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How different are the anime and manga versions of Death Note?
Although this question was closed, it was actually through it that I came to realize that the anime and manga versions of Death Note are different, having only seen the anime version.
Just how different are the two versions?
Does the anime simply omit some details, shortening the story?
Or do they take completely different directions at some point? (much like the FMA manga and its first anime series) If this is the case, at which point do they part?

The definite difference between your and the closed question is you're asking easily verifiable facts, while the other asked reasons, which unless given by Word of God, would be all just wild guesses.

There are some minor differences.
For example, when L loses his life in the Anime, he doesn't say anything. But in the Manga he says something like "I knew I was right".
But the main difference is the ending.
In the Anime

Yagami Light, Near, Matsuda and all the squad are in a sort of warehouse. When Light tries to get the piece of paper of his Death Note from the watch, he gets shot by Matsuda in non-fatal points, both times. While the other guy kills himself, Light runs away, and ends up in another building of what looks like an industrial area. Ryuk is on top of a chimney and speaking to himself, he "reminds" Light about his first promise, i.e. that he would be the one to write Light's name on the Death Note. And that's what he does.

In the Manga

  Light is still in the warehouse and he sees Ryuk (Near sees him too since he has the Note as well) and he begs the Shinigami to write their names. Ryuk says "Ok Light, I'll write..." and while everybody tries to shoot him, he adds "...your name, Light." Light doens't want to believe it but when Ryuk shows the Note, his name is written there. Light sees his entire life and remembers the same sentence Ryuk told him when they met (i.e. that he would be the one to write Light's name on the Death Note). Ryuk adds "it would be hard to see you in prison and your life is over anyways" or something similar. After 40 seconds, Light dies in front of the two detective teams.

interesting. i wonder why they changed it

Summary
There are a lot of differences between the Death Note Manga and it’s Anime adaptation, but they’re mostly minor differences, with the overall story being the same. Compared to the Manga, the Anime has had some scenes removed, new ones added, and some included scenes have been altered.  I’ll go over some of the more notable changes, but this won’t be a complete list.
L/Light Arc
The conversation between L and Light that happens in the coffee shop was altered significantly, with the Manga scene being a lot longer and containing more dialogue between Light and L. In the Anime the only question L asks Light is the one where L gives Light pictures of the “L, do you know that Gods of Death love apples?” messages. In the anime L also asks Light what he can conclude by L revealing himself, and also asks him a question about the various FBI detectives that were killed by Kira.
The following scene, with Light, L, and Soichiro, had alterations as well.In the manga L asks Light what he thinks Kiras personality is like, which leads L to state that the most likely person to be Kira based on Lights description would be Lights sister, Sayu. This causes Light to be outraged, and Soichiro to state that he doesn’t believe it’s possible for Sayu to be Kira (but doesn’t make the same statement about Light, which is something Ryuk makes note of).
In the Manga the first meeting between Misa and Light contains an explanation from Misa about how much of a persons face she needs to see in order to know their name, which was omitted from the Anime.
Business Arc
The anime also excludes a few scenes between Rem and Higuchi, likely to prevent the watcher from discovering who the new Kira is too long before it’s revealed (due to recognizing the voice). The most notable exclusion is a scene where Rem tells Higuchi he can stop killing criminals now, but Higuchi refuses, stating he still needs criminals to die, since it’s good for business.
The manga also shows that  Rem is disgusted by Higuchi and the other members of the “Kira board”. Rem tells Misa during their bathroom scene that her disgust at the actions of the “Kira Board” have made her come to the conclusion that Light may actually be a good person, and wishes for him to succeed (and, for this reason, is no longer able to kill people in order to help Light succeed, since it would cause Rem to die).
When Light gets the notebook back, and Misa resumes her duties as the second Kira, there’s a scene in the Anime which shows Misa walking in the city singing. This scene isn’t present in the Manga, and was added to the Anime.
The death of L is handled differently as well. In the Anime there’s a scene which takes place on the roof of the task forces HQ, after which L gives Light a foot massage. Immediately after this scene L and Watari are killed by Rem. In the Manga the rooftop scene and foot massage are completely omitted. The scene before and after this, showing that Rem is considering killing L to save Misa, is all just one scene. It’s not broken up by anything in the middle. When L does die, he’s complete silent in the Anime, but in the Manga he says “I wasn’t wrong”. Finally, there’s a few scenes between L and Watari in the anime (flashback to L at the orphanage and L coming to Wataris computer room at HQ) which aren't present in the Manga.
Near/Mello Arc
The second half of Death Note, featuring Near and Mello, contains a lot of alterations as well, with quite a few scenes being removed. It also adds a few additional scenes between Misa and Light, giving a bit more of  a glimpse into their relationship, and expanding some more on Misas character (you really get to see how much she cares for Light, and how concerned she gets when Light is upset).
In the Manga Near brings Soichiro in for questioning after Near sends a chopper to pick up Soichiro in the desert. The SPK also gets the USA president to send in a squad of soldiers to retrieve the Death Note from Mello, but the assault fails due to Sidoh taking off everyones helmets so Mellos group can kill them with the Death Note.
In the Manga Mello and Halle Lidner are shown to have met prior to the scene where Mello puts a gun to her head, and almost immediately after the meeting between Mello and Near, Mello contacts Mogi and sends him to meet near. Near asks him a few questions and shares some information with him, with Mello and the task force listening in (although Mogi doesn’t say anything). Mogi is actually still with the SPK when Demegawa storms their headquarters, and safely escapes with them. Mogi is still with the SPK up until Aizawa goes to meet up with Near, at which point Mogi and Aizawa leave together.  In the Anime Mello never contacts Mogi, and Mello and Halle weren’t shown to be in contact prior to Mello putting a gun to her head. When Aizawa gets in touch with Near regarding his doubts about Light he does it over the phone, and not in person. Interestingly enough, though, the Anime scene where Aizawa does first meet Near in person was actually over the phone in the Manga, so they (sort of) swapped those two scenes.
The anime removes a lot of scenes between Misa giving up the Death Note and Light making contact with Mikami as well. In the Manga we actually see Light looking for someone to replace Misa, and notices Mikami during a broadcast of Kiras Kingdom, which results in Light sending Mikami the Death Note. Mikami also tries to reach out to Kira (Light) during an episode of Kiras kingdom, stating that if Kira can’t get in touch with him he’ll begin acting on his own. Mikami also doesn’t get in touch with Light until the second meeting between Takada and Light. In their first meeting Light gets Takada to make some statements during the broadcast in an attempt to have Mikami contact her, and then Mikami contacts her during the second meeting between Light and Takada.
In the manga we see a few more scenes of Mello and Matt (the one who helped Mello kidnapped takada) observing Misa and Light, but nothing really notable happens in these scenes.
Ending
As the other answer already made note of, the ending is changed as well, and is definitely the biggest change. In the anime Light escapes from the warehouse after Mikami kills himself, and dies when Ryuk writes Lights name in the Death Note.
In the Manga Mikami doesn’t kill himself in the warehouse, and Light doesn’t escape. Instead, after Matsuda uses Light for target practice, Light crawls on over to Ryuk  and begs him to write everyone’s name down in his Death Note. Instead Ryuk writes Lights name in the Death Note, resulting in Lights Death. The story then cuts ahead a few years, and there’s an epilogue. In the epilogue we learned that Mikami killed himself in prison, and that Aiziwa has taken over  as head of the Japanese Police. Near has taken over the position as L, and still works with the police. The final shot of the Manga shows that people still worship Kira, and pray for him to return one day.
Misc
The Anime also contains a lot more imagery than the Manga does. In the anime there are several scenes which often don’t show what’s actually happening when some characters are talking. For example, during the “I am in Japan” conversation between Near and Light it shows the two of them going up a construction elevator, whereas in the Manga it just shows them talking over the phone. These changes were likely made to make the long dialogue scenes of the show more visually interesting.
In Closing
So that should cover the majority of the changes between the Manga and Anime, although I may have overlooked something. As you can see, the overall story remains the same, but there’s definitely enough differences between the two make reading the Manga worthwhile if you’ve already seen the anime (and vica versa).

Most of the major ones have already been brought up, but there are several small ones that make things change in ways you wouldn't expect. The easiest to see  example is that Mello (in the manga) had a cross, both on a necklace (potentially a rosary or a fifteen-decade rosary) and hanging off his gun, in the anime the gun has nothing hanging off of it and there is no horizontal bar on the necklace. To most, these are minor, but the connotations are huge. Death Note had, over and over again, shown that there is no afterlife, that everyone returns to nothingness. We, as viewers, accept that that is the way it is in Death Note, but to the other characters, they would have no way of knowing. To me, such little things made a big impact from a lore and world building perspective.

For an interesting subtle difference, see the essay Two boys, one post? Or why anime Light is not the same as manga Light by casuistor, which goes in detail about how anime-Light and manga-Light actually differ in characterization.
Some highlights:

So before reading any of this, you may be thinking that manga-Light and anime-Light are fairly similar and they are at least superficially. Otherwise, their respective characterizations are quite different. This, unsurprisingly, gets established right from the beginning of both the anime and manga when you look at Pre-Kira Light.
...
Manga-Light, for all intents and purposes, comes off like a relatively ordinary guy who jokes around with friends. Anime-Light IS the stereotypical loner character who shuns the company of other people. The anime even gives us a montage in Episode 3 to demonstrate exactly this point.
Here’s Light walking to school alone.
Here’s Light eating lunch at school by himself.
Here’s Light being too good to be a team player in a team sport.
Anime-Light well and truly physically distances himself from other people. It isn’t just emotional distance. None of these shots above are consistent with the friendly social mask manga-Light clearly puts on for the public.
...
Another interesting difference to note is the way manga-Light is actually talking out loud when he’s chattering about the death note. It isn’t part of his internal monologue because it isn’t a secret. Anime-Light on the other hand examines the note and his thoughts stay internalized.
Anime-Light’s first sign of finding the note genuinely amusing happens when he picks up on this potential application of the note.
Taking into context anime-Light’s misanthropy, already eyebrow raising humor like this becomes even more alarming. Think back to all those classmates anime-Light is disgusted with. You can very easily picture a list of people anime-Light would consider toying with.
But if that weren’t weird enough, anime-Light has this inexplicable need to say this particular thought out loud. He’s within the privacy of his own room, of course, but it strikes me as unusual that he reads all of the rules in silence, and then feels the need to physically announce that he could theoretically make someone suffer.
Contrast this with manga-Light.
You’ll note that manga-Light keeps the same thought to himself. His dark humor (because that’s what it is) is for his own amusement alone and stays private and separated from the casual sense of humor that he would verbalize and share with the world. This is a distinction that isn’t present with anime-Light.
...
In short then, the two iterations of Light Yagami are fundamentally different in their psychological make up. To use a glass analogy, at the start of canon, manga-Light is a perfect sheet of glass that shatters into pieces once he finds the death note. Anime-Light however, is characterized as broken fragments at the start of canon that are put back together when he finds the death note. This difference is even highlighted by the titles. The manga’s first chapter is entitled “Boredom,” Boredom is what compels Light to write in the note initially and boredom is what destroys Light’s personal mythos.
In contrast the first episode of the anime is called “Rebirth.” From the chaos that the death note introduces into Light’s life, we have a metaphorical rebirth. The glass fragments stitch back together to re-create an imperfect but unbroken sheet of glass as Light discovers his true purpose and embarks on his destiny.
Subtle, as I said, but fascinating.


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What references to psychology exist in Evangelion?
I've noticed from time to time, references to psychology and psychoanalysis, for example the ironic Hedgehog's Dilemma, as well as the Human Instrumentality Project, which seems just a solution to a fundamental psychological human flaw. Even the last two episodes are a complete psychological de-construction of the main characters.
What another references, maybe even implied ones, exist in the Series? Why the focus, especially on psychoanalysis?

What another references, maybe even implied ones, exist in the Series?
Wikipedia's page on the series covers this pretty well. It states that its references range from episodes' titles ("Mother Is the First Other", as a reference to the Oedipus complex) to the characters' deep psychological traumas towards their parents (see the Wikipedia page for details on each character's traumas).
It also states that the ultimate goal of the Human Instrumentality Project and the connection between the Evas and their pilots strongly resemble Freud's theories on internal conflict and interpersonal communication.
The subtitle in episode 4 (the hedgehog's dilemma, as you referenced) is a concept described by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and is mentioned in that episode by Misato as descriptive of her relationship with Shinji.
Wikipedia goes on to say that besides the references to Freudian Psychoanalysis there are also some minor references to the theories behind Gestalt therapy.

In episode 15 there is a reference to Gestalt's theory of change (...). Episode 19 is entitled 'Introjection', a psychoanalytical term used by many Gestalt Therapists to indicate a neurotic mechanism used for the mental processing of experiences.

Why the focus, especially on psychoanalysis?
The series has been said to be a deeply personal expression of Hideaki Anno (the author)'s personal struggles, since it followed a four-year period of depression, which may have been the main source for many of the psychological elements of the series, as well as its characters.
Wikipedia states that the author became disappointed with the Japanese otaku lifestyle during the show's production. For this reason (among others), despite the fact that it was broadcast in the children's timeslot, the series' plot gets darker and more psychological as it progresses.

Anno felt that people should be exposed to the realities of life at as young an age as possible, and by the end of the series all attempts at traditional narrative logic were abandoned, with the final two episodes taking place within the main character's mind.

In the author's page on Neon Genesis Evangelion Wiki, there is also this quote:

I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion—myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.  A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead. Then one thought. "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production. It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.

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Is that jutsu really the Edo Tensei?
I know the title probably needs to be changed, but I wasn't sure how to put it spoiler-free.
The question follows as a block, for its 'spoilery' nature for anyone who hasn't seen Naruto Shippuden up to episode 290.

 In this episode Kabuto summons several shinobi using Edo Tensei. For this jutsu we know that a living body to act as receptacle and a piece of DNA from the one being revived are needed. The summoner will then use a tag to control the summoned soul's personality.
 Kabuto explains to Naruto and Sakura that the water in the "Hole" is so rich that he was able to create life with those weird snakes embedded with Orochimaru's chakra. I assume this means that the body that comes out of the water is the living body that serves as sacrifice. I assume this because Hidan's eyes look like those of the ones summoned by Edo Tensei. And afterwards Kabuto inserts a tag in this Hidan, to control his personality.
 Considering that Hidan was really summoned by Edo Tensei, however, there is the fact that his body does not look 'complete'. But then again, I don't think we've ever seen a naked Edo Tensei summoned body, so we cannot be sure if this is normal or not.

 So basically:
Is this some weird jutsu that really looks like Edo Tensei?
Or should we assume that Hidan as died and this was really Edo Tensei? (It is possible that Hidan is dead, if you take into consideration what is explained in this answer)

Those last two lines should be in a comment. :) But nice attitude! :D

I don't think it's Edo Tensei. I have yet to have seen a coffin, even in later episodes.
Technically, Hidan never died. He's was still buried (in pieces) in the hole Shikamaru put him in. Kabuto took those pieces, and using the water and his snakes, he managed to revive him completely. Somewhat like a clone.

 (Much like he did with Dark Naruto in the following episodes)

The episode you cite is the first one of a saga filler, which means it's original material, present in the Anime only. So there's no Manga canon to answer it, because it doesn't come from there.

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How does the equivalent exchange of alchemy work?
Alchemy, in Full Metal Alchemist, is based on the concept of 'one needs to provide materials of equal value compared to the thing one want to create' (equivalent exchange).
But, how does it exactly work.
Can this amount of required materials be calculated by the alchemist? If so, how? Are there some sort of lookup-tables?
Or does one need to guess and provides something of more value to be on the safe side? If so, can one become a more skilled alchemist by experience of successful guesses?
Also, different alchemists might have different specialized skills. How does that work? For the guessing part, I can imagine that one have a preference for certain kinds of alchemy and thus gain experience with a specialized skill.
Edit: Madara Uchiha's answer suggests that there are always materials required. I was also wondering about the situation where this is not the case and the alchemist was successful none the less.
For example:

 In the end Edward trades his alchemy skill in exchange for returning Alphonse's body to him.

Alchemy has three stages: Understanding, Break down, Rebuild.
Different alchemists have different specializations because of the Understanding part, learning chemistry in general isn't easy, and digging into a specific subject (For instance, the study of the atmosphere and oxygen in Roy Mustang's case), is even harder, hence specialization.
Matter of "equal value" means of equal "type" (Mineral to mineral, organism to organism, you can't turn stone into a flower), and of equal Mass.
This works well in accordance to the physical laws of matter and energy conservation. You cannot make matter disappear, nor you can make it appear out of nothing. You can't input more matter to be on the safe side, that matter won't be used for the alchemic transmutation (at best), or result in a rebound (at worse).

How about non-material to material type of alchemy (or the other way around)? For example, when Edward and Alphonse try to bring their mother back using alchemy. It is hard but it seems to be possible (although not in that situation)

@Veger: A soul is priceless in alchemy standard. That's why you cannot create one from nothing (A passed soul is considered "lost", it cannot be "retrieved"). They thought that by gathering the materials required to construct a human body, plus giving "Soul Information" in the form of a drop of blood, it would be enough. In reality, Alphonse's soul was placed in the created vessal, and because they didn't have the required knowledge to perfectly construct a human body (no one has), the process failed entirely. Also, as an unrelated note, it's considered a Taboo, and Truth doesn't like it.

It was an example that does not spoil anything, as it is about the first thing that happened, but there are other examples where non-materials are involved that did (somehow) work... Or is it not explained and left in the dark how those work?

@Veger: Like what? I already gave Roy's example, which amplifies the oxygen levels in the air, and igniting with his gloves (Which is why he's useless on rainy days). What other example is there? Edit your question with a >!Spoiler block if you'd like.

I did, good idea

@MadaraUchiha Technically, he's manipulating both the hydrogen (which is extremely explosive) and the Oxygen (which is extremely flammable).  And he's only useless on rainy days because his gloves are rendered incapable of sparking.  He is actually much, MUCH stronger near alot of atmosphereic water, being able to pull much larger quantities of hydrogen and oxygen than he normally could.

@acolyte: Correct, you explained it better than I could. As for your spoiler addition, I'll edit my answer further today.

@MadaraUchiha spoiler addition?  o.O

I don't think the real physical laws of Conservation should be mentioned... Turning one substance into another requires breaking chemical bonds and forming others, and bonds can store different amounts of energy. If the reaction were endothermic, it would require additional energy input into the substance, but the alchemist apparently doesn't contribute that... (and to split hairs, bond energies contribute slightly to the mass of an object, so actually Conservation of Mass doesn't really make sense, even in real life)

@ArturiaPendragon if the reaction were endothermic the required (thermic) energy could be pulled from the surroundings, thus "decreasing" the temperature. keep in mind that physics states you can equivalently exchange mass and energy (as long as you got enough), you could sacrifice a few atoms to "generate" the required energy. keep in mind that later on a different form of energy appears (hope not too much of a spoiler...)

@Vogel612: Energy for alchemic reactions in Fullmetal Alchemist is drawn from the movement of tectonic plates under the earth's crust.

@MadaraUchiha mark as spoiler ;) i was just talking about theoretical answers in the borders of "modern" "earth" physics

That's why alchemists study so long, and National Alchemist even more. There are lots of books explaining how to do It properly, how to calculate the amounts, the type of materials, the decomjposition of things and so on.
They aim to use exactly what they need, not more, not less, so they work to fine-tune, to understand how things are made, how things work, and then replicate them as they wish.


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Why does an alchemist need a transmutation circle?
As a follow up, but another subject, of my question about equivalent exchange part of the alchemy laws.
Why do (most) alchemists require a transmutation circle? Does any circle suffice or does an alchemist require a specific type for each (type of) job? At least the size seems to matter...

The transmutation circles contain the formulae and/or specific incantation needed to carry out a function.  There is always some part of the human mind that is involved in a transmutation (otherwise, Mustang's gloves would only be able to mess with the air in a very select pattern), but in general more complicated transmutations will require a more robust "hard formula".  The "soft formula" comes from the mind of the alchemist.  This is the part that actually shapes what should happen, while the "hard formula" is used to gather the required energy/ handle the heavy lifting.
On the subject of people who can transmute without circles, there are two different schools of thought.
The first follows the anime/manga rigidly, and interprets Izumi's words literally.  They see it as the 'reward' for losing part of yourself when you looked beyond the gate.  Looking beyond the gate exacts a toll from you, which is then used to "pay" for the privilege of seeing the base code of the universe.  Knowing this base code, alchemists are able to use the "soft" formula to a greater extent, and do not require the assistance of a "hard" formula in order to transmute.
The second possible explaination is more of an unintended side effect.  Remember how Barry the Chopper lost his body?  Well, his soul (in the armor) was able to sense his body's presence (and vice-versa).  If one assumes the figure at the gate (which takes peoples' body parts) is god (or at least, the source of alchemy), then him "wearing" an alchemists parts (pardon the term) is essentially giving that alchemist a very subtle, yet powerful connection on a mental level.  The alchemists are able to use their missing parts to bridge the gap separating them from this god-like being, and thus transmute seemingly at will.
Alphonse, not having a physical body at all with which to form a bridge, is unable to skip the "hard formula" at first, but upon re-visiting the experience in his own mind, he forces himself to build this "bridge" and can transmute naturally from then on.

Those circles are, in fact, like "spells", or more accurately "mathematical formulas", so in order to make what they want, they have to write the correct formula.
Those alchemists who don't do that, just a few, can bypass that formulas because they have them "inside", but that's very rare, and as far as I know,  wasn't explained in the series.

According to the Fullmetal Alchemist Wiki, transmutation circles have a symbolic and functional aspect. The symbolic meaning is in the cycle of energy and life, where Equivalent Exchange ensures that objects are never created nor destroyed, but changed into different forms. My interpretation is that this embodiment of a principle of Alchemy helps the transmutation take place, but it is unnecessary if the alchemist has been to The Gate, thus embodying the principle of Alchemy by himself.
As for function, the transmutation circle harnesses the energy from the earth or substrate that the circle is drawn on (compare the energy sources of Amestris [SPOILER] and Xing). the geometric symbols (triangles, squares and other polygons) represent various elements (water/earth/fire/air), and other symbol-like runes which direct and manipulate the energies in more specific ways. So in the functional aspect, the diagrams and symbols in the transmutation circle serve as an "energy manipulation chamber" to harness for specific alchemical uses.

I think the idea from Merlin (with Sam Neill) helps here: there there are different types of Magic (== Alchemy == Sufficiently-Advanced Technology): hand-magic, word-magic, and thought-magic. The gestures or words are used to induce the necessary thought-form which actually performs the action of the magic. Note that the ability to read silently is a relatively recent acquisition. Historically, St. Augustine is the first human to have done this.
Here's a description of the concept of logos in talismanic magic in Magical Egypt.


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Oldest instance of Hanahaki Disease?
From Fanlore on the topic:

The Hanahaki Disease trope was popularized with the Japanese shoujo manga,「花吐き乙女」(Hanahaki Otome), or The Girl Who Spit Flowers by Naoko Matsuda (松田奈緒子), which was released in 2009. The symptoms of the disease are summarized to strong pain, having flowers blooming in the heart and lungs, and then throwing them up.
However, among East Asian (Japanese and Korean especially) fans and creators, the concept of flower regurgitation due to unrequited love dates to before Hanahaki Otome's release. Its true origins are currently unknown.

Can anyone find an instance earlier than 2009, and maybe find the earliest?
Why am I asking? Because TVTropes is talking about it.
Expect your answers to go there...
And, KnowYourMeme isn't giving me anything about Hanahaki Disease.
Urban Dictionary's entry is like, from 2018? Way too late.

Having researched about this for a while, but I can only state that the oldest work on Pixiv with this tag is in 2011, which is already 2 years late... and Twitter  also failed, and Google  is kind of hard with some sites spamming keyword and unreliable date...

@AkiTanaka - Well, that's an answer, which would be "people are wrong, it really did start in 2009". Which is a valid frame challenge in my book... Thanks for all that work!

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How does censorship in the English release affect the Dragon Ball Z manga storyline?
Dragon Ball Wiki stated that compared to the original Japanese manga, the Viz English release of Dragon Ball Z is censored.

English distribution
[...] The "Dragon Ball Z" manga remains censored, although many volumes (prior to volume 17) are technically uncensored since they did not contain any objectionable material.

Mr. Popo's lips and other dark-skinned characters were edited because of complaints made by Carole Boston Weatherford.
Middle fingers were edited into fists.

In 2006, Viz began releasing a second, A-rated (All Ages) edition of the series sans some nudity and profanity.

The name Mr. Satan was edited into "Hercule" (the same as Funimation's edited anime dub).
Firearms were edited into "laser blasters", though a pistol-armed robber was able to shoot a character without being censored.
Alcohol, drugs and sexual innuendo were edited.

VIZBIG editions
[...] These releases are also edited for content to make the series more family-oriented.

Does the manga alter any dialog or story? So, how bad is that in the overall experience? If it's so bad, what are my other options to read the manga?

Not sure but the title seems like it's asking for opinions. Censorship might affect manga readers' experiences differently. Might need to be reworded to something like 'how does censorship in the english release affect the dragon ball z storyline' or something similar.

There are parts that do alter the story IMHO. One of the big ones for me is that in the Anime (censored version) Goku never finds out he crushed his Grandpa when he was younger; however, in the non censored version he finds out during the Vegeta arc.. Pretty big deal to me but doesn't change major plot later.

I think you're asking, what was cut in the English anime shows from the original story. I don't know everything, but I do know what I've seen.
Dragonball-had multiple parts cut which had Bulma either getting her top flashed(krillin vs invisible man), I believe a shower scene as well, her privates smacked(early on goku fun), and some language(not a string of curses, just an occasional bad word). Some of the dialog was altered to make it less perverted or more American/kid friendly
Dragonballz had more language cut. Like dragonball, certain phrases are altered to make it more kid friendly.
Editing-it won't ruin anything, tho some parts would be very cut thru. Watch the Japanese version, with English subtitles. Most dvds let you watch the English version with subtitles for the Japanese version, to see what's actually said.

Please include relevant sources/references.

thank you for your answer but i really was talking about the manga viz has definitely changed some art and dialog but my question here is how bad it will affect my experience

I'm interpreting this answer is about the English anime, not English manga. Considering the question is focused on the manga only, could you update/clarify the answer?

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What happened in the battle between Shanks and The King of Beasts

I dont know the exact timeline but a while before the Marinefold incident and the execution of Ace, it was stated that Shanks went ahead to battle Kaido "THE KING OF BEASTS"

Was the battle an "all-out war" between Kaido and shanks fleet? Or more of a 1v1 between the 2 Emperors.
Also, since Shanks made it to Marinefold immediately after battling the King of Beasts, does that imply that Kido lost the fight? I'm really intrigued because the fact that Shanks showed up while Kaido didn't means that Shanks was able to prevent Kaido from running amok in Marinefold. Could this testament prove that Shanks is way stronger than Kaido?

The Anime Scientist, I think I accidentally flagged your comment. I was gonna press the upvote. Sorry about that. But yeah, wish they'd show how the fight went down.

From the wiki,

When Kaido tried to stop Whitebeard from going to Marineford, Shanks interfered and clashed with him in order to allow the other Yonko to rescue Ace. It is not known what happened during their encounter, but Shanks arrived at Marineford unharmed. Could this testament prove that Shanks is way stronger than Kaido? No one can say for sure since only Oda knows how it happened exactly, unless it will be revealed in a later chapter. But the fact that he arrived unharmed could imply it was more of a one-sided fight that was probably not worth mentioning.

The Anime Scientist, I think I accidentally flagged your comment. I was gonna press the upvote. Sorry about that.


text:
Who was George?
Most who watched Seitokai Yakuindomo probably remember the story of George, the heroic sailor who jumped off his ship in the middle of a storm to rescue a drowning cat. His story was heartwarming and fantastic, but also a bit bizarre since the character didn't appear anywhere prior.
Is George or his story a reference to anything? Or was this just a crazy story that wasn't making any particular reference?

I don't know about the sailor, but there is a maritime superstition that if a ship's cat fell or was thrown overboard, would bring a storm that would devastate/sink the ship, but if the ship were to somehow survive, it would have 9 years of bad luck.

@Krazer If you have a source for that, it would probably work as an answer. Doesn't explain everything but it does at least clear up some of the reference.

It's hard to cite a source for superstitions, but best I can find right now is this source and this source

Not sure if it's only me or the YouTube video got blocked for copyright infringement.

@AkiTanaka It is also blocked for me, so I've removed the link.


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How did GTO: Shonan 14 Days end?
I recently learned that Fujisawa had written an interquel to GTO called "Shonan 14 Days" where, as can be ascertained from the title, Onizuka Eikichi stays for 14 days in his hometown.
Could somebody give a rough description of how the series ended?

This site doesn't allow direct discussion of fansubs or scanlations to avoid legal issues. Hence, I had to remove a bit of your question. Your question is fine other than that, but if you want to edit more into the question please keep this policy in mind.

I am certainly not asking to be pointed to a scanlation of the "missing chapters" :) (precisely because of the points you raise); that is why I decided to be modest, and just ask for a summary.

The manga takes place during a summer holiday Onizuka had while he teach Kanzaki Urumi's class. It started with Onizuka going back to his hometown, Shonan, for the holiday. Shonan is his base back during the day where he was known as the Onibaku (along with his best friend, Danma Ryuuji).
There, Onizuka met with a girl who works in an Orphanage like place, but instead of for kids with no parents, it was for kids with problematic parents. There, Onizuka helped the kids with their problems.
It ended with Onizuka chasing after the Mayor of the town after the Mayor's act caused one of the kids (a girl) with serious burn injury. With the help of his Onibaku underlings, he successfully caught the Mayor in a bus full of cabaret girls after posing as a terrorist bus hijacker. He then forced the Mayor to resign his office, apologize to the injured kid, and take care of her medical bills, including a plastic surgery to fix her damaged face.
At the end it was shown that Onizuka has returned to the school, with his students doubting his story (about his holiday) and then surprised to find that Onizuka didn't make up the story after one of the caretaker girls called him.


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In which soundtrack album can I find "Virgin Road Ni Hana Ga Saku"?
File 23 of the first season of You're Under Arrest (Taiho Shichauzo) featured the wedding of Daimaru (Ken's father) and Sena. I have found that the song used there that caught my interest has the same title as the episode; that is, "Virgin Road Ni Hana Ga Saku" (ヴァージンロードに花が咲く).
I have tried searching among the various soundtrack albums released for You're Under Arrest, but it seems the version of "Virgin Road" in those albums is the version sung by Kakijima Shinji, instead of the version heard in the episode (which featured a chorus of voices, among other things).
Thus, my question: which album has the full version of "Virgin Road" that was sung by the same guys who sung the version in the episode?

You can get it in You're Under Arrest Full Throttle 5 Disc Set (逮捕しちゃうぞ フルスロットル 5枚駆動! 全曲教習!!), on Track 8 of Disc 3.


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How much of their twin does the other twin need to eat?
In Vampire Knight, if a vampire hunter family gives birth to twins, one will be weak and the other will be strong.
According to vampireknight.wikia.com:

For the pair to become powerful hunters, the stronger one has to devour the other and become one.

How much of the weaker twin does the stronger twin devour? Does the stronger one drink the blood of the weaker one or actually eat their flesh. Is this ever explained in canon or by the author?

Why are you referencing the Bleach Wikia for a Vampire Knight Wikia entry reference??

Sorry, I was looking at bleach.wikia.com at the same time for something else. I'll fix that now.

The particular issue of quantity consumed is never addressed, in-universe or out. The twin does literally devour the flesh (and, consequently, much of the blood) of the "victim". However, since this happens during the pregnancy, the fetus is likely autonomous (for the most part), and thus would consume it in its entirety.
Background
This phenomenon is known in real life as "vanishing twin syndrome" (Wikipedia - warning: graphic medical images). There are cases of both partial and complete consumptions.
Consequently, because of the real-life nature of this issue, it has been seen throughout history. Most primitive cultures believed that twins meant something spiritually, even in terms of magic and righteousness.[ref 1] Some thought fraternal twins were the sign of adultery, and identical twins were the sign of divine paternity.[ref 2, pg.1, paragraph 3] Often, in older societies with high infant mortality, only one twin would even survive the birth. To explain this to the surviving twin, explanations of magic and myth were often used.[ref 2, pg. 2, paragraph 2]
Why this is important
I know what you're thinking: "Does this relate to the question?" It does, because it somewhat shows the roots of this concept in Vampire Knight. Twins were often lost before they were born, and so legends came to be about why and how this happened. One such legend is that two identical twins are, in fact, one being which has separated. In order to regain their full strength, they must be reunited—one must be absorbed.
Summary
So, how much does the strong twin have to eat to become whole? According to the legends, it only has to be enough to kill the weaker twin, so that the life force can be absorbed. Let's say it took a small bite from the arm of its victim—that would likely not kill it, and would do nothing overall. But eating, say, the head or heart (or the entire body), would be sufficient for the victim to die. Assuming these legends are the roots of the concept in Vampire Knight, the same logic would apply.

Do you mean high infant mortality (lots of infants dying) or low infant mortality?

@kuwaly I meant high infant mortality. Don't know how that mistake slipped out.


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Why do rocks start flying when high levels of chakra are being used?
When people in Naruto begin using high levels of chakra--such as when Naruto's Kyuubi chakra comes out, rocks or other pieces of the terrain begin levitating, as shown in this picture:

Some of the rocks are circled to make them clear.
Why does this happen?

The nerd in me says:
Specifically, in the case Naruto, the anime goes out of their way to explain the chakras of the body.  They even go as far to explain the flow of energy through the chakras.  As such, as they draw energy into their chakras (both from inside and outside their body), debris (rocks in this particular case) also have that "draw" motion upwards.
Furthermore, since the movement of energy creates heat (evident in what happens later in the series when Naruto generates too much energy and he burns himself - trying not to spoil here), it stands to reason that the air around him would also heat up - so debris again would already with the added chakra pull + the hot air above it + color air below it, would help to lift it off the ground.  Similar to a hot air balloon (hot air balloons explained)
The adult in me says:
Dramatic visual effects.  There is no rationale behind it, just a common theme you see in animes.  But it's fun to make up reasons why!

Though I don't recommend to reason such things since most of them are just pseudo-science, in this case of levitating rocks, I think it's because the strong streams of chakra sent out from the character caused strong twists of wind, which crack the floor, then the chakra flows upwards (positive energy in anime all tend to flow upwards), drawing the air and rocks up with it.
Despite the reasoning I made, I tend to believe it's just a kind of visual effect that commomly used in animes to make a better visual impact and emphasize on how strong the power of this character/technique is.

It's worth noting that Naruto is heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z. It's taken from there.

It's true that naruto is influenced by dragon ball, but I don't think making rocks flying is  originated from dragon ball. I have some impression seeing that also happens in Astro boy.

Dragon Ball came first, much first :P

Using basic real world physics and a force I would assume.
Basing this answer on comments above, if you notice power usually surges upwards or in strong bursts be it controlled (calm) or wildy (in rage etc), be it in the form of chakra, reiatsu or ki. It is more than likely that the ground is not as stable or firm as harder ground or not able to handle the force of the energy or there are loose bits around, thus it breaks up and goes upward (or flying madly away).
Drifting a bit from anime, on several occasions when Superman was about to fly, as he crouches on the ground, you can see the energy being exerted from him as small rocks slowly begin to rise and streams of air being pushed away, so it doesn't just apply to anime or Naruto and Dragon Ball Z as you said you saw it in Astro Boy.

What I feel is that all these concepts have been created by keeping Chakra and the concept of Aura in mind.
What is an Aura?
According to the Wiki

Aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or
  object (like the halo or aureola in religious art).

The size of an aura could be increased or decreased and it totally depends on the life force of the person.
What is chakra?
According to the wiki

Chakras are part of the subtle body, not the physical body, and as
  such are the meeting points of the subtle (non-physical) energy
  channels, called nadiis. Nadiis are channels in the subtle body
  through which the life force (prana), or vital energy moves

Now if we consider that in Naruto when he increases his chakra, i.e. his life force increases which indirectly increases his aura dramatically (because of the immense chakra of kurama).
So what we can say is that, natural substances like rocks and stones that come into the influence of the aura, react to the life force of the user (here its Naruto).
As we've seen in many anime's (for example DBZ) [In DBZ we can call chakra as their energy]

Here you can see the aura of Goku clearly, its direction is pointing north (upwards).
So what we can conclude is that, the aura (at least in anime) moves upwards.
With this theory, I can say that whatever natural object that comes under the influence of an aura with strong life force, MOVES UPWARDS!

So the greater the aura and force, the more heavier objects would levitate.


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Did Yokodera receive all of Ponta's worldly desires?
When Ponta visited the unsmiling cat statue at the beginning of the series, he offered his dakimakura (body pillow) named Barbara-san as a symbol of his worldly desires. Consequently, the statue took them his desires from him, and he turned to a life of helping the poor starving children of Africa.
The ability of the unsmiling cat statue is to "take something you don't want and shove it on someone else." And, it just so happens that Yokodera ends up with Barbara-san, the symbol of Ponta's worldly desires. So we might expect that Yokodera ended up with Ponta's desires as well, especially based on how the cat statue seems to work in later chapters. On the other hand, it doesn't seem like Yokodera's desires change drastically, at least not until he himself makes an offering at the statue.
Is this confirmed anywhere in the original light novels or any other official source that Yokodera does also gain Ponta's desires when he receives Barbara-san?


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Why do many characters tend to have crazy hair colors and styles?
It's fairly common that anime characters tend to have "wilder" hair than most people we see in real life. This can be seen as far back as Neon Genesis Evangelion (though somewhat mild) from the 90s (though some older anime, like Akira, do not have this characteristic).
The "wilder" hairstyles tend to have interesting colors from throughout the rainbow (pink, blue, green, etc.) that are only seen in real life with dyes or highlights. They also tend to be spikier, another trait not seen in real life (probably because gelling one's hair that way every day is quite tedious).

Why do anime and manga characters tend to have this spiky, colorful hairstyle? What is the cultural origin of such a style? (And did the growing trend of Japanese teenagers spiking their hair in a similar style originate from this?)

This isn't just true in anime/manga. This happens in western TV shows (My Little Pony, etc.) too.

@kuwaly: MLP is about colorful ponies (right?), so it's not that great of an example. Also, on most of these series it's anime inspired.

I suspect this trope originated in anime. If you look at old enough Western cartoons, like Scooby-Doo or Flintstones, their hair colors and styles aren't impossible, though they are still implausible (e.g. not respecting genetics).

I bet you anything it's because consistently drawing a unique hairstyle is a lot easier than consistently drawing unique faces.

Case in point, Sadamoto's Shinji and Nadia

Simply because it adds an ambiance of aura inside the character itself.

I believe that normally anime characters have strange-colored/styled hair largely for the purpose of character differentiation -- it's a handy visual marker in a medium where facial structure is so often homogenous.

Most likely it happens because it looks cool and unique. Here's what TvTropes says, or at least said, about anime hair:

Usually, the most important characters of the story will have wild
spikes or a cool-looking hairdo in order to stand out among the crowd.
It may be one or more different colors that don't appear naturally in
real humans (blue is a popular choice). Sometimes the hair appears
semi-transparent, with the character's eyes visible through it,
although this presumably represents hair fine enough that it isn't
completely obscuring, rather than anything outré. Anime Hair is very
common among protagonists of anime/manga for the Shonen (Demographic),
although the trend seems to be headed to more plausible styles:
compare Son Goku's hair to Ichigo's. If there's a White-Haired Pretty
Boy in the cast, there's a good chance that white hair will also be
Anime Hair.

Now, compare this Vash picture:

with this one:

and ask yourself, which hairstyle is more bad-ass?
Some of the characters need to stand out among the crowd, and weird hairstyle/hair-color is a very easy way to achieve that (weird clothes are popular too). Also, it's not uncommon for the hairstyle to somehow reflect the character's personality, e.g. spiky hair for characters that need to look wild/cool, adding ahoge for some more naive/funny characters, and so on.
Hair colors can also be somehow used in the plot, e.g. Ichigo being bullied because of his uncommon hair color. Sometimes, the color is also used to indicate some of the character's personality, here's an interesting link.
Finally, as @Tacroy mentioned in his comment, the same face may be used for different characters, and changing the hair is the easiest way to make them look different.

While I'm not disagreeing with you, I don't think this answers the question Eric asked. You haven't discussed the origin of the trope at all, which in my view is the only non-obvious aspect of the question.

Question #1: Why do many characters tend to have crazy hair colors? What is the cultural origin of such a style?
The origin of this practice is the primarily black and white medium of manga.
Manga pages are printed in black and white, so almost all of the art that mangaka (manga artists) draw is black and white (this is much cheaper for the publishers than if they had to print all the pages in color). Only series that are popular get a precious 1, 2, or 3-page color spread in the manga magazine from time to time or get the full-color magazine cover (virtually no series get a color illustration in every single issue).
Because the mangaka had so few opportunities to draw their characters in full color, they were "starved" for color. In the 1970s, they experimented with using all the possible colors in their infrequent color illustrations. On the other hand, for series that ran on and on for decades, mangaka were likely to experiment with colors in order to make their colored-page spreads of the same characters again and again fresh and differentiated (probably for their own entertainment as artists, as well as for the entertainment of their readers). A single character would be drawn one month with blonde hair, in another month with pink hair, in another month with blue hair, etc.
This was never intended to depict the character's hair color in canon. Rather, the mangaka trusted the intelligence of the readers to recognize the character without the hair color needing to match from illustration to illustration, based on the character's consistent hair style, face, body shape, and/or clothing (in the same way, mangaka have felt free to alternate their screen tone patterns on a single outfit within a chapter, without worrying that a different pattern from frame to frame will cause the readers to not be able to recognize that the same character is wearing the same dress).
As an example, here you can see Kitajima Maya of Glass no Kamen with 2 different hair colors (pink and black) within a single illustration:

The readers were expected to understand that the character's canon hair color was 1) the hair color used most frequently, 2) the hair color used in the first chapters, and/or 3) the hair color mentioned in the dialogue. The readers of such series never assumed that characters drawn with green or purple hair actually had green or purple hair. This is a uniquely creative part of Japanese manga culture. (An exception, of course, is non-human characters who were magic fairies, alien races, or otherwise perfectly likely to have non-human hair colors.)
However, over time, mangaka and readers became accustomed to seeing a rainbow of hair colors in these non-canon color page spreads, and mangaka realized that rather that limiting these colors to non-canon illustrations, they could actually assign such a non-realistic color as a canon character design.
Thus, to identify a character by their hair color is a newer phase in the history of the medium. In contrast to SingerOfTheFall, Hakase, and Blue's claims that the reason characters tend to have crazy hair colors is to be cool, unique, paid more attention to, and easier to remember/differentiate, "crazy" colors were not invented in order to distinguish characters from each other. They originated without any intention of differentiating characters by hair color.
Only afterwards, as a result of the "crazy" colors becoming viewed as possible canon colors, artists have reduced the more historical practice of alternating hair colors for a single character from one illustration to the next.
Glass no Kamen (ガラスの仮面, a.k.a. Glass Mask), which has been running straight from 1976 to the present, is a prime example of the historical practice of mixing up hair colors in a single character from one illustration to the next.
The canon hair colors seem to be: Kitajima Maya: reddish-brown, Himekawa Ayumi: blonde, Hayami Masumi: light purple.

Maya, Ayumi, and Masumi illustrated with every hair color under the sun, not intended to be interpreted by the readers as their actual hair colors:

However, because the mangaka Miuchi Suzue used so many different hair colors for the color-page spreads over a 40-year period, many readers were not sure of which hair colors were canon. As a result, each of the anime adaptions used different hair colors in attempts to match Miuchi-sensei's intended canon colors. Despite the differing hair colors, no one was ever confused about who was who, in either the manga or in the anime incarnations. In other words, hair colors have never been how fans distinguished the characters from one another.
1984 TV anime: Maya (light brown), Ayumi (blonde), Masumi (blonde):

1998 OAV anime: Maya (dark brown), Ayumi (pale brown), Masumi (black):

2005 TV anime: Maya (light brown), Ayumi (dark blonde), Masumi (brown):

2013 Glass no Kamen desu ga parody TV anime: Maya (black), Ayumi (light blonde), Masumi (light brown):

2016 3-nen D-gumi Glass no Kamen parody TV anime: Maya (pink), Ayumi (blonde-orange), Masumi (lavender):

The same historical practice is found in shounen manga.
An example is Takahashi Rumiko's Ranma ½ dating from 1987–1996. Canon hair colors: male Ranma: black, female Ranma: red.
Male and female Ranma illustrated with alternate hair colors, not intended to be interpreted by the readers as their actual hair colors:

Question #2: They also tend to be spikier, another trait not seen in real life. Did the growing trend of Japanese teenagers spiking their hair in a similar style originate from this?
Japanese young people do not spike their hair as a result of manga/anime character designs. As I have explained here, the average Japanese person does not respect or pay attention to these art forms and those who are involved in subculture are generally viewed negatively by the general populace. Shoujo manga is published in manga magazines which regularly advertise hair accessories and offer hair styling advice; the hair styles of the characters reflect fashion trends rather than set them.
Spiky hair is a common character design in anime and manga (though there are many series in which this is not featured). Although I do not have data on the origin of this practice, my guess is that it is derived from real life. Today's Japanese are primarily descended from the Yamato ethnicity but many also include roots from other ethnicities native to Japan (such as Emishi, Hayato, Kumaso, Ainu, Ryukyuan, etc.). I am half-white, half-Japanese and was born with hair texture from my English/Scottish roots, whereas my mother has the standard coarser, thicker Japanese hair. In my observation, when styled, Japanese hair is more prone to hold its shape for longer periods of time than that of some other ethnicities (my hair cannot hold curls, even with copious amounts of styling products. Though even amongst white ethnicities, some people wake up with spiky "bed head"). My understanding is that Japanese hair styles are optimized for the features of their hair texture, as this is practical for individuals' daily routines and for stylists. Producing small, soft spikes like those in the linked photo you provided are simply an extension of working with textures which are naturally conducive to sculpting.
Two more hair styles in manga and anime that may at first strike a non-Japanese viewer as unrealistic are 1) horizontally-protruding wisps of hair in front of the ears and 2) stray strands of hair that defy gravity by curving upward from the top of the head into the air. I had assumed these were not realistic natural formations for hair, and was very surprised to look in the mirror one day and see my hair doing exactly each of them.

Clarification: Hair Color and Style as Symbol
Dimitri mx's answer to this question notes that hair color can be utilized in symbolism, which is true. According to this website,

Mink has long pink hair and violet eyes. A number of anime idols have had pink hair also, such as Youko from "Idol Tenshi Youkoso Youko", Shiratori Nagisa from "CHOU! Kuseninarisou", and Aida Sachiko from "Debut". In Japan the color pink implies youth and innocence - the youngest, cutest, most childish idols are often portrayed with pink hair or pink accessories. . . . pink-haired magical girls include Minky Momo from "Mahou no Princess Minky Momo" and Hanasaki Momoko from "Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach".

However, expressing symbolism is not an answer as to why characters have "crazy" hair colors or the cultural origin of it. Symbolism in hair colors is a byproduct that only developed after the shift from colored hair in non-canon illustrations to colored hair for canon character designs.
The main characters of Magic Knight Rayearth have symbol colors of red (fire), blue (water), and green (wind), but Hououji Fuu's symbolic color is only in her eyes and clothing, not in her hair color. In other words, achieving symbolism through color does not need to make use of hair. The reason why Ryuuzaki Umi can have blue hair is the history of shift from non-canon "crazy" hair color illustration to viable canon hair colors.

The odango style applied to characters of Chinese ethnicity or association is not symbolic so much as it is a form of racial stereotyping.

If it were indeed a symbol, characters not related to China and not wearing cheongsam but who have odango would be associated with some commonly-understood meaning. This is not the case. Although Sailor Moon's odango hair style is so infamous that 3 different characters (Mamoru, Haruka, and Seiya) call her "Odango atama" (お団子頭) or "Odango" as a nickname, she has no connections to Chinese culture and the individual characters' usage of the nickname differs. Mamoru likens Usagi’s hair to nikuman (肉まん, a.k.a. Chinese baozi, or pork buns), whereas Seiya specifically has mochi (餅, rice cakes) in mind, because when Usagi tells him that her name is Tsukino Usagi, he replies with, “Ahh, Tsukimi Dango” (「ああ、月見団子」).  Tsukimi dango are small orbs of glutinous white rice eaten to celebrate Tsukimi (Moon-Viewing), a harvest moon holiday.  Seiya and Usagi ate the most common kind of odango, which is called mitarashi dango (みたらし団子), together during their date in episode 181 (soy sauce-covered balls on a stick). Other characters in the series also sport odango in their hairstyles but are not all associated with any shared meaning (for example: Sailor Pluto, Sailor Ceres, Sailor Pallas, Sailor Chibichibimoon, Luna and Diana in human form, Tellu, Cyprine and Ptilol).

The hime or ojousama hair style of long, straight hair with either a set of strands or tufts in front of each ear is simply the default Japanese woman's hairstyle common in Heian period, not only for princesses but all women above the peasant class. Scholars are divided on when the history of manga began (some saying it originated from 12th century scrolls, others pointing to the 18th century) but at any rate, this basic women's hair style in manga/anime dates from early manga. However, the hair style itself is still sported by many young Japanese women today, using their natural hair color, in order to give off a conservative image (it is not common to do this style with dyed/bleached hair). Reflecting real life, in manga and anime it remains almost always dark in color (such as black, grey, blue, or purple) to match the natural hair color of people who choose this style. More than symbolizing a princess per se, it is the image that Japanese people associate with a conservative, self-restrained, serious, intelligent, cultured young woman and what girls who want to be thought of as such may go for. On the other hand, this very basic hair style is arguably also often used for frightening characters in Japanese horror, and it is also very common in manga/anime to use buoyant blonde curls for princess personality characters.

Wow, about the last hairstyle, is that why "high class" kuudere stereotypes tend to be of long hair and straight hair?

Besides the fact that most haircuts/colors look pretty cool, they also have a purpose.
Most of the time the hair color is also a form of symbolism, used to describe the character (in most cases).
For example:

Black:
Mysterious, refined, traditional, cerebral, capable, powerful,
  independent, sad, cruel, macabre
As opposed to their bright-colored friends, black hair can define a
  character as being more traditional. Black is a neutral color that is
  associated with positive personal traits. These characters tend to be
  deep thinkers that can see the “big picture”, and seldom need advice.

This link has some more indepth information on the different hair colors and their effects.
Almost the same counts for the hairstyles. A lot of the hairstyles are symbolism for either origin or personality.
An example for this would be:

Female Styles Odango: 'Buns' to English speakers. When an anime
  character has this hairstyle, it usually implies that she's Chinese.
  It may be drawn with or without bangs. The buns themselves are
  sometimes decorated or encased by hair accesories. In China this
  hairstyle is traditional for young, unmarried girls. In anime, if a
  japanese girl dresses up in a chinese dress, she will almost always
  put her hair in this style.
Examples: Tenten (Naruto), Xiao Yu (Tekken), Kagura (Gintama)

Hime: Meaning 'princess'; 'hime' is a traditional Japanese hairstyle that is the epitome of traditional beauty (comparable to golden curls in the west). This style is usually comprised of dark blue, shiny hair, very neatly cut. It is very long hair (usually to the waist or beyond) and may or may not have a tuft of shoulder length hair framing each side of the face. To add a little variety, many manga and anime creators will use a different color or different length but keep their character's hair reminiscent of the hime cut.
Examples: Hinata (Naruto), Saeko Busujima (Highschool Of The Dead), Chichi (Dragon Ball)

This link provides you with more info on hairstyles (also has a part about the colors).
And the closest thing I could find to a official information roster would be TV Tropes, which is a site dedicated to tropes.
Another reason for weird hairdo's is as Desiree jackson said, to keep your attention on them. The weirder the hair, the more likely you are to pay more attention to it. Same counts for the eyes (one of the reasons they have such a big eyes).

The most obvious reasons are:

It's way cooler than common haircuts you see on real people;
Character will definitely stand out in a crowd;

The less obvious reasons are:

It's easier to remember characters of a show with lots of them by their hair style and color. Especially useful for shows that aren't likely to sustain a constant viewer base, so that passing viewers wouldn't become confused too quickly and drop the show thinking: "jeez, they all look alike, I can't even follow the story anymore".

In some anime, one of the only ways to distinguish characters is by their hair color and style, but sometimes even that is not enough!

example: (this is why I'm not watching Clannad)

example 2: Angel Beats! (less severe than Clannad, still kinda hard to tell guys apart)

A character's hair style and color usually (not always though) hints at their personality

example: Soul Eater Not!'s Kana Altair and Non Non Biyori's Miyauchi Renge:

(if you see them both in anime, you'll know what I mean)
example 2: Toradora!'s Taiga Aisaka and Minami-ke's youngest sister Chiaki Minami:

example 3: Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo's Mashiro Shiina and Angel Beats!'s Kanade Tachibana:

You can just google "anime character types" to see how their appearance matches their behavior. But remember that characters that look like each other don't necessarily behave in the same way.

For some more look-alike characters consult google with corresponding image search queries. Refine results by searching specific sites, such as MAL, for example.
example search query: site:myanimelist.net characters look alike
Simply insert your favorite anime community and see what the forum users have come up with.

This is more of an art question. The reason why character tend to have crazy hair colors and styles is to make them different from the rest of the characters.  Not just in that particular anime or manga, but in the real world too.
If you take a silhouette of Goku, you can tell its Goku due to his hair style. Some characters have different colors such as Piccolo and Nail.  This is to prevent the main or major characters looking like the background characters.
Main characters are suppose the be distinguished from background and unimportant characters, so the character design is an important factor.
About trends, I can't answer that.  Perhaps it was because the way they drew the hair made it look like it was spiky and since most Japanese people have straight hair.  Drawing it would have made it spiky.(or have a pointy end)

Most anime characters have spikey hair because it's a trademark in anime. And not all anime characters have spikey hair, for example, Lee, Orochimaru, Katara, and many others.
Many say that most anime characters have bangs because if they don't they'll have a big forehead. Vegeta. Krillin, Yamcha, Piccolo, and others don't have big foreheads.


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What do the parenthesized numbers in the [color] Scenes mean?
As you can see at the top of this answer, the [color] Scenes (Black Scene, Red Scene, etc.) in the Monogatari series all include a parenthesized number beneath the romanized form of the name of the color shown.
Here's a list of them:
ROMANIZED  GLOSS         NUMBER   KANJI(READING)
aka        "red"          (135)   赤　（あか）
kuro       "black"        (629)   黒　（くろ）
shiro      "white"       (4646)   白　（しろ）
ki         "yellow"      (0303)   黄　（き）
ouchi      "lilac"        (349)   楝　（おうち）
ao         "blue"         (014)   青　（あお）
momo       "peach"        (372)   桃　（もも）
moegi      "light green"  (469)   萌黄（もえぎ）
murasaki   "purple"       (039)   紫　（むらさき）

Question: What do the numbers mean?
Possibilities:

Something to do with color codes (but this is unlikely because neither "white" nor "black" seems to have a special number)
Some sort of character code for either the kanji, the kana reading, or the romanized form (though I haven't come up with anything for this)
It's all a clever ruse by Shinbo to confuse us
???

the numbers has nothing to do with the UNICODE table, the unicode for kanji is listed here: http://www.rikai.com/library/kanjitables/kanji_codes.unicode.shtml and none of the UNICODE values match the numbers listed here

In the olden days of when liquid paint was used for animation cells, each color had a number that corresponded to the DIC (Dai Nippon Ink Company) color code index. So the numbers might have some sort of similar correspondence with in Shaft's color coordination department.

In some episode's it gets noted that HGP mincho B has been used. Which I believe has a number correspondence to Characters, for example shi being (252).

@Dimitrimx Could you elaborate on what you mean by "shi being (252)"?

@Krazer FYI, I took a look through DIC's COLORGUIDE app and was unable to find any correspondences. Could still be something SHAFT-internal, though.

In certain font's it is pretty common to have number equivalents of the characters your writing, for example ms-mincho. All tough I couldn't directly find the HGP mincho B chart, it might be related information to solve the mystery.

@Dimitrimx Those are Unicode codepoints (in decimal). They are the same for every font. I checked those already and couldn't find any correspondences

(I also checked EUC-JP and Shift-JIS codepoints; no dice there either.)

Most colors can be found in one form or another in image search results from Google (query color 8888). They seem to correspond to knitting yarn color codes. Some colors are in DMC chart, I couldn't find out where others are from.

Can you elaborate with some concrete examples / links? There's all sorts of color-coding schemes out there, and unless a single scheme correctly matches up to all of the colors found in the show, I don't think I'll be convinced.

Well, that's the problem. I couldn't find a single scheme that contains all of these colors. I'm assuming there are some rares colors that aren't included in the common charts that are on the net. Still, you can find objects of that color on image search.


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What do the runes that roll (while Connect plays) near the end of the second Madoka movie say?
Towards the end of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica: Eien no Monogatari (the second movie), in between the two scenes that feature wraiths (魔獣 majuu), Connect plays (this is chapter 25 on the Blu-Ray). As it does, there's a credit roll (or something that looks like one, anyway) that is entirely in runes. Examples:

What do these runes say? (cf. the rune transliteration chart here and the puella-magi wiki's page on the runes)

There's a Japanese translation of the runes that you can run through google translate to get an idea of what they say.

@JonLin Hmm. That's helpful, but back-translating from the Japanese there introduces an extra layer of translation that I'd rather do without. Thanks for the pointer, though.

@JonLin Oh, never mind. It looks like the runes in this part actually encode romaji, meaning that a translation from the Japanese is as good as we'll get.

It turns out that the runes in this segment actually represent romaji (transliterated Japanese), rather than German (which is more commonly the language represented by the runes). Jon Lin's comment links to a Japanese blogpost that has done the gruntwork of converting from runes to Japanese.3 I trust they're right; I only double-checked the first few lines of the runes myself.
The structure of the text here is as follows: everything that isn't in white runes is a line said by someone other than Homura at some point in the series. Pink is Madoka; yellow is Mami; blue is Sayaka; red is Kyouko. The text in white, however, is original (i.e. not spoken at any earlier [or later] point in the series), and is "spoken" by Homura (addressed to post-wish Madoka). There does not appear to be any relationship between the positions of the Homura and non-Homura lines.
Here are the non-Homura lines in order from top to bottom and left to right (translations taken from the official subs on the movie BDs), with annotations indicating where in the series they're from.

Madoka: I'm the Nurse's Aide in our class.
[ep 10, timeline 1 / 32:37 in movie 2]1
Madoka: Homura... I'm really glad I became friends with you.
[ep 10, timeline 1 / 37:45 in movie 2]
Mami: I'm not afraid of anything anymore.
[ep 3 / 45:17 in movie 1; ep title quote]
Sayaka: Give that back! That― That belongs to Mami...!
[ep 3 / 48:24 in movie 1]
Kyouko: How do you even call yourself human?!
[ep 9 / 8:13 in movie 2]
Madoka: Even now, the fact that we were in time to save you from that witch... It's one of my proudest accomplishments.
[ep 10, timeline 1 / 37:51 in movie 2]
Kyouko: Want some?
[various; ep 6 / 81:54 in movie 1]
Madoka: Don't talk about Mami that way!
[ep 5]2
Madoka: You too― I swear I'll never forget you either! I'll never forget... the way you saved us yesterday!
[ep 4 / 56:00 in movie 1]
Mami: You don't read between the lines very well, do you? I'm telling you I'll overlook what you did this time.
[ep 1 / 18:01 in movie 1]
Madoka: ...why are you always so cold?
[ep 7 / 94:10 in movie 1]
Mami: Will you really stand and fight with me from now on? Will you really stay with me?
[ep 3 / 43:05 in movie 1]
Sayaka: There's no way I'll ever regret it.
[ep 5 / 69:40 in movie 1; ep title quote]
Sayaka: Miracles... and magic... are real!
[ep 4 / 58:30 in movie 1; ep title quote]
Kyouko: I know you don't want to be alone.
[ep 9 / 26:18 in movie 2]
Kyouko: ...on the one thing that means most to you...
[ep 9 / 25:40 in movie 2]
Madoka: So, is it okay if I call you Homura, too?
[ep 10, timeline 1 / 33:19 in movie 2]
Madoka: You... finally called me... by my first name... I'm... happy...
[ep 10, timeline 3 / 49:01 in movie 2]

And here are the Homura lines, roughly translated by me. It's kind of lyrical/songy, and I don't really get what some of the lines mean (like the one about "a day of blue" [うつろいゆくこの全ては青の日の希望の比喩に過ぎません, guessing at the kanji]), so this is not a good translation. I welcome improvements.

Even if I can't hear what you say,
your words touch me deep within.
You take on the forms of all sorts of things
and shower sparkling dust.
Whether above the city or beneath the waves,
you are my only friend.
Though you never call for me,
you are always there.
All these impermanent things are
but a metaphor for hope on a day of blue.
All that came before
is now fulfilled.
Even the magic I could not put into words
can reach this place.
One day, your eternal wish
will come to take us away.

Notes
1 There's a slight oddity in this line - in the movie, Madoka says 「私、保健係なんだ」 while in the runes, she says 「わたし　ほけんいいん　なんだ」. They mean pretty much the same thing, though.
2 The scene where this line is said (Homura and Madoka at the restaurant, with Homura telling Madoka to give up on Sayaka) is omitted from the movie, but would start near 71:06 had it been present. This translation is taken from the Crunchyroll subtitles at 11:50 of episode 5.
3 Twitter user @Fau3 did a very nice re-rendering of the credits with the runes replaced with their corresponding kana (lower-res stack.imgur mirror), which may be of interest to readers.

Homura's line seem to be referring to post Ultimate Madoka, some clues are in the last 2 lines "One day, your eternal wish will come to take us away" must refer Madoka's wish and how she takes Magical Girls away. with lines 7 and 8, as Madoka said to Homura she'll always be there beside everyone. i could do a full analysis of what i can interpret however there's only so many characters in a comment

@Memor-X Please, do. There's enough rep to bounty everyone!

There are 3 differences between that transliteration and the original runes. 1.わたしほけんいいんなんだ should be わたしほけんがかりなんだ 2.こうかいなんてあるわけない should be あたしってほんとばか 3.ひとりぼっちはさびしいもんな is yellow in the runes, presumably the anime staff has made a mistake.


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Origins of the nose-bleed in anime/manga
In a similar spirit to my previous question, I wonder who was the first artist to feature a nose-bleed when thinking, shall we say, "provocative thoughts"?  Did it become popularized in anime/manga because of the popularity of the artist's work or because it is a common belief in japanese folklore?

Related: Does the “bloody nose” trope necessarily imply a sexual situation?

As Beska notes in useful comments at the related question Does the “bloody nose” trope necessarily imply a sexual situation?,

I think it steps around the question: whether there is a difference between what is understood in normal Japanese society vs anime.

and

However, when I mentioned this to a Japanese person (someone who was not a big anime viewer), she was confused, and adamant that a bloody nose would normally just mean that the person was excited in general, and it would not necessarily have anything to do with sexual excitement.
  That's the problem I have. I mean everyone seems to "know" this...I did as well. And yet, when I asked someone Japanese about it (far more likely to know about the cultural norms than me), they had no idea what I was talking about (and were very adamant that it was not the case that it was sexual.)

This seems to be correct: that outside of the subculture of anime and manga, associating nosebleeds with arousal, or portraying it as a visual euphemism of sorts for such, is not common knowledge among the general Japanese population. As such, we can deduct that it does not originate in well-known folklore and thereby became a common belief. It most likely originated in manga or anime. Although the concept has now become recognized enough among otaku that Punchline features it in every episode, I discussed this with a Japanese female college student who is heavily involved in subculture (has manned a booth at Comiket, member of the university's Manga Research Society, practices drawing manga, reads manga and watches 4-koma gag anime, enjoys doujin visual novels, vocaloid fan) and even she had never heard of this trope, since it is not customary to come across it within the genres that she likes. Though by no means conclusive, she said that if you mention that a character gets a nosebleed, the average Japanese person will imagine that the character got punched by someone.
Apparently, NicoNico News interviewed an Ear/Nose/Throat doctor in Yamaguchi prefecture, Dr. Kanaya Kouichiro, on the topic of nosebleeds in anime/manga, but the video is no longer available online. His personal theory as to an origin is sports such as pro wrestling:

In the past, people like pro wrestlers would intentionally give themselves small cuts on their forehead in order to build tension and atmosphere in a match. I can only imagine that the idea of extreme stimulation and an excess of energy was portrayed in the same way with nosebleeds, and it’s come to be the accepted method of representing that feeling.

I have no idea when, or by whom, the nosebleeding started to depicted in Japanese visual arts, but the nosebleeding as a sign of excitement is traditionally held to have developed during the feudal times when men and women (of the upper classes) were supposed to live their lives apart—but of course they needed some way to woo each other! And so, the men, while walking on the other side of the street mentally forced their noses to bleed when they saw someone “hot” being walked along, and the courting could begin on opposite sides of drawn curtains. Some consider this an accurate history while others consider it a myth, probably the truth lies somewhere in between, as usual.
If this is true, then this form of specialised nosebleed might have been depicted in art for quite awhile. But of that I have no knowledge.
An interesting thing, I just realised, is that if this is the true history of the sexually ritualistic nosebleed, then
(a) women had no need to develop such “skills”, and
(b) homosexual men also had no such need.
Thus much of the anime and manga today—especially in the boys’ love scene—are not true to the real history! :P (Male homosexual acts were in these times—again, in the upper classes—something considered pure and good, as females were “worth” less and not something you might not have easy “access” to when you felt certain urges.)


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What is this place from episode 9 of Monogatari Second Season?
In episode 9 of Monogatari Second Season, Shinobu says the following (around the 17:20 mark):

具体的には、この街中の人間を、
日本中の人間を、
世界中の人間を
吸血鬼化したのじゃろう。

Translated,

To be more specific, I turned the people of this town,
the people of Japan,
and the people of the world
into vampires.

The first line is accompanied by an aerial shot of the town where the story takes place; the second line by a shot of the Tokyo Sky Tree; and the fourth line by an image of an elaborate gravestone.
The third line is accompanied by the following picture:

What is this a picture of?

This looks like a shot of the Palais des Nations in Switzerland, formerly the headquarters of the League of Nations, and now the home of the United Nations' Geneva branch.


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How closely does the La Corda d'Oro manga follow the game?
La Corda d'Oro is a shoujo series which started as a PC game (and later PS2 and PSP). Following its release in 2003, there was a manga adaptation:

A month after the release of the PC version of Kin’iro no Corda, the manga adaptation of the game had started to serialize in Hakusensha’s monthly shōjo manga magazine of LaLa in October 2003. Yuki Kure, the person who contributed the character designs for the game, authors the manga.
  — List of La Corda d'Oro media, Wikipedia

So it does seem some of the original game staff were present for production of the manga (notably Yuki Kure, as mentioned above).

How closely does this manga adaptation follow the original story of the La Corda d'Oro PC game?

I don't have an answer, having never played the game, but if you look at the media list, there are individual manga volumes listed under each game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_La_Corda_d%27Oro_media


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Why was Ueda Ryouhei appointed the head of the Yoshioka clan and not Seijuurou's son?
I am reading the manga Vagabond. After the death of Yoshioka Denshichirou, someone named Ueda Ryouhei is appointed as the head of the family. Ryouhei then makes a decision that the school should fight Musashi near Ichijou-ji Temple outside Kyoto.
But according to an answer on History Stack Exchange, it was the 12-year-old son of Seijuurou's, Yoshioka Matashichiro, doing this. Is Ueda Ryuhei a fictional character that has replaced Yoshioka Matashichiro? If so, why did the author not show Yoshioka Matashichiro in his comic?

Vagabond is a fictionalized interpretation of Musashi's life adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi. The novel is a dramatization and not really historically accurate, even though many people have started to take Yoshikawa's book as historical due to it's popularity.
Now why was there no mention of Matashichiro, the youngest of the Yoshioka brothers? It's better (commercially) to not to mention the fact that Musashi killed a 12 year old boy.

Has the author commented anything about ommitting the character anywhere ?


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What happens if a Devil Fruit is destroyed?
We know that if a Devil Fruit user dies, their fruit reappears (see In One Piece, does a Devil Fruit reappear after the user dies?). However, this doesn't answer the question of what happens when the fruit gets destroyed without being eaten. I don't know if that's even possible, but I imagine so with sufficient effort.
If a devil fruit is destroyed, would the fruit reincarnate in a nearby fruit (the same as when the user dies), or would it be destroyed for good?

The answer is likely to be something like, whatever destroys it will gain the power. Spandam's sword which "ate" the Elephant fruit comes to mind. Oda is known for his "creative" explanations, so anything is possible.

I don't think you can separate destroyed and being eaten, eating a devil fruit in One Piece pretty much destroys it. So destruction by power, physical force and or being eaten could be considered as being the same.
That being said, I would think the same thing would happen in any instance of it being 'destroyed', it will 'respawn' and take on the form of it's closest 'relative'.

I don't really understand what you're saying, but I think you're falling into a fallacy of affirming the consequent. It is true that eating a Devil Fruit destroys it, and it will respawn after the user dies. However, that doesn't say anything about what happens if a fruit is destroyed in some other way. As for whether it respawns, I'm looking for some solid canonical evidence for this, not just speculation, because this was already a possibility I acknowledged in my question.

The only way you can get a canon answer is from the source. Yet, seeing as there is no way to just destroy anything, this situation is completely void, since it would never happen, and would have no reason to.
Since canon won't happen, here's some speculation: Since nothing can be destroyed, whatever remains of the fruit (and there will be remains) will be eaten by bacterium. After the bacteria dies, the fruit will be reborn. So, I guess iKlsR was as right as you could hope for.

This question has been already answered here:
In One Piece, does a Devil Fruit reappear after the user dies?
In summary, when the ability user dies, the ability reborns in another fruit.

That is what he states. but his question is: "What happens when it gets destroyed". In other words he wants to know what happens if it gets destroyed for example by being thrown into the lava or that it will remain and sit on the bottom of it for the rest of time


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What was Kakuzu's original chakra nature element?
Kakuzu, an Akatsuki member who works with Hidan as a pair, has a unique ability. His body is full of black strings that he can use to steal the organs of his opponents.
He uses this ability in order to

steal his enemies' hearts, which gives him two important advantages:
1) Provides a type of "immortality". He can have a maximum of 4 hearts but this means he needs to be killed 4 times without him replacing the lost hearts in the mean time.
2) Allows him to use the chakra nature elements of the stolen hearts. For example, if he steals a heart from someone who possessed the wind chakra nature element, he'd be able to use that.

Is it known what Kakuzu's own original chakra nature element was?

Should be 5 hearts. 4 with the mask, 1 with his own body.

Being originally from the Waterfall village plus using the only element without having an embodiment,
I'll have to take an educated guess and call Water on Kakazu.

Naruto is from Konoha, in the Fire Country and his element is Wind...

@JNat: Konoha is quite special in that sense, because it's a collection of clans left from the early times. It's inherent that most people in the Mist for example are water-style users, and most people in the Sand are wind-style users. Konoha is the only one which don't conform to that rule.

Ok, I guess you're right.

@JNat: also, like I said, out of all of the five elements he displayed, Water was the only one that didn't have a weird black creature attached to it.

Still, it is only a guess (or deduction)

@JNat: like I said, it's an educated guess.

I'll wait before accepting in case someone else provides something and then accept. :P

ok. sold! +1 for you!

Kakashi destroyed a mask, before he could use the element. It would be logical that this heart had the water-element ;).

Only he used it in battle afterwards. Kakashi destroyed the earth element.

Kakashi destroyed the Water element mask -- Just because he lost a mask doesn't mean he can't use the element anymore period. Most skilled shinobi can use at least two chakra release types. See -> http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Grudge_Fear

The Official Character Data book provides no info on this. I'd say that any answer other than this without any strong sources is mere speculation, or some educated guess (as MadaraUchiha's answer).

While impossible to know since many shinobi use multiple chakra elements, Earth Style was the only type he used without a mask (http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Release:_Earth_Spear) -- He had masks for Water, Fire, Wind, and Lightning. So I'd say that was probably his natural affinity, or at least what he was most comfortable with/most practiced with in his original body.
Ref: http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Grudge_Fear


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Is the Tenshinhan's Shin Kikoho technique, a triangle or square?
When Tenshinhan prepares to launch the shin kikoho, he puts his hands in the form of a triangle.

However, the attack ends up in the form of a square according to the destroyed area.

Does anyone have a good explanation for this?
EDIT
Thanks for everyone, I've checked the manga chapters, and it seems that he puts his hands in a diamond shape, apparently, there was a mistake when making it into anime

I've added images, i think your talking about this right as i've only seen the original dub and i think your talking about Tian's Neo Tri-Beam

The second image sure looks like triangle to me.

@TendouKishi right side of Tian's hip you see the bottom right corner of the hole so you can visualize the edge that's under Tian, it's a perfect Rectange

Well, is there the after the technique image? I mean the resulting hole in the ground. It'd be much more clear if there is.

@Memor-X thanks, yes that's what I was talking about

The attack leaves a square hole due to the way he holds his hands. When he fires the attack normally he places his hand in a diamond shape and zooms into his target. the attack then is shot and forms the square shape.

as you can see that his hands put together form more of a diamond shape and when he fires the attack it rotates and makes the square.
later in the series He changes the way his hands are placed and over laps the thumbs and make a triangle shape with is hands instead of the diamond shape.
it is stated on Ultra DragonBall wiki

Interestingly, this technique leaves a square hole in the ground, instead of a triangle.

Though he put his hand in the form of triangle, the hole is in square/rectangular form. The answer is quite scientific. A Reuleaux triangle can be rotated to create a square shape. This YouTube video and this site explain it in more detail.
Tenshinhan's hand shape is similar to the Reuleaux triangle. Due to its shape, while it rotates, its cutting edge cut the hole in a shape of square which is shown in the gif below.

rather than only give a link, you should tell us what did they say and explain them.

@ShinobuOshino I posted anonymous edit with explanation. Before it'll get reviewed, see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Rouleaux_triangle_Animation.gif

i think this much explanation will be enough. describing principle and how it works may make the answer very long.

What is the source for your quote?

i removed quote


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Were all fairies exterminated?
On episode 19 there are some flashbacks from King which imply that most of them got wiped out. However I'm still a bit unsure...
Is there a fairy realm? Are there any fairies still alive?

According to the wikia page, some of them are still alive and living in the forest that Ban planted from the seed he was entrusted with by Elaine. There is a fairy realm and it is linked to the human world by the Fairy King's Forest.

Several year later, fairies begin to inhabit the newly restored Fairy King's Forest after Ban planted the Almoca Seed entrusted by Elaine.


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What does Tenri whisper to Diana?
In episode 12, season 3 of the anime The World God Only Knows, there's a scene at around 5:14 where Tenri speaks to Diana and tells her something surprising. Diana responds by exclaiming why Tenri didn't say anything before.
The next time we see Diana she has wings.
I'm guessing Tenri told Diana something that would promote their relationship with Keima, because she grew wings, but since Diana has been with Tenri ever since she was a little girl, I'm not sure what Tenri could've told Diana that would be so surprising.

Which season of the anime is this from? I'm guessing the third season but I don't remember too well which had what content.

It's the third season.

Posting as answer because can't use spoilers in comments, still just a speculation...
With the recent development in the manga, it seems it might be something along the lines of:

Keima is the one that chose me to be your host

Also, remember Diana grew her wings once before (although they didn't notice), in manga Chapter 139 (can't remember which episode), after Keima apologizes to her in his library.

I'm going to keep the spoiler at minimum. This is from Heart of Jupiter Arc, the last arc of the series.
What she said to Diana is...

From TWGOK Chapter 191 A Girl. Page 13

 This arc tells about Keima being sent to the past. Tenri probably explained Diana about the event that happen 10 years ago, about how Tenri and Keima got involved with the mass escape of the runaway spirits, and how it will affect the future.

In the bath scene in episode 9, at 12:01, Diana confessess to Keima (Diana likes Keima). Tenri asks why she is there at 13:00. At 13:40, Diana encourages Tenri to confess.
Tenri PROBABLY doesn't love Keima as much as Diana thought she did. Tenri might have said she doesn't like Keima.
With Tenri's confession to Diana in episode 12, Diana grew her wings.
From a common viewer.

Tenri does have feelings for Keima, that much could be seen when she went to his house to cheer him up after him dealing with Chihiro.

Also, now that the manga has finished, we can see that Tenri's reaction in the final chapter suggests this isn't the answer.


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The Super Saiyan Legend
In the original series the Super Saiyan is presented as a myth: according to Vegeta when talking of the legend, he states that the last Super Saiyan existed 1000 years ago.
The mythical quality of the Super Saiyan persists during the Frieza saga, and is taken as the reason Frieza decided to kill all Saiyans.
Now in the 2011 OVA, Episode of Bardock, we learn that Bardock could turn into Super Saiyan, and did so in the battle with Chilled.
Can this incongruence be solved? How can the Super Saiyan be a myth/legend if at least one, Bardock, existed barely before the beginning of the original Dragon Ball series?

There are 2 things to keep in mind there.
1.) Where did Bardock go (or more when) and
2.) The canonity of the films.
Where did Bardock go or more when:
When Freezer hit Bardock with his attack he was displaced in time a thousand years into the past. And single handedly disposed of a member of freezers species by turning super saiyan. Chilled though survived the encounter at least long enough to speak out a warning about a super saiyan.
So there is no real inconsistency if we take this into account. Saiyan myth says 1000 years ago a super saiyan appeared and Freezer fears this LEGEND. Bardock was a super saiyan 1000 years ago and put fear into chilled about a super saiyan.
So in total: No inconsistency there, aside from the flashback in the series where the super saiyan is shown as someone in a more ape like form than a normal humanoid.
Canonity:
The films are almost never considered to be part of the main canon and thus are often ignored in the series. For example the Broly films....no info from them ever show up in any of the series aside from super now using a broly like transformation for an universe 6 Saiyan.
Exceptions exist of course like 2 films being integrated (and remade) in dragonball super, but before that the events inside were largely ignored by the main series (and often raised a few questions about abilities,... if they would have not been ignored).

Bardock went back in time, so he could have become a super saiyan thousands of years ago. Freezer attack created a wormhole who sent Bardock back in time.  He fall in the past of the planet of the saiyans. According to this wikia, at least one thousand years before the battle on planet Namek.
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Ball:_Episode_of_Bardock