text:
What is the role of the assumption 'As long as it doesn't violate pledge three' in pledge 4?
No Game No Life pledge 4:

As long as it doesn't violate pledge 3, anything may be bet, and any game may be played.

What happens when we delete the hypothesis (aka assumption) 'As long as it doesn't violate pledge 3' ?

Of course, if we delete the hypothesis, then we might as well delete the 4th pledge altogether. Thus, pledge 4 may be restated:

Anything may be bet, and any game may be played unless it violates pledge three.

I guess my question may be rephrased to ask for (counter)examples of bets or games that would violate pledge 3.

I actually feel there's some

self-referential error,
way that pledge 4 is actually redundant or
vacuous truth.

This might be resolved by question 1, but if not, then what's going on?
Pledge 4 actually seems to point out that the 'game' and that which players bet in pledges 2 and 3 are kinda not quite defined at least in terms of the scope. I mean, what's the scope of the games or that which players bet? It seems pledge 4 is precisely defining the scope, but pledge 4 refers to pledge 3. My understanding is:

Pledge 2: All conflict in this world will be resolved through games, where games are defined in scope in pledge 4.
Pledge 3: In games, each player will bet something that they agree is of equal value, where games and that which players bet are defined in scope in pledge 4.
Pledge 4: The scope of games and that which players bet is that which does not violate pledge 3.

What am I misunderstanding?

The pledges were created by Tet in order to stop the violent wars in Disboard, while also providing a formal way for the races to compete with each other.
The pledges in question as stated in the wiki are:

Third Pledge: In games, each player will bet something that they agree is of equal value.
Fourth Pledge: As long as it doesn't violate pledge three, anything may be bet, and any game may be played.

So the 4th pledge states that anything can be wagered, while the 3rd one makes certain that the wagered items are agreed to be of equal worth by both parties involved.
The lack of the third pledge would lead to extremely unbalanced bets, where the challenged party can wager something of very little value, or disagree to the game entirely. This would make it hard for the challengers to gain significant resources to overtake other races.
Considering that the pledges are aiming to stop violence, unbalanced bets would lead to further disagreements and the races would turn violent instead of playing a game. Hence, the third pledge is necessary to maintain fairness.
Now, the 4th pledge then mentions that as long as the items are considered to be equal in value (i.e. does not violate Pledge 3), they may be anything. Considering that the Ten Pledges are always taken in conjunction, it is indeed redundant to reiterate that Pledge 3 should not be violated. However, this does not lead to any major errors as far as I can see. It is just a case of repeating something that is already being ensured.

thanks TheGamer007. ah i think i get it now. it's like those round bracket/parethentical remarks on yugioh cards eg for summon limit 'Neither player can Summon more than two times per turn. (Negated Summons count toward this limit. Negated cards/effects that would Summon do not count.)' --> like if you know the rules then you know that the round bracket remarks are unnecessary. they're just there for new players or to clear up confusions in advance. something like this?

Let's suppose pledge 3 doesn't exist. Person A challenges person B to a game. Person B decided the rules as they are the challenged party. Person B decides that if he/she wins, person A must give him/her everything they have. If person A wins, person B must give him/her their glove. Person A objects, as they don't even want a glove. Person B states that they can't drop out as they have already issued the challenge.
Suppose pledge 4 didn't exist; someone could say that they can't bet something, because it's a part of who they are.
With the absence of pledge 3 it would be impossible to gain anything by challenging someone. Pledge 4 makes psychological bets such as "becoming dog for the day", betting your existence and betting your memories possible. I'm not sure what you mean by "delete the hypothesis (aka assumption)", but I hope I've answered your question.

thanks for responding i'm not asking about deleting pledge 3. i'm asking about deleting the mention of pledge 3 in pledge 4. i think pledge 4 is still the same if you delete the mention of pledge 3. probably it was just added there for emphasis

i think i get it now. it's like those round bracket/parethentical remarks on yugioh cards eg for summon limit 'Neither player can Summon more than two times per turn. (Negated Summons count toward this limit. Negated cards/effects that would Summon do not count.)' --> like if you know the rules then you know that the round bracket remarks are unnecessary. they're just there for new players or to clear up confusions in advance or for emphasis.
still, i think there is some kind of self-referential error in rules 2,3 and 4 but i think it's easily fixable


text:
Where is this pool from?
I read a manga and one panel showed a swimming pool. Some readers commented "didn't expect to see that pool here" and no one would tell me where the pool was from. I presume it was from an anime or other manga

just wonder which swimming pool is so famous that people refer it as 'that pool'
From Ya Boy Kongming!, Chapter 63, page 6

This pool exists in real life in the Hanazono Room. Its internet fame comes from a not-very-surprising origin, which is its prevalence in pornographic material.

With images of the swimming pool of the Hanazono Room got from pornographic films circulating in local Japanese internet community by late 2000's, it began being referred to as "That Pool" (あのプール ano puuru) and "The Pool" (例のプール rei no puuru) among Japanese internet circles, most especially in 2ch and NND.[6] Not long after, news outlets also began referring to the indoor pool as "That Pool".[7] As names of the indoor pool became popular on the local media, the P-Studio which operates it eventually adapted the name "Example Pool". At some time during the latter half of the 2000s, several segments from television drama Kamen Rider Fourze also featured the indoor pool, resulting to the pool garnering even more fame in media.[3] With the massive spread of Japanese pornographic films on the internet around early 2010's onward, including the swimming-themed poolside pornographic films that were shot on the pool, "That Room" finally earned a global following and eventually became a well-known internet meme and gag as segments of the global internet community gradually familiarized the unique design of its surroundings in relation to its cult-like status on the web specifically in regards to the Japanese pornography industry.[8]

So yeah, basically, this pool was featured in a lot of porn, got famous on the internet as "The Pool", and now various other media, pornographic or not, refer to it as a sort of inside joke of sorts.

Also, Know Your Meme link: That Pool.

So "That pool' is actually a common term in Japan. Didn't think a healthy manga like Ya Boy Kongming! would make use of a pornography icon for humor

Basically the black casting couch in the west/US ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


text:
Is the new Vegeta god of destruction transformation a recycled version of the original Super Saiyan 3 transformation that didnt happen?
I've seen some fans commenting this, the new Vegeta god of destruction transformation, it is the original design of the Super Saiyan 3 transformation. Then, the Super Saiyan 3 transformation was modified and it ended being what we currently now. I think I've seen years ago a video about the original Super Saiyan 3 transformation being different, so I think those commentaries are believable, but I have no proof of it.
(Probably colored to a different color)

Is the new Vegeta god of destruction transformation a recycled version of the original Super Saiyan 3 transformation that didnt happen?

I found some original concept art of ssj3 and it hard short hair just like that so I'm gonna say it might be the recycled ssj3 form

According to the picture below, found on Reddit, one of the first drafts for SSJ3 did look like Ultra Ego somewhat, with spikier hair and no eyebrows. The picture comes from the DRAGON BALL 30TH ANNIVERSARY - SUPER HISTORY BOOK, released in 2016.

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What is up with the 'x' in Spy x Family?
Apparently the x is not even pronounced. What's up with that? From Wikipedia:

Spy × Family (stylized as SPY×FAMILY; pronounced "Spy Family") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuya Endo.

@TheGamer007 Ah thanks. There doesn't quite seem to be a confirmed answer though? Like all including the accepted answer are speculation...

Unless the author of Spy x Family has publicly stated their own reasoning behind the series title, speculation is the best you'll get. Personally I think the "stylistic choice" reason fits because the pronunciation ignores it, but "and" would also work - both of which are part of the answers.

@TheGamer007 Thanks. Could this perhaps be generalised to other symbols like say + ? I can't quite think of an anime/manga(/VN/LN) with + right now though.

It follows Hunter x Hunter. See here.

Lin: I just slapped a placeholder name on it at the draft submission stage. Endo-sensei sent in this draft for a serialization without deciding on the title, so we just worked with the title “Spy Family” written in Japanese characters for the time being. And then, when it was actually going to become a real thing, we decided we’d better have a proper name for it. It took us forever to decide on anything! (laughs) I thought “Spy Family” written in Japanese was just fine, but Endo-sensei was worried it was a little too... straight-forward. I swear, he came up with over a hundred names and we went over all of them together. And at the end of it all, we just took the name we had and put it in English characters, with a cross between the words. We talked about how the title of “HUNTER x HUNTER” is super simple, and it how it has the same thing going on.


text:
Raiha chases the quints and Fuutarou with some thing
In the s1 intro, Raiha chases the quints and Fuutarou with some thing. What is this? It doesn't seem to show up in the whole of s1 and s2.
(Ideally, I'd combine all 3 images below in 1 image, but it's too large to upload.)

Based on these tweets, it appears to be some kind of cat-bear called クマティー(KUMATTY)
https://twitter.com/marine__moon/status/1088054345365520389
https://twitter.com/quintupletbride/status/1088061007006580736

Nino actually owns some Kumatty merchandise.
In manga:

In anime:


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What's the katakana for the 'down' in kabedown instead of kabedon that Miyuki Shirogane 'invented'?
S01E02 Miyuki gives advice to Tsubasa Tanuma. Part of the advice includes the 'kabe-down', an original invention of Miyuki.

Wait no actually as Kaguya points out it's something that's been around forever, and it's called kabedon (壁ドン [かべドン]).

This particular translation of 'kabedon' is 'wall slam'. [I read on wiktionary that don (ドン) is actually literally an onomatopoeia (hence why katakana instead of hiragana or kanji is used I guess), but whatever.] Ok so what's the katakana (or hiragana/kanji?) for the 'down' in 'kabedown' ? Is it just ダウン (daun)?  But in this case why is ダウン = slap ?

It is ダァン (e.g. source), which is an onomatopoeia similar to ドン. The difference is, ダァン is a prolonged sound and as such a bit stronger. Possibly a better comparison would be the other way around: ダァン/ドン = Slam/Slap, but slam seems already taken, hence the current translation (slap would be too weak for either anyway, I suppose). Here you can think ダァン is used simply because the author wanted the same thing as ダン but slightly different.
In general, difference of using hiragana/katakana for onomatopoeia is rather subtle. Although I don't think authors use them with much intention, looking at the One Piece usage of どーん, hiragana is used for 'effect sound' and katakana for the actual sound (cannon, guns etc.). The ダァン is consistent with this.

To supplement sundowner's answer:

The live action seems to confirm this as kabedaan (壁ダァン).

Just search ダァン in google. Like you don't have to search 壁ダァン. Just ダァン is enough. Lol.


text:
Is naming things a fantasy in Japan?
In a lot of isekai manga, the main character comes across someone or something (e.g. a slime monster) that has no name, and must give a name to him/her/it.  Every time, the one who is given a name accepts it, is happy, etc.
For example:

In Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken, Rimuru names all his villagers
In Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi, ch. 10, the main character has to give a name to a newly tamed slime
In The New Gate, Shin (ch. 10) and Schnee (ch. 26) give names to newly tamed beasts

Since isekai manga kind of aim to make true all the dreams/fantasies of the reader (e.g. the main character is super strong and has successful romance), why is there such a focus on giving names?

I think you meant to say "fetish" rather than "fantasy"?
Not that I'm aware of, but in many cultures, naming is of great significance, there are often attitudes that being given a name or title is perceived as a great honour.
Catholics does this, for example, when they receive their baptized name; as well as Buddhists, when they receive their dharma name.
Many monarchies have a tradition of the monarchs taking on a new regnal name when the new monarch ascended to the throne.
It's also common trope for feudal servants/subordinates serving a new master to take a new name, it's a sign of throwing away their past and therefore subservience to the new master.
Another common trope is a new pet being drawn to feel happy when they're first named. Often the trope goes that the pet feels unhappy/angry/uncomfortable while the owner scrolled through a few names that then got rejected before they ended with the one that the pet seems to respond well to (IRL, this is likely just reflection of the owner being happy for having finally picked a name, because chances are the pet doesn't care or understand).
This is definitely not unique to Isekai genre.

I suspect that this is, rather than a fetish or a power fantasy, a reference to one of the core things isekai stories are based on -- JRPG video games.  As soon as there was memory on the cartridge to do so, these games have made it so when you meet a new party member, or capture a monster, or anything of that nature, you (the player) are given an opportunity to name them.  You're often given a default, or a set of options, but the names are in the end up to you.
(Pokemon nicknames are probably the most well-known example of this to Western audiences, and there have been a few -- I think early Dragon Quest games among them? -- that don't provide default names at all, so fan discussion of the characters can get a little tricky when it's just "that one cleric" or whatever.)

I think it all comes done to hegemonic masculinity in the end. It's something that a lots of artworks tends to go for, not only in Japan. It's been like this for decades.
There are lots of values attached to this concept. One of them is the conqueror man. Finding new lands, discovering the unknown, is seen as something valuable for a man.


text:
Did Zack have any lines in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children?
At the end of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children when Cloud is in the healing water in the church with the kids getting their Geostigma cured, he sees Aerith and as she was away we see that Zack is leaning against the doorway (can be seen in this video on Aerith).
When i first saw the film i don't recall Zack having any lines but there is Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete with extra scenes which i have yet to see yet (i've been told that Reno mentions meeting up with the other Turks like Cissnei)
So maybe i missed it in the original movie or maybe there's something only in the Complete version, but does Zack have any lines or even do anything at all besides show up at the end?

Considering Zack has his voice actor listed in the original Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's credit... yes, he spoke 2 lines near the ending.
This happens after Cloud's final fight

 when Cloud is unconscious after the Remnants of Sephiroth's suicide attack. After a while, Aerith and Zack have a very short dialogue, rejecting Cloud's fate from "joining" them.

  YouTube video: Japanese voice, English dub.

With the additional screen time for Zack in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, he also has more lines compared to the original movie.

I'd like to point out that Zack is never shown speaking in the original version of the movie (which is probably why the OP missed it). His two lines are just general dialogue, and then it pans over to Zack and [spoiler] at the end of the scene


text:
What is the name of the OST?
On this Video, part 1;28, there's a trumpet start to play and I already find quite a while still can't find what song is that. Anyone know that song?

It's Uru - Freesia. The part you want starts at around 1:20
Edit: The orchestra version used in the video


text:
What's the name of this Robotech song?
When I was younger, I knew the Robotech Perfect Soundtrack perfectly. The RPS had most of the Robotech songs, and for a long time most fans thought it had all songs. Later some songs were pointed out not to be in the RPS and to the in the 80's series and movies (no new songs were added for a period of 20 years, since no animation appeared for 20 years), but this one I don't remember it at all. I don't think it was in the RPS. Which is the name of this song?
Robotech 2014 original soundtrack

This is "The Right Move" sung by Minmei, only once, on the radio in episode 18 of the Macross Saga. It's featured in CD2 of the 20th anniversary OST. Deculture it is not.


text:
What is the official name for Liore?
I'm currently watching the FMA live action movie, which has Reole on its maps/subtitles. It seems as though this might also be true in the manga, at least according to this Wikia. However, Liore or Lior is the standard transliteration that I've seen for it, and I'm pretty sure that's what was used in the anime.
Both are technically (more or less) correct transliterations of リオール, but also somewhat unusual, given rs and ls are the same, and so it would usually either be Rior(u) or Liol(u). Reading from English, they also (at least to me) imply somewhat different stressing of syllables, Ree-ohl vs Lee-or.
Is there an official Hiromu Arakawa-approved way of writing it in English?

I'm having the same issue currently. I'm writing a comedic review of the live-action film, and I make an offhand joke about having watched the dub and that "WE CALL IT LEORE IN AMERICA", but if Arakawa intended for it to be pronounced Reole and I'm just an asshole, I'm going to take out the joke.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2017-12-29/.125479

I'm still hoping to answer this soon; I don't feel confident basing any answer off someone else's (possibly altered) scans, so I'm holding off until I can regain access to my own (physical) printings of the original untranslated manga.

There is no semblance of consistency even in the manga or anime subtitles or LN translations, for an example, in the Viz manga they refer to what fans know as 'Xerxes' as 'Cselkcess', and Lan Fan's grandfather, who the fans refer to as 'Fu' ('Foo' in the Viz manga) is 'Who' in the official perfect guide for the manga (鋼の錬金術師パーフェクトガイドブック, a three volume set), while the Chinese character is pronounced 'Hu' are among some inconsistencies. The only notable official spellings can be seen in the Brotherhood eyecatches: http://deetersthebrotherhoodfangirl.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyecatches-ep-1-10.html

I wouldn't trust the Viz translations any farther than I could throw a piano.

It's Reole.
Amestris is, canonically, an English-speaking country, and as such, all the locations are given "English" names (or, at least, names spelled out in the Latin alphabet used in English). This can be seen by looking at the original (untranslated) manga, which features a large number of character and place names written out in Latin script, rather than the katakana used for those names in dialogue. This includes the maps shown at various times in the manga.
Volume 17, page 70 offers one such example, featuring a clearly legible close-up of Liore/Reole on a map:

Additional context demonstrating that the image above is from the original Japanese language version of the manga:

Regardless of how the different parties involved may have translated it, it's quite clear that Arakawa's intended name for the city is Reole.

Unfortunately what you are seeking doesn't exist. Reason is the concept of "X approved way of writing" doesn't exist. Think about your name. Yes there might be different versions of it(Joseph/Jose) however the version you are using has only one pronunciation.
So why are we having this issue at all? Simple. The syllabus "L" doesn't exist in Japanese. A simple example: In Death Note many VAs call "Light" as "Righto" which is funny imo because of his obsessive righteousness. Anyways lets look at what we have.
Reole has "-le" at the end however "Re" at the start. So we can assume "re" at the start should stay as it is. However we have to change "-le" to "-ri" to gave similar sound to it.
So in conclusion the correct way of writing is "Reori"(assuming our base Reole is the right version) if we go with sound which is usually the case. You can check here for different experiments.
As for リオール (riooru) as you can guess "Rioru" is the right way to say it since a place with that name does not exist. If it had we could say since they cant pronounce "l" they changed it to "r".
I know this is not exactly what you are looking for but I hope it helps.

I'm asking for a canon-official English/romanji name, if one exists, not possible pronunciations. (And Reori is not a correct transliteration of リオール, and so either way wouldn't be a canon name for it.)

That is why I put two different cases. First one is taking Reole as canon second takes リオール as canon. Since in Japanese the way you write is the same as you read going with pronunciation is fine.
However let me another case. A place called Loire exists in France so maybe we can go with this. Maybe Arakawa takes inspiration from there. If that is the case Ri-o-o-re would be the right translation. Since you are looking for English name Liore would be the answer.

The canon way of writing it in Japanese is the way that it was written in the manga by Hiromu Arakawa (which, as far as I know, is リオール, though if I'm wrong someone correct me). It's not "taking it as canon", it's just the canon name. What I'm wondering about is the official Hiromu Arakawa-approved way of writing it in English (if one exists), because both Reole and Liore have appeared in what I would have thought was official English-language translations.

Why would Arakawa give a toot about how we translate names?

Arakawa used Latin script frequently in the original manga art (even "Fullmetal Alchemist" comes directly from her, not the literal translation of "Alchemist of Steel"). What the OP is seeking does exist, and while I am not confident crafting an "official" answer without access to physical media, scans I'm finding online are showing the Latin labeling on the city in question as "Reole."

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text:
What was it that the "Cocoon l'Cie" summoned against Ragnarok in the Pompa Sancta Parade?
During the Pompa Sancta Parade in Nautilus in Chapter 8 we see a number of familiar Final Fantasy Summons.

Carbuncle comes out from the disk Vanille is holding
the "Pulse l'Cie" summons Ifrit
the "Cocoon l'Cie" summons Ramuh

when the "Pulse l'Cie" Transforms into Ragnarok we see the "Cocoon l'Cie" summon or transform into something aswell to fight it. though i'm not sure what it is and wouldn't put it past the game to have made up something new (like with Vanille's and Sazh's Eidolon).
So i am wondering what was it the "Cocoon l'Cie" summoned against Ragnarok in the Pompa Sancta Parade?

@кяαzєя just want to request a clarification, but based on a meta discussion on Should we have separate tags for each major Final Fantasy game?, the accepted and active policy is "'final-fantasy' tag is still enough". If we're going to separate each series, could you write an answer on there first, is the current amount allows the separation?

The question you mention is not accepted, but is the suggested guideline in lieu of any other alternative. The policy is almost 5 years old, so it might be time to revisit this policy, as we've finally graduated, it's a good time to make sure our policies are scalable. At the time, FF questions were infrequent, but with the anticipation of the new FF7 remake and other games it might make sense to look at this tag and other tags such as [pokemon] and [gundam]. As we grow as a community it might be better to have more specific tagging for better context.

During the parade, Cocoon l'Cie transformed into Valefor

A recreation of Valefor appears at Nautilus's Pompa Sancta parade. In the play, the Cocoon l'Cie transforms into it to face Ragnarok

Valefor's first appearance as a summon was Final Fantasy X.


text:
Where are the places mentioned in Nausicaa located with respect to the modern world?
The opening page of the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga implies that the story is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the themes of the book don’t have much impact if it’s set elsewhere. But where on Earth is it set? We are given maps, and city names, and suggestions of different languages and cultures. Did Miyazaki have a specific real-world location in mind and if so, where?

According to the maps depicted in the manga (and ignoring any differences with the movie):
It is implied to be parts of the Middle East and Caucasus region. With the Black Sea on the left (Inland Sea), Mediterranean Sea on the right (Ocean of Salt). Perhaps alluding to the fact that the magnetic poles might have shifted around the time of the Seven Days of Fire and the modern time depicted in the manga.
Torumekia might possibly be considered to be a big portion of real-life modern day eastern Turkey, with the Autonomous States of the Periphery making up part of southwestern Turkey and Syria.
It seems that the Dorok Principalities might be the area between Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
The Sea of Corruption has seems to have covered much of the southeastern part of real-life Central Asia.
Not all land masses will be one to one with modern day maps as the story is likely set around 3780 to 3850 CE. Perhaps due to flooding and terraforming thru the years.
The manga introduction mentions Seven Days of Fire happened roughly a thousand years after the Industrial Revolution, which is assumed to occurred around 1780s to 1850s CE if we so off modern real-life history. Therefore the Seven Days of Fire likely happened roughly around 2780-2850 CE. The manga is mentioned to be set about a thousand years after that event, so roughly around 3780 to 3850 CE would be a guess.


text:
Is there any relation between the images in Ouran High School Host Club and Fullmetal Alchemist?
There is a very similar image in both Ouran High School Host Club and Fullmetal Alchemist. Both the hair part and the eyes look essentially the same. Are there any known connections/has anybody official said anything about it?

In the english dubs, Edward Elric and Tamaki Suou are both voiced by Vic Mignogna.  They don't share Japanese VAs, though.

@Clockwork-Muse This seems irrelevant since the people creating the anime have no idea who will voice the character in a dub version X years later.

@kuwaly Is there anything I can do to improve my answer? If there is something else you're wondering about, feel free to tell me. :)

@kuwaly Oh haha I wanted to make sure I didn't miss part of your question

Both shows were animated by the studio called BONES.
It is not uncommon for series animated by the same studio to contain jokes or references to other series. It can provide a great joke for those who have seen the referenced series (causing them to call out "I know what that's from!" just like you have), but for heavier references it might be a bit of an advertisement as well.
The image below is a scene from Lucky Star referencing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Both series were animated by the same studio (Kyoto Animation).

And, below, Joshiraku (animated by JC Staff) shows off some 2D cosplayers cosplaying as characters from Zero no Tsukaima, Milky Holmes, Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, and Kill Me Baby. Guess who animated all of those? JC Staff. (Sorry, the only one I don't know is the old man. Please feel free to comment/edit if you know what he's from.)

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text:
When and why did the trend of 1:30-long openings and endings begin?
I've started to notice lately that the vast majority of anime (that I can find, anyway) seems to have opening (OP) and ending (ED) sequences which are 1 minute and 30 seconds long.
Some examples (though I'm sure there are lots that I haven't covered):

Fullmetal Alchemist: There are 5 OPs and 5 EDs, all of which are 1:30 long.
Digimon Tamers, Steins;Gate: Both OP and ED are 1:30.
GaoGaiGar and Neon Genesis Evangelion: The OPs are 1:30 long, though the EDs are only 1:00 in duration.
Cardcaptor Sakura: The OPs are 1:30, did not check the ED durations.

There do seem to be some exceptions (again, far from an exhaustive list):

One Piece: Though some episodes fit this pattern, others have 3-minute OPs and no EDs. (The combined duration is still the same, though.)
Akagi, Kaiji: OP is shorter than 1 minute.
Ga-rei: Zero, Aria: During the OP or ED music (which is 1:30 long), things unrelated to the OP/ED sequence happen (like actual parts of the episodes).

These lists are just examples of each, and don't really show that the vast majority of anime (I would wager 90% or higher) seem to follow the 1:30 OP/ED "rule".
It is worth noting that most American series have openings which are 30 seconds or 1 minute in length; Family Guy and the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon are examples of this, though there are far more.
When did the 1 minute 30 second duration of OPs and EDs start to come into popularity, and is there a particular reason why they did so?

This article here explains very well why Anime OPs are so long in the first place.
To summarize a few of the points:

Cost
Spread out commercial breaks
Advertisement for record companies.

Cost:

Each episode is a total of 25 minutes, which leaves 5 minutes for commercials in a 30-minute time slot.
Furthermore, OPs and EDs are typically reused for most of the episodes in a series.
OPs and EDs only need to be animated once.

So the longer you make them, the less work you need to fill up the rest of the time. Therefore, long OPs and EDs cut down on production costs.
Spread out commercial breaks:
To quote the article:

Typical anime television episodes broadcast on network Japanese television have commercial breaks after the opening animation, in the middle of the episode, and just before the ending credits. With this broadcast pattern, a 90 second opening puts more content between commercial breaks than a 30 or 60 second opening, which may be less annoying for viewers to watch.

So this is more of a reason with the flow and pacing of the episode.
Advertisement for record companies:
Again from the article:

Opening animation sequences serve as record company advertisements. A popular opening animation sequence like that of the Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu or Lucky Star television series can make their series opening theme songs turn into overnight smash hits. A longer opening animation sequence provides time for the theme song to get exposure and gain popularity.

Getting back to the point of why 90 seconds, that seems somewhat of an arbitrary number possibly the result of a bit of trial and error from the industry.
As the article mentions, they used to be 60 seconds back in the 1970s. Then they were increased to 90 seconds for the reasons above. It's possible that some studios experimented with even longer OPs/EDs, but later on, found that 90 seconds was a sweet spot.

I think this is a pretty good explanation, and one that would never be coerced out of a producer. I suppose 120 seconds is too long (especially if applied to both OP and ED) since you really start to cut into the show's running time if you do that. Good answer!

I like the point about it being a record company advertisement.  I know I personally went out and found some of the songs from the Eyeshield 21 openings after watching the series.

Some later anime has different song and/or OP/ED sequence per episode (or per arc), though, probably for the purpose of advertisement for character CD (Bakemonogatari, Kokoro Connect, GJ-Bu to name a few).


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What are some of the more popular and well-known film noir style anime series?
Are there any popular, well-known anime series that share characteristics with the film noir or neo-noir style or setting?

Anime recommendations are off topic. FWIW, there are plenty of them around. In fact, there's even an anime named Noir with an interesting OST to boot.

@coleopterist heh, I just noticed your comment is nearly identical to my comment.

I don't think there's an actual "top 90% based on reviews" of any kind of anime...

Can you please better define what you mean by noir? The film noir genre encompasses a broad spectrum of trope, structures and archetypes. Currently your question is too vague and ambiguous to be answered, please try to update your the scope with better descriptions and/or examples, if possible, so we can better address your question.

Film noir was originally a term used by French critics to describe Hollywood movies of the post-war 1940’s era (up through the 1950s) that portray a darker perspective upon life than was standard in classical Hollywood films and concentrate upon human depravity, failure, and despair. After 1960, films of similar nature that actively try to emulate the classic noir style (for better or worse) are deemed neo-noir. Both terms typicall imply use of a cinematic style with a particular way of lighting, positioning and moving the camera, and using retrospective voice-over narration
There are no anime series that can be considered truly film noir in genre as they typically use the style but not the motifs and cinematography, identified by the genre.
I believe the following series most closely resemble the noir/neo-noir-style style, story, and/or setting (some not completely) the following would probably fit:

Both Big O and Cowboy Bebop have characters being plagued by events in their past and fatalistically having to accept them. Big O uses the style of film noir a lot more and uses its premise as the basis of entangled plot. Cowboy Bebop, on the other hand, simply sticks to the premise and borrows its style from elsewhere.
Baccano! is like a blend of film noir and pulp fiction, where a bunch of seemingly unconnected stories slowly become connect into one overarching storyline, which is very typical of the pulp noir genre.
Ghost in a Shell and it's sequel are considered a marriage of noir visual, sci-fi, and animation, and sometimes included under the subgenre of noir called tech-noir, which includes movies such as Brazil and Blade Runner. "A Detective Story" from the Animatrix is considered to be another example of the above mentioned tech-noir genre.
Perfect Blue has the mystery setting, murder cases with no apparent suspect and a main character is being hunted, keeping the story on the edge. It also deals with amnesia, flashbacks, uncertainties of one's own memories.
Bodyguard of the Wind Though not as well -known, has all the motifs of a classic noir detective story. It opens with the disappearance of a train carrying a shipment gold along with its guards, but the story really starts with the son of one of those guards coming to the city where the train vanished to investigate. There he is met with the residents many of hiding their own secrets and mysteries, forcing him to slowly progress from one clue to the next, like a noir detective would do, to get to the bottom of everything.

These don't really fit the noir-style completely for one reason or another, but are heavily influenced by the noir genre:

The Skullman has a noir-ish atmosphere is given by the mystery which shrouds the strange murders in that alternate history of the end of WWII.
Speed Grapher has the noir atmosphere and art, but the story and characters aren't what you typically expect of the genre
Texhnolyze has plenty of elements from "noir" movies: dark lighting, flashbacks that disrupt the normal flow of the story, a corrupted society, a sort of "femme fatale" and a main character that seems to not fit the rest of the world. However, this is more of a sci-fi/cyberpunk anime with a dystopian setting.
Daughter of Twenty Faces is more of an action comedy that uses Edogwawa Rampo (a well-known Japanese noir writer) characters and the noir-style of mystery behind it's plot.

Are there any anime that would be consider either Noir or neo Noir?

Dictionary definition of film noir would be: a film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace.
Stereotypical elements are: murder, a detective who drinks whisky late at night in a shabby bar, and a femme fatale.
Anime that I have seen and that more or less match above description are:

Noir
The Woman Called Fujiko Mine


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Are there any other uses for a Pokeball besides capturing and storing Pokemon?
Can a Pokeball be used for things other than storing pokemon?
Like a "Hoi-Poi Capsules" from Dragon Ball or even to imprison humans?

pokeballs can capture other pokeballs right? like in the 1st movie. or maybe they're not necessarily 'pokeballs', depending on definition.

They were made for storing pokémon, only. It can be seen, that some trainers play with them (at least in the games, there are jugglers and some psychics who make the balls float in the air). It can happen, that there are different things than a Pokémon in it, like when Ash found a riceball (?) in his Pokéball after the tries to catch a Mankey, which throws the riceball at the Pokéball, but besides from that, Pokéballs aren't used for anything else than catching and storing Pokémon.
In the anime, it was also shown that a Pokéball can't catch trainers, the beam that would transform the Pokémon to energy (to store it in the ball) just doesn't have any effect.
In the games, however, items which can be found in the world are shown as a red Pokéball. Whether it's for the sake of simplicity or whether they are really stored in Pokéballs is unclear (but you don't get a Pokéball with every item you find).

Whether it's for the sake of simplicity or whether they are really stored in Pokéballs is unclear Simplicity may be one factor (for early generation). Another factor is that: if we have clear distinction between different items (or class of items) before picking up, the trap with Electrodes and Voltorbs in Power Plant wouldn't have worked so well.

pokeballs can capture other pokeballs right? like in the 1st movie. or maybe they're not necessarily 'pokeballs', depending on definition.

In the game Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Professor Laventon says at the beginning that the development of the Poké Ball revolves around the idea that every Pokémon is capable of making itself small (which may be referring to the move Minimize), and so the Poké Ball takes advantage of this to shrink the Pokémon and store it inside.

In an early page of the Adventure manga, it can clearly be seen that Nidorino is shrunk inside the Poké Ball, following the logic of the first games that the authors understood.

Following that game material, canonically the Poké Ball is used only for the sake of minimizing and capturing Pokémon. (It's important to note that due to the Arceus game clarifying that use of the Poké Ball, many have been saying that the anime didn't follow that at all, mainly due to the rice-ball catching Poké Ball in the anime.)


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Why does it seem like Syaoran likes Yukito?
When Shaoran meets Yukito, he starts to feel embarrassed and blushed at his presence.
I always though he liked Sakura, but when these scenes happened I was kinda confused. Was Syaoran attracted to Yukito? If not, what caused him to feel this way?

If I remember right, this ends up covered in a later episode - there are spoilery reasons.  Divulge?

By all means, you can use the spoiler tags in you answer if you think it might be too spoilery.

The question it is not spoilery in my opinion... and the answer i don't know. But as @Krazer said you can use spoiler tags

It was because Syaoran was attracted by Yukito's magical power.
It was revealed that

Syaoran was magically attracted to the magical energies of the moon, which were residing within Yukito, as Syaoran drew his magical power from the moon.

..that was why he often blushed and feel embarrassed at Yukito's presence. It was not because he was romantically attracted to him.


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Has the popularization of streaming anime changed the anime industry?
Has the increasing availability of streaming anime on the web from providers like YouTube, CrunchyRoll, and NicoNico Douga affected how big label anime studios and publishers, both domestic and foreign, market and distribute content (e.g., how publishers can gauge which series to pick up or renew, find new original content, test the waters)?
I'd be curious to know about both the impacts from both official and unofficial streaming sources.

I think you should clarify in your description whether you mean legal or illegal streaming (or both even). It's a great question either way, but I think I came to this page expecting something else.

There's a really interesting article on Anime News Network that's part of a 3 part feature about the anime economy written in March 2012. There's some interesting notes about streaming in it.
There was a drop-off in DVD/BD sales because in most places outside of Japan, buying the physical media is the only way to watch something for the first time, since the majority of these shows don't air on TV like they do in Japan. Most people who buy physical media usually don't re-watch shows, so once on-demand options started popping up (in the U.S. ADV's Anime Network, which still runs as "The Anime Network"). Fewer people were buying physical media, even in Japan:

The people buying anime DVDs are now mostly the ones looking to buy a specific show. Now that the logjam of liquidated stuff from 2007 has cleared and several shows from the past have gone out of print, fans are reminded that there's value in having a permanent copy of your own. Publishers are finding ways to boost this collector's value, with books and nice packaging, and ever so slightly bump their prices up. Most people watch the show for free, but the few thousand people who love it enough to collect make the whole venture profitable.

So the trend is leaning away from DVDs and BDs. It's something that's helped by services which provide streaming and on-demand access to anime. As far as the industry changes to make this happen:

When it came to the actual logistics of delivering the final product, things worked pretty much the same way in 2006 as it did in 1986: the lab assembled the final show onto a broadcast quality videotape. That went to the TV network, and then the lab cut out all the commercial breaks and sent it the duplication plant for home video. And then, when all that was done, the licensor made up some presentation materials and a crappy looking VHS screener copy for overseas publishers to peruse. If they wanted it, the licensor negotiated a deal with them, signed a contract, and then called up the lab again. The lab made a copy of the masters and FedEx-ed them to the publisher. The end. This system was reliable, but extremely expensive and slow -- two things that online streaming, with its razor thin margins and gotta-have-it-now delivery schedule, make completely unacceptable. With episodes sometimes being finished only hours before they air, the only way to do a simulcast is to send the finished video to the streaming service digitally, as a file. But adjusting to a new, all-digital way of doing things has been a steep learning curve for licensors... and an expensive one.

So these shows are being licensed and streamed with ads. The ad money wasn't enough for the licensors so they demaneded a "minimum guarantee"

And so, licensors have asked those companies to put their money where their mouth is. Now, each anime costs a licensing fee (or "Minimum Guarantee") of $1-2,000 per episode for simulcast internet streaming rights. Which is still not much, but at least it's enough to ensure that the whole endeavor will contribute SOMETHING to the show's profitability.Some licensors are still not convinced simulcasting is worth it. Some don't want to split up ownership of rights -- they don't want to have to deal with Crunchyroll AND Section23 AND Hulu, they want a single company to act as custodian for every line of business for a show, and if that means they miss their chance to simulcast, well, it's clearly not that big of a loss. Other licensors just aren't prepared for the mountain of approvals and other work that suddenly has to be done WHILE the show airs.

In comes subscriptions:

The $6 or $7 per month that sites like Crunchyroll charge each user every month is way, way more than any viewer can earn for the site by sitting through ads. TV Tokyo recently announced that Crunchyroll had nearly 70,000 paid subscribers. If that number is accurate, that means, at $6.95 per user, that comes to $486,500 in revenue a month -- more than enough to keep the lights on and pay for the less popular shows. Clearly they're not getting rich on that kind of revenue, but if that's truly the sort of numbers they're doing (they wouldn't confirm for us), they're doing OK.Crunchyroll isn't alone in going this route. Hulu is trying to push more of their user base towards their $7-per-month Hulu Plus service, which adds access to shows on game consoles, networked Blu-ray players and smartphones. In Europe, France's Kaze Anime has slowly been developing their subscription service.

As far as how publishers gauge which shows to pick up, it's a little different than before:

There are a few big problems yet to be sorted out. The first is with discovery: how do you get the non-obsessive fans, the ones who aren't up on each new anime season, to watch these shows? With a dedicated anime-only site like Crunchyroll or Funimation.com, it's pretty hard. The only people going to those sites are the ones who already know what anime is, and are actively seeking it out. Hulu and Netflix are great storefronts to entice new fans, but they're still not ideal marketing tools.Actually, it's almost impossible to do any sort of marketing for a simulcast at all. Since the agreements to simulcast a show aren't hammered out until the week the show starts -- or later -- how does a company start to generate hype for their new product? Unless an anime fan is REALLY engaged -- the sort of fan that reads ANN every day and stays on top of every new release -- a show can slip by completely undetected.

The old way of licensing, there's a time to see how well a show does in Japan, the ratings, some demographic information, and even more recently, a publisher can look at hype within its market about a show that's currently airing in Japan. But when it comes to simulcasting and streaming, you don't have that luxury, so it's a lot harder to pick properties to attempt to license. Different U.S. publishers treat this differently, between Crunchyroll, Sentai, Funimation, etc.
Crunchyroll doesn't have means to distribute and produce physical media like Funimation does, while Funimation often relies on other streaming services to handle it's licenses for streaming. The major change here is that it's harder to gauge which shows to license because it's done before the show even airs in Japan. The upside is that the Japanese property holders don't have the ratings to hold over the heads of potential licenses.
The other thing that article notes is that this is all a work in progress and it's still a very new paradigm for the Japanese studios and rights holders.

I won't pretend to quote statistics or claim I'm anything other than a viewer of anime... but I will say this:
For all forms of media (books, software, music, movies, etc.) you can historically see (and again, it's anecdotal) an upward trend of popularity as things shift from fringe-trend to main-trend.
If you need evidence, look at music.  Every hipster will tell you that as soon as mainstream gets a hold of that hidden gem band, it's as though it grew a tumor and they want nothing to do with it anymore.  However, the masses will consume it as quick as they can get it - why?  Because it's the 'now thing'.
Growing up, (now about to enter my 30's /sigh/) getting anime was hard!  I had a handful of amazing 'modern animes' that I cycled through (Akira, Ronin Warriors, a few Studio Ghibli, , Ghost in the Shell, and Ninja Scroll - my mom didn't know what she got me until it was too late ha!).  Growing up in the 80's it was hard to find anime as a kid!  Ronin Warriors was only on in the EARLY mornings (like 5-6AM) and the other stuff I had to get on gold ol' VHS.  As soon as stations started to realize that the drawing styles of our Eastern friends was popular among youth (1990's) we saw an EXPLOSION of anime in the US (and since Western media has a pretty decent influence in the World, we can also say we witnessed global change).  With shows like Pokemon (yes, that's an anime by MOST standards, not all!), and Digimon, and DragonballZ, etc. stations like Cartoon Network started to beam this once hidden cartoon style into the heads of children around the world.
To go even further with this... as an owner and operator of a website you generally don't want to build and maintain something that people don't want to visit/watch.  As such, someone mentioned "do you mean legal or illegal?"  Hell!  They go hand-in-hand... Sure there was always an illicit 'underground' to the anime world - buying bootleg will always be there.  But the sheer growth of websites (both illegal and legal) that stream content is directly positively correlated to the fan-base growth we've seen over the last 20 or so years.
As ANY market grows, so do the players, and the resources available to those players.  If no one want's bananas, then banana farmers go away.  If no one wants to watch anime, you'll see a decline in illegal and legal websites go down.  Since anime is on the rise, everyone wants to be part of the "gold rush".  Don't believe me?  Do a quick review of the number of animes produced each decade here.  Look at the 1960's, vs 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, and 2010's... it's crazy!  The turnover rate is insane.  It seems labels pick up manga randomly off the shelf, make a season of it, then if they don't become billionaires they drop it and move on to the next one.
So, yes.  You change how the masses get their anime and the studios would be crazy not to change their approaches to meet the demands of their market.

affected how big label anime studios and publishers, both domestic and
  foreign, market and distribute content

They may be losing money from the networks that would have picked them up (or the US studios, like Disney, that might have picked them up [talking about Disney/Studio Ghibli relationship here, certainly not VampireHunderD and Disney! ha!]).  But what they lose to the bootleg/underground they gain in merchandise/royalty sales.  My best guess is that the idea is to get people into the series, collect royalties off reruns/networks/merchandise and just rinse and repeat this process.  Otherwise, you end up a slave to your fan base like Dragonball, Naruto, or Bleach where they have "Fantom" screenings of movies where they don't make a lot of money.  For those anime's, the fan base isn't growing proportionally to the cost of development/deployment (I'm assuming here!!).  Whereas, those series with 12 episodes have a fan base that's probably significantly smaller, but still buy merchandise for years to come.  It's turned into a factory ~ spoken like a true hipster, right?
Q.E.D.


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Are there any anime that play out from a oranyan protagonist's point-of-view?
There are anime which I have already watched that narrates based on the male protagonist's point-of-view (not an oranyan). For example is Ano Hana, Clannad, etc. And a lot more anime with main tsundere female protagonist's point-of-view.
I'm looking for another example of anime (plot more inclined in romance) where the narration is inclined with a main oranyan ("male tsundere") male protagonist's point-of-view (since I think they are rare, or I just haven't watched that much anime series), not with the point-of-view of the female character who's in love with an oranyan male protagonist. Is there another example of this kind of anime (well, aside from Sora no Manimani if I'm correct that Saku was kind of oranyan)?

It's not an anime, but in Sadamoto's Neon Genesis Evangelion manga, Shinji is borderline tsundere.

@xjshiya could you be a bit more specific? Your question currently is a bit vague and not well scoped. Please consult this meta for the criteria list questions such as this one.

@Krazer, just an example of an anime where the protagonist is male and a tsundere. Tsundere characters are more inclined to female characters as I noticed.

Reasonably scoped? Debatable. Vague? Not at all.

Male 2. Protagonist 3. Tsundere. What is vague?

The meaning of "tsundere," for typically for females, and "oranyan," typically for males, might not  be immediately apparent to some. Typically male "oranyan" characters vary greatly over the course of the series, compared to female "tsundere" characters, so they are sometimes hard to identify these characteristics (Naoki Irie vs. Yuu Matsuura) if you haven't watch or read lot of anime and manga. So I think it's best to define the reasonable set of criteria when asking these types of list questions so we don't alienate potential new and novice users want to try answering questions like these.

The definition of Tsundere is very clear from the Wikipedia link he posted. If someone wants to answer the question, they should at least know how to apply the given definition. It is also not necessary that every question asked here should be answerable by everyone. If someone does not understand the question, they can answer some other question which they do understand, while someone else who understands the question will answer this one. We cannot bring down the level of questions just so that everyone can have a shot at it.

I don't agree that the definition of tsundere is objective, whether we are talking about males or females. There are indisputable cases, but there are also many which are far from obvious. Where does Hitagi from Bakemonogatari fall? Or Revy from Black Lagoon, Kyouko from Madoka, ChiChi from Dragon Ball, or Minatsu from Seitokai no Ichizon? All display some qualities of a tsundere character, while also a lot of qualities atypical for tsunderes. That's sort of besides the point though, since I expect a complete list would have over a hundred entries, which is not reasonably scoped by any means.

Off the top of my head, there's Nodame Cantabile's Chiaki is the main character and central POV character of the series. He narrates and often has the "internal" voice when he interacts with other people. He starts by being cold to Nodame then turns warm to her.
Although it's not from his POV, Li Syaoran from Card Captor Sakura (not the Syaoran from Tsubasa Chronicles) can be considered oranyan, by his treatment of Sakura.
Oh, and Naoki Irie from Itazura na Kiss, too.

All the while I though this anime evolves around Nodame's point-of-view (because of the title). I'll check it out.

@xjshiya it starts with Chiaki, at least the first season. Later seasons of it is more focused on them as a pair.

Why are the last two series included in this answer if the series is not even from their POV?

@atlantiza because this question was merged with another and the original question didn't ask for a POV


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Why does Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle use the same characters as Card Captor Sakura?
In the anime Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, the main characters have the same name and look like as the characters of Card Captor Sakura.
How was this why is that? Are they allowed to use to use other characters of other anime?

Wasn't those by the same author?

I don't know. And if it is, Is it possible to use characters of one anime in others without having any copyright issue?

It's cross-over. It's not possible to use other anime characters without copyright consent. And since Tsubasa Chronicle, Cardcaptor Sakura, XXXholic and a lot more are from CLAMP, then it is possible.

Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle are actually part of the same "multiverse", as well as xxxHolic. Clow Reed is a major character in both Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa, and other characters such as Yukito show up in more than one of them.
There are other crossovers between the different worlds, such as this:

Tsubasa Li is the son of Syaoran Li and Sakura Li. Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura gave her Star Wand to Sakura Li as the price to Yūko for Tsubasa to go to Clow Country. It is also stated that Tsubasa does not give Yūko his true name, (a counterpoint to Watanuki who gives both name and birthday), instead he uses his father's name, Syaoran Li

Also, according to ccs.wikia.com:

Since part of CLAMP's stated intention of xxxHolic was to unite their body of work into a single universe/multiverse, it seems quite likely that Yūko has a more than passing awareness of the events of Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Babylon, and X/1999, and that while she may not have visited Cephiro herself, she is almost certainly aware of its existence. In a special novel released in Japan about the origins of the two Mokonas, it was mentioned that Clow Reed and herself met the original Mokona of Cephiro (Magic Knight Rayearth) thus making it the model for building the two smaller Mokonas. One is black and one is white. The white one has a red gem and black one has blue gem.

Clamp is known for using crossover characters for all of their different mangas. Tsubasa and xxxHolic are the most closely tied, but there are major crossovers--such as Clow Reed--between Tsubasa and Cardcaptor Sakura.

Is it available to use other characters of other animes into your own without having copyright issues?

Of course. As long as you didn't sign over copyright as part of a distribution deal, you OWN the copyright, and can do whatever you want with the characters. Copyright can be deconstructed as "the right to copy", as in... "I have the right to copy these... you don't".

Why does Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle ha[ve] the same characters [as] Sakura Card Captor?

CLAMP is very fond of re-using characters. The boys from Clamp Campus Detectives show up in X/1999. The main characters from Tokyo Babylon show up there as well. xxxHolic and Tsubasa Chronicles characters cameo'd in each other's series. These are just the obvious ones I've seen.
Admittedly, I don't know of any other case where they simply AUd the main characters of one series into another one.

I didn't know that CLAMP re-used characters, that's new for me :). Thanks


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What character is Mio's doll from?
In K-ON!, Ritsu found a doll (belonging to Mio) of an old man who's almost bald with a huge nose.
If I'm not mistaken, it was shown when they were cleaning their club room.

(season 2, episode 2, 4:54)
Who is that old man doll? Was that doll based from a real person or from another anime or just a random creation from K-ON! itself?

This Japanese blog says it's a plush of "ウゴウゴルーガ" (Ugo Ugo Ru-ga).
I'm personally not familiar with the show, but the it strongly resembles おやじむし (Oyajimushi), which I think is an "insect father"? Whatever that means.
Searching further, this blog and this site agree.
Here's a picture of a plush doll that looks virtually identical, except for the nose being quite a bit longer.
And here's a Google search with multiple images for "おやじむし ウゴウゴルーガ" (Oyajimushi Ugo Ugo Ru-ga).
Among the images, there is one image from Amazon showing the manga where this character originates from:

The manga is titled おやじむしの人生 (人生いろいろウゴウゴ・ルーガ).

Good catch! And great answer!


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Why was Hiou and Kanae's meeting omitted in Skip Beat anime?
Skip Beat in manga and anime are closely identical, (meaning, what was shown in the manga was shown in the anime during the first part) until such time when Kanae met Hiou.
I watched the anime first before I read the manga so I was shocked at Hiou's appearance (since he was just shown in the ending of the anime).
What was covered in the anime was covered in the manga, except for Hiou and Kanae's meeting. In the anime, after Kyoko successfully finished her PV with Shou (Stage 19: The Last Ritual), the next episode (Stage 20: Invitation to the Moon) is where she was scouted for an upcoming drama.
While in the manga, Kanae and Hiou's meeting happened between those said anime episodes. Why was that part skipped or omitted in the anime?
Is there any particular reason for this or did the production decided to not to include it in the anime since Kanae and Hiou's meeting isn't that significant to the main plot?

A lot of things that are in the manga aren't shown in the anime, so they must have thought it wasn't important enough later on.
Usually the reason for this is that there isn't enough time for it in the stated amount of episodes given to the director. Or you could say that there isn't enough budget.
The Skip Beat anime series was also ended and not continued, probably because of lack of popularity or budget.
On myanimelist.net, a user asked the original director of the anime series if it would be continued. The director would like to but states that there has to be a big amount of popularity for the series to continue. This makes me conclude that apparently the anime wasn't popular enough, which is strange because the manga has a huge amount of followers. But usually a manga series has more readers than the anime has watchers, due to more chances for manga to be published than for anime.
Also on the wikipedia page for anime it says:

anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan
  (although less than manga)

This is also a reason why some manga series are continued while their anime counterpart is not.


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What equipment are made available to the players by Gantz?
Before a mission starts, the players are typically issued get a gun, a rifle, and a black suit, but later on, you see that some of the player wielding a blade. What other weapons, suits, or vehicles are made available to the players (including the ones unlocked by the 100-point menu)?

As you said, at the beginning, the players find the following:

Gantz Suit

Provides the wearer with incredible strength, speed, endurance, and the ability to jump very high, as well as land without problems
Provides the hunter with an almost impenetrable protection to his/her body, including the head

Controller

Used to track the targets, displaying the targets as well as fellow team mates on its screen

X-Gun

Fires until it hits something, then explodes inside the target after a delay

X-Shotgun

Meant for longer range, has higher accuracy, and a sniper scope

Y-Gun

Has the same lock-on capabilities of the X-Gun, but rather than fire out an explosive payload, it instead launches three "laser anchors" connected by ropes

Other non-100-point items are:

Gantz Sword

Seen scattered amongst the floor in the same room as the Monobikes
Has an incredibly sharp blade that extends from the hilt without loss of durability

Gantz Bike

Made its first appearance before the start of the Dinosaur mission
A type of monowheel, with a seat for a driver and a rider, its own radar, and the ability to go into stealth mode

100-point items are:

Z-Gun (sometimes referred to by fans as H-Gun)

Applies severe gravitational force in a circular area and forces everything within range of the shot to slam into the ground or be flattened

Hard suit

Is far stronger and much more resistant than the normal Gantz suit
Has a built in X-ray scanner, a beam weapon that fires out of its palms, and sharp swords protruding out from the back of the elbows
Completely conceals the body of the wearer

Flying Gantz Bike

Similar to a Gantz Bike with an added flying ring

Gantz Mech

A building-sized robot controlled by a hunter on a modified flying Gantz bike

Do you think you can add what does each artifact does? @kuwaly

I added it to my answer.


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What is the "secret of this world" that the mysterious letters to Rin refer to?
In various episodes, Rin receives mysterious letters attached to Lennon (レノン), a white kitten, offering to reveal the "secret" of this world, in return for completing certain tasks.
Who is sending these letters?
What is the "secret" these letters are referring to?

I haven't played the visual novel for a long time (8-10 months) but I'll try to answer as precisely as I can.
This "secret of the world" is the key of the anime/visual novel as you may already have noticed.
Warning, spoilers below
The secret of the world is revealed during Refrain in the visual novel, which is unlocked once you have completed all the other routes (including Rin2, which is basically Rin's route with a choice you can only choose when all the others routes (excluding Refrain of course) are completed, i.e {Komari, Kud, Kurugaya, Haruka, Mio, Rin1} in whatever order, then Rin2, and finally Refrain.
In refrain,

 you play as Riki who tries to gather Little Busters! "core" members (Rin, Masato, Kengo, Kyousuke) as when they were children to discover finally what the "secret of the world" you've heard of is about. In the last scene of Refrain, Kyousuke reveals that during the class trip, the car in which the Little Busters! members were fell from a cliff and as Riki and Rin were not ready to continue their life alone (they were protected by Kengo and Masato), the other members created an "artificial world" that is basically the first semester repeating again and again, freezing the "real world" in which they are all severely injured. Once Riki and Rin are strong enough to continue their life, the world that was created will disappear, with all the members disappearing one by one until they are the only ones left (you can search "Refrain last scene" on Youtube to see what it looks like). Of course it's Key so you'll get a happy end where Riki and Rin will do a good job and save all of them later.

To answer your second question, although I think you've already guessed it if you read the spoiler above, the culprit is

Kyousuke ; Riki will see him attaching a letter to Lennon's tail, but I'm not sure when exactly, it was during Rin2 or Refrain

Hope that'll answer your questions :)


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How are the Tenchi timelines related?
Between Muyo, Universe, GXP, and Ryo-ohki, I'm thoroughly confused. Sometimes Tenchi series seem to be related (Ryo-ohki and Universe) and sometimes not (GXP). What are all the Tenchi series, are they related, and if they are, how?

This is a bit complicated. The links are to MAL, but I've found that different databases index these very differently. Sources are mostly in the links, but I had to reference Wikipedia and Tenchi Muyo Wiki as well.

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki is the original OVA series, which was brought to the US simply as Tenchi Muyo (I don't know about other countries). This was adapted into a manga series. Simultaneously the OVA series got a special OVA and then another season. After that there's a special for the second season of the OVA. There's a further third season, which ends the story, and there's a sort of alternate ending special Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki 3 Plus 1 as well. There's also a sequel manga series which covers some more events, Shin Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki. Between both manga series, they mostly cover the first two OVA series, and are technically non-canon, though the changes are mostly minor changes.
In addition there are many things in this timeline which are not related to the main story. There's a spinoff manga series about Sasami, Tenchi Muyo! Sasami Stories.  There's also a special for Mihoshi's back-story in this continuity. Tenchi Muyo! GXP also falls in this continuity, 1 year after the ending of the OVA series. The Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari anime takes place 15 years after GXP, and has both a manga and a light novel version. There's also a radio drama (hence no MAL link), Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki Manatsu no Carnival, which presumably falls in this continuity, but I have not listened to it.
The second Tenchi movie, Tenchi Muyo! Manatsu no Eve is sort of separate from everything else. It's technically not placed in the Ryo-Ohki continuity, but a separate, closely-related continuity. Sites disagree on this, but Tenchi Muyo Wiki has the most convincing argument, namely that Kiyone doesn't appear in the Ryo-Ohki continuity, but does in the movie.

Tenchi Universe is on a separate timeline, but is loosely based on the original season of the OVAs. This is a 26-episode TV series. The first film Tenchi Muyo! in Love is a sequel to this series. The third film, Tenchi Muyo! in Love 2 is a sequel to the first film. This film has a manga adaptation.

Tenchi in Tokyo is a 26-episode anime series with its own continuity. The only other things in this continuity are the related specials.

There are a bunch of other spin-offs, mostly with their own continuities. Dual Parallel! Trouble is an alternate continuity, except with mostly different characters. It has a sequel of short episodes. There's also the Pretty Sammy series, which have Sasami as a magical girl and are independent of everything else. There's a 3-episode OVA for Pretty Sammy. There's also a 26-episode TV series with short specials, which in English is known as Magical Project S. This is a different continuity from the original Pretty Sammy OVA series. A third Pretty Sammy series is Sasami: Mahou Shoujo Club, but this is now following Iwakura Sasami, a new character, yet again in an alternate continuity, and it's very much removed from the original Tenchi series. It also has a sequel. Battle Programmer Shirase shares the character of Misao Amano with Pretty Sammy (where she has the alter-ego Pixy Misa), who also makes a cameo in Dual.
In addition, there's an RPG video game, which is sort-of based on the Ryo-Ohki continuity. There's also an English-language RPG based on the Ryo-Ohki continuity published by Guardians of Order. I have not played either so I don't know how closely they are related to the original series.

To the best of my knowledge, that's everything major that's been released to date. If I've missed anything I'll be happy to add it.

Call me blind but I don't see you mentioning No Need for Tenchi  manga, which is placed in the OVA timeline. Also 4th OVA and Ai! Tenchi Muyo could be mentioned as an update to this answer. Apart from that your answer puts an order into confusing world of Tenchi franchises :)

A breakdown
There are 3 major timelines in Tenchi Muyo!. There is the OVA/Ryo-ohki timeline, the Universe timeline, and the Tokyo timeline.
The OVA/Ryo-ohki timeline is the original timeline released, and is considered the primary canon story. It contains 3 OVAs and 2 OVA specials (which make up 26 episodes of Tenchi Muyo!, the one that aired in America). Also in this timeline is Tenchi Muyo! GXP, and the newer series, Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar.
The Universe timeline consists mainly of Tenchi Muyo! Universe which began as a story based off of the first 6 episodes (the first OVA) of the Ryo-ohki timeline. However,  it branched into it's own story, and got two movies, Tenchi Muyo! Tenchi in Love and Tenchi Muyo! Tenchi in Love 2, also known as Tenchi Forever!.
The final major timeline is the Tokyo timeline, which is where the series Tenchi in Tokyo! fits in. It is really on it's own there, but was originally planned to be an extension on the Universe timeline[source]
From there, there are a few spin off timelines. The first and still sort of canon one is the Pretty Sasami timeline, which has many ties to original characters from the series. Note that each of the series in the Pretty Sasami timeline is very related, but in its own continuity. And then there are non-canon ones like Sasami: Magical Girls Club.
Overall, this is a series that has a lot of conflicting canon without really having anything set.

The image agrees with my post, except that Pretty Sammy OVA and Magical Project S are in different continuities according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Girl_Pretty_Sammy

@LoganM Ah, good catch, I missed that. I'll update the image.

But how come No Need for Tenchi is being considered as non canon?. It heavily relies on 1st and 2nd OVA.

Also this should be updated with information about 4th OVA, which apprently comes after GXP in the OVA timeline. And Ai! Tenchi Muyo too :)


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Is Leonard a Whispered?
Spoilers for FMP The Second Raid
Is Leonard a Whispered like

 his twin sister Tessa? If so, do we know his specialty? If not, how did he become the leader of the opposition?

I think some of this is not revealed in TSR, so I've spoilered it.

 Yes, he is a Whispered. Not only that, he exceeds his sister's abilities both physically and mentally, and he used his knowledge to produce Arm Slaves for Amalgam. I don't think we know for sure how/why he became the leader of the opposition, though it's implied at some point that primarily he wanted more freedom.

Source: Wiki

Leonard Testarossa is indeed a Whispered.

 His specialty is Arm Slave design. He is the one who designed the miniature AS Alastor units and his own personal AS, Belial. Though not explicitly stated it's very likely he designed the Codarl (aka Venom), Behemoth, and Eligor as well. His ultimate goal is to change history to create his own ideal world, a world without pain and suffering. In this ideal world, the Whispered would not exist. Whispered children like him would not be captured and tortured as the Black Technology would not exist, wars would not exist, all the people that would have died would now be alive. He believes all the suffering he causes to get there does not matter, since it would not exist in the world he wants to create.

Amalgam's main goal is to consolidate the power of the Whispered. The power hierarchy structure of Amalgam is akin to that of a web, making it impossible to topple, but easy to subvert.

 Leonard is ultimately a traitor to the goal of the organization and use their resources to further his goal. He goes about doing this by taking out the higher ranking members of Amalgam, so that all the resources will come to be under his control. He's able to use charisma to win many people over to his side (like Kalinin). Among his goals, he wants a list of all the people involved in Amalgam, the ones who allowed it to turn into a malicious organization that it is now, so that they could be taken care of in the creation of the ideal world.


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How popular is One Piece in Japan?
It is a given that One Piece is immensely popular in Japan, but is there any statistical data indicating the scale of its popular it is (historically, with respect to other popular series) in Japan?
Note that I am NOT asking "What makes One Piece so popular (in Japan)?"

The wikipedia article about One Piece has some interesting statistics. According to it, in 2008 Once Piece became the highest-circulated manga series (whatever that means), achieving a circulation of 5,956,540, according to this page. To compare: Naruto, which had the second place, had a circulation of 4,261,054.
In 2010 it was announced that 260 millions of manga volumes had been sold, and Volume 61 set a record as the highest initial print run of any book in Japan in history, with 3.8 million copies. If you think about it, it's huge. It even beats Harry Potter's sale rates.
It is also mentioned that One Piece is the best-selling series of all time in manga history, exceeding 270 million volumes sold as of February 2012.

Just to compare (although it may not be an exact analogy), here is the list of the most selling book series in history.
You can find some more infomation and numbers in the "reception" part of the article.


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Does "The Lost Canvas" OVA have a sequel?
I watched the two OVAs of "The Lost Canvas" (26 episodes at total). But the story didn't end. Is there a sequel of this OVA series? If yes, can you please name them?

Saint Seiya is a series to sell toys, mangas and other animes. So the hype is part of producer's intention to hold watchers. The canon is the way they maintain the property of the hyped object and what represents a risk for the producers is out of canon. XD

According to My Anime List, the sequel to the Lost Canvas OVAs is Saint Seiya's TV series. Also, this image of the timeline seems to back up that claim, though I don't know who created the image.

The original Saint Seiya series is not the actual continuation nor is The Lost Canvas the prequel to it, it is a spin-off of the original series, it's posed on an alternative timeline from the actual continuation to the original series which is Saint Seiya: The Next Dimension.
If you want to continue that specific spin-off, you should read the manga and gaidens it has.

I suggest you read Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas in the manga version because it has much more details about the sequel.
There are 25 volumes of the manga version, and the end of the last volume also talks about 243 years later that continue to Saint Seiya.

They never ended the anime run of Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas due to the low ratings in Japan.
There have been multiple requests from the fans, for them to finish The Lost Canvas anime, but they have been ignored.
You could read the manga.


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What are the major factions and players on the Magic and the Science side?
There are various factions that exist on both the Magic and Science side, but what are the most prominent ones and who are their most well-known members?

This is tough to answer. Do you want to know only for the anime? Or also for the Novel? Also, the "major factions" switch from arc to arc. The only constant thing really is Touma (although the anime might make it seem like the Anglican Church is involved all the time, which is not the case).

I'd like as complete of a list as possible, just the anime is fine, but bonus points if you can include the light novel factions, too. By major factions I probably mean prevalent and currently active factions in the story, like the Board of Directors, Anglican and Roman Orthodox Church, ITEM, SCHOOL, and Skill Out.

Here is a generalized list of the people and faction in both the anime and manga continuity (including a bit from the light novels).
Magic Side
Roman Catholic Church

Matthai Reese, Pope
Biagio Busoni, Bishop
Ridovia Lorenzetti, Mardi Gras

# God's Right Seat

Fiamma of the Right
Acqua of the Back/William Orwell, Flere210 (Saint)
Vento of the Front
Terra of the Left

Russian Orthodox Church

Nikolai Tolstoy, Archbishop

# Annihilatus

Vasilisa, Head of Annihilatus
Sasha Kreutzev

Anglican Church

Laura Stewart, Archbishop
Orsola Aquinas

# The Church of Necessary Evil (Necessarius)

Kaori Kanzaki, Salvare000 (Saint)
Stiyl Magnus, Fortis931
Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Dedicatus545
Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Fallere825
Sherry Cromwell, Intimus115

# (Roman Catholic, London Branch) Agnese Forces

Agnese Sanctis, Leader
Angelene
Lucia

# Amakusa-Style Remix of Church

Kaori Kanzaki, Pontiff/Priestess
Tatemiya Saiji, Substitute Supreme Pontiff
Itsuwa
Uragami

Knights of England

"Knight Leader", Leader

British Royal Family

Elizard, Queen of England
Riméa, Princess of England (Oldest)
Carissa, Princess of England (Second-Oldest)
Villian, Princess of England (Youngest)
Silvia, Head Maid of the Royal Family (Saint)

Mercenarys

Oriana Thomson, Basis104

Science Side
Board of Directors

Aleister Crowley, General Superintendent
Kaizumi Tsugutoshi, Chairman
Oyafune Monaka, Chairwoman
Shiokishi, Chairman
Thomas Platinaburg, Chairman
Kumokawa Seria, Advisor

Hound Dog

Kihara Amata, Commander

Misaka Network

Misaka Imouto, Subject No. 10032
Last Order, Subject No. 20001

A Certain Magical High School

Kamijou Touma, Imagine Breaker (Level 0)
Himegami Aisa, Deep Blood (Gemstone)
Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Auto-Rebirth (Level 0)
Aogami Pierce
Tsukuyomi Komoe, Chemistry Teacher
Oyafune Suama, Math Teacher
Yomikawa Aiho, P.E. Teacher

Tokiwadai Middle School

Misaka Mikoto, Electromaster (Level 5 Esper, No. 3)
Shirai Kuroko, Teleporter (Level 4)
Shokuhou Misaki, The Queen of Tokiwadai, Mental Out (Level 5 Esper, No. 5)
Kongou Mitsuko, Aero Hand (Level 4)
Wannai Kinuho, Hydro Hand (Level 3)
Awatsuki Maaya, Float Dial (Level 3)

Sakugawa Middle School

Uiharu Kazari, Thermal Hand (Level 1)
Saten Ruiko, Aero Hand (Level 0)

SCHOOL

Kakine Teitoku, Dark Matter (Level 5 Esper, No. 2) (Awakened)
"Girl in the Dress", Measure Heart (Level ?)
"Boy with Goggles"

GROUP

Accelerator, Vector Change (Level 5 Esper, No. 1) (Awakened)
Tsuchimikado Motoharu
Musujime Awaki, Move Point (Level 4)
Etzali

ITEM

Mugino Shizuri, Meltdowner (Level 5 Esper, No. 4)
Takitsubo Rikou, AIM Stalker (Level 4)
Kinuhata Saiai, Offense Armor (Level 4)
Hamazura Shiage, Grunt, Chaffeur, and Informant

MEMBER

"Professor", Leader
Baba Yoshio
Xochitl
Saraku, Kill Point (Level ?)

BLOCK

Saku Tatsuhiko, Leader
Teshio Megumi

Judgement

Konori Mii, 177th Branch Office Chief, Clairvoyance (Level 3)
Shirai Kuroko
Uiharu Kazari

Skill Out

Hattori Hanzou, Leader (Temporary)

# Big Spider

Kurozuma Wataru, Founder, Former Leader
Hebitani Tsuguo, Second Leader

Anti-Skill

Yomikawa Aiho, Lieutenant, Branch 73
Tessou Tsuzuri
Saigou Ryouta

Kihara Family

Kihara Gensei
Therestina Kihara Lifeline, (Former) Captain of MAR
Kihara Amata, Leader of Hound Dog

Imaginary Number District

Kazakiri Hyouka, Counter Stop

Unaffiliated

Sogiita Gunha, Attack Crash (Level 5 Esper, No. 7) (Gemstone)

Other Side

Gabriel, Archangel
Aiwass, DRAGON


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Why are the male love-interests of shoujo often portrayed to be top scorers?
In shoujo anime and manga such as Vampire Knight, Special A, and Kaichou wa Maid-sama, the male love interests (or Zero in the case of Vampire Knight) are shown to be top scorers in the class. Is there a known reason for this to be so common?

Isn't this more of a societal thing than an anime thing? Some people are interested in those with good looks; some people are interested in those with good brains.

Maybe. I guess I'm wondering why in anime it is generally that specifically that is selected towards.

Typically, the main interest has both good brains and good looks. Is it that odd to think that a teenage girl would go after someone both physically attractive and mentally capable?

In stories—regardless of the medium—the main characters invariably have at least one stellar or likeable quality. They might be really smart (id est, top scorers), highly talented, very popular, really funny, or simply very hard-working. If a protagonist does not have such a quality, s/he will develop it as the story goes along. This is simply the way feel-good story structures work and shoujo and shounen are all about feeling good.
Shoujo's target audience is girls and therefore the male protagonists are often one or more of rich, good-looking, successful, talented, funny, etc., etc.; all qualities that girls typically like in boys. They are not always top-scorers: for e.g., in Kimi ni Todoke, it is Sadako who is specifically shown to be really smart while Kazehaya is more of the popular nice guy, or IOW, he is based off a different archetype. You won't normally find the female lead falling for a loser male in shoujo; that is more likely to happen only in josei.
Asian cultures do tend to place more importance on academics than Western cultures. I expect that the fact that there is also no real equivalent to anime and manga which are set in schools is also a factor on why traits such as academic excellence don't register as much. That said, novels such as Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables do use academic performance as a character attribute or plot point. It is no surprise that Montgomery's book has been adapted into an anime, Akage no Anne.

It is also worth noting that in a 2009 survey, women care about the education of their significant others about 3x more than men, and concerning the amount of money they make, more than 7x more than men.


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How do souls age in Soul Society?
How do souls age in Soul Society?

 People cannot die of old age resulting in the Captain Commander keeping his position for a thousand years.

There are some souls who look like kids and some who are adults.  In the manga, the makers flashbacked into the past of the Captian Commander showing that he had black hair instead of looking like what he was then.  Also, when Ichigo left the Precipice World he aged what looked like a couple years.
So how do souls age in Bleach?

Do you mean "what makes souls age?" or "how quickly do they age?" or something entirely different? It's a little bit vague in your question.

How quickly they age

The only explanation I can find is on bleach.wikia.com, which says:

One never gets hungry (if she or he doesn't have spiritual powers) and aging is slowed to a great extent, with lifespans of 2000 or more years not being unheard of, though such ages are limited to Shinigami or other Soul Society dwellers with high spiritual power.

There is also an explanation on http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/BleachSoulSociety that essentially says that it is really inconsistent within the show and that there are a number of different theories, including that characters age inversely proportional to the amount of spiritual power that they use and that at some point aging just stops.
To summarize, there doesn't seem to be a clear explanation in-universe, but the aging is slower than usual, with much longer life-spans than regular humans.

Souls without spirit power do not age in soul society. They also don't hunger and there is no evidence they are doing anything but waiting for the allotted time they must spend in Soul Society to pass before they are reborn.
In Chapter 0, the pilot chapter of Bleach that was later reprinted in Book of SOULS, the "magic number" was 80 years. But Kubo has not stated how many years a soul must spend in Soul Society in the proper Bleach storyline.
Anyway, that aside, the point is that Rukia and Renji aged, because they had spiritual power. It was also why they could become hungry and could become Shinigami. "Shinigami" can and do age. They also give birth, die of old age and basically do everything humans do. Except that their lifespan is usually measured in hundreds of years and not decades.

this is years late - but since it was the first google search result for my questions - I figured this answer might help someone else.
wikia link

If you're not suppost to age in the soul society, how does rukia and renji grow up from kids in "hanging dog"?

Souls without spirit power do not age in soul society. They also don't hunger and there is no evidence they are doing anything but waiting for the allotted time they must spend in Soul Society to pass before they are reborn.
In Chapter 0, the pilot chapter of Bleach that was later reprinted in Book of SOULS, the "magic number" was 80 years. But Kubo has not stated how many years a soul must spend in Soul Society in the proper Bleach storyline.
Anyway, that aside, the point is that Rukia and Renji aged, because they had spiritual power. It was also why they could become hungry and could become Shinigami. "Shinigami" can and do age. They also give birth, die of old age and basically do everything humans do. Except that their lifespan is usually measured in hundreds of years and not decades.

We prefer a summary when you link an external source. There's no assurance that it'll stay up there in its current state.


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How strong are the Marine Admirals?
Since the Navy mainly determines power through bounty.  They seem strong but Whitebeard was able to fight all three admirals at one.  Also the Commanders of Whitebeard were on par with the Admirals. So how strong are the Admirals?  How much bounty would they get if they got one?

Bounty isn't related to power. It's related to the threat the person offers to the World Government. Look at young Robin or Blackbeard. Their bounties don't match their power at all. Iirc they marines even mention this when talking about Luffy's 2nd(?) bounty. Also after a while they don't bother increasing the bounty anymore, since it doesn't really serve a point. Whether it be 700 mil or 500 mil, the bounty hunters will probably even be less likely to hunt the 700 mil pirate.

The Navy actually doesn't determine bounty based entirely on power, they also base it on how badly they want the particular guy caught.
Considering how DonFlamingo's bounty was 340 million beli, and he was a pretty big deal,  It appears that the marines start leveling out the bounties around the 300-400 million range.
That taken into account, If the admirals were pirates, their bounties would likely be in the 300 million range.
As far as power goes (and power is not that quantifiable in one piece), they're all in the top league, and so far, the only character who was formally introduced who can be said to have a very clear advantage over the admirals is Whitebeard, and he's dead.
the Other Yonko are very likely to be stronger than any particular admiral, but that's not necessarily a concrete rule, and we yet to have a good measure of their power.

yes, but bounty also reflects on the power of the person.  You hardly would see a person with a bounty of 10 million bounty defeat a person with 100 million bounty, with the exceptions new devil fruit powers or a rookie.

@Blue  Blackbeard had a bounty of 0, due mostly to laying low

as I said in the comment, new devil fruit power.  Blackbeard was a nobody until he ate the yami yami fruit.

@Blue Except he was able to leave a scar on Shanks's face and get away with it.  He wasn't a nobody because he was week.  He was a nobody because he didn't make waves.

That was because of a sneak attack.  Shanks said that he let his guard down at that time too.

Sorry for very late comment but I must say this. Blackbeard is strong even without devil fruit, even with a sneak attack, one can not easily attack Shanks if he's that weak. Also, ace said himself that Blackbeard could fill the position for commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates. It mean at least he's fully capable to do so, and on same strength with other commanders, and he can do that without his devil fruit.

Shanks actually specifically said "It wasn't a fluke, I was being serious and he still left this scar."

All of the Admirals are likely 1 step below the Four Emperors. I think it would be realistic to say that if Akainu was a pirate, he´d probably be around the 500-700 million range.
Aokiji is the least hostile and probably the weakest too, though it´s hard to say how they compare against each other.
Akainu is the most hostile and potentially the strongest of them. Lava is one of the most ridiculous powers imaginable, being both heavy enough to choke out fire and gas/air and still liquid, oh and it´s at least 1000 degrees Celsius as well.
What I want to say though is that I think Kizaru is the strongest of the Admirals. Think about this for a moment. You can counter ice with fire and other heat-related things or things that can´t be frozen. How the hell do you counter light? Light moves at 300 thousand kilometers a second (and therefore hits with that force too, making Kizaru potentially the physically strongest character in the One Piece world), is intangible, can bounce off of things, can cut and pierce things in the form of a laser. That´s probably the most overpowered possibly Devil Fruit power.
To put it shortly, while they aren´t the most powerful characters in the series, the Straw Hats probably still don´t stand a chance against one and they are pretty close to the top.

I actually think that the most powerful devil fruit is the Phoenix Phoenix fruit but whatever.

Marco´s Phoenix Fruit is incredibly powerful when it comes to defense but it has no killing power whatsoever. Kizaru is just as immortal as Marco but with the added benefit of retarded amounts of destructive power.

kizaru's pika pika no mi can be trolled easily by yami yami no mi. black hole doesn't let light to escape. Also kizaru was blocked easily by Rayleigh, ben beckman by simple haki.

You know how in some stories there are some characters who are like, god-like overpowered? Thats how the admirals are. When luffy was fighting aokiji, the latter was barely using his full power and easily owned him. Its difficult to hit them since they can turn into their own element (except by using sea stone or haki), but the element akainu turns into probably makes him more dangerous. If you touch ice, part of you will freeze. Light, nothing will happen. Magma? your body will evaporate and die. I'd say Aokiji's powers are more accurate, Akainu's are more destructive, while Kizaru is a combination of both, but I think he kinda balances. I'd say currently in one piece they're all equal. Sure, it did take 10 days for Akainu to beat Aokiji, but with that much time they barely seemed to have been outmatched.


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How can alchemy be used in another dimension?
At one point, Ed, Al, and Ling end up in a battle involving Gluttony. Then,

 Ed, Ling, and Envy are swallowed by Gluttony, which lands them in another dimension.

It is also stated more than once that alchemists use the energy from the movement of the tectonic plates of the Earth's crust (though this is not entirely accurate, the inaccuracy is irrelevant for the purpose of this question). This energy would not be present on another planet, much less in another dimension.

 In order to escape from this alternate dimension, Ed performs human transmutation. He uses Envy's philosopher's stone to do so, meaning that he would not require this energy. However, prior to finding Envy, Ed uses alchemy to fashion a cooking pot (evidenced by the transmutation marks on the pot). He also uses it to turn the iron from the blood into a weapon.

This should not be possible; there should be no energy for the use of alchemy in that dimension. Is this an oversight by the writer(s), or is there some explanation?

It is later revealed that

 The energy source for Amestrian alchemy is human souls, just like how philosopher's stones are made and used.

Gluttony was meant to host a philosopher's stone in his body formed from the red water and humans he consumed, so

 I would say that there is vast alchemical fuel in his "stomach", or whatever you call that alternate dimension that consumed objects are transported to.

Hence, alchemy should be possible in that dimension.

That's not completely true, though. Yes, your first spoiler point is correct, however that energy was still only present in Amestris. Gluttony's body, and hence his stone, is still only present in the original dimension. (Darn, this is hard without inline comment spoiler tags. xD)

Since the rules governing Anime Physics are so malleable, we could simply reason that Gluttony was an "energy conduit" from the real world to the stomach dimension...

That is somewhat true, and I suspect the writer(s) just overlooked it as commonplace alchemy and neglected their dimensional change. I'm not sure there's an answer to this, so I'd like to leave it open to get some speculation or sourced info (for a while) before I accept an answer.

The energy for normal transmutation is NOT from human souls, otherwise anyone would be able to use it like a philosopher's stone. The energy does come from the earth, the network of philosopher's stones are there as a layer between. Father was shown to block alchemy by not allowing energy from below the surface pass through it.

From an FMA wiki article about Gluttony:

...Envy, Ling, and Ed burst out from Gluttony's stomach after Ed used Envy's Philosopher's Stone to perform a reverse human transmutation on himself to reopen Gluttony's gate.

As I said in the second spoiler of my question, I understand how this alchemy is performed. The parts I did not understand were how he could make the cooking pot and weapon.