let me know if you find any mistakes or oversights.
Unfortunately, establishing a correspondence between the Aria manga and anime series is very messy. For some reason, the chapters that introduced important characters were almost never adapted, and were replaced with anime-original episodes. But these episodes would often include material from the manga chapters that introduced these characters. The most egregious example is Aria: The Animation Episode 3, With That Transparent Young Girl…, which includes material from four different manga chapters and introduces two major characters, Alice and Akatsuki. In other cases, introductions very much like the manga stories were implied to have happened sometime before the series began (Woody and Al were both introduced like this.) Because of this, if you watch the anime series in manga-order and exclude the anime-original episodes entirely, you'll miss important pieces of the story.
The anime writers frequently mixed and matched scenes and bits of dialogue, added pieces of manga chapters into otherwise anime-only episodes, added substantial material to adaptations of manga chapters, merged multiple manga chapters, and partially merged parts of manga chapters. My chart probably misses at least a few major mergers (and please let me know if you find one). Many of the "wonder of the week" chapters were excluded from Aria: The Animation due to its short run, but later adapted in Aria: The Natural, which accounts for most of the jumbled continuity.
tl;dr: It's incredibly hard, maybe impossible, to watch the anime in the same order as the manga without missing parts of the story. But if you're okay with that, the chart gives you the information you need.

That's a powerful freaking "stab" if you ask me!

@user1306322 I was trying to pierce the heavens.

Nice answer! And here's a reddit post with a link to a Google map establishing a correspondence between the various locations seen in Aria and their real-life counterparts in Venice: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3dlvs4/spoilersaria_the_animation_rewatch_episodes_14/ct754oy/.


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Shisei's double irises
The character Shisei Kaburagi in Shinsekai Yori has double irises. At the same time, he is (one of) the most powerful telekinesis users.
After watching the anime, I haven't found any reason why he has double irises, nor why they help him (if they do).
Is this explained in the manga?

This is probably not explained in the manga, because the manga is... well, not great.
Kaburagi Shisei's eyes are mentioned in the novel, though. On page 666 of the one-volume edition (book V, chapter 3; right before Hino Koufuu is slain), we have:

切れ長の非常に大きな目は、澄みきっていた。顔の造作も整っており、ハンサムと言ってもいいくらいだ。その異様な眼球を別にすればだが。
鏑木康星氏には、片目に二つずつ、合わせて四つの虹彩があり、薄闇の中で、ぎらぎらと琥珀色に輝いていた。これは鏑木家に代々伝わる特異な遺伝的特徴で、一般人とは隔絶した呪力の証なのだという。

Roughly translated,

His unusually-large, almond-shaped eyes were limpid. His face was so well-sculpted, I might even have called him handsome - save for his bizarre eyes.
Kaburagi Shisei had four irises - two in each eye. They shone through the darkness, glowing the color of amber. That peculiarity was genetic in origin, and had been passed down the Kaburagi lineage for generations. They were a testament to the fact that his cantus was on an entirely different level than that of the common people.

So I guess it's just some sort of genetic weirdness in his family, probably a benign phenotypic side effect to whatever mutation makes people of his family particularly powerful PK users.


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Is Panzerfahren only for girls?
In the anime series, all the Panzerfahren participants are girls. Are there any guys who also participate in Panzerfahren? And if I recall correctly, all schools that participate in Panzerfahren are also all-girl schools. Is there any rule of Panzerfahren that all participants must be girls?

In the all-girl schools, it is compulsory that all students select a particular extracurricular activity to do.
These activities that are offered to the girls are ones that are symbols of femininity and lady-likeness. At the start of the series, the girls have to choose between flower arranging, tea ceremonies and tankery. All equally feminine subjects (>_> in the Girls Und Panzer universe at least)
Because tankery is seen as a feminine sport, there are not many male players. There are possibly some, but the overwhelming majority is female as many areas would not have enough interested guys to form a team.
If you tried to form a flower arranging club in an all male school, you would probably find there would be few members - This is the case with tankery also.

So, basically like how chess in real life is almost completely male, despite physical strength (where men would have an advantage) doesn't play any role. There are some female chess players, but it just so happens that it's not as popular for women, so fewer girls start playing it competitively.

According to the Girls Und Panzer wiki, Panzerfahren (Sensha-do) is:

a martial arts that involves tanks as weapons. This martial arts are just exclusive for high school girls to develop their self-esteem as young women.

Like you mentioned, all the participating schools are all-girls schools. The rules themselves don't seem to limit the competitions to only girls, but the martial art itself seems to be only for girls.

Episode 1, Tankery, Here It Comes!
At 17 minutes (17:05 to 17:10) after the 'Introduction to Tankery' film has been shown. Miho Nishizumi, Saori Takebe & Hana Isuzu are in the cafeteria. Unknown students are chatting in the background, about Tankery.
One says, "They say its perfect training for women."
Another student excitedly says, "I never heard of men doing Tankery. Guys and tanks seem kind of mismatched to me."
(I only noticed this revealing bit of background info on my 4th rewatch!)

after I rewatched it I don't think it's not just some random students, they look like first year students from Usagi Team. Good job finding it by the way.

I agree. They even SAID they were signing up for Tankery.

There is a snippet of conversation, background chatter. Someone says, "I can't imagine boys doing tankery. That would be weird." Or something to that effect (from memory). This directly implies that Tankery is girls only.

If possible, would you please add the episode number where this happens? Thanks.

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


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At the end of the Shaman Warrior manhwa, do Yaki and Horrakan die?
In the manhwa Shaman Warrior, does Yaki die in the end? They kinda abruptly cut the fight scene and ended with Yatilla yelling for Yaki years later. But before they cut out her fight, she was kicking butt in full shaman mode.
Also did Horrakan die? He was still alive when he and Nejo fell. Nejo came back alive... what happened with Horrakan? Ending seemed a little abrupt.

Shaman Warrior was abruptly canceled at that point in the story. The story was never finished and as a result, we are left at that eternal cliff hanger without knowing what happens of Yaki and others.
Even though the series had a great story and terrific art, this is the nature of the manhwa business. I have seen more abrupt ends to Manhwa than Manga or Comics.
The author and artist of Shaman Warrior, Park Joong Gi has moved on to another project called: The Arms Peddler, as the main artist. Which is ongoing and published by Square Enix. So if you would like to enjoy his work still, perhaps you should check it out. I personally like it.
Hope this helped and you'll continue to enjoy Manhwa.


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Why is Kitamura called "Maruo" by Kihara?
In the Toradora series, only Kihara seems to address Kitamura as "Maruo". Why is this? Why is she the only one who calls him Maruo? Is "Maruo" the real nickname of Kitamura? Do they have a special relationship or something? Are they childhood friends?

well Kihara apparently had a crush on Kitamura and opposes a Aisaka x Kitamura pairing source (Look for Maya Kihara), maybe Maruo is a pet name she came up with just for herself like how couples have pet names for one another (despite how he looks and acts smart Ryuji and Ami do comment he's an idiot during the summer vacation at Ami's place)

i do remember however there being a reference to Kitamura looking like someone in a magazine but i can't remember which episode or if the compared person is named Maruo

Well, it isn't just Kihara who calls him "Maruo" - many of the girls at school call him that. In the light novel, it's pointed out early in volume 1 that various girls call him "Maruo" to be cutesy. In the anime, we see someone (I can't tell who) calling him "Maruo" in episode 14 near 4:40; and later, around 15:15, NANAKO Kashii refers to him as "Maruo" during a conversation with Kawashima and Kihara
Anyway: the reason he's nicknamed "Maruo" is that he bears a striking(?) resemblance (as Kihara notes in episode 2, around 5:00) to the character MARUO Sueo from the 90s-era show Chibi Maruko-chan:

The resemblance apparently extends beyond the visual - I haven't read/watched Chibi Maruko-chan, but Japanese Wikipedia states that Maruo, like Kitamura, is one of those do-gooder class-president types.
There's no explicit mention of this in the light novel (unsurprising, given how weird Japanese media is about referencing other media - whence cometh MgRonald's), but some scouring of the Japanese internet suggests that the reference is fairly obvious to those who grew up while Chibi Maruko-chan was a popular thing.


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Anime in which a girls family is killed and there was a prophecy?
This anime was kind of strange but I will explain as much about it as I can,

There was a prophecy that had to be fulfilled, which was that this girl must have a child with the last descendant of the vampire slayers (I think), then kill both the child and the vampire slayer and bathe in their blood.
The girl was a vampire (I think) whose family was killed.
The guy was protected by a cat (an actual cat, not sure if she could transform)
The guy is in school.
The guy was reluctant to do it with a girl he just met
The girl was told this prophesy by a family member who was not present.
The family of the girl was killed by villagers and her parents sent her away to save her life.
This was not a recent anime (last few years) but I cant put an absolute time frame on it, sorry!
The male protagonist had black hair and the relative of the girl who had to fulfill the prophecy, had silver hair.

I would be grateful if you could add to this list or just give me the name of the anime, maybe adding to the character descriptions, or just the year it was released!
It was not Omamori Himari. It has been half a month!!! Any ideas?

You should probably specify a while ago.

Please refer to http://meta.anime.stackexchange.com/a/892/27 and add more details to your post.

Can you describe the protagonist more specifically? (hairstyle/color, eye color, any other unusual visual content)

Was it Omamori Himari, per chance?

Can you elaborate a bit more? show how the series match up to the description

Elaina Lynn didn't put this down as an answer but it was called holy knight. THANK YOU SO MUCH


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Should the name of the main character in "Fate Kaleid Liner" be "Illya" or "Ilya"?
As the title says, I'm looking for the correct way of spelling her name. Additionally, it would also be appreciated if the general translation for names is explained.

Both "Ilya" and "Illya" are official spellings of her nickname. "Ilya" is used on the TYPE-MOON's official website and in the fan translation of the game, but "Illya" tends to be used elsewhere, especially in merchandise.

Illyasviel von Einzbern Wikia Page: Citation 3


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What is the in-universe chronological order of the Monogatari Series?
I have Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari, and learned that Monogatari Series Second Season is being streamed by Aniplex, which means that Nekomonogatari would have been streamed at some point and that it would get a home release.
So, I am wondering what the story's in-universe chronological order is: should I watch Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari (when it's released), Nekomonogatari (when it's released), Monogatari Series Second Season (when it's released) and Nisemonogatari?

The chronological order of the story is different from the chronological order of the releases for anime/ovas

@krikara i know, it's easy to look up the released order, i got truck loads of anime to watch so i can wait a while before starting on the Monogatari to see if any more releases come out rather than streaming

Regarding the right order to watch in, I don't think it's chronological order (this is opinion-based so I'm leaving it as a comment). The right order would be either the production order of the novels or the anime. If you watch in chronological order it will be somewhat more confusing IMO and you'd spoil some things.

@LoganM same could be said for Kara no Kyoukai, the production order is the chapter order but storyline it's 2 -> 4 -> 1 -> 3 -> 5 -> 6 -> ReMix -> 7 -> 8, in the end of The Hollow Shrine (Chapter 4) you see Araya contact Rio, Fujino and Kirie because his is in Chapter 5, if you watch it in story order you get spoiled in that Kirie's 2nd body was given to her by Araya before the events of chapter 1 while doing something to Fujino after she slaughtered most of the gang who gang raped her but before meeting Mikiya but the spoiler isn't all that bad, it just makes you think about what he's plan

@LoganM there's another example where you see how a bad guy become transfigured and demented as the greatest evil but i can't remember the series

Even though Kizumonogatari takes place chronologically first of all the stories, and should go after Nisemonogatari if you follow the novel release order, I wouldn't wait on its anime release to start watching the series; it's been in production forever and it's questionable if it will ever be released.

Overview and date convention
The first three seasons1 of Monogatari series generally takes place in the one-year period between the start of the third year of high school of Araragi Koyomi (March, Year 0) and one month after his graduation (April, Year +1).
Note that it is the general trend; the stories may refer to events before the time period above. One story even takes place mostly in an alternate universe.
1 The first 3 seasons are named First Season, Second Season and Final Season. The 4th season, named Next Season, has been announced at the end of Zoku-Owarimonogatari.
The details below are mostly referenced and translated from ja.Wikipedia article of Monogatari Series.
Summary
The chapters in each book are ordered chronologically, so if you don't want to be spoiled, the list below should be sufficient:

[3,-] Kizumonogatari

[6,3] Nekomonogatari (Black)

[1,1a] Bakemonogatari (Volume 1)

[2,1b] Bakemonogatari (Volume 2)

[4,2a] Nisemonogatari (Volume 1)

[5,2b] Nisemonogatari (Volume 2)

[8,4b] Kabukimonogatari

[7,4a] Nekomonogatari (White) parallel to
[11,4d] Onimonogatari → [16,-] Owarimonogatari (Volume 2)

[15,-] Owarimonogatari (Volume 1)

[10,4c] Otorimonogatari

[12,4e] Koimonogatari

[13,6] Tsukimonogatari

[14,-] Koyomimonogatari†

[17,-] Owarimonogatari (Volume 3)

[18,-] Zoku-Owarimonogatari

[9,5] Hanamonogatari

† See Final Season section for more details. Ordering is based on the main events.
The first number in bracket is the light novel publish order, and the second number is the anime airing order. So far, the anime generally follows the light novel publish order and the chapter order in each volume, except for Kizumonogatari and Hanamonogatari.

/!\ Spoiler Warning
Although the details have been kept to minimum, the titles of the chapters and the footnotes may contain spoilers.

First Season
The first season takes place between March 25, Year 0 to August 14, Year 0. It generally introduces the main cast and how they get involved with the apparitions.

March 25th - April 8th: Koyomi Vamp/Kizumonogatari
April 29th - May 7th: Tsubasa Family/Nekomonogatari (Black)
May 8th: Hitagi Crab/Bakemonogatari (Volume 1)
May 14th: Mayoi Snail/Bakemonogatari (Volume 1)
May 23rd - May 27th2: Suruga Monkey/Bakemonogatari (Volume 1)
June 11th - June 12th: Nadeko Snake/Bakemonogatari (Volume 2)
June 13th - June 16th: Tsubasa Cat/Bakemonogatari (Volume 2)
July 29th - July 30th: Karen Bee/Nisemonogatari (Volume 1)
August 14th: Tsukihi Phoenix/Nisemonogatari (Volume 2)

2 The dates are derived from the fact that May 14th, when Araragi started going out with Senjougahara, was a Sunday, and Araragi got attacked on a Friday in May which was about 2 weeks since he started dating.
Second Season
The Second Season takes place between August 20th, Year 0 and April 21st, Year 1. However, one can argue that the core of this season only extends up to February 1st, Year 1, since the events in Hanamonogatari is quite removed from the rest of the stories.
The Second Season introduces Oshino Ougi and foreshadows her involvement behind the apparition incidents.

August 20th - August 21st3: Mayoi Kyonshi/Kabukimonogatari
August 21st - August 24th (Koyomi appeared at the end after Shinobu Mail): Tsubasa Tiger/Nekomonogatari (White)
August 21st - August 23rd4 (right after Mayoi Kyonshi): Shinobu Time/Onimonogatari
October 31st - November 2nd: Nadeko Medusa/Otorimonogatari
January 1st (Year 1) - February 1st: Hitagi End/Koimonogatari
April 9th - April 21st: Suruga Devil/Hanamonogatari

3 On August 21st, they time-slipped back 11 years ago, then returned to August 21st on different route, spent their time there until August 26th, then jumped back to August 21st of their original route.
4 Plus an event in late December, where Koyomi told the whole story of how Mayoi disappeared to Ougi.
The period of August 21st to August 24th consists of events happening in parallel from 4 chapters, three in Second Season and one in Final Season. Araragi involved in all four of them, and he resolved one problem just to get caught up in another in the order listed.
Final Season
Chapters in Koyomimonogatari are all over the place in the timeline, with the earliest in April 11th, Year 0, just after the events in Koyomi Vamp/Kizumonogatari and the latest in March 13th, Year 1. However, not all chapters in the book are relevant to the core story in Final Season.
The Final Season mainly takes place between August 23rd, Year 0 and March 18th, Year 1. This season mostly centers around Oshino Ougi and fills in the void left by the Second Season. Note that the time period in Final Season intersects with the period in the Second Season.

August 23rd - August 24th (after Shinobu Time and parallel with Tsubasa Tiger)5: Shinobu Mail/Owarimonogatari (Volume 2)
October 23rd (or 24th)6: Ougi Formula/Owarimonogatari (Volume 1)
October 24th (or 25th)6: Sodachi Riddle/Owarimonogatari (Volume 1)
October 25th (or 26th)6 (before Nadeko Medusa): Sodachi Lost/Owarimonogatari (Volume 1)
November 1st (before Nadeko became god in Nadeko Medusa): Koyomi Mountain/Koyomimonogatari
Mid January, Year 1 (during Hitagi End): Koyomi Seed/Koyomimonogatari
February 13th - February 14th (after Hitagi End): Yotsugi Doll/Tsukimonogatari
February - Late February: Koyomi Nothing/Koyomimonogatari
March 13th: Koyomi Dead/Koyomimonogatari
March 13th (right after Koyomi Dead): Mayoi Hell/Owarimonogatari (Volume 3)
March 14th: Hitagi Rendezvous/Owarimonogatari (Volume 3)
March 14th - March 15th (right after Hitagi Rendezvous): Ougi Dark/Owarimonogatari (Volume 3)
March 15th - March 18th (right after Ougi Dark, and before Suruga Devil): Koyomi Reverse/Zoku-Owarimonogatari

5 Plus an event on March 13th, where Koyomi told the whole incident to Ougi. This event takes place before Koyomi Dead, which is on the same day.
6 Given that these events take place in late October, and that Koyomi had been to school 5 days in a row, including the possibility of Naoetsugu High School having class on Saturday, since a different story had been set to take place in the week after, the events can only take place on either dates.
Here are the rest of the side stories in Koyomimonogatari and their relative position in the timeline:

April 11th - April 12th, Year 0 (after Koyomi Vamp): Koyomi Stone/Koyomimonogatari
May 9th - May 10th (after Hitagi Crab): Koyomi Flower/Koyomimonogatari
June (after Tsubasa Cat): Koyomi Sand/Koyomimonogatari
Certain weekend in July (before Karen Bee7): Koyomi Water/Koyomimonogatari
Early August (after Karen Bee and before Tsukihi Phoenix): Koyomi Wind/Koyomimonogatari
Late September (after Shinobu Mail): Koyomi Tree/Koyomimonogatari
Certain weekday in October (before Ougi Formula): Koyomi Tea/Koyomimonogatari
December, Year 0 (after Nadeko Medusa and before Hitagi End): Koyomi Torus/Koyomimonogatari

7 Since it was the second time Koyomi cleaned Kanbaru's room, the story has to take place before Karen Bee.

this is the great thing about this site, even with a +9 scored accepted answer we can still get ever better answers almost a year later

The order for story progression might be the following:

Kizumonogatari (傷物語)
Nekomonogatari Black (猫物語 黒)
Bakemonogatari (化物語)
Nisemonogatari  (偽物語)
Kabukimonogatari (傾物語)
Onimonogatari (鬼物語) and Nekomonogatari White (猫物語 白) (events happen at the same time)
Otorimonogatari (囮物語)
Koimonogatari (恋物語)
Hanamonogatari (花物語)
Tsukimonogatari (憑物語)

Koyomimonogatari (暦物語) is a series of 12 short stories spaced at intervals of roughly one month; the first one occurs in April (shortly after Kizumonogatari).
It remains to be seen where Owarimonogatari (終物語) and Zoku-owarimonogatari (続終物語) (not released as of this writing) will fit chronologically.
The image below shows the anime broadcast and light novel publish order:

i've never head of Onimonogatari, Otorimonogatari, Koimonogatari and Hanamonogatari, they anime aswell or another media altogether (manga, light novel)

yep they are part of monogatari series (Lignt Novel) by  Nishio Ishin .

What stories does first and second season consist of?

The chronological order of the story progression (starting from the beginning) for the anime.
Kizumonogatari -> Nekomonogatari: Kuro -> Bakemonogatari -> Nisemonogatari -> Nekomonogatari: Shiro


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Why don't Nobuchika Ginoza and Tomomi Masaoka share the same last name?
It's revealed in the last episode that:

 Nobuchika GINOZA is Tomomi MASAOKA's son.

But, I don't understand why they don't share the same last name. There must be a particular reason for this.

A cursory search of the Japanese internet suggests that no currently-existing material explains why this is the case. It certainly isn't explained in the anime, so any explanation would have to come out of one of the side materials (e.g. the Kanshikan Tsunemori Akane manga, the Psycho-Pass 0 novelization, etc.).

Thanks anyway, and I thought it was one of Japanese culture that I'm unaware of :) Or who knows maybe in the world of Psycho-Pass it's a normal thing.

Perhaps the latter took their mother's maiden name, because the former was estranged or separated?

@Krazer By "the latter", you mean Tomomi, and "the former" you mean Nobuchika? I think it should be the opposite, since Tomomi was a latent criminal, and his son Nobuchika was bullied at school. That may lead to Nobuchika's mother decision to changed his last name to her maiden name, which is Ginoza. Nice theory :)

Because his father was demoted and became an enforcer, Nobuchika was ashamed, so he picked his mother's last name instead. His mother is Akiho Ginoza.

Most probably it's because otherwise his name would raise too much suspicion and intervene with his life. Many people in real life carry their mother's maiden name for similar reasons, so it's not surprising.


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Manga about a student having nightmares
Hi I'm trying to find the manga I've read some time ago. I forgot the title.
There's this teenage kid who was having nightmares about cats, Then there is this army of cats that chased him then he met this magical girl (I forgot her powers) and I think the source of her power relies on her hat. After meeting together, There is this master of cats who's weapon is a chainsaw? Also, the dimension of the nightmare activates when the protagonist tries to sleep.
I probably forgot the rest because of an exam that I had to study for a long time.

Any more specific time frame than "some time ago"?  What style of manga was it?

@Danalog the question was already answered. I've read it like 2 years ago, The style seems to be of high qualityish.

I apologize, the review queue doesn't show responses, so I didn't know it already had a response!

This would be Dream Eater Merry (Yumekui Merry)
The scene you are talking about is the first scene of the anime where Yumeji Fujiwara, the main character, is running away from cats in a nightmare he is having. The next time he has the dream, he encounters the leader called "Chaser" John Doe who wields a chainsaw.

After trying to escape, Fujiwara encounters a girl called Merry Nightmare who ends up fighting John.
.
Both Merry and John are Dream Demons from another world, and Dream Demons can possess people's bodies to enter the real world. However, Merry has no memories and she doesn't need to possess a body.
As for Merry's powers sourcing from her hat, I don't think this is the case. Rather, I think she just really, really, really loves her had. (I haven't seen the series in a while, but I think I remember her being able to fight without her hat).
As for the dimension of the nightmares, these are actually just people's dreams which Merry can enter and drag Fujiwara into. Other humans who appear in dreams are either possessed by a Dream Demon who has entered the dream (i.e. "Garden" Engi Threepiece) or own the dream themselves.
This video shows the scene of Fujiwara meeting John Doe.
While what I describe is from the anime, there is a manga (the original material) and I believe the beginning of the manga would be the same.

@MikeAnte just updated it with the first episode timed around where Fujiwara meeting John Doe just to clarify the scene since i just got random images from google to describe John and Merry

Anime/Mange: Golden Time.

Banri Tada is a newly admitted male student at a private law school in Tokyo. Due to the after-effects of a fall from a bridge shortly after his high school graduation, he has lost all of his memories prior to the accident ( anesia )

It sort of relates to nightmares, its a drama/romance.


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Anime movie about a guy going to hell and being reborn as a boy in middle/highschool
I think I saw this movie about a year ago, but I can't remember much of it and only watched part of it.
It started off with this guy in hell, and he met this young boy and the boy said something like the guy had been lucky and had been given another chance in life to redeem himself.
He then wakes up in a hospital as a boy who I think was in middle or high school - he had committed suicide by overdosing and was supposed to be dead, and the guy had taken over the dead body.
The now reborn boy was good at art, and his family gets worried about him as he doesn't talk with them after overdosing - I think it was said that he didn't talk much before, though.
The young boy that told the guy that he was going to be reborn follows him around, and the guy is the only one who can see him. The guy speculates a lot about whether the young boy is an angel or devil, and tries to find out what the now-dead boys life that he inherited was like.
I think the guy - when reborn as the boy - was wearing school clothes a lot of the time, and had short brown hair. I don't remember what anyone else looked like, as what they were wearing was pretty plain.
From what I remember, the art style was plain and didn't have much colour, I think everything was pretty saturated.

I believe you're looking for Colorful.

"I" died and was kicked out of the cycle of reincarnation because of the sin "I" committed. An angel told me that "I" won a lottery and he gave me a chance to remember the sin. My spirit possessed the body of the 14-year-old boy Makoto, who committed suicide and "I" tried to recollect my memory. "I" felt distressed by the terrible circumstances of Makoto and the fact that "I" was borrowing his body. "I" have started to realize that people are hurting each other because the world is too colorful to distinguish the true color of themselves from others.


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Why is Kazami Yuuji nicknamed "Juicy Yuuji"?
I notice that a fair number of people (e.g. on reddit) refer to Kazami Yuuji (protagonist of Grisaia) as "Juicy Yuuji". Why? What's so juicy about him?
Also: I haven't noticed anybody in the anime (up through episode 4) refer to Yuuji as "juicy" or anything of that sort. Is the "Juicy Yuuji" nickname (or some Japanese equivalent thereof) used in canon (e.g. the visual novel) at some point, or is it purely a fan invention?

In the Visual Novel (not sure about the anime), there is a scene in which Michiru and Makina start a conversation with Yuuji. Specifically, Michiru complains to Yuuji that he is hard to talk to because he gives off a certain aura. She then suggests that they give him a nickname to make him easier to talk to, similar to how Makina calls Michiru "Chiruchiru". Yuuji says that they're free to call him whatever name they like, though he doesn't see any need for a nickname.
Michiru then makes her first proposal for a nickname 「ザ・近寄り難い人」,　which literally means "The person who is difficult to approach", or as the fan-translation says, "Mr. Standoffish man". Neither Makina nor Yuuji is very happy with this name, because it's not exactly easy to say.
They go back to brainstorming, and Makina comes up with the second suggestion: "Juicy-Yuuji". Michiru isn't happy with this; she agrees that it sounds nice, but doesn't see what part of Yuuji is "Juicy".
After this, Yumiko comes by asking them to be quiet. She ends up getting roped into the conversation, and Michiru asks her to come up with more names. She first agrees with "Juicy Yuuji", but then offers as an alternative "Yujiyuji". After Michiru laughs at this, she exits the conversation.
In the VN, Michiru then forces the decision on Yuuji as to which nickname he wants. You have the choice of any of those three.

After that, for the rest of the scene you're referred to by that name. However, Yuuji decides to get back at Michiru by giving her an equally terrible nickname. Eventually he ends up selecting "Mitcher", which Michiru finds to be very unpleasant. He continues on a rampage, giving Sachi, Amane, and Makina the nicknames "Satcher", "Atcher", and "Matcher", until Michiru apologizes and pledges not to use the nickname you chose.
The choice never has any impact on future events in the VN, and none of the main events from that scene come up again in the future as far as I can remember, but I guess this nickname became popular in the fan community.


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Where is this Shingeki no Kyojin light novel in the series' timeline?
According to Wikipedia there are three light novel volumes titled Before the Fall, which are prologues to the anime/manga storyline. I saw another light novel titled Harsh Mistress of the City which comes right after them.
Does that novel tell the story from where the anime and the manga is starting?

The spin-off light novel Attack on Titan: Queen of the Isolated City, subtitled The Harsh Mistress of the City, is set in the year of 845, a few days after the appearance of the Colossal Titan in the main series. After the breach of Wall Maria, Titans appeared in the Quinta District and chaos ensued in this isolated city. (Synopsis translated from shingeki-kyojin.com.)

Two volumes in total were planned for this spin-off. The info was given on a flier included in Volume 12 of the main series.

Is it true that it only a spin-off story?

@HashiramaSenju The reference calls it a spin-off story. According to the Wikia page, there are only 226 pages in the first volume. The 上, together with 下 and a possible 中, indicates that there will be at most 3 volumes for Harsh Mistress of the City, so it can only be a spin-off.

The manga & anime starts with the fall of wall Maria's southern district (manga chapter 1 & 2).
The story in the novel starts with Wall Maria being pierced Reference here.
The manga stated that it has been a hundred years of peace within the walls (again chapter 1).
Meaning that the wall has never been breached before.
So this means that the start of the story on the novel is around the time the manga is.


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Can anyone tell me where this is from or if it is just art?

Hey all, need help with something - as the title states, can anyone tell me where this is from? Thanks.

Intressting result I got here... The image, called Coordinator Angel, is drawn by masterbimo and can be found on his DeviantART channel.
This is a character from a trading card game called Aquarian Age (アクエリアンエイジ). It is a Japanese collectible card game similar to Magic.

In the game, the player takes the role of a "Mindbreaker", who can
  control and unlock the powers of the game characters. The goal is to
  defeat other Mindbreakers (players) and to grow stronger. The game
  continues until the player has defeated all of their opponents, or has
  been stripped of their powers; thus being knocked out of the game.
Unlike similar TCG, the player fields game characters instead of
  spells. They must gain control over each character before it can be
  used in a game. If a player is unable to control a character properly,
  it may turn on them.

Information from Wikipedia.
Notice that the game was adapted into an anime series called Aquarian Age: Sign for Evolution.

Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jan 11, 2002 to Mar 29, 2002
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Music, Romance, Sci-Fi, Shounen, Super Power, Supernatural
Episodes: 13
Duration: 24 min. per episode
Rating: 13+

Five supernatural factions have been fighting against each other for
  who knows how many centuries, with the beginning of Aquarian Age
  always in mind. Kyouta, soon begins to see visions of mystical girls
  fighting, except they do exist. Soon he and his girlfriend Yoriko
  become involved and the battle for Earth and Aquarian Age lies in
  their hands.

Image from gzchunfeng. Information from MyAnimeList.


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Is there more than 1 type of light novel in the Spice and Wolf series?
I've always thought there is only 1 type of light novel for this series (which is translated to other languages).
But I saw on Amazon that they are offering to sell 3 types of the same light novel.
You can see that below the title section, where it says "See all 3 formats and editions". After that, you need to press the arrow on the left side to see all the 3 novels.
I'm wondering what are the differences between them.

These are just the different cover release versions. At one point, Yen Press was printing these with a slipcover case on them that shows a more "appealing cover" for the Americanized audience. However, not everyone liked this. They're not available anymore and were a limited print only, so the versions Amazon has listed are the normal and slip covered version (plus the one they fulfill, the none slip cover one.)
You can find the original press release here.
I actually own some of these, although I usually display the original Japanese covers as I prefer them. I've attached some photos so you can get a good idea of how they look in real life.
I hope this helps.

Thank you very much
Honestly, as long as it is basically the same, I prefer the cartoonish style. it's given me more original filing.

@HashiramaSenju The content is identical.

yeah, that's what I've understood from your answer.
much appreciate =]


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Is there a uncensored version of Tokyo Ghoul?
I couldn't find an uncensored version of Tokyo Ghoul.
Was it even released yet? If not, I would like to know when it estimated to be released.
(I'm sure it isn't going to stay like this forever.)

The DVDs will be uncensored.
They are not fully released yet (Volume 3 is coming out on the 28th of November, Volume 4 December 26th ), nor released in English speaking territories.
I expect it may take another few months before it is picked up by English licencors (streaming rights have been purchased, but DVD rights aren't up for grabs just yet).
Ref

"Uncensored". Even though aside for only a couple scenes most of the stuff that was censored was of a level most would consider ALREADY censored, and has gotten a lot of backlash over it.


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Where does Little Red Riding Hood appear?
I was looking over the TYPE-MOON Wikia for new images and saw one which made me think of Assassin of Black in Fate/Apocrypha. However, under "Appears on these pages", it was listed to be in the List of minor characters.
In her profile it says:

Little Red Riding Hood (赤ずきん, ?) is a resident of Fuyuki City who died in a family suicide in Semina Apartments, whose death has become a ghost story involving Mr. A told by Ayako Mitsuduri.

Since Ayako Mitsuduri is the one who tells the story, I would assume she's in Fate/Stay Night, but I don't remember any side stories in the original visual novel (maybe in Realta Nua?) or any mention of her in Studio Deen's adaptation of the Fate Route.
So where does she appear?

Probably mentioned in a passing, that or an error in the Wiki.

Very near the beginning1 of Fate/hollow ataraxia (the sequel VN to Fate/stay night), Mitsuzuri tells a ghost story to an audience including Makidera Kaede, Sageusa Yukika, Rin, Sakura, Issei, and Shirou.2
The gist of the story is basically what the Type-Moon wikia says on the page for Mr. A - some dude named "A" lives next to a little red-hooded girl whose parents are abusive. One day, the girl's parents are found murdered, and the girl herself is nowhere to be found. Later on, a spoopy apparition of the little girl appears before him, and drives him mad.
This little girl is also alluded to in Fate/strange fake - F/sf's "player" character is explicitly named "A" at one point, and his backstory matches up with the story told by Mitsuzuri in F/ha. The text indicates that the player character will sometimes see visions of a bloodstained little girl, who is presumably this little red-hooded girl.
I'm not sure where that picture comes from, though. The PS Vita release of Fate/hollow ataraxia just came out last week; maybe it's one of the CGs from that.

1 I haven't played F/ha, but I have had the pleasure(?) of looking at the .po files for it; this particular scene occurs in 真・冒頭-08, which I would estimate is about 20 minutes from the beginning or thereabouts.
2 Mitsuzuri, Makidera, and Saegusa appear a lot more frequently in F/ha than they do in F/sn (where they're basically background characters that vanish after day 3-ish of the VN).


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Divergence numbers in logo: Steins;Gate easter egg?
So I recently remembered the Steins;Gate anime and upon searching the logo in google, there appear to be what I think are divergence numbers behind the letters. You can plainly see a complete string of numbers in the letter i. If you zoom in enough, there are also a bunch of scattered, unconnected(?) ones hiding in the letters n, s, G, t and e. A zero (0) can also be found in the dot of the "i", but it's a bit of a stretch. Or not.
My question is: What world line do these numbers correspond to in the anime or VN? Or are they just random numbers used in the logo for design purposes?

0.571024 is the first worldline shift; one could say that's "where it all started." For the other numbers, there's an 8 and a 5; as far as I know no worldline had both those numbers.

As Eric notes in the comments, 0.571024 (the number down the side of the "i") is the divergence number of the worldline Okabe is in at the very beginning of the show.
The numbers hidden in the letters (0 in i / 4 in n / 8 in s / 5 in G / 9 in t / 6 in e) form "048596". I bet there's a "1" hidden somewhere I'm not seeing (maybe in the first "t"?), since 1.048596 is also an important divergence number: that's the divergence number of the Steins;Gate.

Thank you very much :) Yes it's in the first t, I think, since it has a weird vertical line on it that the other t didn't have. It was just so long ago that I've already forgotten these numbers. Time to re-watch it, I guess.


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Anime series about a main character gaining power from blue blob on his arm
I'm looking for the title of an anime I've watched several years ago (I think the anime should be from 5 to 10 years ago). I don't remember much about it, just a few scenes from the first episodes. I think it was some short anime series (12 to 26 episodes).
I remember the main character getting his power form something like a blue blob that wrapped around his arm (making it somehow looks like Chad's arm from Bleach).
There were also other people getting powers (or weapons I don't remember) in a similar way. In particular I remember a fight with an evil guy in a park who was trying to kill random people there.
The story was set up more or less in the present.

You might be looking for Ayakashi (2007, 12 episodes).

Adapted from the 2005 adults-only superhuman battle action visual novel game Ayakashi. Ayakashi is a parasite life force that gives superpowers to its host, taking in return the host's entire life force. Kusaka Yuu is a student that lost his will to live after the death of a dear childhood friend, until the day a mysterious girl, named Yoake Eimu, appears. From that moment on, his life would never be the same again. Hunted by Ayakashi and their hosts, the power within Yuu awakens and a never ending battle begins.

Yuu KUSAKA in his OP mode.
In episode 2, an evil guy killed many random people in a park and harmed Yuu's classmate in order to provoke him and awaken his powers. He got totally pwned by the enraged protagonist.

You're welcome :) and good details in the question that allowed me to get it right with little effort.


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What is this monster collection anime with a kid that has a hammer-like weapon?
I have been trying to remember this TV show I watched as a kid, maybe around year 1998-2000.
It's about this kid who works for this scientist/professor and they collect/battle monsters.
I can't exactly remember the details, but I can tell of an episode where they battle a sphinx who tells the kid a riddle about "what goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening," which is a spinoff from Oedipus. I can also remember the kid having a hammer-like weapon.

You're thinking of Flint the Time Detective.

The series is centered around the adventures of Flint Hammerhead, the "Time Detective", a boy from the prehistoric era who was resurrected from a fossil and became a Time Detective, although his competency as a detective is dubious. Much like Inspector Gadget, much of the heavy thinking is done by Flint's friends, Sarah and Tony Goodman, who accompany him on his adventures. Flint, however, pulled his weight in battle, when he would fight with the aid of his father Rocky Hammerhead, whose partial resurrection left him a sentient, talking rock with a face. Rocky, fashioned into a hammer for Flint, served Flint as both sturdy weapon and adviser, the latter both in and out of battle. Flint's job as a Time Detective was to go back in time and convince time-shifters- cute, collectible creatures - to ally with him to protect the timeline.
In the US, Flint the Time Detective aired from March 5, 2000 until November 5, 2000. The series also aired in the Philippines via GMA 7 and dubbed in Filipino language which rans from late 2000 until mid-2001.

That was fast. So awesome. I'm from the Philippines and I loved this show as a kid. Thanks a lot


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Anime about a reunited friends who turn out to be each other's fiancee
I would like to re-watch an anime but I can't remember the characters' names or the title. I remember some of the story.
The story starts with a guy at the subway station and he met a girl there who was lost. The girl said she was looking for her fiancé. The guy fixed the girl's sandals which were broken, then they went together to find the house of the girl's fiancé. They went to the address, but it was an empty lot. He took her to his home, where she showed the only photograph she and her fiancé had together. He looked at the photo and it was a photo of him and the childhood friend he was supposed to marry.
Sorry that there isn't a lot to go on.

Thats most probably Ai Yori Aoshi.

Kaoru Hanabishi, a college student who lives alone, met a beautiful but bewildered girl dressed in a kimono at a train station. He volunteered to guide her way to the address she was looking for, which happened to be in his neighborhood, but turned out to be an empty lot. Not knowing what to do next, Kaoru invited the devastated girl to his apartment and asked for any additional clues to her destination. She supplied him with a photo of two children whom Kauru immediately identified as himself and Aoi Sakuraba, his childhood friend. It turned out that the girl in front of him is Aoi Sakuraba herself, his betrothed fiancee who came all the way to Tokyo to marry him. Her revelation was not only surprising but also reminded the deepest part of Kaoru's memory for why he left the Hanabishi family in the first place.

MyAnimeList


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A romance anime where the girl eats a lot of food in order not to stand out
This anime is my head. It's a romance anime and didn't seem that old. It starts with a girl who is kinda a tomboy and she eats a lot of food in order not to stand out. I remember one scene where a guy says that she looks pretty and then she stuffs her face with food, also her friends said bad stuff about a shy girl in her class. She sees her long lost crush walking on her road and he asks her why she considers those people as 'friends' and she listens to him and stands up for the shy girl and becomes friends with her. She is seen crying and the guy hugs her from the window....
I just can't remember what its called! So frustrating.. Please help.


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An anime about human protagonists travelling with monsters, among them are a blue wolf, and a big eye on a leg monster
The anime is about humans and monsters.
The main character has companions which are human and some monsters.
These monsters include one blue wolf with horns and some white fur on his chest (it walks on all four), and another one is this big eye on a leg (light green), with a big tongue. I think the eye monster can roll up to attack the foes.
During the story he fights other people/monsters/animals.
Some of these animals are also wolfs, but have different colors to our protagonist. Some of them are the one legged big eyes, but different colors as well.
I saw it on TV around 2006/7, but it may be older.
Reason I didn't watch it at the time was because it was aired in Irish (which I didn't speak, or in Japanese with Irish subtitles).

It is probably Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitsu, known in America as Monster Rancher.

Genki is a boy who loves playing video games. One day he's zapped into the world of Monster Rancher and meets the girl Holly and the monsters Mochi, Suezo, Golem, Tiger and Hare. Together, they are searching for a way to revive the Phoenix, which is the only monster capable of stopping the evil Moo.

The wolf is Tiger of the Wind "Rygar"

A blue, wolf-like monster with horns on his head. He is a feared thief and bandit known as "Tiger of the Wind". He was the leader of a pack of rogue mixed-breed Tigers that were isolated from all humans. Eventually, he met up with Genki. At first, he looked down upon Genki's optimistic and caring nature. Tiger had a rough past that changed him forever, giving him a jaded and cold view of life. However, after listening to Genki, he has learned to care more for others. A clan of Dinos commanded by Moo killed off Tiger's pack, so he joined up with Genki's team in hopes of finding and defeating Moo. Tiger is extremely fast and powerful in battle. He uses an array of swift attacks, as well as firing electricity from his horns and using ice-based attacks. Tiger once had a younger brother named Gray Wolf. They lived together as orphaned pups. Eventually, they built a pack of mixed-breed Tigers. When Tiger first met Moo, the giant monster killed every last member of Tiger's pack, and kidnapped Gray Wolf, leaving Tiger to die. Tiger would later find out the cold, harsh truth of what happened to his brother. Tiger was the Phoenix's anger. {Wikipedia}

The eye on a leg is Suezo

A simple monster with only a mouth, a huge singular eye, and an upright tail. He is Holly's loyal monster retainer. Suezo serves as comic relief in many instances and he can be a little obnoxious and loud-mouthed. He has amazing Telescopic vision and can teleport himself and other objects from one location to another in mere seconds, though it took a bit of practice to perfect this. Thus, eventually a very useful asset to the team. Suezo was the Phoenix's pride.

Reference

MyAnimeList
Wikipedia

@nhahtdh I didn't really understand what you meant

You're welcome, it was the blue wolf which reminded me of this :)

@System done ;)

authors: Павел Власов


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What spelling is Caster using to refer to Joan?
In the Aniplex English dub, when Caster mistakenly refers to Saber as Joan, he adds his French accent to the pronunciation of her name.
Now the wikia for Joan mentions 2 ways of spelling her name, Joan of Arc and Jeanne d'Arc. I don't know French all that well and for all I know, Caster could be saying either. So I am wondering, when Caster says Joan's name, is he using Joan or Jeanne?

Joan is just the English version of the French name Jeanne, both of which are female forms of the Biblical name John.
In the original Japanese, Caster refers to Saber as ジャンヌ jannu, which is the Japanese pronunciation of French "Jeanne". English "Joan" would be ジョーン jōn. I haven't seen the English dub, but I imagine that Caster is using the French version there, too.
Given that Caster is Bluebeard (i.e. Gilles de Rais, who was a French person), it makes sense that he would use the French version of the name rather than the English version.


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What is this Geis from?
On the Type-Moon Wikia entry for Geis it says this:

Contract used by Kiritsugu Emiya
  Binding magecraft: Target – Kiritsugu Emiya
  The Crests of the Emiya family hereby command: Provided that the following conditions are met, this oath shall become a commandment and bind the target without exception.

  Oath:
  To the fifth head of the Emiya house, Kiritsugu, son of Noritaka: regarding both Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi and Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, all intentions and actions to kill and harm shall be forbidden for all eternity.

  Conditions:
  Use up all the Command Seals, and let the Servant finish himself.

Now I've only seen up to Episode 10 but from how this reads it seems to have been in place before even the first fight between Saber and Lancer since by episode 10

 Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri is Lancer's Master and probably doesn't care about Kayneth since she loves Lancer

However, Kiritsugu had tried to kill Kayneth on more than one occasion and there seems to be nothing that tries to stop him from breaking this Geis. in Fate/Stay Night in one of Heaven's Feel's bad endings, it's shown what happens when Shirou goes against the Geis he forms with Rin

 Once he plans on going against Rin's wishes of killing Sakura Matou, he finds that he cannot move his body at all to stop her. He is immediately freed upon Sakura's death, as there is no longer any reason to bind him.

and in Cú Chulainn's legend, his demise was caused when he was put in a situation where he had to break a Geis

Never refuse a meal offered by a woman
Never eat dog meat

He was offered a meal of dog meat by a woman and as such he had to break one Geis.
So while I may be jumping the gun here and asking this before watching the entire series, where does this Geis with Kiritsugu and Kayneth appear? If it was before the first fight between Saber and Lancer, how come there was nothing enforcing the Geis as there was with Shirou?

You're jumping the gun. Watch the entire series.

@senshin so the geis is actually made later in the series?

Yes, later in the series. You might want to avoid reading the wikia so much - you're just spoiling yourself for future plot points.

@senshin i try and avoid Fate/Zero elements since alot of TYPE-MOON Works i have to hope get translated and localized so i can't just avoid the wikia until the work i want to read up on is released (hope for a Fate/Extra CCC localization seems to be almost dead). i already know the gist of Fate/Zero anyway from other works, Saber dislikes Kiritsugu because of his actions, Sakura isn't saved by her uncle, Waver is "forced" into service by Reines in a similar matter as how he does in Fate/Apocrypha and i had already read up on Geis before Fate/Zero's anime was released

Spoilers for the second half of Fate/Zero:

 After the defeat of Caster in episode 15, Kayneth goes to the church (in episode 16) and asks Kirei's dad for a Command Spell as a reward for having helped defeat Caster (not that he did a damn thing; that was all Lancer). Kirei's dad agrees and gives him a Command Spell. At more or less the same time, Maiya abducts Sola-Ui and also cuts off her arm with the Command Spells. Lancer returns to Kayneth at this point, no longer able to locate Sola-Ui now that her Command Spells have been severed.

 Saber (with Irisviel) happens upon Lancer at this point and they start dueling. Meanwhile, a bit away from the duel, Kiritsugu shows up with Sola-Ui's body and proposes a geis to Kayneth - Kiritsugu will leave Sola-Ui with Kayneth and shall nevermore harm either of them, provided that Kayneth uses up all his Command Spells and orders Lancer to commit suicide. Kayneth agrees, since that appears to be the only way out of the situation, and compels Lancer to kill himself. Kayneth breathes a sigh of relief, since he and Sola-Ui are now safe from Kiritsugu and Saber.

 Of course, Maiya is lying in wait with a sniper rifle, and kills Kayneth and Sola-Ui immediately thereafter. She wasn't bound by the geis, after all. Sucks to be Kayneth.

 In any case, only a few minutes at most pass between the geis taking effect and Kayneth/Sola-Ui being assassinated by Maiya (which renders the geis moot). The geis emphatically was not in effect at any time before that, and as such did not impact Kiritsugu/Saber's previous fights with Kayneth/Lancer.


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What happened to Rin's Mana Compass?
In Fate/Zero, Rin is given a Mana Compass by her father which she uses in her search for Kotone. I've only seen up to episode 10 but I know she'll appear in a later episode where she will receive the Jewel Pendant which becomes the catalyst to summon Archer in the 5th war and saves Shirou's life.
However I don't remember her Mana Compass being mentioned in Fate/Stay Night, nor can i foresee a situation in Fate/Zero where it would be destroyed. Given how it works it seems to be quite a useful tool Rin could've employed in the 5th war.
So I am wondering, is it stated what happens to the compass, since it seems Rin treasures the Jewel Pendant she was given, since it came from her father, and I would assume she would treasure the compass as well.

To the best of my knowledge, it's never mentioned again (not even later in Fate/Zero), aside from a throwaway reference on the Fake/states night webpage, which describes it (魔力針) as an item you could find in-game and which has Rin's name engraved on the back of it.
From an out-of-universe perspective, the obvious reason why we don't know what happened to it is that it was invented by Urobuchi for Fate/Zero, which was written after Fate/stay night, and it's not so important an object that its whereabouts in Fate/stay night would need to be explained.
From an in-universe perspective, I think the best explanation is that by the time of the Fifth War, Rin no longer needed the device - skilled mages can already sense magic to some extent. During the Fourth War, though, when she was just 5 or 6, she probably wasn't experienced enough to be able to detect mana all that effectively, and so the compass was somewhat useful to her back then.
By the way,

 Rin doesn't get the pendant during Fate/Zero. It's only at the beginning of F/SN (the day before she summons Archer) that she finds it with her father's effects. Rin does happen to show up at the end of Fate/Zero (for Tokiomi's funeral); that's when she receives the Azoth sword from Kirei.

So the Compass doesn't appear in Fate/strange fake which is what Fake/states night eventually became?

Right, it doesn't show up in Fate/strange fake itself (though that could change with the new novels coming out starting next month).

Shirou could feel the presence of Medusa/Rider in the 5th Episode of Unlimited Blade Works.
I would say, if a third rate novice Magus could feel the presence of a Servant, a Genius like Rin wouldn't need her Mana-Compass anymore during the 5th Grail War.
Also, if I remember correctly. Command Seals vaguely "ping" Servants or strong Mysteries? Rin's Seals react in the Fuyuki Park in Episode 0 of UBW and she later feels the presence of Riders Blood Fort Andromeda, also during Episode 0.


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Looking for a horror manga I read some years ago
I read it probably one or two years ago, but I'm pretty sure it was older than that. Its art style was extremely detailed, maybe even too much so. It was quite violent as well (e.g. at some point a character throws a sink or something like that through the body of another one).
The story was about a group of students (maybe high school, not too sure about that) who "build" a Frankenstein-ish monster which should serve them in doing... something? I can't really remember.
The monster at the end rebels against the group and slaughters them all.
They kidnap and maybe rape one of their teachers.
The leader of the group had some kind of "black star", and at some point he meets a fortune teller who tells him that the black star is a mark of great evil and that people like Hitler had one, but also that the boy would be even more successful than them.
I am pretty sure it had an anime adaptation, but it was less gory and wasn't well accepted.
EDIT: I'm absolutely not sure about this, but the title may have been the name of the creature.

This is Lychee Light Club. On the cover you can see the black star, the symbol you mentioned , on the leader's glove. He was indeed told by a fortune teller that he would be more evil than Hitler - and he takes pride in it.

The Frankenstein monster you're thinking of is Litchi. He's powered by lychee fruits. He was created so that he could capture beautiful girls for the club. He discovers love from one of his captive females and betrays the club whilst defending her.

The anime is significantly less dark than the manga and the characters are in a chibi art style

No problem, It was one I was wondering about for ages too :)


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Has there ever been an instance of an officially crowd-funded translation of a novel?
There's some novels like "From the New World" which are excellent novels and award winner, but never make it over here. They still fall into the "otaku" subculture but appeal to broader audiences, too.
As consumers, has some sort of crowd-funding or the like ever been attempted to get these materials translated? How can consumers express their desire to bring this material overseas?

To the best of my knowledge, no crowdfunding effort for a Jap -> Eng novel translation has succeeded. Japanese content creators are notoriously wary of crowdfunding (especially when the funding is by international fans), so the number of successful "otaku"-related localization projects that have succeeded can probably be counted on two hands (there's Little Witch Academia, Kick-Heart, Time of Eve's addon projects [Inverted Patema, etc], all of Animesols, and maybe a few others).

Oh, also, I'm not sure whether you're aware of this, but From the New World actually had a sort of pseudo-crowdfunding effort by Vertical Inc. (the links from their site are gone, so see this blog post instead) in which they tried to get a few thousand people to informally commit to purchasing the novel if it were to be translated. They failed, of course.

@senshin they do have a translated version of volumes 1,2,3 being sold so not sure what's up with it.

@Prix That's the manga, not the novel.

@senshin ah that's my bad :)

@Prix None of the answers completely answer the above question. I think it's fair to keep this open. Your answer, however comes the closest.

As of now, yes! Some Visual Novels (these count as novels in my book) have been successfully crowd funded out here.  A few examples of that are mostly done by the Sekai Project.
For example, World End Economica was already funded and has been translated and released. The original KickStarter can be found here. Sekai Project is working on a few others, too. These include:

Clannad (already funded)
Grisaia
WAS
fault Milestone One

So, the answer is a resounding YES now! With Clannad on the horizon, we might see even more of these reach out into the English tongue.

The best way to do convince distributors this works reliably is to make sure that it does by backing similar projects whenever you see them. As noted above there are a number of projects that have been successful like LWA2 and kick-heart. If someone like Trigger keeps running kickstarters and making upwards of half a million dollars, well, the rest of them will catch on.


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What manga is this magical girl on a plane from?
I found this image on imgur at one stage and added it in my browser bookmarks. Rediscovering it now, I'd really like to find the source of it so I can read the rest.
Does anyone know what this is from?

This manga is Zai x 10 （[罪×10]【じゅうざい】） by Yamauchi Yasunobu, the same author as Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou.
The first 2 chapters and the latest chapters can be read here on Gangan Online (in Japanese).
The scene is from page 3 of chapter 16 Hijacking Arc 2
Below is my own summary of the first 11 chapters. It contains heavy spoiler that will destroy your viewing experience, especially the comedy, so read with care:

 The story is basically about 10 different girls/ladies either involving in or committing 10 different kinds of crimes, where their special powers are shown. Their special powers originate from their ribbons, which were given to them by a mad scientist. The magical girl, who also gets her power from the mad scientist, decides that the mad scientist is the root of all the evil and beats him up. The mad scientist then reveals that there are other girls whom he had modified before, and their power source is their ribbons. Thence, the magical girl goes on a mission to retrieve all of them.


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What if you wrote "eaten by a gigantic sea-snake" in the Death Note?
I was wondering, suppose that I wrote in a Death Note,

Person A in day x, month y, year z, hour h, minute i, second j, eaten by a gigantic sea-snake.
A goes to the middle of the sea for diving. There, when he dives, a gigantic sea monster swallows him whole.

Is this kind of death possible? If so, wouldn't that make the Death Note the greatest scientific tool ever? I mean, it could be used to verify the existence of aliens too.

Haha! Nice idea.

The alien example might not work though - it might take more than 23 days for aliens to arrive on earth, for instance.

Well, if the alien has the warp technology, they might be able to reach Earth in 23 days. :-)

Mr. Tao dies of cancer after solving the Riemann hypothesis and secretly sending me the results without telling anyone else?

I'll attempt an answer.
There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this per se, given the Death Note rules as I remember them. If sea monsters (or aliens) existed, this would be hypothetically fine as long as the conditions for such scenarios coming into play (e.g. A's journey to the sea doesn't take 24 days, or A doesn't have to fly from Urumqi to the Atlantic Ocean in an hour) are appropriate and possible. However, we run into some problems.
Obviously if sea monsters exist where A goes diving and the biology of sea monsters allows them to swallow A, we're fine. But how about aliens? What if, as I mentioned, it takes more than 23 days for them to arrive on earth?
If the aliens show up and kill A, or if the sea monster swallows him, we have proof of those things existing. But if A just dies of a heart attack, we don't know what we've "proved" or disproved. For example:

Maybe aliens (or whatever) don't exist.
Maybe it's impossible, at least at the moment, for aliens to show up and kill A within 23 days, because they don't have the appropriate technology.
With kaine's comment - maybe the mathematician simply isn't capable of solving the Riemann hypothesis that quickly for whatever reason.

So if we get a "positive" result, we're good. But if we get a negative one, we probably won't know why exactly such a result occurred, and in that sense this technique doesn't quite work (or rather, it wouldn't be as useful as one might imagine).

That's pretty much how hypothesis testing in statistics works too--if your hypothesis test confirms the hypothesis, great, but if it doesn't, then it's said that the test "fails to reject" the hypothesis--you can't make a call on it either way. But we could increase our confidence in the result by having aliens kill as many people as possible; either we'll get a "positive" answer at some point, or we can say that the probability that aliens exist asymptotically approaches zero as more and more people fail to be killed by them. A very Mengele way to practice science.

@Torisuda: But in a sense I think what we're testing is really just "Aliens can kill people given the conditions of the Death Note and other circumstances." It's obviously true if aliens exist (and the person dies that way), but it's "false" if aliens don't exist, or even if aliens can't travel or kill people that quickly.

Agreed, if we repeatedly write "Aliens kill X" for several values of X, and our Xs keep dying of heart attack, we can never conclude that aliens don't exist, even if we spaced our trials out at 23-day intervals over a long period (say a hundred years, or even a thousand), as you cover in your answer.

(cont'd) I was trying to point out something implicit in your answer, that even if we applied the Death Note's "magic" to scientific questions like this, in some sense we haven't really gone anywhere--it still comes down to  statistical confidence. Even with "magic", we're just increasing our confidence in the conclusion, and even then, only if it confirms our hypothesis. And as you also point out, we add a bunch of new possible explanations for failure, because we also have to deal with the Death Note's rules. I thought that was an interesting consequence of your (very sensible) logic.

@Torisuda: Definitely agree. (I think I just somehow misread something in your original comment, or assumed that the "trials" involved in the experimenting you mentioned all involved the same conditions, which, well, wouldn't work effectively.)

I remember Light writing a scheme of deaths months ahead in one episode as to secure that when something happens to him, like if he gets hospitalized, deaths will continue to happen. I think the 23 day rule only applies when you decide to kill a person via manipulation or disease.


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Who are the sibling groups in this picture?
The picture:

It looks like fanart, but I'm pretty sure the characters are all from something and not original characters, since I recognize Lelouch and Nunnally Lamperouge on the far left, and the Araragi siblings Karen-chan, Koyomi, and Tsukihi-chan at the center. Who are the other characters? Answers identifying any or all are appreciated.

e-shuushuu seems to list all of them. You could probably figure out who is who based on that, but there are 14 and I don't recognize all of them so I'll leave that to someone else.

@LoganM Yeah, I used your iqdb tip from this answer to find them all, so I wrote out my own answer. Wish I could upvote that post twice.

As part of our cleanup of image-only id requests, I'm voting to close this question by some guy I don't know that inexplicably garnered 6 upvotes and another 12 for its answer.

Possible duplicate of Where is this picture from? How do I use Reverse Image Search to find the source of an anime/manga image?

I answered my own question partway through writing it with a visit to http://iqdb.com. Rather than delete the question, I made it a shill for iqdb (brought to my attention by Logan M. in this question's answer.) iqdb led me to this page that lists all the series and characters in this picture.
The far left pair is Lelouch and Nunnally Lamperouge from Code Geass.
Next to Lelouch and Nunnally are Izaya Orihara and his younger twin sisters Mairu and Kururi, from Durarara!!.
Next are Hiromi Souma and Aoi Yamada from Working!!. They're not actually siblings, but Aoi tries to make Hiromi into her big brother.
Then we have the Araragi siblings from the Monogatari series. (The reason I found this picture.)
Next to them are Shouma and Himari Takakura from Mawaru Penguindrum.
The pair on the far right is twin brothers Yuuta and Yuuki Asaba from Kimi to Boku.

@ton.yeung I keep meaning to check out the first season. Even though I liked Baccano, Durarara always slips my mind when it's time for a new show.


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Why is the series named this way?
I've been watching the anime since yesterday and couldn't help but wonder why it was called Gokukoku no Brynhildr or Brynhildr in the Darkness. So far I have yet to see any mention of Brynhildr; is this some person later on in the story? Or another name for the protagonist?

Maybe Lynn Okamoto just likes germanic mythology

Brynhildr in this series is  Kuroha Neko. Brynhildr is mighty female warrior of Germanic mythology and the chief of the Valkyries.
Neko's character almost portray the character of Brynhildr as mentioned in German myth. She is powerful than Valkyrie. She does not have any past memory. She gained her memory and became very powerful at the end in series.
Brynhildr in the Darkness trying to show the Neko in darkness or loss of memory. She only does not have past memory but also lose memory when she keep using her power.

Spoiler alert!

 It could be because one of the main antagonists is called Valkyria, and she's Neko's sister. Since Neko is even more powerful than Valkyria, Brynhildr could refer to her. Plus, Valkyria is almost identical to Neko, but with white hair instead of dark (darkness). Also, her memory is full of holes, so she's "in the dark" about her powers and background.

As confusing  as the explanation was by "MirrorOfTruth" given on 09-12-2014, I think shklim or shkler was trying to say the following: The refrence to Brynhildr, from the anime series "Brynhilder In The Darkness", refers to the female character Neko Kuroha. Brynhildr is a mighty female warrior and chief of the "Valkyries", which comes from German Mythology.
Neko's character almost portrays "Brynhildr" from said myth where as she is powerful like the Valkyrie, has no  past memories, and as she regains her memories she becomes much more powerful, like in the end of the series.
(I'm going to leave the last part out because it is the definition of the word "Spoiler") but lacking basic grammar skills.
Having said that, it is almost as damaging to the information given, as it is to the person lacking said skills.

Brynhildr (also spelled Brunhild, Brünnhilde, Brynhild) is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Germanic mythology.
Best answer I could find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brynhildr

Could you elaborate on how this is connected to the series ?


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Anime in '90s where the main character transforms into red armor with a magical silver box
I can't find my favorite childhood anime that was shown on Cartoon Network back in the '90s.
The characters looked similar to Dragon Ball's, so it was probably a Japanese Toonami show. The hero is a warrior who has a magical silver box which when opens, some kind of a red armor fits on his arms and legs and gives him super fighting powers.
Also, this wasn't a cyborg show or space related show. Plus, the characters were only humans.
I have searched everywhere possible, copied all titles I found into Google Image trying to find an image that would lead me to the name of the anime for 3 days but no success.
Appreciate your help.

You might try looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Cartoon_Network#Former_acquired_series (or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Toonami#Anime if it was on Toonami). The only one I saw at a glance that it could possibly be is Ronin Warriors though.

It sounds like Saint Seiya (a.k.a. Knights of the Zodiac in NA).

you got the right one, thank you very much for your help. appreciate it.

Sounds kind of like Ronin Warriors and the red armor guy is named Ryo


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Read a manga half a year ago went to find it was about a martial artist?
I read a manga about half a year ago which is about a Royal Prince or something like that, but his Father gets killed when the throne got taken away from him.
So the Prince has to flee and gets trained by 2 old guys in a cave. He also gets two souls in his body. One soul is from a strong but bad martial artist and another soul from a buddha monk which resides in his body so that the evil soul can't take over his body.
Anyone got an ideas which manga I am looking for?
Would really appreciate any help :)

After a long search I finally found the manhwa (Korean comics) I was looking for.
It's name is Sword of the Emperor

Synopsis
A young Emperor is cast out of his Empire by his uncle, who seizes the
  throne for himself. The young Emperor sets out to become the strongest
  among the living, and take back what is rightfully his.

So thanks for everyone who looked for it or at least tried to think about it :)