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p1atdev

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stackexchanges

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[ { "body": "\n\nIMO, this is simply the artist accounting for or playing with the lighting. In\nthe first image, the character is silhouetted against the sun. This is pretty\nmuch how it would look in real life if somebody were to come directly between\nyou and the sun.\n\nThe second image is a sunrise/sunset twilight shot.\n\nThe rest are a mixture of cloudy, smoky, and sunny backgrounds. The flashy\nlights are the sun peeping through clouds, reflecting off stuff, and so on.\nWhere there's sun, there's shadow too.\n\nI don't see any censorship or anything else similarly irregular.\n\n", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T05:37:10.067", "id": "5103", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T06:14:43.477", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-05T06:14:43.477", "last_editor_user_id": "247", "owner_user_id": "247", "parent_id": "5092", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nUpon thinking about this again, I decided to do some research into this\nphenomenon. You correctly identify that there is some unusual darkening of\nscenes in TV broadcast anime that is not present in Blu-Ray releases. It looks\nlike you are also correct that this has something to do with laws1 requiring\nbroadcasters to avoid airing content that may cause seizures in people who\nsuffer from photosensitive epilepsy (though I don't think you could reasonably\nconstrue this as \"censorship\").\n\nAs you probably know, the issue of photosensitive epilepsy became prominent\nfollowing the airing of the Pokemon episode Electric Soldier Porygon back in\n1997. For more about this, see this article on Bulbagarden: [Japanese Episode\n038](http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/comparisons/kanto/ep038.html).\n\nThat was then; nowadays, all major broadcasting companies impose restrictions\non broadcast television as a sort of countermeasure to epilepsy.2 For example,\n[a page on TV Tokyo's website](http://www.tv-\ntokyo.co.jp/main/yoriyoi/eizoukouka.html) says the following:\n\n> **Guidelines for the production of anime/etc. with regard to the effects of\n> video**\n>\n> As part of TV Tokyo's efforts to do everything possible to avoid exposing\n> viewers to dangerous stimuli, we have developed the following guidelines. By\n> producing and broadcasting anime in accordance with these guidelines, risk\n> associated with viewing television can be almost entirely eliminated.\n>\n> 1. Avoid displaying more than one flash of light per one-third of a second\n> (8 frames on film, 10 frames on TV).\n>\n> 2. Since abrupt scene changes and rapid motion produce the same effects\n> [as in (1.)], avoid using these techniques more than once per one-third of a\n> second.\n>\n> 3. Flashes of light and scene changes mostly or entirely in red are\n> dangerous. Scenes of equal brightness using colors other than red are\n> acceptable.\n>\n> 4. Patterns with regions of differing brightness (e.g. stripes, spirals)\n> should, in general, be avoided.\n>\n>\n\nIt seems to be the case that, rather than producing anime that meets these\nguidelines, anime is produced however the production studio wants it, and then\npost-processed for TV broadcast by darkening bright scenes and (temporally)\nsmearing out flashing.\n\nAs to why you don't see the same alterations on Blu-ray: Blu-ray is not a\nbroadcast medium, and so the laws pertaining to the nature of broadcast\ntelevision do not apply. If you think about it, that makes sense - it isn't\nreally possible to inadvertently view a Blu-Ray, whereas it certainly is\npossible to inadvertently watch broadcast television, and so the government\nsteps in to protect viewers in the latter case but not the former.\n\n* * *\n\n1 I am not actually sure whether the practices I have described here are\nbacked by force of law, or whether they are just voluntarily undertaken by\nbroadcasting corporations.\n\n2 These restrictions are most commonly relevant for animated television, since\nlive-action television typically won't contain the sort of flashing patterns\nthat trigger seizures (since the real world itself typically doesn't either).\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-27T14:44:43.273", "id": "5334", "last_activity_date": "2014-12-20T09:29:39.767", "last_edit_date": "2014-12-20T09:29:39.767", "last_editor_user_id": "1908", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5092", "post_type": "answer", "score": 24 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe closest thing you can probably find to something like Nielsen is [Video\nResearch](http://www.videor.co.jp/data/ratedata/top10.htm#anime). It's in\nJapanese (of course) but google translate does pretty well with the anime\ntitles.\n\nAlso, there is [this site](http://www.geocities.jp/animesityouritu/) which\nlists historical ratings that go back to 2000.\n\nAs for anime movies, DVD/BD rankings, there's\n[Oricon](http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T00:36:17.463", "id": "5098", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T00:36:17.463", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5095", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThat's [Histoire](http://hyperdimensionneptunia.wikia.com/wiki/Histoire) from\n[_Hyper Dimension\nNeptunia_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdimension_Neptunia) (the game).\nThis particular picture is from Mk 2 when she's reminiscing about the past\nwith the Mascots after all the CPUs have been freed.\n\nIn the original game, she's the Tome that allows the world to be changed, but\nArfoire (pronounced as \"R-4\") locked her away. In Mk 2, she is the Oracle of\nPlaneptune and the one who sends IF and Compa to rescue the CPUs and Nepgear\nwith the shareacite; however, there's only enough power to free Napgear.\n\nShe's also in\n[_V_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdimension_Neptunia_Victory); however,\nI have yet to play that. In it, she's a child as most of _V_ is set in an\nalternate past.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T02:23:32.287", "id": "5100", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T02:31:10.753", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-05T02:31:10.753", "last_editor_user_id": "274", "owner_user_id": "1587", "parent_id": "5099", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThat looks like \"[Naoto\nFuyumine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dogs:_Bullets_%26_Carnage_characters#Naoto_Fuyumine)\"\nfrom [Dogs](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=4338),\nwhich has a manga and anime.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T03:33:05.343", "id": "5102", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T03:33:05.343", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5101", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nBlack Keys are a type of conceptual weapons (albeit weak), called Keys of\nProvidence. They are essentially charms used by agents of the Church to\nexorcise demons. They are meant to bind and/or seal spiritual phenomena (e.g.\nVampires hunted by the Church), rather than hurt them.\n\nThe [Type-Moon Wiki](http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Church#Black_Keys) notes\nthat:\n\n> If they hit the shadow of a target, the target will be unable to move their\n> body, leaving them to the mercy of the black key's wielder. It could also be\n> used to track down and seal or injure a target until its wielder tells it to\n> stop doing so, or unless it is destroyed or neutralized by an outside force.\n\nIt's been noted that they can take the form of many types weapons, but are\nusually in the form of long, rapier-like swords or spears, which they are\ngenerally thrown as a dagger or used to stab opponents. Ciel-senpai and\nKotomine Kirei are notable wields of these weapons.\n\n[Sacraments](http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Magic_Spells#Sacraments_2),\nwhich are basically spell-sigils, can be engraved in Black Keys to give them\ndifferent effects.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T15:38:46.593", "id": "5108", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T15:38:46.593", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5104", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n\n\nIt's a show called [Jewelpet\nTwinkle](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=11285).\n\n> In Jewel Land, Jewelpets, creatures who has the natural ability to use magic\n> lived in harmony with the Witches, attending the Magic Academy to learn to\n> use magic with their Jewel Eyes. However for Ruby, a white Japanese Hare\n> whose magic sometimes fail, is appointed to go to the Human World to search\n> for her partner. But when she used the card the magicians gave her, she was\n> sent to the Human World by accident. In the Human World, A girl named Akari\n> Sakura met her on the beach on her way to school. At first, Akari can't\n> understand her due to her Jewel Land Language until Ruby took a special\n> candy so she could speak and understand human language. As the day passes,\n> Ruby knew about her problems and later apologized. A Jewel Charm appeared on\n> Akari's hand and she realized it that she's chosen by Ruby to be her\n> partner. After that, she decided to become a student along with Ruby as they\n> were accepted and entered the Jewel Star Grand Prix.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-05T14:52:47.110", "id": "5107", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-05T14:52:47.110", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5105", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFrom what you explain I just remember Rocky Rackat(Pokonyan) ! When I was a\nkid I watched it from TV and know it as Mio Mio! ^_^\n\nThis picture is that cat? \n\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-13T07:36:48.877", "id": "5173", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-13T07:36:48.877", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2120", "parent_id": "5106", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nAt last I found it! Actually it was not a cat, but the rest of my description\nfits. The name is \"Please! Psammea-don\" (おねがい!サミアどん Onegai! Samia-don?)\n\n\nIt seems that it only was broadcast in Latin America, France, Quebec and the\nArab World [as noted by Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onegai!_Samia-\ndon) and [it was also never released in\nEnglish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Children_and_It#Adaptations), so\nmaybe that's the reason why nobody here knew this animation.\n\nPS: I really loved [the ending](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCpMA2C4SjE)\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-13T15:43:26.370", "id": "5852", "last_activity_date": "2014-07-03T11:34:59.923", "last_edit_date": "2014-07-03T11:34:59.923", "last_editor_user_id": "2604", "owner_user_id": "1987", "parent_id": "5106", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "\n\n[Japanese\nWikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%91%E5%A6%BB%E3%81%95%E3%82%93%E3%81%AF%E4%BF%BA%E3%81%AE%E3%83%A8%E3%83%A1)\nclaims the following:\n\n* * *\n\nWagatsuma-san wa Ore no Yome began serialization in [Magazine\nSPECIAL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_Special), and ran in that\nmagazine from the 10th issue of 2011 until the 8th issue of 2012. After that,\nit was switched to [Weekly Shounen\nMagazine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Sh%C5%8Dnen_Magazine), starting\nin its 42nd issue of 2012. As of this writing, this manga is still being\nserialized in Weekly Shounen Magazine.\n\n* * *\n\nMagazine SPECIAL is indeed a monthly, and Weekly Shounen Magazine is\n(unsurprisingly) a weekly. Both magazines are owned by the publisher Kodansha,\nso it doesn't look like the manga \"got the boot\", per se. It looks more like\nKodansha figured it was worth running in their flagship magazine rather than\nthe relatively low-circulation Magazine SPECIAL. I guess it had gotten popular\nenough for that by the time the switch happened, or something.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-06T01:35:14.640", "id": "5112", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-06T01:35:14.640", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5110", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe name was never mentioned, nor it was ever discussed about Tsunade's\nparents or origins, other than she being the granddaughter of the First.\n\nIn short, we don't know. It's also likely to not be revealed anytime soon,\nunless the author would include it in a databook or something similar.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-07T07:59:13.600", "id": "5117", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-07T07:59:13.600", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "27", "parent_id": "5113", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nYes, Saber's (Arthuria) situation as a Servant is unique. She is not a true\nheroic spirit, but rather an incomplete one (See: [Fate/Zero novel, Vol. 2,\nAct 5, Part 1](http://www.baka-\ntsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Fate/Zero%3aAct_5_Part_1)):\n\n> As Saber - that is, Arturia - is an incomplete Heroic Spirit, she would not\n> possess the knowledge that surpasses time and space one gains when one has\n> reached the Throne of Heroes.\n\nAccording to the [Type\nMoon](http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Saber_%28Fate/stay_night%29#Contract)\nWiki:\n\n> Heroic Spirits are those who have been removed from the time axis and placed\n> on the Throne of Heroes, while Saber can still be considered living. The\n> hero known as King Arthur is not currently classified as a Heroic Spirit, so\n> she cannot be called a complete Servant. She made a pact with the World as\n> she was on the verge of death after the Battle of Camlann that will require\n> her to become a Counter Guardian, a subcategory of a Heroic Spirit at the\n> service of the World, after her death. These pacts are normally done by\n> those requiring the power beyond ordinary humans to become heroes during\n> their lifetimes, but her wish instead came at the time of her death because\n> King Arthur did not require support to become a hero.\n\nHaving technically not died yet, Saber cannot take on Spirit Form like most\nother servants because she's technically still considered alive. This allows\nher to keep all memories of her search for the Grail, unlike Heroic Spirits\ndon't keep their memories in order to prevent inconsistencies.\n\nWith that being said she most likely realizes the positions she is in and the\nrecurring characters, but does not act upon it would complicate matters\n(singling her out as an irregularity, raise unnecessarily questions that may\ndistract her master).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-06T20:42:35.923", "id": "5116", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-06T20:42:35.923", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5114", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "\n\nSaber recognized that Illya was a homunculus created by the Einzberns like\nIrisviel however Saber was never told Illya's name and assumed that Illya\nwould grow normally during the ten years between Holy Grail War's so when\nIllya introduced herself Saber thought Illya was too young to be Irisviel's\ndaughter.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-15T23:50:23.467", "id": "5890", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-15T23:50:23.467", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2256", "parent_id": "5114", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nIf you pay close attention to _Fate/stay night: UBW_ , you may be able to tell\nthat Saber recognizes Illyasviel.\n\nWhen Illya first introduces herself, she says \"Von Einsburn. Sounds familiar,\nRin?\" After she says that, Saber tilts her head down and sighs as if she is\nremembering something she doesn't want to think about. Though this evidence\nstill leaves much to be desired, Saber has never been one to submit to her\nfeelings and often keeps them concealed within. Therefore, she wouldn't likely\nsay, \"Oh my god. You're Irisviel's daughter.\" even if they were alone together\nespecially because I'd imagine that Illya reminds Saber too much of Irisviel,\nwho is dead.\n\nHonestly, if I were saber, I'd be acting the same way if I were in such a\nsituation.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2018-03-31T15:50:30.953", "id": "46332", "last_activity_date": "2018-03-31T16:06:21.030", "last_edit_date": "2018-03-31T16:06:21.030", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "39904", "parent_id": "5114", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nUltimately, Touma doesn't want everyone to know about the truth of Academy\nCity, where corruption prevails and everyone is just a test subject. If\neveryone knows the truth, all chaos would break loose.\n\nAnd once people learn about magic, the domino effect happens.\n\nPeople learn about magic -> People learn about the struggle of power (Science\nvs Magic) -> People learn that Academy City is corrupted beyond belief in\nevery aspect possible -> A big war ensues where everyone chooses a side\n\nJust think about the magic side as a gang that is trying to take control of\nthe government. The government (Academy City) has been sweeping their own\ndirty deeds under the rug, as well as concealing their opponents. Learning\nabout magic opens the door to everything.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-06T05:48:55.237", "id": "6168", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-06T05:48:55.237", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5119", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAizen does not insert the Hōgyoku into Rukia's body. The deed was actually\ndone by Urahara Kisuke when he makes a deal with a powerless Rukia for a human\ngigai into which he places the Hōgyoku for safety and secrecy.\n\nRukia by coincidence happens to patrol Karakura town on the day the hollow\nattacks Kurosaki family, the Hōgyoku belonging to Kisuke is hidden in the\ngigai which he gives after she transfers her powers to Ichigo; until then she\ncan sense reiatsu and it was because of sensing Ichigo's reiatsu that she\ninitially entered the Kurosaki residence as a shinigami. However after using\nthe (Kisuke provided) Hōgyoku contained gigai to stay in human world, she\nrealizes that her shinigami powers are not recovering fast enough.\n\nAizen likely orchestrates the hollow attack on the Kurosaki family believing\nthis would cause Kisuke, who until then hid in the shadows, would make a move\nfor the safekeeping of the Hōgyoku. And rightly Kisuke makes an appearance\noffering Rukia a deal on the gigai to use for the stay in human world.\n\n> Also to be noted that the entire birth of Ichigo is a causality of Aizen's\n> earlier experimentation and he mentions that he has been monitoring Ichigo\n> for a long time\n\nAs for the extraction, Aizen merely assumes/contemplates that it would be of\nfatal consequence and expresses surprise when that is not the case. In general\nAizen's knowledge on Hōgyoku and even that of Kisuke is not complete as they\nonly succeed in creating an incomplete one at best both of which Aizen would\nlater merge and use.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-08T10:01:04.727", "id": "5123", "last_activity_date": "2023-02-06T18:05:21.023", "last_edit_date": "2023-02-06T18:05:21.023", "last_editor_user_id": "19307", "owner_user_id": "2148", "parent_id": "5121", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "\n\nDid anyone listen to Aizen's speech? The Hogyoku was inside Rukia before she\neven met Ichigo. In fact, according to his concept, it has been inside of her\nsince she was a child. The question is, when the heck did Urahara met Rukia\nwhen she was a child?\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-05-31T16:43:14.703", "id": "10045", "last_activity_date": "2014-05-31T17:11:51.210", "last_edit_date": "2014-05-31T17:11:51.210", "last_editor_user_id": "1908", "owner_user_id": "5078", "parent_id": "5121", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "\n\nI just watched the episode and Aizen does indeed say that Urahara hid the\nHogyoku in a soul and that by the time Aizen realised it was in Rukia, she had\nalready escaped to the human world. So, [Guest's\nanswer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/10045/2516) was right and\n[optimusprime619's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/5123/2516) is\nwrong.\n\nThe rest is true though, he did give Rukia the Gigai that drained her powers\nand he did 'manipulate' and help the crew to save Rukia because he knew Aizen\nwas after her.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-04-16T02:25:18.967", "id": "46583", "last_activity_date": "2023-02-06T14:22:16.173", "last_edit_date": "2023-02-06T14:22:16.173", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "40186", "parent_id": "5121", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nI've just rewatched the anime for like 4th time and yes, Aizen said that he\nrealized the Hogyoku was with Rukia after she had left for Karakura town back\nthen.\n\nBleach has so many holes in its plot.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2020-08-26T20:03:45.977", "id": "59427", "last_activity_date": "2023-02-06T14:22:17.823", "last_edit_date": "2023-02-06T14:22:17.823", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "55955", "parent_id": "5121", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nYeah, it's a pun. When read\n\n> 悪魔で執事ですから \n> akuma de shitsuji desu kara\n\nIt means\n\n> I'm a devil and a butler, you see.\n\nWhereas, when read as the identical-sounding\n\n> 飽くまで執事ですから \n> aku made shitsuji desu kara\n\nIt means\n\n> I'm a butler through and through, you see.\n\n* * *\n\nThis pun ( _aku made_ vs. _akuma de_ ) is a relatively common one in Japanese.\nFor an example of a second-order pun of this variety, see the omake at the end\nof episode 26 of Yowamushi Pedal:\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oplfT.jpg)\n\nThe fellow on the right was transformed from being a sheep to a (human)\nbutler, and so instead of saying _aku made **shitsuji** desu kara_ \"I'm a\nbutler through and through\", he says _aku made **hitsuji** desu kara_ \"I'm a\nsheep through and through\" (butler = _shitsuji_ , sheep = _hitsuji_ ; cf.\n[What do the sheep dolls represent in Mayo\nChiki?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/14433/)).\n\n* * *\n\nAdditional note: the `aku` in the two examples are homophones that mean\ndifferent things. The `aku` in my first example is `悪`, which means \"evil\".\nThe `aku` in my second example is `飽く`, which is a verb meaning \"to grow tired\nof\" (you see its more common synonym `飽きる` = `akiru` more often).\n\nThe compound construction `aku made` (`飽くまで`) means \"until I grow tired of ~\"\nwhen viewed as two different words, and means \"completely\" or \"thoroughly\"\nwhen viewed as a fixed idiomatic compound (this latter usage is standard;\nanalyzing it as a verb+`まで` is not).\n\nThe official English translation by Funimation aptly captures the meaning and\nmagnitude of this pun by translating it as \"You see, I'm merely one hell of a\nbutler.\" This reflects both his demonic nature as well as his skills as a\nservant using a common English expression that has more or less the same\nmeaning.\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-08T10:20:14.940", "id": "5127", "last_activity_date": "2015-09-29T19:47:46.070", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:49.117", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5122", "post_type": "answer", "score": 28 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI had a listen to the OST for _Season 1_ and the only song this sounds like is\n[Catch-22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=48QHhyBq8kw).\nThe quality difference is noticeable but some distinct sounds match. Unless my\nears are deceiving me,\n~[2:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YqBoX5nZBFc#t=149)\nin _episode 8_ matches\n~[1:45](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48QHhyBq8kw&feature=youtu.be&t=1m45s)\nof the song.\n\n", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-08T11:34:27.267", "id": "5128", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-08T11:40:37.810", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-08T11:40:37.810", "last_editor_user_id": "1528", "owner_user_id": "1528", "parent_id": "5126", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIf the newcomers bring in new ideas about death, she might feel bad that she\ncauses everyone to die. Like you said death has a very blended meaning. Since\nshe is alive, she might get rebellious. I assume the elders wanted her to\nbelieve in what she was doing was 'okay' without having to deal with her\nwavering faith. Kiriko loved Ulla and spoiled her. Also remember living people\nstill stay in the inns, so if a person unwillingly dies or always avoid her,\nit might change Ulla's meaning of 'death' and she won't kill anyone anymore.\nUlla also is still alive, and in ep.6 it mentions the children of immigrants\nare still alive until the age of 15 so she might find it sad she can't go\noutside without killing people. In the end, they accomplished making her have\na different meaning to the word \"death\", and for it to work they needed\neveryone around her to act a certain way.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-08-25T02:19:09.770", "id": "35997", "last_activity_date": "2016-08-25T02:19:09.770", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "27693", "parent_id": "5129", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAccording to [Naruto Wiki](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Akimichi_Clan), the\nAkimichi clan:\n\n> Members of the clan possess great physical strength and are able to quickly\n> convert calories into chakra\n\nSo, they have the ability to convert calories into chakra, apparently they can\ndo the opposite too, getting chakra and quickly convert into calories. Maybe\nthis one never happened to Chouji before, because he never received this\namount of chackra, so he was surprised.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-09T20:15:23.667", "id": "5133", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-09T20:21:09.763", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-09T20:21:09.763", "last_editor_user_id": "2251", "owner_user_id": "2251", "parent_id": "5131", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAccording to the label of the episode:\n\n\n\nThe character's name is \"Bonds\" and it's from \"Xeno Bros\", which doesn't\nappear to be from any anime or manga. Strangely, google doesn't bring up\nanything for those search terms. The MC also mentions \"vampires\" during the\nperformance part of the competition while they did some sword fighting.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T03:18:49.803", "id": "5137", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-10T03:18:49.803", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5136", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nThe characters are from the game \"The Last Story\" for the Wii. It's an RPG\nmade by Hironobu Sakaguchi.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-01-26T17:02:59.030", "id": "7177", "last_activity_date": "2018-01-26T15:08:32.603", "last_edit_date": "2018-01-26T15:08:32.603", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "3495", "parent_id": "5136", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nThe character depicted (from the photo in @Jon-Lin 's answer) is Zael/エルザ from\n_[The Last Story](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Story)_ video game,\ndirected by Hironobu Sakaguchi.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-01-27T01:58:40.897", "id": "7179", "last_activity_date": "2014-01-27T01:58:40.897", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5136", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K9999#NESTS_Team) says\n\n> and K9999 (pronounced K Four-Nine), a clone from Kyo entirely based on\n> Tetsuo Shima from Akira, able to transform his arm into a long tentacle like\n> Tetsuo's. Due to copyright issues, for the King of Fighters 2002 remake he\n> was replaced with a similar character.\n\nbut gives no sources.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T06:36:16.657", "id": "5141", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-10T06:36:16.657", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1342", "parent_id": "5138", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nK9999 won't appear in any future games because\n\n 1. SNK hates the character\n\n 2. He is a liable lawsuit in which the creators of _Akira_ could sue SNK Playmore \n\n 3. Elioth, a Korean company helped co-create _King of Fighters 2001_ and owns the rights to him\n\n 4. He was replaced in _KoF 2002 Unlimited Match_ with a character called \"nameless\" who looks like Black Jack from the anime.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-09T01:38:01.383", "id": "8559", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-19T11:33:45.197", "last_edit_date": "2017-07-19T11:33:45.197", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "4431", "parent_id": "5138", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nI think K9999 is the 9999th android of \"K\" because it disappeared, looking for\nthe nests hideout and destroy it because they killed the original \"K\" who's\nreal name is Kryzalid.\n\nTetsuo Shima is just a kid who grew up poor and turned into a mutant by Akira\nand put into an Akira Institute, and he escaped not knowing that his infected\narm must be kept stable and that's why he ended up transformed into a huge\nmutated ugly monster and just died.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-11-30T05:34:48.887", "id": "15365", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-19T11:36:27.343", "last_edit_date": "2017-07-19T11:36:27.343", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "9397", "parent_id": "5138", "post_type": "answer", "score": -2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIn the anime, evolution is a bit different to evolution in the games. For\nexample, Pokémon do not evolve when traded and can refuse to evolve.\n\nIf you look at the [list of evolution in the\nanime](http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_anime_Pok%C3%A9mon_by_evolution),\nyou'll find many Pokémon that did not evolve after a battle. It's more like\nthey constantly gain experience and can sometime decide that they want to\nevolve now, mostly when it's needed. Also, the idea of \"levels\" aren't very\nmuch used in the anime, so I don't think it really matters. It's just a\nmixture of emotions and experience.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T18:37:12.833", "id": "5146", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-10T18:37:12.833", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "122", "parent_id": "5144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nSabrina, the Gym Leader of Saffron City is a Psychic and a powerful one at\nthat, her pokemon Abra/Kadabra is psychically-linked to her, it wouldn't be\ntoo much of a stretch to think that Sabrina could force her pokemon to evolve\nwith her powers, also in the anime she only had Abra/Kadabra and Ash won\nthanks to Haunter causing her to laugh, the psychic link to Kadabra caused him\nto laugh unable to fight making Ash the victor\n\nin the original Red/Blue/Green, she had 4 pokemon and Alakazam was her\nstrongest, in the original Yellow she had 3 which was Abra, Kadabra and\nAlakazam, all level 50 however Alakazam is most likely the strongest because\nthe only move it has different is Reflect which doubles defense over Kadabra's\nKinesis which decreases accuracy on the target, none of this is shown in\neither battle Ash has with her so there is a clear difference between the\nanime and game\n\n", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T22:24:49.530", "id": "5150", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-25T23:04:43.183", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-25T23:04:43.183", "last_editor_user_id": "1587", "owner_user_id": "1587", "parent_id": "5144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nOnce I rewatched the episode I had in mind the simple answer - she **timed**\nthe evolution of Abra exactly at the start of the battle, she knew, whether\nwith Abra's experience or knew with her psychic power he will evolve.\n\nFor the **first option** , it's not very far to say that trainer can know when\nhis Pokemon will evolve in the anime, I don't remember now which episode, but\nin one of the episodes in the Advanced series, there was one who his Pokemon\njust evolved and said \"I knew it is about time he will evolve\", showing that\ntrainers might know when their Pokemon is about to evolve.\n\nAnother example of that is in Blak and White series, where Ash had a rematch\nwith Lenora, she had evolved her Lillipup to Herdier saying just for the\nrematch with Ash, the first match and the rematch was only 1-2 days from each\nother, it is clear that Lenora knew that with a little more training her\nLillipup will evolve or she won't say that she evolved Lillipup just for the\nrematch.\n\nBut the **second option** she knew with her psychic power Abra will evolve\nduring the battle even have an evidence in the episode:\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pQOnE.png)[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zxpsr.png)[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/N6u3q.png)[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHKhe.png)\n\nWe see that as soon Sabrina is \"glowing blue\" with her psychic power, Abra is\nglowing too and evolving. it might even imply she _used_ her psychic to make\nit evolve (which is like Memor-X answer).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2020-01-23T02:13:35.713", "id": "56586", "last_activity_date": "2020-01-23T02:13:35.713", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "51620", "parent_id": "5144", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nHe decided to take on the one who cost his pride than his life. He was\ninitially the God-King of Heuco mundo and the arrogant overlord of all hollows\nuntil Aizen with Gin and Tousen made his entry and dethroned him from Las\nNoches with a display of his Shikai. Barragan had merely been reduced to being\na henchman of a renegade shinigami from that of a king of hollows which hurt\nhim deeply and towards his last breath decided to take out Aizen who had\nbrought him this dishonor.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T18:49:32.283", "id": "5147", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-10T18:49:32.283", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2148", "parent_id": "5145", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAt the moment there might not be a definite answer for this question, so\nhere's mine based on my own interpretation of the chapter (with little or no\nevidence to back up) which might likely become obsolete owing to any twist in\nplot later on\n\n> Chakra was initially an entity unrelated to humans or their physique until\n> Otsutsuki Kaguya ate the Shinju's fruit and caused the inception of a\n> generation where it would be a part of the human body (as a chakra system).\n> Secondly, Otsutsuki Hagoromo aka the Sage of Six Paths, the immediate\n> successor inherited Kaguya's chakra and was likely the root from which the\n> generation of shinobi branched out. Further his likely mastery over the\n> Juubi and becoming the first Bijuu could likely be attributed to the real\n> beginning of shinobi who further learn to mix physical energy with chakra to\n> create elemental energy (something perhaps, the Sage might have practised\n> first and preached on to the subsequent generations). At many points it is\n> also mentioned that the Sage had two sons who later on branched out into\n> Senju and Uchiha. However though the Sage might be essentially the first to\n> truly realize the power of chakra, it is very much possible that Otsutsuki\n> Kaguya could have other children who might have inherited the gift of chakra\n> and could have possibly been the root of other shinobi clans.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-10T19:15:01.713", "id": "5149", "last_activity_date": "2015-04-05T14:48:28.083", "last_edit_date": "2015-04-05T14:48:28.083", "last_editor_user_id": "11083", "owner_user_id": "2148", "parent_id": "5148", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nI believe that this brings up a minor plot hole in the series.\n\nIt is known that anyone can become a ninja because everyone has chakra. It is\nalso said that if one runs out of chakra, they die. However, Kaguya was said\nto have rated the fruit and obtained the chakra, while the Sage of Six Paths\nwas said to be, along with his brother, the first to be born with chakra. This\nthen raises the question of how the people that lived during and before the\nSage and Kaguya survived.\n\nLater in the manga, it was said that the Sage spread his teachings to the\npeople and used his chakra to connect all people in the world so that they\ncould understand each other. However, eventually, they used his chakra to\nblend their own spiritual and physical energies together to form their own\nchakra, which they used as weapons for war.\n\nFrom this, I have formulated a speculation: From the first generation who\nlearned to weaponize their own chakra, their descendants were then born with\nchakra. However, that raises the question as to what about those that did not\nreceive the Sage's teachings. As it was stated that everyone has chakra to\nsome degree, I would assume that either those that did not learn directly from\nthe Sage learned from others and later formed their own jutsu, **or** that\nthose who did not develop chakra were killed off, much like animals which do\nnot evolve in the wild.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-19T06:19:41.000", "id": "8771", "last_activity_date": "2015-04-05T16:22:19.780", "last_edit_date": "2015-04-05T16:22:19.780", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "4553", "parent_id": "5148", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "\n\nI think the Dragon Quest thing was just a joke, supposed to look like any\nother anime using a protected name or trademark the anime is not licensed to\nuse (even if it wouldn't cause problems, like in this case).\n\nAnd the bugs were blurred out to let the viewers imagine for themselves how\nscary or disgusting they are, only giving the basic shape, color and such.\nThis is a commonly used scare tactic in horror games and movies (though not\nnecessarily pixellation, but some other blurring technique).\n\n( _converted from comment with 3 points, since no other answers have been\nposted_ )\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-07T17:05:06.177", "id": "7896", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-07T17:05:06.177", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "191", "parent_id": "5152", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nANN writes the following:\n\n> A series of short horror stories **based around Japanese myths and urban\n> legends**. The series is framed around an old man telling these tales to\n> schoolchildren on a playground using kamishibai, a traditional Japanese\n> storytelling method using paper scrolls.\n\nThe same goes for summaries on crunchyroll or other sites.\n\nI guess that stories like \"Hair\" (the photocopier-one) are just urban-legends,\nso there isn't much to explain.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-11T05:24:12.557", "id": "5159", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-11T05:24:12.557", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "122", "parent_id": "5154", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nSo for this bunch of questions I am going to use spoiler blocks as they are\nexplained in the anime.\n\nLimitations to school grounds:\n\n> If I recall correctly, Yuri mentioned something like \"behind the school\n> boundaries there is a large and wide area of nothing but grass\" and that she\n> tried to escape, but was not able to.\n\nBased on any actual place:\n\n> In general, buildings are partly based on real buildings or generic. I would\n> guess this school is a rag rug of multiple buildings mixed, excluding the\n> underground facility of course ;)\n\nWhy not everyone / other afterlife worlds:\n\n> Well, everyone who dies with regrets seems to go to a certain place, where\n> they can get over these regrets and live a new, untainted life. Also, most\n> of the students are mere \"filler material\" / \"background noise\" to create a\n> perfect environment. They were created by the \"Programmer\". This person\n> wanted to create a perfect world for students to clear their regrets. Thus\n> the school is only for students. This means a part of Japanese highschool\n> students get to this special place created for them. For other people dying\n> with regrets, there \"must\" be a different place to go.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-12T10:12:16.850", "id": "5167", "last_activity_date": "2016-12-05T13:07:23.870", "last_edit_date": "2016-12-05T13:07:23.870", "last_editor_user_id": "8486", "owner_user_id": "1751", "parent_id": "5155", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nMy answer is **yes, anyone can be a Shinobi**.\n\nAll humans have chakra. This isn't exactly something you are born with or\nwithout. The latest chapter was a bit confusing, but Madara specifically\nstated that the Sage of Six paths was the first person to \"wield\" chakra. That\nmeans that he was the first person to be able to use it with skill, not the\nfirst person born with it.\n\nChakra is present in every cell of the body\n<http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Chakra>\n\nAnyone can be a shinobi if they are taught how to use their chakra. And even\nfor people like Lee who can't use chakra externally for ninjutsu and genjutsu,\nhe is still able to use chakra in other ways, such as walking on water.\n\nAs for the last part of your question \"without the ability to manipulate it\" ,\nI think this part is probably arguable as the definition of a shinobi is\narguable. How exactly do we want to define shinobi. For my definition, a\nshinobi simply just a ninja. Shinobi in Naruto normally take missions for hire\nand wield chakra.\n\nHowever, in Naruto, there should not exist people with no inborn chakra and\nthus anyone can be a shinobi. People aren't born with the ability to\nmanipulate chakra; they learn how to.\n\n**EDIT (My additional interpretation of the last chapter):**\n\nHere's the way I interpreted it. Everyone contains chakra, but no one knew how\nto use it. When Kaguya consumed the fruit, she became godlike with excessive\namounts of chakra. She then gave birth to a child, who was born into the world\nknowing how to manipulate it. From there on, the Sage of Six paths taught\nothers how to manipulate it.\n\nMadara said \"Chakra was something that originally only belonged to the Shinju\"\nand I think this is just a mythical explanation of how chakra came to humans.\nBefore Kaguya, no one was able to manipulate chakra and therefore chakra only\nbelonged to the Shinju. \"By taking the chakra by force\" as Madara said, AKA\nconsuming the fruit, humans could figure out how to manipulate it. This also\nfurther explains why the Shinju is taking all the chakra back. If for some\nreason Kishimoto decides to use Madara's interpretation of the Uchiha Tablets\nas actual history, there will be contradiction to how Kishi defined chakra in\nthe past.\n\nAsian history has a common tendency to include supernatural/mythical features\nto its stories, like the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms for China. Although there\nare some certain historical facts to it, stuff like magic is included and it\ngets all sorts of wacky if we believed everything that was recorded.\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-11T02:40:09.167", "id": "5157", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-11T03:40:01.577", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-11T03:40:01.577", "last_editor_user_id": "2178", "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5156", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nSince the story is still continuing, even would-be plot holes can be patched\nover later. The only real hiccup that comes to mind is an art issue:\n\nIn [Chapter 619](http://www.mangainn.com/manga/chapter/98999_naruto-\nchapter-619/page_5) the four past Hokages are revived with the 4th Hokage's\nsignature coat rocking the flames on bottom.\n\nBut in [Chapter 630](http://www.mangainn.com/manga/chapter/104667_naruto-\nchapter-630/page_20), the 4th Hokage arrives on the battlefield with coat in\nfull flow with missing flames.\n\n \n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-11T06:26:08.867", "id": "5160", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-11T06:26:08.867", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2364", "parent_id": "5158", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThere are many THEORIES as to what happened to her Zanpakuto. I'm not sure if\nI can ANSWER your question as definitely as you'd like, but I can list some\npossible answers. It's up to you to find the one that you believe most\nplausible. Or we can wait til old Tite Kubo gives us the answer.\n\n 1. She gave it up when she left the Soul Society. \n\n * Yoruichi is a part of a very honorable family, so it's almost possible that she would leave her Zanpakuto to symbolize the fact that she's leaving the Seireitei. \n * **However** , a Zanpakuto is a partnership. It's doubtful that somebody could just leave their partner, especially if their Zanpakuto is an animate object. Also, why would she have to give up something that important?\n 2. It was stolen.\n\n * It's not impossible to believe that after a particularly long bout with some Hollow, or another Soul Reaper, it was taken as a trophy. Or even destroyed? \n * **However** , Yoruichi is an extremely amazing fighter. She couldn't have lost unless she fought something on the level of the Espada. \n 3. She keeps it with her, but sees no point in using it.\n\n * This is what I believe. That she just has it set aside and is waiting for an opportune moment to use it. \n * **However** , why wouldn't she have used it by now??? You would think, with all the amazing enemies that have been introduced, she would've pulled it out by now. \n * **Also** , the only reasons she wouldn't use it is if\n\n * It is too weak to make a difference in battle and she sees no point in using it\n * Or, it is too STRONG and she cannot properly control it\n * Or, she had a falling out with it, and she's not allowed to use it.\n\nThose are just some theories. I believe she wouldn't have gotten rid of it. I\nthink she would've done what Kisuke did. Personally, I think we'll see it one\nday, along with her Bankai. Sorry that I couldn't answer your question.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-29T20:50:16.667", "id": "5637", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-30T09:27:03.037", "last_edit_date": "2014-08-30T09:27:03.037", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "2636", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": 11 }, { "body": "\n\nIn the Zanpaktou Rebellion Arc, it is told by Suzumebachi or Soifon's\nzanpaktou that she used to belong to Yorouichi. I just saw this recently, but\nif you see around the 4:30 minute mark of this video, Suzumebachi states this.\n<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgCe9wM_0k>.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-10-15T18:12:14.440", "id": "14499", "last_activity_date": "2014-10-15T18:12:14.440", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "8729", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": -4 }, { "body": "\n\n 1. In her fight with soi fon she throws a kunai.\n 2. She merged with it.\n 3. She is really the physical manifestation of urahara's zanpakto which is why he doesnt use it past shikai.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-01-19T00:36:07.453", "id": "18638", "last_activity_date": "2015-01-19T00:49:30.533", "last_edit_date": "2015-01-19T00:49:30.533", "last_editor_user_id": "1587", "owner_user_id": "11249", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\nWhile there is no definitive answer at this point many of the theories out\nthere are plausible. I however, personally think that one of the most\noverlooked and underestimated answers is that she simply doesn't like/want to\nuse it. Much to the same affect as to why Sui Feng does not like using her\nBankai. (Said reason being that it does not conform to the style of combat the\nleader of the Stealth Force conforms to.) One may also note that most of the\nunnamed members of the Stealth Force are typically shown with no Zanpakuto.\nOne must also take into account that Yoruichi is well regarded as one of the\nfinest hand to hand combatants in Soul Society as well as one of the fastest\nand most proficient users of Shunpo. Keeping these things in mind, perhaps her\nZanpakuto would provide no benefit or even hinder her fighting style.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-01-19T07:28:38.037", "id": "18658", "last_activity_date": "2015-01-19T07:28:38.037", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "11261", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nThe story of Yoruichi's departure from Soul Society and her back story and\nSoifon's initiation state that Suzumebachi is the Zanpakuto given to all the\nreigning leader of the Onmitsukidō or Stealth Force. Yoruichi doesn't have her\nZanpakuto because it is inherent to the current leader of the Stealth Force,\nwhich she is not.\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-02-11T18:24:01.370", "id": "19296", "last_activity_date": "2015-02-11T19:55:11.257", "last_edit_date": "2015-02-11T19:55:11.257", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "11675", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nI believe it's more like Ise Nanao's case. It's probable that it's a family\nsomething and so she had to give it up for the next in her family to wield it\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2019-03-02T01:06:03.757", "id": "51016", "last_activity_date": "2019-03-02T01:06:03.757", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "45222", "parent_id": "5161", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nTaken from [the _Naruto_\nWiki](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Sage_of_the_Six_Paths):\n\n> His bloodline was divided into the descendants of his two children, which\n> would eventually form the Senju clan — and through distant relations the\n> Uzumaki clan — and the Uchiha clan.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-13T11:27:23.990", "id": "5176", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-13T13:16:31.797", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-13T13:16:31.797", "last_editor_user_id": "274", "owner_user_id": "2378", "parent_id": "5162", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI think the anime is [Inuyasha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InuYasha). Here's\nthe blurb from [MAL](http://myanimelist.net/anime/249/InuYasha).\n\n> Higurashi Kagome, after being pulled down a well by a demon, finds herself\n> in Feudal Japan, where she learns that a powerful jewel has been reborn\n> inside her body. After the jewel shatters in an attempt to retrieve it from\n> one of the many demons who was after its power, Kagome must join forces with\n> the half-demon Inu Yasha (also after the jewel's power) to track down the\n> shards of the jewel before its power falls into the wrong hands.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-13T10:58:46.003", "id": "5175", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-13T21:26:43.177", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-13T21:26:43.177", "last_editor_user_id": "49", "owner_user_id": "2378", "parent_id": "5165", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nI think you are talking about Ginko from Mushishi.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-13T19:32:17.690", "id": "5179", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-13T21:09:49.143", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-13T21:09:49.143", "last_editor_user_id": "61", "owner_user_id": "2122", "parent_id": "5165", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nI believe it's _Tactics_. Episode 5 features a doll-maker, and seems to fit\nyour description perfectly.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-18T19:19:52.543", "id": "5222", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-18T19:52:48.200", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-18T19:52:48.200", "last_editor_user_id": "63", "owner_user_id": "2402", "parent_id": "5165", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIn Japanese folklore, creating sparks by striking flint is considered to be\nlucky for someone leaving a house or group. The brief fire was once a way to\ndrive evil spirits away. I found a reference to it being called\n[_kiribi_](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/12/16/reference/kiribi/#.Ulr0hJmTZ8E),\nbut there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information on it.\n\nConsidering where Yaichiro is going as he leaves, it would be logical for a\nmother to wish her son good luck and to drive away evil from his path.\n\n\n\nThis ritual is not common anymore, but given the spiritual nature of _Uchouten\nKazoku_ , it makes perfect sense.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-13T19:31:46.517", "id": "5461", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-13T20:34:06.820", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-13T20:34:06.820", "last_editor_user_id": "274", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5166", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe creation is never explained in excruciating detail. However, we do know\nthat Homunculus was originally part of the [entity within the\ngate](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/3209/274) (God, essentially, the being\nwho regulates all alchemical exchanges). Through an unknown process, Van\nHohenheim's master was able to isolate the knowledge within God.\n\nHe was able to give it an existence through the blood of a human (Van\nHohenheim), which I speculate was used as the toll to reach into God's domain.\nHowever, this existence was not stable enough to take form, and thus [cannot\nexist outside of its flask](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/811/274).\n\n\n\nUnfortunately, we hear little from Hohenheim's master, and none of it relates\nto Homunculus. There is never a further elaboration on the process that is\nused to isolate part of within the Gate.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-14T19:34:37.950", "id": "5186", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-14T19:34:37.950", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:49.090", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5180", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThis is a simple \"English is cooler\"\n\nAs all the homunculi are named with the english seven deadly sins, their names\nare the hiragana/katagana representation to the english vocalization.\n\nbut when referring to the sin itself the correct translation (\"傲慢\") is used,\nas it is not a name (that also has to sound cool), but the thing itself.\n\nI verified this is true to the other homunculi too, though not for \"Father\"\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-14T18:42:42.920", "id": "5183", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-14T20:07:33.353", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-14T20:07:33.353", "last_editor_user_id": "1751", "owner_user_id": "1751", "parent_id": "5181", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nNo, it doesn't have to be Amestrians.\n\nIn fact, the fighting at Fort Briggs was orchestrated so that there were\ncasualties. Kimblee was told by Pride that he simply had to create the blood\ncrest. Kimblee knew that Briggs was stronger than Drachma, so he lied to the\nDrachmans and told them that Briggs was vulnerable, resulting in their entire\narmy being destroyed.\n\nIn most of the other wars, in fact, Amestris was victorious. You have to\nremember that Amestris started as the green area in the map below.\n\n\n\nThey colonized the rest of the area around them (numerous existing places,\nsome are listed in [the _Fullmetal Alchemist_ Wiki's article on\nAmestris](http://fma.wikia.com/wiki/Amestris#History)) to enlarge the country\nfor Father's ultimate purpose, in order to gain the amount of souls necessary.\nThese victories often resulted in the deaths of far more innocent people and\nopposing armies than Amestrians.\n\nSo, to answer your question directly, **no** , it is not necessary that it is\nAmestrians who die for the transmutation circle. In fact, Drachmans,\nIshvalans, and many others have been the victims of bloodshed for the hundreds\nof years prior to the Promised Day.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-14T18:48:23.953", "id": "5184", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-14T18:48:23.953", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5182", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThere appear to be a few religions in Amestris (or potentially a few views or\ndenominations belonging to a single religion), and we can see actions from\nseveral people that denote a religious following.\n\n# Truth and God\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t7fir.png)\n\nIronically, the being who is canonically referred to God seems to have little\nto no religion based around it (the same for Truth). They are essentially all-\npowerful beings of nature, but garner little attention from those outside\nalchemy (who are generally atheists).\n\n# Letoism\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AI33O.jpg)\n\nIn the town of Lior, a priest, Father Cornello, has been given a Philosopher's\nStone by an at-the-time undisclosed party. Leaving his fellow Lior citizens\nunaware of this, he manages to garner a lot of attention through miracles\n(smaller ones in _Brotherhood_ , though much more effective and large ones in\nthe 2003 anime). These miracles, according to Cornello, are from the Sun God,\nLeto, around whom the religion is based.\n\nIn _Brotherhood_ , after Cornello is debunked, Letoism disappears. The 2003\nanime handles it differently, and one could say that the religion lingers on.\n\n# Ishvala\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w9ZSC.jpg)\n\nAmong the Ishvalans (those who remain, and their society prior to the war),\nthere is a common belief in the Earth God Ishvala, who is said to be the one\ntrue creator, much like you could consider a typical god in a monotheistic\nreligion. His teachings prohibit the use of alchemy, though some of his\nfollowers have stepped around this teaching and, in some cases, broken it\nentirely.\n\nA note: The Ishvalan religion borrows many traits from\n[Judaism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism), but I won't go into detail\nhere.\n\n# Other religions\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fwA5U.jpg)\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xSVxM.jpg)\n\nIn the 2003 anime, Ed and Al end up in Aquroya, where they meet a woman named\nClara. There are signs later that she is not fully committed to this religion\n(though her churchgoers are), and not much is said about it, except that\n(according to Clara) Ed and Al's bickering \"goes against God's will.\"\n\nThere appear to be few mentions of religion outside of Letoism, Ishvala, and\nthis small religion in Aquroya; I would wager a guess that any other mentions\nof \"God\" (by non-alchemists) belong to this same unnamed religion. It appears\nto borrow traits from [Catholicism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism)\n(or Christianity as a whole), which would line up with early 1900s in Germany,\nif I recall correctly.\n\nThe Eastern Sage and the Sage of the West are also regarded somewhat as\nreligious figures, the latter described as being a man of gold (his hair and\neyes, and also a reference to alchemy's properties with regard to gold).\n\nIn Xing, a religion similar to Buddhism has developed, it would seem, which\ntalks about chi and the flow of energy in the earth (referred to as the\nDragon's Pulse). Likely, being a monarchy, there is also a god atop their\nstructure, though I don't believe he is ever mentioned.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-18T02:12:44.990", "id": "5214", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-18T02:12:44.990", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5185", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

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[ { "body": "\n\nRailgun S starts shortly before Index and continues through the different arcs\njust from Misaka's point of view. Railgun however is the prelude to Index and\nmost of it takes place way before Index. Later on it catches up and things\nstart happening at similar moments in time. Because both Railgun and Railgun S\nhappen at similar points in time and move at a similar pace in stands to\nreason that they are happening at the same time. Events will happen in\nRailgun, than the sister's arc in Railgun S, and than back to some of the\nother events in Railgun and so on and so forth.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-10T06:13:06.673", "id": "5436", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-10T06:13:06.673", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1996", "parent_id": "5191", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\nAfter Mikoto meets Nunotaba Shinobu, she [starts\ninvestigating](http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Sisters_Arc#The_First_Production_Plan)\nher and finds her connection with the 7th Medical Research Center, who were\nresearching her DNA map to create an army of level 5 clones.\n\nThis is covered in the _Railgun_ manga and _Railgun S_ anime.\n\nInitially she thought the Sisters project was abandoned because the clones\nwould only be Level 3 (thus not realizing the plan for an army of Level 5\nclones), but it's not until later that she realizes the Sisters were utilized\nfor the Level 6 Shift project.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-10T15:56:27.710", "id": "5439", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-10T21:01:07.893", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-10T21:01:07.893", "last_editor_user_id": "63", "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5191", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "\n\nThe quote you have provided comes from the first of the light novels, which\ntake place on July 19.\n\n> It was July 19th. The fault lay in that date. Because summer vacation would\n> start the next day...\n\nThe Railgun version of the Sisters arc extends from August 10 to August 22,\naccording to the\n[wiki](http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Timeline#August_10).\n\nSo Misaka had heard rumours about the Sisters for weeks, at least, before\ncoming face-to-face with one.\n\nThe full version of your quote goes:\n\n> “Hah. Don’t make me laugh. What is all this about the ‘brain of god’? Have\n> you heard about the supposed military Sisters created based on an analysis\n> of my DNA map? It seems to me these lucrative side effects are more\n> important than that objective.”\n\nIf you read the Railgun manga version of that encounter, you will see that\nMisaka has an expression on her face like 'Really? People actually believe\nthat?'\n\nGiven how distressed she was when she found out the Sisters were real, I think\nit is safe to assume this was a rumour that she heard but dismissed as\nridiculous.\n\nConsidering that the Sisters had been operating outside for some time, it is\nhardly inconceivable that rumours of their existence had sprouted.\n\nEDIT: Rereading the third novel led me to this quote:\n\n> However, recently there had been a rumor spreading throughout Academy City\n> that her DNA map had been used to create military Sisters. It wasn’t that\n> rare an occurrence. Mikoto was one of the seven Level 5s and a scholarship\n> student at the prestigious powers development school of Tokiwadai Middle\n> School. There had been countless baseless rumors like that about her. That\n> was why she had not believed the rumor.\n>\n> Or perhaps she had simply not wanted to believe it.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-10-10T10:52:49.983", "id": "36757", "last_activity_date": "2017-12-31T10:58:36.657", "last_edit_date": "2017-12-31T10:58:36.657", "last_editor_user_id": "26251", "owner_user_id": "26251", "parent_id": "5191", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

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[ { "body": "\n\nI have no idea when, or by whom, the nosebleeding started to depicted in\nJapanese visual arts, but the nosebleeding as a sign of excitement is\ntraditionally held to have developed during the feudal times when men and\nwomen (of the upper classes) were supposed to live their lives apart—but of\ncourse they needed some way to woo each other! And so, the men, while walking\non the other side of the street mentally forced their noses to bleed when they\nsaw someone “hot” being walked along, and the courting could begin on opposite\nsides of drawn curtains. Some consider this an accurate history while others\nconsider it a myth, probably the truth lies somewhere in between, as usual.\n\nIf this is true, then this form of specialised nosebleed might have been\ndepicted in art for quite awhile. But of that I have no knowledge.\n\nAn interesting thing, I just realised, is that if this is the true history of\nthe sexually ritualistic nosebleed, then\n\n(a) women had no need to develop such “skills”, and\n\n(b) homosexual men also had no such need.\n\nThus much of the anime and manga today—especially in the boys’ love scene—are\nnot true to the real history! :P (Male homosexual acts were in these\ntimes—again, in the upper classes—something considered pure and good, as\nfemales were “worth” less and not something you might not have easy “access”\nto when you felt certain urges.)\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-27T22:28:43.060", "id": "5616", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-27T22:28:43.060", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2625", "parent_id": "5193", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nAs [Beska](https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/36/beska) notes in useful\ncomments at the related question [Does the “bloody nose” trope necessarily\nimply a sexual situation?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/39/does-\nthe-bloody-nose-trope-necessarily-imply-a-sexual-situation),\n\n> I think it steps around the question: whether there is a difference between\n> what is understood in normal Japanese society vs anime.\n\nand\n\n> However, when I mentioned this to a Japanese person (someone who was not a\n> big anime viewer), she was confused, and adamant that a bloody nose would\n> normally just mean that the person was excited in general, and it would not\n> necessarily have anything to do with sexual excitement. That's the problem I\n> have. I mean everyone seems to \"know\" this...I did as well. And yet, when I\n> asked someone Japanese about it (far more likely to know about the cultural\n> norms than me), they had no idea what I was talking about (and were very\n> adamant that it was not the case that it was sexual.)\n\nThis seems to be correct: that outside of the subculture of anime and manga,\nassociating nosebleeds with arousal, or portraying it as a visual euphemism of\nsorts for such, is not common knowledge among the general Japanese population.\nAs such, we can deduct that it **does not originate in well-known folklore**\nand thereby became a common belief. It most likely originated in manga or\nanime. Although the concept has now become recognized enough among otaku that\n_[Punchline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_Line_\\(anime\\))_ features it\nin every episode, I discussed this with a Japanese female college student who\nis heavily involved in subculture (has manned a booth at Comiket, member of\nthe university's Manga Research Society, practices drawing manga, reads manga\nand watches _4-koma_ gag anime, enjoys _doujin_ visual novels, vocaloid fan)\nand even she had never heard of this trope, since it is not customary to come\nacross it within the genres that she likes. Though by no means conclusive, she\nsaid that if you mention that a character gets a nosebleed, the average\nJapanese person will imagine that the character got punched by someone.\n\nApparently, [NicoNico News interviewed an Ear/Nose/Throat doctor in Yamaguchi\nprefecture, Dr. Kanaya\nKouichiro](http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/10/23/bloodbath-why-do-so-many-\nanime-characters-have-nosebleeds-when-theyre-aroused/), on the topic of\nnosebleeds in anime/manga, but the video is no longer available online. His\n**personal theory as to an origin is sports such as pro wrestling** :\n\n> In the past, people like pro wrestlers would intentionally give themselves\n> small cuts on their forehead in order to build tension and atmosphere in a\n> match. I can only imagine that the idea of extreme stimulation and an excess\n> of energy was portrayed in the same way with nosebleeds, and it’s come to be\n> the accepted method of representing that feeling.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-06-19T00:32:04.873", "id": "22566", "last_activity_date": "2015-06-19T10:54:02.740", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:48.953", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "8134", "parent_id": "5193", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAs I recall there was an reaction of fist movement (in the anime). \nProbably harden her hand and got the tree _on the way_ when cutting his head\noff.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-15T18:10:26.830", "id": "5198", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-15T18:25:00.713", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-15T18:25:00.713", "last_editor_user_id": "85", "owner_user_id": "85", "parent_id": "5197", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nSee page 33, Chapter 32, \"Compassion\" from the manga.\n\nThe previous page followed discussion over Annie as a suspect in being the\nFemale Titan. Mikasa asks Eren, having fought the Female Titan, if anything\nreminded him of Annie at all. Eren then remembers Annie's stance as a parallel\nto the Female Titan moving from that same stance into her kick.\n\nThe [stance](https://i.stack.imgur.com/f9mrC.jpg) resembles [Annie's\nstyle](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BP2tt.jpg) demonstrated in [Chapter 17:\nIllusions of Force](https://i.stack.imgur.com/k3ahV.png)\n\nThe text is spoken by Mikasa to convince Eren that deep down he knows first\nhand how close to the similarities are.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-16T07:44:02.883", "id": "5204", "last_activity_date": "2015-12-16T15:47:06.940", "last_edit_date": "2015-12-16T15:47:06.940", "last_editor_user_id": "19149", "owner_user_id": "2364", "parent_id": "5197", "post_type": "answer", "score": 16 }, { "body": "\n\n**Warning This might contain spoilers.**\n\nThe move she used to finish Eren was a direct\n[reference](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj_lGVqETbE&feature=player_detailpage#t=74)\nto a earlier scene in the anime (this has not been done in th manga as far as\nI know). At this point in time the viewer does not know Annie is the titan.\nThe fight move used there resembles her fighting moves used during the\ntraining. this is one of the clue's beside the face resemblance of the titan\nto Annie. Some deeper information on this, the move she used is a karate move\nfrom the original Kata's. As stated in the video linked she has been trained\nin martial arts by her father. \n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-22T16:27:31.053", "id": "5280", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-22T16:27:31.053", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1458", "parent_id": "5197", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe full title of the essay (partially obscured in the image above) is:\n\n> 「入学一ヶ月の実感と今後の抱負」\n>\n> \"My experiences during the first month of school, and my ambitions for the\n> future\"\n\n\n\nIn the essay, he writes about his desire to do his very best to promote\nculture at his school (via his participation in the classic literature club),\nadding that this won't interfere with his academic pursuits, as befits a\nstudent attending the finest high school in Kamiyama.\n\nInterestingly, when this scene appears in the _Kotenbu_ series (on which\nHyouka is based), it appears much later, chronologically (in volume **4** ),\nand does not include the text of the essay. His internal monologue in the\nnovel does suggest, however, that he's basically making this up as he goes\nalong to get it over and done with.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-15T20:37:44.443", "id": "5200", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-15T20:37:44.443", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5199", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAccording to the list at [the Madoka wiki](http://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Merchandise:Accessories_and_Apparel#Soul_Gem_Rings):\n\n * [Madoka Kaname](http://www.cospa.com/detail/id/00000039996) (pink) - \n * [Homura Akemi](http://www.cospa.com/detail/id/00000039991) (purple) - \n * [Mami Tomoe](http://www.cospa.com/detail/id/00000039984) (yellow) - \n * [Sayaka Miki](http://www.cospa.com/detail/id/00000039979) (blue) - \n * [Kyoko Sakura](http://www.cospa.com/detail/id/00000039971) (magenta) - \n\nYou can see in each of the images the name on the back corresponds with the\nname in the image (which I translated from [this online\ntranslator](http://p.mcfog.com/madoka-runes/)). So it seems the colors _are_\nthe same as the color of their [soul\ngems](http://www.amiami.com/top/detail/detail?gcode=CGD2-12302). It seems the\n[green soul gem](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Puella-Madoka-Magica-Necklace-\nCosplay/dp/B00CYLF0NA/ref=pd_sim_sbs_k_h_b_cs_5/279-2095054-0973726) also\nbelonged to Madoka Kaname.\n\nThe list can also be seen in this [Crunchyroll news\npost](http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2012/09/12-1/madoka-magica-sells-\nits-soul-gems-this-november).\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-16T19:11:20.783", "id": "5207", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-16T19:18:35.143", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-16T19:18:35.143", "last_editor_user_id": "91", "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5203", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI'm not familiar with Japanese dialectology, so all I can really tell is that\n(as [Logan M noted](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/5205/what-is-\nthe-japanese-dialect-spoken-in-ghost-hound#comment4839_5205)) it's a dialect\nfrom Kyushu or thereabouts. Luckily, the internet seems to know more.\n\n * [This Chiebukuro entry](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1018838415), presumably written by a native speaker, thinks that it's [**Hakata** dialect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakata_dialect) (spoken in Fukuoka, Kyushu).\n * [This interview with Chiaki KONAKA](http://anime.goo.ne.jp/special/ghosthound/event_report_TIFF.html) (who did the screenplay for Ghost Hound) notes that the story's setting is inspired by **Fukuoka** , and that effort was made to make the dialects portray the setting effectively.\n * [Some dude on Amazon Japan](http://www.amazon.co.jp/review/R2OGNOK2YHFL9Y/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000ZNTPPS&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=561958&store=dvd) mentions how he can feel that the script has been modeled on the speech of the **Fukuoka** area.\n\nNone of this is really authoritative, but it is suggestive.\n\nOne possible source of confusion for us here is that it might be that people\nare just defaulting to describing the dialect in question as Fukuoka dialect\nsince Fukuoka is the largest city in Kyushu (i.e. it's possible that the\npeople I have linked above do not have direct experience distinguishing among\nvarieties of Kyushu Japanese).\n\nAside - if you like the Kyushu dialect, you should watch [Kids on the\nSlope](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakamichi_no_Apollon). _Lots_ of Kyushu\nJapanese in that one.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-17T00:36:30.150", "id": "5208", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-17T00:36:30.150", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:49.117", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5205", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nHe did not use the bankai because he could not use it.\n\nHis bankai Zanka no Tachi absorbs the flames of his Ryujin Jakka into the\nkatana blade. During the battle in fake Karakura town, Wonderweiss absorbed\nhis flames. Later when the flames sealed inside Wonderweiss's body are about\nto explode, Yamamoto has to shield it with his own body, which left his own\nbody in tatters. It is reasonable to assume that he was either in no position\nto activate his bankai, or the bankai would not be strong enough since he\ncouldn't absorb enough flames.\n\nIf he had known Wonderweiss's abilities beforehand, he may have gone straight\nto his bankai from the start.\n\n", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-17T13:40:30.027", "id": "5210", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-17T13:40:30.027", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "99", "parent_id": "5206", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

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[ { "body": "\n\nWhat is considered canon is generally decided by the author(s) or license\nholder. I think you need to get a better idea of the definition of canon.\n\n> the original work from which the fan fiction author borrows\n\nor\n\n> a descriptor of specific incidents, relationships, or story arcs that take\n> place within the overall canon\n\n * [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_\\(fiction\\)) ([Original revision](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canon_\\(fiction\\)&oldid=573082785#cite_note-4) where definitions came from)\n\nSo, to directly answer your question, if there was _only_ a manga and anime,\nand the manga came first, then the manga is canon. I say only, because many\nmanga and anime are based off of light novels or visual novels. In that case,\nthe light novel or visual novel would be canon.\n\nIf the anime came first, then it will probably be whatever the license holder\ndecides is canon. This is an assumption, because I think anime writers give up\nthe rights to their work.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-18T18:07:01.707", "id": "5219", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-03T14:54:54.563", "last_edit_date": "2015-08-03T14:54:54.563", "last_editor_user_id": "2044", "owner_user_id": "2044", "parent_id": "5216", "post_type": "answer", "score": 14 }, { "body": "\n\nWhen a series is presented in several media, most of the versions will usually\nbe said to be \"based on\" some other version, and whichever version is not\n\"based on\" anything of the others is canon. Under normal circumstances, that\none is the one that came first.\n\nBut this is only a general guideline. Sometimes things get strange. Consider\n_Revolutionary Girl Utena_ , which has no fewer than four presentations: the\nmanga, the TV series, the movie, and the manga of the movie. The movie-manga\nis based on the movie, of course, but the other three are considered separate\ncanons. Sort of. Like I said, Utena is strange.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-18T22:56:37.777", "id": "5225", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-18T22:56:37.777", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2403", "parent_id": "5216", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "\n\nCanon is whatever the rights holder (people who own the IP) says it is. Canon\nis always changing. Just look at the American comic industry, DC and Marvel\nare always retconning and reinventing the canon.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-04-09T17:32:15.383", "id": "20738", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-02T17:53:36.657", "last_edit_date": "2015-08-02T17:53:36.657", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "11760", "parent_id": "5216", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFrom my English composition class - its easier to write a story around a\ntheme.\n\nI don't think stories that use the seven deadly sins are more prevalant in\nAnime, its just that we are talking about eastern entertainment using western\nthemes, which naturally calls more attention to itself.\n\nAs far as there being any significant message in the theme of the seven deadly\nsins. To me, the works just use the seven deadly sins because they are\nuniversally recognizable.\n\n> The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or point that\n> is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single word (e.g.\n> love, death, betrayal). Typical examples of themes of this type are conflict\n> between the individual and society; coming of age; humans in conflict with\n> technology; nostalgia; and the dangers of unchecked ambition. A theme may be\n> exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of a character in a\n> novel. An example of this would be the theme loneliness in John Steinbeck's\n> Of Mice and Men, wherein many of the characters seem to be lonely. It may\n> differ from the thesis—the text's or author's implied worldview.\n>\n> A story may have several themes. Themes often explore historically common or\n> cross-culturally recognizable ideas, such as ethical questions, and are\n> usually implied rather than stated explicitly. An example of this would be\n> whether one should live a seemingly better life, at the price of giving up\n> parts of one's humanity, which is a theme in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New\n> World. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered\n> one of the components of fiction. -\n> [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_%28narrative%29)\n\n", "comment_count": 13, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-18T17:57:45.923", "id": "5218", "last_activity_date": "2015-07-01T18:04:54.293", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "2044", "parent_id": "5217", "post_type": "answer", "score": 17 }, { "body": "\n\nFirst, this question begs the question of **“ _Are_ the Seven Deadly Sins\noften used in anime?”** _Full Metal Alchemist_ and _Soul Eater_ are provided\nas examples. Both series deal with the concepts of souls, taboos, and\nconsequences of breaking said taboos. It makes sense that in such a storyline,\nlike stories featuring shinigami, you might come across inclusion of the Seven\nDeadly Sins (a.k.a. capital vices or cardinal sins).\n\nHowever, a lot of anime which contain the Seven Deadly Sins as a plot element\nor even as a reference do not immediately come to mind… Whereas if you asked\nwhy the Five Elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Void) are in so many anime,\nor why Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, The Four Symbols (Azure Dragon of the\nEast, Vermilion Bird of the South, White Tiger of the West, Black Turtle of\nthe North), the Chinese Zodiac, Journey to the West (Sun Wukong, a.k.a. the\nMonkey King), vampires, or such themes are in so many anime, I could more\neasily and quickly form a list of series that contain these recurring themes.\nSo **in contrast, the Seven Deadly Sins are not a major, frequently-occuring\ntheme in the corpus of anime and manga**.\n\nThe second question asked was **“Is there a specific reason for this?”** Of\ncourse it is easier to write a story around a borrowed theme, or to\nincorporate one to give support to the story you already want to write, or to\nsimply insert one that has a built-in fan base in order to pull in an audience\nalready primed to find it interesting.\n\nHowever, to answer whether there is a **specific** reason in regard to its use\nin anime (as compared to, say, use of it as a literary device in American\ncomic books), we should consider by what means a Japanese mangaka or anime\ndirector could have even heard of the concept of Seven Deadly Sins in the\nfirst place.\n\n**Basic Japanese education does not include mention of anything that touches\non religion virtually at all, even in courses such as History or Literature**\n; it is safe to say that over 90% of Japanese university students have not\neven heard of the Apostle Paul, who remains one of the most famous figures in\nworld history even from the perspective of non-Christians. They do not have a\nbasic literacy regarding the Bible or other religious texts (including\nBuddhist and Shinto texts). Unless they attended a Catholic high school, they\ncannot likely name the main strands of Christianity (Roman Catholicism,\nEastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Protestantism), name the Ten\nCommandments, name the Beatitudes, or so on. So the chance that they would\nhave received any mention of the Seven Deadly Sins (which is [a much later\nproduct of\nChristianity](http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=22364.0)\nthan the New Testament) within their educational career is very low.\n**Academic writing, writing skills, and creative writing are not generally\ntaught in Japanese schools, and Japanese education does not generally\nhighlight recognizing, analyzing, or making use of literary themes** , also\nrendering the chance of exposure to the Seven as simply a literary reference\ninside of an academic class low.\n\nSince we cannot look to educational institutions as a likely source of\nknowledge of the Seven, we should consider other possible sources.\n**Christians in Japan make up less than 1% of the population** , and of those,\nsome are \"in the closet\" and do not mention that they are secretly Christian\nto any of their friends. Thus, it is not likely for a mangaka or anime\ndirector to run into the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins or other Christian-\nrelated topics of conversation in regular day-to-day life interactions.\n\nIt makes more sense for those Japanese who could recite to you a list of what\nthe Seven Deadly Sins are (and I guarantee you, this would be a meager\npercentage of the population! I cannot even think of a single one of my\nJapanese friends here in Japan who I imagine could do it [even though I teach\nin the English department of a high-ranked Japanese national university and am\na doctoral candidate in the Religion department at another]), to have heard of\nit, most likely, from either 1) coming across it in a prior manga or anime or\nlight novel, or 2) reading of it within the sort of Japanese novels considered\nto be decent, respectable literature by most Japanese (something like\nAkutagawa Ryuunosuke or Murakami Haruki). If the Seven Deadly Sins are found\nin modern Japanese literature, that is a prime source that could have spread\nthe concept.\n\nSince most average Japanese adults do not read manga and do not watch anime,\nif it was primarily spread through either of these two mediums, we’re looking\nat the demographics who would know of the Seven Deadly Sins as 1) young\nchildren and 2) otaku, neither of whom are a majority in an aging society.\n\nRealistically, what we are looking at is that some author or mangaka in recent\nhistory found out about the Seven Deadly Sins and thought it would make a nice\ntrope; then, readers of said novel or manga heard of it, then one of them gave\nit a different spin in his manga, then someone else saw it there and adopted\nit, and so on.\n\nOne **specific reason** that a Japanese author or mangaka originally latched\nonto the idea of Seven Deadly Sins might be precisely because **it is not\ncommon knowledge in Japanese society: it is novel, foreign, and niche**. The\nBible originates from the Middle East (which still bears the sense of an\nexotic, far-away place to the Japanese), though, perhaps unfortunately, most\nof the Japanese conceive of Christianity as “Western.” While the Seven Deadly\nSins are most well-known within Roman Catholicism, their origin is not\nactually Western. The origin [dates from before the East/West schism in\nChristianity and involves Eastern church\nfathers](http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=22364.0).\nAlso, there is wide variation among the strains of Christianity (Roman\nCatholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Protestantism’s many\nbranches, indigenous Christianities), [not all of which recognize a set of\nSeven Deadly\nSins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_sin#Eastern_Christian_views)\n(some Eastern ones do, some Western ones do not).\n\nTo put it simply, the Seven Deadly Sins has **a curious, intriguing, \"Other\"\naspect to it from the Japanese perspective**. Precisely because it is not\nfamiliar or easy to understand gives it a juicy hook. This means _the reason\nfor its use in anime is **different in nature** from the reason/s for its use\nin works produced in countries that have a history of Christendom_ where it is\ncommonplace for the average Joe to have at least heard of the Seven Deadly\nSins.\n\nThe third question asked was **“Or is this a reference of them being beyond\nsin?”** I am not clear on what is being asked in this question (What does\n“them” refer to?), but an additional factor which should be considered is\nthat, in Japanese language, the word used to translate the Greek word for\n\"sin\" is 「罪」( _tsumi_ ), which commonly refers to crimes. The average Japanese\nperson does not have a conceptualization of any sin that is not\ncriminal/against the law/severe (such as murder or theft). Thus, the more\nglobally-recognized definition of \"sin\" as something that one could do which\nis either 1) mild in its effects (laziness, tell a 'white lie,' shove your\nbrother) or 2) internal/an attitude (lust, greed, pride) is not understood as\nfitting the definition of 「罪」 to the Japanese. (This means that every\nmissionary and pastor in Japan must go to some pains to re-explain the word\n“sin” to their would-be converts, because most Japanese do not think they have\never committed a sin at all, since they have never done anything that would\nwarrant getting arrested). The Seven are, therefore, not the easiest things\nfor Japanese to conceive of as fitting the definition of what 「罪」 is, since\nnone of them are illegal: wrath, greed, pride, lust, and envy are things you\ncan keep to yourself without affecting others, and sloth and gluttony are\nlooked down upon as personality flaws but not the sort of things you’d need a\nSavior to rescue you over. Japan is a rather don’t-ask-don’t-tell, do-\nwhatever-you-want-in-the-privacy-of-your-own-home-and-just-don’t-bother-\nanyone-else-about-it society, so **the Seven Deadly Sins are not necessarily\nthings that the average Japanese even considers make a person evil, bad, or\nguilty** : if you lust over your _bishoujo_ dating sim video game or porn,\neven on your lab computer at university right in front of everybody, or\nmention that you’re going out to feel up a stranger's breasts for a fee at the\nhostess club afterward, your labmates don’t think you need to be punished or\nforgiven.\n\nSo we come back to the fact that **the content of the Seven Deadly Sins\nthemselves would be viewed as unexpected and even somewhat bizarre,** whereby\nit could become a theme that **sticks in subcultures in which having niche\nknowledge is valued**.\n\n", "comment_count": 8, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-05-01T08:20:53.020", "id": "21275", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-06T22:56:08.770", "last_edit_date": "2015-08-06T22:56:08.770", "last_editor_user_id": "8134", "owner_user_id": "8134", "parent_id": "5217", "post_type": "answer", "score": 18 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI don't think it was ever stated how exactly they were wiped out, but we do\nknow that it wasn't a WMD (no damage to the surrounding land), it wasn't the\nfiend that killed them (death feedback), and that the fiend stopped their\narrows and disarmed them. It's also possible the fiend prevented the Giant\nHornet soldiers from attacking any of the Robber Fly and that's why none of\nthem were killed. Being unable to fight back, all the Robber Fly soldiers had\nto do was slaughter them all.\n\nThat could also be the reason Kiroumaru was the sole survivor of the battle,\nin order to bring suspicion onto him from the humans. The Robber Fly could\nhave purposely let him live.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T05:50:15.197", "id": "5229", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T05:50:15.197", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5226", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nIt’s not explained. But the most lore friendly explanation I think is that\nSquealer recruited a human sympathizer. He’s done it before. Twice even.\n\nAnd both times it was Satoru. Come to think of it, wasn’t he the one who\nreported the results of the battle?\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2022-08-16T16:30:26.423", "id": "67124", "last_activity_date": "2022-08-16T16:30:26.423", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "66865", "parent_id": "5226", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nWith \"Read Or Die\", it was part of the plot, since they cloned Beethoven\nhimself. With most of the other instances, it's selected background music, and\nI'm not sure I'd say it's even that prevalent. [Schubert's Ave\nMaria](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bosouX_d8Y) is used in a _lot_ of\nshows. Same with [Erik Satie's Gymnopédie\nNo.1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU), Beethoven's [Moonlight\nSonata](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU) or\n[Pathetique](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luo4wUQMwYY), [Pachelbel's Canon\nin D](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdRNTXaweoo), [Ravel's\nBolero](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4wb11w0ZHQ), or what about [Handel's\nMessiah](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU)?\n\nAside from the obvious thematic reasons you'd want to pick a classical piece,\nespecially in shows that are set in a classical setting or at a music school\n(Nodame Cantabile, La Corda, etc), sometimes the animation/scene/sequence is\nstoryboarded/tailored for a particular piece of music. In Evangelion, you had\nthat super long pause during Ode to Joy. In Legends of the Galactic Heroes \"My\nConquest of the Sea of Stars\", there's is a beyond epic 15+ minute long space\nbattle that is intricately choreographed to the entirety of Ravel's Bolero.\n\nOddly, while it's said that Vivaldi's Four Seasons is the most played\nclassical piece ever, I don't think it's used in anime all that much.\n\nThere's a [thread on\nANN](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55972) that\nlists some of the more common classical pieces that get used in anime.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T06:14:33.397", "id": "5230", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T06:14:33.397", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nThe Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th symphony is one of the most well-known\nclassical pieces of music throughout the world (most lists put it in the top\n10). But Beethoven's 9th symphony is especially well-known in Japan, where I\nsuspect it would top the list or come close. It's a [long-standing\ntradition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_%28Beethoven%29#New_Year.27s_tradition_in_Japan)\nto hold performances of this symphony, especially the finale (which includes\nthe Ode to Joy), during New Year's celebrations. This tradition dates back to\nthe 1920s, and became especially prominent in the WWII and post-WWII eras.\nBecause of this, the piece is known universally in Japan.\n\nThe piece is also somewhat programmatic, in that it has a clear meaning which\ndoesn't require interpretation (unlike most of Beethoven's works which were\npurely instrumental). Since the use of classical music in anime is usually to\ninvoke symbollism, it's more natural to choose programmatic pieces like this.\n\nIf you consider all classical pieces which are well-known and have known\nsymbolic meaning, there really aren't that many. The Ode to Joy is a pretty\nnatural choice among them, and it's used a lot because it fits both of these\ncriteria well. I don't think there's a lot more to it than that, and the\namount that the Ode to Joy is played in anime isn't so much that it needs\nfurther explanation beyond that.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T14:42:15.040", "id": "5238", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T14:42:15.040", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "24", "parent_id": "5227", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n[Religion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion) is an organized collection\nof beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the\nsupernatural, and to spirituality.\n\nWhile it would a stretch to say combating Hollows might be an extension of\nQuincy culture, it doesn't hold through with a belief system. Religion by\ndefinition requires belief, a viewpoint with intangible evidence. When\nevidence becomes tangible, it holds at least some quantifiable fact.\n\nFor Quincy, harnessing spiritual particles to shoot projectiles of energy and\nthe dangers of Hollows interacting with the real world are both instances of\nfact.\n\nThere has been no mention of religion or specifically Christianity in Bleach,\nbut despite either existing, the Quincy are more of a clan of warriors or\nhunters. I understand the suggestive designs that seem Religion-based but I\nbelieve it's to appeal to an exorcist fanbase as a supernatural character\noption in this story about ghosts, good or bad, and their governors.\n\nSource(s): [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion)\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T09:22:21.060", "id": "5232", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T09:22:21.060", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2364", "parent_id": "5228", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "\n\nNo such thing has been specified by the author. Think of it as a cult or clan\nif you like, but all we know is that their clothes, weapons and name of\nattacks are due to the their traditions and history (which we don't completely\nknow about just yet).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T16:36:44.033", "id": "5241", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T16:36:44.033", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2406", "parent_id": "5228", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nWhile it was never really clear which seat was considered the best, the latest\nchapter 47 confirms Seat 1 is the best as Seat 1 gets special recognition.\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-10T14:36:53.180", "id": "5819", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-10T14:36:53.180", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5231", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n[**_Madoka Magica_**](https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Madoka_Magica_\\(manga\\))\n(art by [hanokage](http://myanimelist.net/people/12433/Hanokage); story by\nMagica Quartet1) is an almost shot-for-shot manga adaptation of the anime.\nThere are a couple minor differences (e.g. it's made more explicit that Sayaka\nkills the two guys on the train just before she turns into a witch; Kyuubey\ndoes [these freaky open-mouthed smiles](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kQT04.png)),\nbut other than those, it's pretty much the same as the anime.\n\n_Madoka Magica_ was published as three volumes (covers:\n[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/i0wOv.jpg),\n[2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ELuAH.jpg),\n[3](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rDvU4.jpg)).\n\n* * *\n\n[**_Kazumi Magica: The Innocent Malice_**](http://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Kazumi_Magica) (art by [TENSUGI\nTakashi](http://myanimelist.net/people/11856/Takashi_Tensugi); story by\n[HIRAMATSU Masaki](http://myanimelist.net/people/11857/Masaki_Hiramatsu)) is\nset in the same universe as the anime and shares mechanics with it (such as\nGrief Seeds, Soul Gems, and so forth), but has very little in common with the\nanime in terms of plot. The city of Mitakihara is mentioned and Kyuubey shows\nup from time to time, but there's nothing to suggest that the characters of\n_Kazumi Magica_ ever interact with the characters of _Madoka Magica_. (Kyuubey\nexcluded, because he seems to be sort of a hive-mind thing without real\nindividual identity.)\n\n_Kazumi Magica_ is compatible with the plot as depicted in the anime, given\nthat there are basically no points of overlap between the casts. _Kazumi\nMagica_ is generally considered to be low on the canonicity scale.\n\n_Kazumi Magica_ was originally serialized in _Kirara Magica_ , and was later\ncollected into five volumes (covers: [1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ECkRQ.jpg),\n[2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RQycC.jpg),\n[3](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Zw1T.jpg),\n[4](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kBgbt.jpg),\n[5](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uNhZz.jpg)).\n\n* * *\n\n[**_Oriko Magica_**](http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Oriko_Magica) (art by [MURA\nKuroe](http://myanimelist.net/people/24891/Kuroe_Mura); story by Magica\nQuartet1) depicts a possible timeline that occurs prior to the main anime\ntimeline. All the major characters of the anime appear, with a particular\nfocus on Kyouko and Mami, as well as some original characters such as Yuma and\nOriko. Judging from the way Homura is depicted in _Oriko Magica_ , it is\nsuspected that it takes place in one of the timelines between timelines 3 and\n4 of episode 10 of the anime.\n\n_Oriko Magica_ is generally compatible with the plot as depicted in the anime,\nthough it leaves behind nagging questions like \"Where was Oriko in the anime\ntimeline?\" and so forth. _Oriko Magica_ is generally considered to be slightly\nhigher than Kazumi Magica on the canonicity scale.\n\nIn addition to the two original volumes of the story (covers:\n[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jPSXy.jpg),\n[2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BbKoS.jpg)), there was \"Another Story\" (別編,\n[cover](https://i.stack.imgur.com/97TJ9.jpg)), consisting of the stories\n_Noisy Citrine_ and _Symmetry Diamond_ , originally serialized in _Kirara\nMagica_. A longer continuation, titled \"New Contract: Oriko Magica ~sadness\nprayer~\" ([新約] 魔法少女おりこ☆マギカ ～sadness prayer～, covers not yet available), begins\nserialization in November 2013.\n\n* * *\n\n[**_The Different Story_**](http://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Puella_Magi_Madoka_Magica:_The_Different_Story) (art by\n[hanokage](http://myanimelist.net/people/12433/Hanokage); story by Magica\nQuartet1) depicts a possible timeline that occurs prior to the main anime\ntimeline (presumably between timelines 4 and 5 of episode 10). All of the\nmajor characters of the anime appear, again with a heavy focus on Kyouko and\nMami. There are no (significant) original characters in The Different Story.\n\nNoteworthily, _The Different Story_ begins chronologically prior to Episode 1\nof the anime. In fact, Volume 1 of _The Different Story_ begins shortly after\nMami contracts with Kyuubey, and then follows her life through her meeting and\nsubsequent partnership with Kyouko. Volumes 2 and 3 bring us forward to the\ntimeframe in which all the timelines depicted in the anime occur.\n\n_The Different Story_ is generally considered to be very high on the\ncanonicity scale, because\n\n * It began as an adaptation of Drama CD #3 \"Farewell Story\", generally considered to be highly canonical.\n * Its creation involved more input from Magica Quartet than did the creation of either _Oriko Magica_ or _Kazumi Magica_\n * The artist for _The Different Story_ was [hanokage](http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Hanokage), who was also the artist for _Madoka Magica_ and _Madoka Magica –Rebellion–_ , the two \"most-official\" adaptations\n * There are no known incompatibilities between the plot of _The Different Story_ and the plot of the anime.\n\nIn light of these facts, it is generally agreed that _The Different Story_ can\nreasonably be viewed as essentially canonical in the context of the anime, and\nso may fairly be interpreted as a direct extension to the anime. This is\nimportant because, if _The Different Story_ is canonical, it gives us _lots_\nof knowledge about Mami and Kyouko prior to the events of the anime. All of\nthis knowledge is necessarily valid in all timelines, because it occurs prior\nto Homura waking up in the hospital. As such, it would do much to inform Mami\nand Kyouko's motivations throughout the anime.\n\n_The Different Story_ was published as three volumes (covers:\n[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NyqHq.jpg),\n[2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6FOvp.jpg),\n[3](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9aV17.jpg)).\n\n* * *\n\n[**_Madoka Magica –Rebellion–_**](https://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Rebellion_Manga) (劇場版 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ [新編]叛逆の物語; art by\n[hanokage](http://myanimelist.net/people/12433/Hanokage); story by Magica\nQuartet1) is a closely-hewing adaptation of the third movie, just like _Madoka\nMagica_ was a closely-hewing adaptation of the series (corresponding to the\nfirst two movies, I suppose). All signs point to the story being plotwise\nidentical to the third movie, but with some stylistic differences, both minor\nand substantial. With the third volume yet to come, though, anything could\nhappen.\n\n_Madoka Magica –Rebellion–_ will be published as three volumes (covers:\n[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4u5A.jpg); 2, 3 not yet available).\n\n* * *\n\n[**_Suzune Magica_**](https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Suzune_Magica) (art and\nstory by [GAN](http://myanimelist.net/people/25221/GAN), I think) is another\nspinoff that has just begun. At a glance, it looks like it has nothing to do\nwith the main storyline (though Kyuubey shows up, unsurprisingly), but as with\nall things Madoka, looks can be deceiving. More details as they come.\n\n* * *\n\n[**_Tart Magica: The Legend of \"Jeanne d'Arc\"_**](https://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Tart_Magica) (art and story by the group [Golden Pe\nDone](http://goldenpedone1.web.fc2.com/ \"website in Japanese\")) is yet another\nspinoff, and began serialization in volume 10 of _Kirara Magica_ (the Nov 2013\nissue). As the title suggests, the main character is Joan of Arc, who is a\nmagical girl. In keeping with the prevalence of suffering in the Madoka Magica\nworld, it appears that the story starts with a shot of her burning at the\nstake, and then flashes back to how, exactly, she came unto such suffering.\n\nNote: \"Tart\" is, supposedly, an alternate spelling of Joan of Arc's last name.\n\n* * *\n\n# Notes\n\n1 \"Magica Quartet\" is the collective name for SHINBO Akiyuki, IWAKAMI\nAtsuhiro, AOKI Ume, and UROBUCHI Gen, who are the director, producer,\ncharacter designer, and writer for _Madoka Magica_ , respectively.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T18:01:38.073", "id": "5243", "last_activity_date": "2023-04-28T20:10:51.660", "last_edit_date": "2023-04-28T20:10:51.660", "last_editor_user_id": "19307", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5233", "post_type": "answer", "score": 12 }, { "body": "\n\n[Puella Magi Homura Tamura](http://wiki.puella-\nmagi.net/Puella_Magi_Homura_Tamura) -Parallel Worlds Do Not Remain Parellel\nForever- (Comic by Afro) is a 4Koma style comedy parody of the Puella Magi\nMadoka Magica series. It takes place during many of Homura Akemi's alternate\ntimelines. It is established that there are many Homuras all traveling through\ntime all trying (and failing spectacularly) to find some way to Madoka. The\nmain character is Homura Akemi (but implied to be a Homura from an alternate\ntimeline) with the rest of the Madoka Magica cast making appearances. There\nalso several other Homuras who make appearances from time to time. Typically\nin the manga, Homura arrives in a new timeline and finds some wildly\nexaggerated change from the regular story (like a world where Magical Girls\nare all motorcycle riders, or one where Mami Tomoe has taken over the world),\nand Homura tries to save Madoka in the middle of all the chaos, while trying\nto understand how the world has changed each time.\n\nSo far, there are only two volumes to the manga. They are published in the\nU.S. by Yen Press. The first volume came out August 2015, and the second in\nFebruary 2016. According to Amazon, [Vol.\n3](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0316439827) is scheduled to come\nout September 19, 2017.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-07-30T05:16:55.083", "id": "41619", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-30T05:16:55.083", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "34878", "parent_id": "5233", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe style he uses is from the game, and is atypical of normal kendo, so the\ndifferent postures and techinques mightn't have given him much of an\nadvantage, as battle works differently in SAO.\n\nBut as a reactive sport, Kendo probably gave Kirito very fast reflexes, which\nwould have definetly served as a distinct advantage over the average person.\nEspecially since the nervegear simulated your character's limbs from nerve\nendings, that would usually work your own limbs.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T14:02:38.033", "id": "5235", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T14:02:38.033", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1530", "parent_id": "5234", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nHaven't seen the anime, but at least according to the Light Novels, it is\nimplied that Suguha was better than most other players in Alfheim due to her\nexpertise in Kendo. So answer to your first question would be a yes. It also\ngoes in the other way around, in that skills learnt virtually can be applied\nto the real world, though there will be limits based on one's physical\nattributes naturally.\n\nIn Kirito's case though he given up on Kendo a long time ago, as kids. His\nprowess probably came from his inborn reflexes and his belief that both the\ngaming and the real world are 'real'.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T16:24:17.230", "id": "5239", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T16:24:17.230", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2406", "parent_id": "5234", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 }, { "body": "\n\nThe training in SAO might have given him a advantage but it might have put him\nat a disadvantage. In SAO you had sword skills and you could alter your\nweapons how you pleased. In kendo, however, there are no sword skills and you\ncan't alter your weapon. Most likely he would be at a level that would suggest\naverage, but he's not going to be a complete master at kendo. also in the\ngame, you can upgrade your reflexes and strength and so on. So, it might give\nhim an edge and it might not.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-04-15T20:44:12.363", "id": "31432", "last_activity_date": "2016-04-15T20:44:12.363", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "23476", "parent_id": "5234", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThis question is tricky, since the author (I believe) masterfully incorporated\nreal-life events/characters (Imperialists, Shinsengumi, etc.), while basing\nsome of the fictional characters on real life people (Kenshin), and mixing in\nsome pure fiction. Also the response would be too long for this thread. I\nwould read the [Kenshin Wikia](http://kenshin.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) which\nusually has trivia under each characters about who they are based on or\ninfluenced by.\n\nIt should be noted that he did some clever things like rework Saito/Aoshi to\nbe more like Hijikata Toshizō, and Seta Sojiro is heavily influenced by Okita\nSoji (even has Okita's named katana).\n\nFighting style wise, in the manga/TV series, while some of the styles like\nGatotsu were based on real moves various factions used, they were exaggerated\nor made up and completely unrealistic in real life. However, it's worth noting\nthat in the OVAs and the new movies, the fighting is realistic (which means\nthe fight scenes are **a lot** shorter but the higher animation quality\ndefinitely makes it more fun to watch).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-08-05T15:03:04.910", "id": "13264", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-13T05:45:07.677", "last_edit_date": "2014-08-13T05:45:07.677", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "7597", "parent_id": "5237", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nSince your question is remarkably broad (historical facts, events, the art of\nthe sword, the base for all of the characters & plot points), and since some\naspects of _Rurouni Kenshin_ 's historicity have already been answered in\nother questions on this SE\n[here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/541/who-is-kenshin-based-on),\n[here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/18547/why-does-okita-souji-\ndid-not-appear), and\n[here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/19525/are-guns-in-kenshin-\nhistorically-accurate), and there are useful fan websites like\n[this](http://hanyaiseng2.blogspot.jp/2012/03/hitokiri-battousai-really-\nthere.html), [this](https://shinsengumisadaptations.wordpress.com/),\n[this](http://spressivo.com/isa/TenThings2009/1428.htm), and\n[this](http://www.oocities.org/rainforestwind/meiji2.htm), I will collect here\nsome of the _mangaka_ Nobuhiro Watsuki's own comments in a number of\ninterviews about how historically-accurate the series is.\n\nInterview at AnimeExpo 2002 convention in 2 different fan translations (he was\nspeaking in Japanese):\n\n[#1](https://rozzychan.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/interview-with-watsuki-\nnobuhiro-at-anime-expo-2002/):\n\n> Hmmmmmmm, _Rurouni Kenshin_ started as a short story, so I didn’t do much\n> research on it, but in the year and a half between the story and the start\n> of the series, I spent a lot of time reading [books about Meiji]. I did the\n> manga because I wanted to draw kimono and swords, so don’t count on all of\n> the details to be completely accurate. . . . Also, I am a big fan of the\n> Shinsengumi. . . . The model for Kenshin was one of the old _hitokiri_ of\n> the Bakumatsu. This man was an assassin and slayed … He had a tough life,\n> and in his last years he started to repent for all of the killings, but he\n> kept his will and was executed by the government. So he is not very well\n> respected in Japan. . . . Some moves are based on actual moves. Sanosuke’s\n> _fuwai no kuwami_ is just an exaggerated double punch. The other half of the\n> moves are created by him swinging his sword around in the privacy of his own\n> room. A third category pays homage to his favorite shows like _Sunrise\n> Showdown_. Shishio’s final move is just a big-ass _homoro dama_.\n\nand\n\n> I have practiced Kendo, but I am very weak. That is where my love of sports\n> comes from, but I am very weak. If I were good at Kendo, I wouldn’t be\n> drawing manga.\n\n[#2](http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-65909/interview-with-nobuhiro-\nwatsuki-about-rurouni-kenshin):\n\n> _Kenshin_ started as a shot story without much research. In the year and\n> half, he had between when the series started he read a LOT of books. He\n> wanted to draw kimonos and swords, so its not very accurate to the Meiji\n> period. . . . He is also a big fan of the Shinsengumi, but he couldn't do\n> the actual revolution since he wanted to do more human drama. . . . There\n> was a _hitokiri_ of the revolution [name missed], who had his own mind, and\n> never really bent to the government. He did end up repenting for his\n> killing, however he DID get executed for never submitting to the government.\n> . . . A lot of the moves are based on real martial arts moves, just over-\n> exaggerated. The other half are created by him flinging a sword around in\n> the privacy of his room. Others are homages to favorite games, like _Samurai\n> Spirits_ . . .\n\nand\n\n> Watsuki has practiced Kendo and his love of sword comes from that. He's very\n> weak thought, and if he was a good kendo practitioner he wouldn't be drawing\n> manga.\n\nInterview from _Kenshin Kaden_ guidebook in 2 different fan translations:\n\n[#1](http://users.skynet.be/aoshihomepage/Kenshin/Author.htm)\n\n> The _sakabatou_ is something original that I came up with. The reason for it\n> is very simple: I didn’t want my main character killing anyone. But a bamboo\n> sword or wooden sword isn’t intimidating enough, so I came up with the idea\n> of a sword that has its sharp and blunt edges on reversed sides. That way\n> the main character is able to fight the way he always does, and still be\n> able to refrain from killing anyone. [laughs]\n\n[#2](http://users.skynet.be/aoshihomepage/Kenshin/Author.htm)\n\n> It's an original idea, a weapon like that didn't exist at that time. Right\n> before the beginning of the series, I told myself that it wasn't a good idea\n> to have a main character who killed his opponent in every fight, but I also\n> didn't want to give him a _bokuto_ (wooden sword), or a _takemitsu_ (sword\n> with a normal hilt but a wooden blade). Then I got the idea to create a\n> sword with a sharp back, so that it could be used effectively against\n> opponent, but it wouldn't be lethal. And that's how the _sakabatou_ was\n> born!\n\nInterview from [_Kenshin Hiden_](http://kenkaku.free.fr/interview.html)\nguidebook:\n\n> I practiced [kendo] in jr. high but only to an elementary level. Then I\n> stopped practicing during high school, since I was devoted to drawing manga\n> by then. I didn’t want my time limited by extracurricular activities. . . .\n> It started when I read the new _Moeyo, Ken_ by Shiba Ryuutarou (another very\n> famous and popular history in Japan). I loved the book and decided to use\n> the end of the Bakufu era as a historical background. Later, the story\n> spread to the Meiji era, which is due to another book I read in that same\n> period: _Shuugata Sanshirou_ by Tsuneo Tomita. Designing a story set at the\n> end of the Bakufu perid is quite a complicated job, and therefore the short\n> history presented is inadequate. The end of the Bakufu and the beginning of\n> Meiji is filled with chaos and instabilities, so I chose Meiji years 10 to\n> 20, a more stable era for the background of a short story. Due to various\n> limitations, I couldn’t draw real historical figures. So I created my own\n> characters. . . . This is because of the Satsuma Rebellion. Before the end\n> of the Satsuma Rebellion in the tenth year of Meiji, there was always a lot\n> of turmoil and rioting in Japan. Most people are familiar with the end of\n> the Bakufu and the Meiji Restoration, not recognizing that the end of the\n> Bakufu as the exact beginning of the Meiji era. Instead, the Meiji truly\n> began in Meiji year 10, after the Satsuma Rebellion ended. For the same\n> reason, I chose Meiji year 11 for the background story of _Rurouni Kenshin_.\n> . . . No, I didn’t take [Ookubo Toshimichi’s assassination] into\n> consideration at that time. Initially, _Rurouni Kenshin_ was only intended\n> to be pubished for 30 weeks. Though I hadn’t thought of it beforehand, I\n> thought it'd be very interesting to add this into the plot. . . . No, I\n> wasn’t very confident [laughs], especially when the series was first\n> published, I was really worried. . . . My interest in history began with the\n> start of the _Kenshin_ series. I learned all of this history along with my\n> readers. I had to look for references at the same time as I was drawing the\n> series; I knew very little about the Shinsengumi. I like the Shinsengumi\n> since I created _Sengoku no Mikazuki_ in the year that I finished _Rurouni_\n> and started _Rurouni Kenshin_ , the only book that I read was about the\n> Shinsengumi [laughs]. . . . My favorites are Hijikata Toshizou, Okita Souji,\n> Saitou Hajime, Harada Sanosuke, Serizawa Kamo, in fact each of the units. I\n> also like Takeda Kanryuu and Nagaruka Shinpachi. I always want to somehow\n> arrange an appearance of Nagakura Shinpachi in the manga. . . . Yes, I also\n> like Ookubo Toshimichi. Things related to Katsura Kogorou have an\n> interesting feel as well. Apart from the Ishinshishi, it's boring to study\n> the life of Enomoto Takeai after the Battle of Hakodate. I like that. There\n> was also a swordsman appointed in the late Bakufu period, Sakakikara\n> Kenkichi. He was a master of the martial arts school established by the\n> Bakufu government. His title required being the strongest swordsman of the\n> Bakufu. He insisted on wearing a cape to his death; he was really a stubborn\n> person. I also considered adding him into the manga. I’m interested in\n> Sakamoto Ryoma recently, but I don’t intend to add him into the manga\n> [laughs]. . . . Although I don’t have time to read these days, I read a lot\n> in the beginning. The writers that I like include Shiba Ryotarou, Ikenami\n> Shoutarou, Shibata Renzaburou, and more. Covering the Shinsengumi, Shimo\n> Zawahiro (a writer of novels chronicling the Shinsengumi) is very famous.\n> His writing is interesting and serves well as references and historical\n> novels.\n\n[Interview at Made in Asia 3 convention](http://www.manga-\nnews.com/index.php/actus/2011/03/28/Nobuhiro-Watsuki-Conference-et-Interview)\n(I'm translating from the French, since it took place in Brussels):\n\n> It’s true that at the beginning of _Kenshin_ , I wasn’t a specialist in this\n> period, even though I liked a lot of aspects, especially the Bakufu. It’s\n> really as I was drawing the story that I became more knowledgeable. At that\n> time, the internet was not at developed as it is now, so I had to deepen my\n> knowledge by finding out through old books.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-06-16T11:02:03.830", "id": "22485", "last_activity_date": "2015-06-16T11:07:23.453", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:49.090", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "8134", "parent_id": "5237", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nYes, sort of. A lot of the characters were based (albeit modified) on Actual\ncharacters in history.\n\n * Lord Okubo: Ōkubo Toshimichi. He was responsible for the suppression of the Satsuma rebellion in 1877 (Seinan wars). In real life, Ōkubo was murdered by six discontented clansmen on his way to Tokyo. In the Anime; Seta Sōjirō assassinated him and the clansmen took responsibility for the murder for political reasons.\n\n[enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zKWCK.jpg) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HN4RQ.jpg)\n\n * Katsura Kogorō aka Kido Takayoshi: Was another character with liberties taken to the real life man. In 1852, Katsura learned swordsmanship, and in the 1850's oversaw the development of Japan's first Western style warship. Though historically well known throughout history as a ruthless radical leader. In the anime OVA, he's portayed more fairly as a calm, calculating statesman; with heavy regrets of sending a Child to perform the bloody work of Hitokiri. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/f8Exp.jpg) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IkhwL.jpg)\n * Oita Soji: By far liberties were taken with him. In terms of appearance, No one has relevant or photographic evidence of his appearance. Depicted very youthfully thou he was in his 20's. In the anime/ova he's depicted in the battle of fighting during the Ikedaya Attack. But in both the Anime and OVA, he participate the Battle of Toba Fushimi when he confronted Kenshin. Historically he was never present in said battle battle due to being forced to recuperate from Tuberculosis.\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Axozs.png)\n\n * Sagara Sōzō: The anime takes liberties with his death. In real life Sōzō and his lieutenants were arrested and decapitated when he reported to the commanding general and his head was placed on a platform in a cage for all to see. In the anime he died saving Sanosuke from gunfire\n\nThe show Also more or less depicts various western introductions that were\noften comedic-ally or simply curiously seen by the main cast.\n\n * Photography, first introduced in 1856.\n * Badminton and Billiards\n * Beer\n * Clover (flower)\n * Coffee\n * The Piano (1823) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5hMaN.jpg)\n * Cabbage and Tomatoes: Introduced by the dutch\n * Chocolate\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2020-10-27T07:28:30.803", "id": "60916", "last_activity_date": "2020-10-28T21:13:52.787", "last_edit_date": "2020-10-28T21:13:52.787", "last_editor_user_id": "54434", "owner_user_id": "54434", "parent_id": "5237", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nUsing onomatopoeia to stress sound effects in literature is not manga-specific\nor even comic-specific. For example, 1966's _Batman_ TV series or even\nNickelodeon's _The Fairly OddParents_ had readily available audio to match\ntheir onscreen text with emphasis. But several cultures have their own\norigins. Tracing back **when** this particular artistic/literary device caught\non would be pretty exhaustive, if even credible at all.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-19T18:49:20.010", "id": "5246", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-19T18:49:20.010", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2364", "parent_id": "5245", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAs was suggested by senshin in the comments, this is a moefied version of the\nmissionary [Francis Xavier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier), the\nfirst Jesuit missionary to arrive in Japan (in 1549), as well as the island\n[Tanegashima](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanegashima). It is a source of\nsome debate among historians as to whether Xavier ever actually went to\nTanegashima (see for instance [this\narticle](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2383897)) but in any case Tanegashima is\nthe first known point of contact between the Japanese and the Europeans, by a\nPortuguese ship blown off-course en route to China in 1543, and is thus\nassociated with the introduction of European culture to Japan and indirectly\n(but strongly) to Xavier.\n\nMoe versions of historical figures and other classic works are nothing new.\nThe most famous examples are probably people from the [Sengoku\nPeriod](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period) (a time period that\nXavier's arrival conveniently falls in), though the [Three Kingdoms\nera](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms) is also pretty common. Some\nexamples of this are [Sengoku\nCollection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_Collection), [Sengoku Otome:\nMomoiro\nParadox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_Otome%3a_Momoiro_Paradox), [Oda\nNobuna no Yabou](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobuna_no_Yab%C5%8D), and\n[Hyakka Ryouran](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyakka_Ry%C5%8Dran). This\nmoefication of historical figures has also been parodied in some other works,\nlike [Sayonara Zetsubou\nSensei](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayonara,_Zetsubou-Sensei) and [Princess\nJellyfish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Jellyfish). This appears to\nbe another parody in a similar vein.\n\nFor obvious reasons, Xavier is associated with Christianity in Japan. This\nexplains the large cross wielded by the character and the head ornament, both\nof which are significant Christian symbols and which are the most prominent\nfeatures of the character design.\n\nAfter reading the chapter myself, I don't think there's anything more to the\nreference than that.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-12-19T00:19:57.563", "id": "6421", "last_activity_date": "2013-12-19T00:32:54.223", "last_edit_date": "2013-12-19T00:32:54.223", "last_editor_user_id": "24", "owner_user_id": "24", "parent_id": "5248", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIt's not a stretch to think that he managed to sneak back inside the village\nand read it in his spare time.\n\nSomewhere before he connected himself to the Gedo Mazo and after he awakened\nthe Rinnegan.\n\nIt is not explained however, so any answer you'll get here would be\nspeculative.\n\nEDIT: Now I understood your question, however, nothing told you that the part\nabout the God Tree is only readable by the Rinnegan, maybe it was a part of\nthe tablet that could be read using a Mangekyo.\n\n", "comment_count": 5, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-20T07:39:25.543", "id": "5253", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-21T22:09:50.733", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-21T22:09:50.733", "last_editor_user_id": "27", "owner_user_id": "27", "parent_id": "5249", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 }, { "body": "\n\nIt's not a stretch to think that he managed to sneak back inside the village\nand read it in his spare time. I mean granted, he was stuck because he was\nattached to the statue to drain chakra from it, but that doesn't mean he\nforgot how to use shadow clones. That was the main point why shadow clones was\ninvented is for recon. What the clone learned came back to the original body\nonce the clone is canceled, no matter where the original body is, right?\nThat's what I am thinking.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-01-12T15:21:21.763", "id": "6862", "last_activity_date": "2016-12-05T17:54:00.697", "last_edit_date": "2016-12-05T17:54:00.697", "last_editor_user_id": "8486", "owner_user_id": "3302", "parent_id": "5249", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nLet's make things straight:\n\n * The former Jinchuuriki, reanimated and reinfused with their respective Bijuu, had the Yin-element rod channel the chakra back from the Gedo Mazo. Once removed, Tobi had to quickly re-seal them inside of the statue, or risk them being freed.\n\nThe seal wasn't a permanent seal, like Naruto's or Killer Bee's, it was a\ntemporary seal used for battling and then removing easily.\n\n * Minato's case is a bit different. Minato used the Shiki Fuujin to seal Kurama's Yin half inside of himself, but then, **he himself** got sealed, along with Kurama's half, into the Death God. That's why the Yin half of Kurama never revived (As it was still sealed), and that's why when Minato got reanimated with Edo Tensei, Kurama was already part of the deal. \n\n * Madara, however, cannot be a Jinchuuriki because when he died, he wasn't. The Edo Tensei revives people at certain states of their lives (usually the time of their deaths, but not always), Madara was not a Jinchuuriki anytime in his life.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-20T07:37:41.240", "id": "5252", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-20T07:37:41.240", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "27", "parent_id": "5250", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "\n\nMinato (4th hokage) even said it that he sealed half the nine tails into\nNaruto he sealed the **yang** half of the nine tails in Naruto while sealing\nthe **yin** half in him self...meaning that right now both Naruto and Minato\nare jinchuriki's of the nine tails.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-05T01:28:39.090", "id": "5740", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-05T01:28:39.090", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2671", "parent_id": "5250", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\nNo, Minato was not a Jinchuuriki. He used reaper death seal to control the\nexcess amount of chakra to contain the tailed beast inside his body.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-05-16T05:05:19.973", "id": "47053", "last_activity_date": "2018-05-16T05:05:19.973", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "37870", "parent_id": "5250", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nKishi never explicitly stated in the manga that Rikudou Sennin created the\ntablet, however we can make an educated guess that he did.\n\nLet's take a look at the facts.\n\n 1. To read the entire Uchiha tablet, the Rinnegan is required.\n 2. Madara is stated to be the second Sage of the Six Paths. (This should mean no one else had the Rinnegan inbetween Rikudou Sennin and Madara.)\n 3. The tablet had an extensive list of things, like the Moon Eye plan, how to obtain Mangekyou Sharingan, how to obtain the Rinnegan, and the history of the God Tree with Kaguya.\n\nKaguya could not have written the tablet because most of the tablet's info\npertain to Rikudou Sennin's era, where he had the Rinnegan and was the Juubi\nJinchuriki. And since Kaguya isn't considered to be a Sage of Six paths, we\ncan assume she doesn't have the Rinnegan either. We can also assume that a\nRinnegan user must have written the tablet.\n\nWith that said, Rikudou and Madara are the only two candidates left, but\nMadara uses the tablet to learn about the history of Shinobi, so Rikudou is\nthe only one who could have written the tablet.\n\nEDIT: Additionally, Tobi stated the Sage of Six paths created the tablet here\n(bottom panels).\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-20T19:01:16.433", "id": "5260", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-25T22:05:39.793", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-25T22:05:39.793", "last_editor_user_id": "2178", "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5251", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "\n\nNow, in manga version of naruto ([Chapter 671 Page\n6](http://www.mangareader.net/naruto/671/6)), The Sage of Six Path mention\nthat he left the stone monument so that people could reconsider. This is a\nconcrete evidence that the Sage really created that stone monument. See image\nbelow ( **Spoiler alert** ):\n\n> \n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-02T08:39:37.957", "id": "8423", "last_activity_date": "2014-04-02T08:39:37.957", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1709", "parent_id": "5251", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAkatsuki thinks that the rings are very valuable for some reason. You point\nout how Zetsu insists on collecting the rings of dead members. It's also\ntelling that when Orochimaru actually managed to take a ring away from\nAkatsuki, they didn't make a new ring _and they didn't replace Orochimaru_.\nIt's almost like the ring is more important than the person in that position.\n\nBut as of now, we don't know why Akatsuki places so much importance on the\nrings. They might have some kind of abilities, but if they do, we haven't seen\nthem.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-20T18:29:34.770", "id": "5259", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-20T18:29:34.770", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2403", "parent_id": "5257", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nThe rings do not have abilities.\n\nThey are simply used for the Akatsuki membership, which is why Sasuke's group\nTaka was never really considered Akatsuki. They might have had the cloaks, but\nthey didn't have the rings and the rings signify a true Akatsuki member.\n\nAlso, Orochimaru's ring was never replaced when he left the Akatsuki. There\nhave been 10 Akatsuki rings total as well as 10 members of the group.\n\nTaken from Naruto wikia\n\n> Right thumb: \"zero\" (零, rei); worn by Pain. Its colour is purplish-grey.\n>\n> Right index finger: \"blue,\" \"green\" (青, ao, shō); worn by Deidara. Its\n> colour is teal.\n>\n> Right middle finger: \"white\" (白, bya); worn by Konan. Its colour is white.\n>\n> Right ring finger: \"vermilion,\" \"scarlet\" (朱, shu); worn by Itachi Uchiha.\n> Its colour is >red.\n>\n> Right little finger: \"sign of the boar\" (亥, gai); worn by Zetsu. Its colour\n> is green.\n>\n> Left little finger: \"sky,\" \"void\" (空, kū); worn by Orochimaru. Its colour is\n> slate blue.\n>\n> Left ring finger: \"south\" (南, nan); worn by Kisame Hoshigaki. Its colour is\n> yellow.\n>\n> Left middle finger: \"north\" (北, hoku); worn by Kakuzu. Its colour is dark\n> green.\n>\n> Left index finger: \"three\" (三, san); worn by Hidan. Its colour is orange.\n>\n> Left thumb: \"jewel,\" \"ball,\" also the black king in shogi (玉, gyoku); worn\n> by Sasori and >later by Tobi. Its colour is purple.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-21T19:52:00.417", "id": "5269", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-21T19:57:45.787", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-21T19:57:45.787", "last_editor_user_id": "2178", "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5257", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nMaybe the rings are to connect with the Gedo statue. May be their seat on the\nstatues fingers in also where their ring should be. For example I think that\nSasori's ring was in his thumb and he sat on the Gedo's thumb. Another example\nOrochimaru's ring was still with him and the statues had a missing spot. So\nZetsu must have collected them in case of more member to make the extraction\nof the tailed beast quicker( if they were able to find a new member whom was\nwilling to join) ps people are way to into Hidan being a new member and having\na past\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-12-04T00:23:03.377", "id": "15460", "last_activity_date": "2014-12-04T08:34:22.507", "last_edit_date": "2014-12-04T08:34:22.507", "last_editor_user_id": "6345", "owner_user_id": "9462", "parent_id": "5257", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\n## **Potential Spoilers!!!!**\n\n_Read at your own risk..._\n\n* * *\n\nMy theory is that the rings are what allow Pain to talk to them telepathically\nand for them to astral project onto the fingers of the statue. When they\npreform the ceremony, there are at most two-four members physically present.\n(often the team that captured the jinchuuriki) My guess is that the black\nKanji in the rings is the same as the rods used to control the six paths of\nPain telepathically, which when the members concentrate chakra into the ring\nthey connect to Nagato. Also, it's probably time consuming to forge the rings\nand Nagato isn't exactly in the best of health at the point that members start\ndying.\n\nI do not believe that the rings have special \"powers\", beyond my theory they\nare what help them connect to Nagato telepathically. As for Itachi's comment\nabout other ways to cast genjutsu, you don't have to have a sharingan to cast\ngenjutsu. Take Kurenai for instance, she's a genjutsu mistress. I don't\nbelieve Itachi relied just on his eyes and considering his failing eyesight\nand health, it stands to reason that he couldn't always use his eyes in\nexcess. Likely the whole pointing the finger thing is likely a distraction for\na half seal he is using on his other hand or is the half seal in and of it's\nself.\n\n* * *\n\nI hope this helps,\n\nMurakmi no Kitsune\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-02-20T18:39:00.967", "id": "29925", "last_activity_date": "2016-02-20T18:39:00.967", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "22221", "parent_id": "5257", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nYomi Yomi no Mi's ability to revive its eater is just the tip of the iceberg.\nBrook _thought_ it was the only purpose before the timeskip. However, after\nthe timeskip, he reveals that he has now learnt the _true power_ of his Devil\nFruit.\n\nThe soul of a human who dies normally goes to the land of the dead, but his\nDevil's Fruit emits a powerful energy that allows his soul to remain in the\nliving world. During the 2 years of training, he has also mastered its other\nabilities, such as:\n\n * Letting his soul leave and enter his body/skeleton at will\n * \"Pouring his soul\" into his music to show illusions to people\n * Summoning cold flames from the underworld\n * Surviving damage that would otherwise be fatal (he cannot be seriously injured unless his bones are hurt)\n\nLong story short, Yomi Yomi no Mi is not a \"one time use\". Brook cannot have\nanother Devil Fruit, unless Oda-sensei's hyper-creative imagination provides\nhim a loophole.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-21T10:18:50.470", "id": "5268", "last_activity_date": "2015-05-14T20:33:27.547", "last_edit_date": "2015-05-14T20:33:27.547", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "99", "parent_id": "5261", "post_type": "answer", "score": 23 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nHoutarou is reading **_On Decadence_** (堕落論 = _Daraku-ron_ , sometimes also\ntranslated _Discourse on Decadence_ ), by Ango SAKAGUCHI.\n\n\n\n\n\n(image source: [this\nblog](http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/chanchan_yanagi/52389941.html))\n\nSakaguchi was a novelist, essayist, and critic who lived from 1906-1955. He\ngained immense popularity in the immediate post-war period with his 1946 essay\n_On Decadence_ , which criticized pre-war Japan as too heavily steeped in\n_bushido_ culture, and argued that though post-war Japan was decadent, it was\nbetter than what came before.\n\n_On Decadence_ is not mentioned in the _Kotenbu_ series of novels on which\n_Hyouka_ is based.\n\nIn an amusing connection, the anime [_Un-Go_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un-\nGo) (written アンゴ = _ango_ in Japanese and hence pronounced identically to\nSakaguchi's given name) was based on one of Sakaguchi's period novels - _Meiji\nKaika Ango Torimono-chou_ , loosely \"Ango's Tales of Detectives from the Dawn\nof the Meiji Period\".\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-21T00:55:31.930", "id": "5265", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-21T00:55:31.930", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5264", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nChrona's gender was never revealed in the Japanese Soul Eater manga. There is\nevidence for both genders but not enough for either to make any conclusive\nstatement. The creator has been asked what Chrona's gender is, but never\nanswered.\n\nIn Japanese, this isn't hard to do. Most pronouns aren't gender-specific.\nWhile Chrona does use _boku_ (僕) to refer to him/herself, which is a fairly\nmasculine pronoun, it is sometimes used by females as well. However, in\nEnglish (and many other languages), it's awkward to try to avoid using any\ngender-specific pronouns. The various different versions of Soul Eater in\nEnglish use different pronouns, but all of these were added by translators and\nnot present in the original version.\n\nThe [official Japanese Soul Eater\nsite](http://www.souleater.tv/character/index.html) confirms that this is not\nknown:\n\n> 性別は不詳。\n\nwhich literally translates to \"Gender is unknown\".\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-21T23:50:32.903", "id": "5272", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-21T23:50:32.903", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "24", "parent_id": "5271", "post_type": "answer", "score": 9 }, { "body": "\n\nIn the anime Crona is exclusively referred to as a \"he.\" However, in the manga\n\"his\" gender is purposefully kept unsaid.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-12-15T03:58:10.930", "id": "43787", "last_activity_date": "2017-12-15T03:58:10.930", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "37171", "parent_id": "5271", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFor Alice ai was somehow able to save him before 3-4 disappeared and brought\nhim to the real world and the scene with them at Alice's grave showed Alice's\noriginal body which was buried 14 years before the series\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-09T00:50:28.683", "id": "5433", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-09T00:50:28.683", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2520", "parent_id": "5277", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "\n\nMy interpretation was that:\n\n> This was a world where people frequently get special powers by wishing\n> intensely. Intense wishes can cause perfect aim with Buzzer Beater, special\n> power to eat normally inedible objects, and even a giant time loop when 17\n> people wish all at once. The fact that Dee appeared to be the ghost was\n> probably part of the wish of those 17 people. They wished for a world that\n> would never be disturbed by reality, and their wish made Dee appear as a\n> ghost outside, because that made their world less likely to be disturbed by\n> reality. \n> \n> In this story, God makes rules that are more like loose guidelines, and God\n> breaks His own guidelines frequently. The gravekeeper Scar wasn't supposed\n> to be able to cry, but apparently she wished to be more normal and God\n> transformed her - apparently into a normal woman. \n> \n> At the end of the story, just before Ai was pushed out of the room, she was\n> wishing with all her heart that she could find some way to save everyone. I\n> presume God granted her wish by breaking His own rules, as He had done many\n> times before.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-11T13:36:08.983", "id": "5828", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-18T15:52:17.403", "last_edit_date": "2015-08-18T15:52:17.403", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "1456", "parent_id": "5277", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\n * Dee appeared as a ghost because her physical body was still stuck in class 3-4, while Alice had a physical body outside because he was already buried by a proper gravekeeper. Therefore, his body wasn't in class 3-4 like Dee, and could appear normally since he was part of the world outside. \n\n * Dee has a physical body later on, because the world class 3-4 created had been destroyed. Her physical body was released. \n\n * Ai saved Alice by wishing intensely. In _Sunday Without God_ , by wishing for something really badly it somehow would be granted, like how Hampnie Hambart wished to die happily besides his family, or how Alice got the ability Buzzer Beater. When Ai wished for Alice to be saved, God granted that wish, and so Alice could have a physical body outside class 3-4's world and continue to live his life. \n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-11-22T11:59:02.273", "id": "5991", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-18T15:57:29.523", "last_edit_date": "2015-08-18T15:57:29.523", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "2775", "parent_id": "5277", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nThe reason for the scene where Ai was in front of Alice's grave with Alice\nstanding beside her... The original Alice had already died. Then after class\n3-4 wished for the incident to never happen (causing a time-loop to occur),\nAlice's soul was probably revived while his body was buried. Alice of course\nhad no idea he died. So while he kept searching for a way to break the time-\nloop, he started to change and then he met Ai. Ai probably wished for the\nAlice she knew to come back to life. Thus the original Alice was still buried\nand the Alice whom Ai knew revived.\n\n[This is just my theory though.]\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-10-26T21:30:31.130", "id": "49377", "last_activity_date": "2018-10-26T21:30:31.130", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "43112", "parent_id": "5277", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n# Awakening the Rinnegan\n\nI think you have misunderstood something here.\n\n[The Rinnegan](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Rinnegan) was the **original\nform.** It required **no activation and was permanent** to the [Sage of the\nSix Paths](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Hagoromo_%C5%8Ctsutsuki).\n\nHis children, the Uchiha and the Senju inherited the two different feats:\n\n * The life force and physical energy went to the Senju\n * The visual prowess and strength of chakra went to the Uchiha clan.\n\n**_This visual prowess manifested in[the\nSharingan](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Uchiha_clan) as a visible component of\nthe Rinnegan. The Senju had some second components to the Rinnegan embedded in\ntheir DNA._**\n\nWhen one brings the DNA of an Uchiha and a Senju together, one can awaken the\nRinnegan.\n\nThe problem now is that the possibility to awaken the Rinnegan (when they also\nhave Senju DNA) is in every Sharingan user, but only \"under the radar\". To\nactivate _the Rinnegan_ , it seems one must go through different stages:\n\nThe _Mangekyou Sharingan_ and the _[Eien]{Eternal} no Mangekyou Sharingan_\n\nMadara accomplished this. By implanting Hashirama's DNA to his cells when he\nwas close to death, he finally awakened the Rinnegan.\n\nIt may also be possible to awaken the Rinnegan without undergoing the two\nhigher stages of the Sharingan, but that is only speculative. As of chapter\n674 of the manga, the DNA of Hashirama (or moreover, Senju DNA) is not\nrequired to awaken the Rinnegan.\n\n> Sasuke awakens the Rinnegan, even though there is no actual explanation as\n> to why. It probably has to do with the fact that Sasuke is possessed by the\n> reincarnated spirit of Rikudo's son.\n\n# Origin of the Rinnegan\n\nIf you read Chapter 646 of the Naruto manga, you can see\n\n> the Ten-Tails' awakening. And when he opens his eyes, you should be able to\n> notice that they have a similar pattern to the Rinnegan. Actually, the eyes\n> look like a Rinnegan with some [Tomoe 巴](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Tomoe)\n> scattered in the circles of the Rinnegan. \n> \n> We also witness the Ten-Tails' awakened form (the Tree of God), which uses\n> a more complex form of the [Preta\n> Path](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Preta_Path) when he absorbs the chakra of\n> people he caught. \n> \n> From this information, we can conclude that the Tree of God/Ten Tails was\n> the original \"wielder\" of the \"perfect Rinnegan\" (well, it hasn't got a name\n> yet), and that most probably, the chakra was not the only thing the Sage got\n> at birth.\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-22T17:50:18.083", "id": "5282", "last_activity_date": "2015-03-30T06:29:07.280", "last_edit_date": "2015-03-30T06:29:07.280", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "1751", "parent_id": "5281", "post_type": "answer", "score": 20 }, { "body": "\n\nThis question seems to be pretty complicated and is asking a lot of things, so\nI'm going to break this down piece by piece.\n\n**How did the Sage of Six Paths obtain his Rinnegan?**\n\nWell, we really don't know whether he was born with it or obtained it after\nbirth. What's important to know is that he was the first one that had it.\n\n**The stages/evolution of an Uchiha's eyes**\n\nRegular -> Sharingan (1->2->3 Tomoe) -> Mangekyou Sharingan -> Eternal MS ->\nRinnegan\n\nYou are right about the progression, however you are mistaken when you ask\n\n**Now if the same logic was to be applied to the Sage of the Six Paths, then\nwhose Mangekyo Sharingan did he take for his own?**\n\nThe Sage of Six Paths did not have the Mangekyou Sharingan nor did he take the\nMangekyou Sharingan from someone. He had the strongest and final form of the\neye : Rinnegan.\n\nWhen the Sage of Six Paths had two sons, his powers were split between them.\nOne was Senju and inherited the Sage of Six Path's body strength. The other\nson was Uchiha and received the Sage of Six Path's ocular powers.\n\nKeep in mind that both sons only received a fraction of what the Sage of Six\nPaths had. This is why all Uchiha always bore the Sharingan, which is a\nyounger eye form for an Uchiha and has a fraction of the power of the\nRinnegan.\n\nThus when a person wants to awake the Rinnegan, the requirements are both body\nand eye. An example of this is Uchiha Madara with the Sharingan and acquiring\nSenju Hashirama's DNA. With both DNA from Uchiha and Senju, he can finally\nbecome a Sage of the Six Paths and obtain the Rinnegan. And even while using\nthe Rinnegan, Uchiha Madara is still able to use Mangekyou techniques like\nSusanoo, which confirms that Rinnegan is the final evolutionary state of the\neyes.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-25T22:33:04.847", "id": "5304", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-25T22:33:04.847", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5281", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nI believe your grasp of the dojutsu is flawed. Sharingan and Rinnegan are two\nseparate jutsu, though one descended from the other. The final stage that an\nUchiha can hope to achieve naturally of their Sharingan is the Eternal\nMangekyo Sharingan. To achieve the Rinnegan, one needs to be born with the\nchakra of both the Senju and Uchiha as the Sage once did. However, this can be\nbypassed by acquiring the DNA of one and introducing it into another.\n\nIn short, the Sage of Six Paths was born with the Rinnegan. Seeing that it\nmanifested itself naturally, he did not need to steal DNA (Senju) or eyes\n(Uchiha), as neither clans were present during his lifetime.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-04-19T06:02:27.817", "id": "8770", "last_activity_date": "2015-03-30T06:27:54.077", "last_edit_date": "2015-03-30T06:27:54.077", "last_editor_user_id": "1398", "owner_user_id": "4553", "parent_id": "5281", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAccording to [the _Hunter x Hunter_\nWiki](http://hunterxhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Feitan):\n\n> Feitan's first language is Chinese; he speaks in sentence fragments in\n> Japanese while switching to his native tongue when angered.\n\nGiven this, and the text is written in either Japanese kanji or Chinese (as\n[@kuwaly](https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/93/kuwaly) beat me to pointing\nout), and the fact that there is a Japanese translation provided, I'm going to\nconclude that the text is written in Chinese. (There may be some fragments of\nJapanese, but I somewhat doubt that.)\n\n", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-22T23:35:49.453", "id": "5285", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-22T23:35:49.453", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:49.090", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nI believe he is speaking inverted Japanese, and the text on the right is\nJapanese kanji. I'm Chinese, and I can read Chinese characters, so hopefully,\nmy brain isn't exploding and I'm right. :)\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-01-08T18:54:51.440", "id": "6805", "last_activity_date": "2014-01-08T18:54:51.440", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "3267", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": -1 }, { "body": "\n\nPreface: I don't know anything about _Hunter x Hunter_ , so I have no idea\nwhat language Feitan is \"actually\" speaking in the context of the show. It is\nentirely possible (as far as I know) that Feitan speaks Chinese, and that the\ncaptions are supposed to represent some variant of Chinese that exists in-show\nor whatnot.\n\nThat said: the captions that accompany Feitan's speech are most likely **not a\nreal language**. I know Japanese well enough to tell you it's not Japanese; a\nbit of gruntwork in Chinese and Vietnamese character dictionaries suggests it\nisn't either of those; and if it isn't Chinese, it can't be Korean hanja\neither, since hanja are mostly identical to Chinese hanzi. It's _possible_\nthat the script there is a more esoteric derivative of hanzi, e.g. Sawndip,\nbut I doubt that's the case.\n\nAs evidence of this, we observe that the captions contain the character 々,\nfound only in Japanese, as well as a number of other probably-untypeable\ncharacters, which are not found in Japanese. Since the language must be 1.)\nJapanese; and 2.) not Japanese, we are forced to conclude that language is not\na language at all.\n\nThat said, the characters in the caption are very _evocative_ of hanzi\n(particularly insofar as they appear to be built from standard Chinese\nradicals), and were probably consciously designed to appear Chinese while not\nactually being Chinese. Note that some of the characters that appear _are_\nreal characters in Chinese - in particular, 了, 下, and 乃. The rest don't seem\nto be, though.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-03-26T12:25:27.653", "id": "8277", "last_activity_date": "2014-03-26T12:25:27.653", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nThe characters on the right are gibberish that is written to look like\nChinese. As many have said, some characters used are viable in Japanese, some\nviable in Modern Chinese, possibly some viable as obscure ancient Chinese not\nsure, but mostly it's constructed from legitimate parts to form gibberish.\nIt's the equivalent of writing \"angsk ville ast, arg be yous being may kis\ndangeroust stranger ous\" Kind of looks like English with some viable parts to\nanyone who doesn't know English, but is generally gibberish.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-11-02T12:09:17.607", "id": "14797", "last_activity_date": "2014-11-02T12:09:17.607", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "8976", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\nHe speaks normal Japanese.. But backwards. You can see this clearly at 17:12\nwhere the Japanese subtitles say \"どうした\" (do u shi ta) and he says \"tashiudo\"\n(ta shi u do) which is what you would get if you read the hiragana backwards.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-03-13T23:40:00.117", "id": "20040", "last_activity_date": "2015-03-14T22:42:24.160", "last_edit_date": "2015-03-14T22:42:24.160", "last_editor_user_id": "13219", "owner_user_id": "13219", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nIt's 100% Feitan talking backwards. If you don't believe, you can watch the\nEnglish dub aswell if you do not understand japanese at all. I can clearly\ntell you it's not Chinese because I'm Chinese myself. In the English dub\nversion, you can clearly hear them talking backwards.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-06-26T04:42:23.443", "id": "47567", "last_activity_date": "2021-02-14T11:37:04.897", "last_edit_date": "2021-02-14T11:37:04.897", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "41271", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 }, { "body": "\n\nYeah, it's definitely not purely Chinese, Chinese is my mother tongue and I've\nnever even seen some of these characters before. They do have the\ncharacteristics of kanji and Chinese characters but I'm pretty sure the\ncreator wanted to make an entirely new language.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2021-02-14T11:31:29.627", "id": "61917", "last_activity_date": "2021-02-14T11:37:00.117", "last_edit_date": "2021-02-14T11:37:00.117", "last_editor_user_id": "2516", "owner_user_id": "58847", "parent_id": "5284", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nSince inline spoiler tags are not possible and I don't want 9,001 spoiler\nblocks, I'll preface this by saying:\n\n**This answer contains many spoilers for the _Evangelion_ series. If you have\nnot watched through at least episode 24, this will contain spoiler material\nfor you.**\n\nAs a note: Everyone in Shinji's class had lost their mothers (for potential\nsoul salvaging for the Evas), and I believe most had relatives working at or\nconnected with NERV. Each one was also obviously the same age, as a result of\nbeing born in the year of [Second\nImpact](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Impact) 14 years prior.\n\nIn general, the candidates are chosen by [the Marduk\nInstitute](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Marduk_Institute), a committee\nwhich selects potential pilots for the Evangelion piloting program. They so\nhappen to have listed [Tōji\nSuzuhara](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/T%C5%8Dji_Suzuhara) at the top of\ntheir list, and so he ends up being the test pilot for Unit-03. According to\nan AU, [Kensuke Aida](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Kensuke_Aida) is to be\nchosen after Tōji, but since there is an incident with Unit-04, this is never\nseen. There are extenuating circumstances for our main cast, though.\n\n[Rei Ayanami](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Rei_Ayanami) was chosen by\nGendo because she is, in fact, one of many clones of Yui, Gendo's late wife.\nThis was essentially an executive decision by Gendo so that he could use her\nfor his Instrumentality plans.\n\n[Shinji Ikari](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Shinji_Ikari) was chosen, also\nby Gendo, for a different reason: Evangelion Unit-01 has the soul of Yui\nIkari, Shinji's mother, in it, and Yui refuses to let anyone else pilot\nUnit-01.\n\n[Asuka Langley Sohryu](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Asuka_Langley_Sohryu)\nwas chosen because her mother, Kyoko, was in Germany with Asuka, performing\nthe soul salvaging into Evangelion Unit-02. Obviously Asuka made a good match\nfor a pilot.\n\nAnd [Kaworu](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Kaworu_Nagisa), well... Kaworu\nis just the exception that proves the rule: He was sent by SEELE and is\nactually an Angel, so he doesn't follow convention. At all.\n\n**In the _Rebuild_ continuity**, this is slightly different. Rei's reason is\nthe same; Asuka is just a very well trained pilot; Mari has powerful\nconnections; Kaworu works for SEELE again; and Shinji's reason is unknown as\nof _Rebuild 3.0_.\n\n", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-23T03:31:49.363", "id": "5287", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-23T13:09:57.777", "last_edit_date": "2013-09-23T13:09:57.777", "last_editor_user_id": "274", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5286", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThis seems to be a coincidence.\n\nFrom <http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Krillin>:\n\n> Like most characters in the series, the name Krillin is a pun. In his case,\n> its Japanese source, Kuririn, is made up of two parts. The first two\n> syllables come from 栗 (kuri), which means \"chestnut\" in reference to his\n> shaved head (the \"chestnut\" pun is also carried over to his daughter\n> Marron). The second part of his name comes from 少林 (Shōrin; \"Shaolin\" in\n> Chinese), as his early character designs were closely modeled on Shaolin\n> monks.\n\nSo, the similarity to the name Keloglan looks like a coincidence.\n\nRegarding the baldness, as is pointed out by @krikara, this is probably\nbecause he is a Shaolin monk. Note that Krillin can grow his hair, whereas\nKeloglan cannot.\n\nEven so, Krillin does not have a counterpart in \"Journey to the West\", so it\nis possible that Akira Toriyama looked to other folklore for inspiration when\ncreating Krillin.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-24T06:06:20.670", "id": "5296", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-24T06:06:20.670", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1848", "parent_id": "5294", "post_type": "answer", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThis is purely a prediction on my part. I did not read the books nor comic if\nthe true identity was revealed, though I believe many of the mysteries in the\nseries is best to be left unexplained.\n\nFirst, an analysis.\n\nVillage Chief is someone of great influence, able to influence the Minister of\nDevelopment against the biggest developing firm, Ichinomiya. He has access to\nhigh quality and bizarre items (his fanned suit) and great wealth (enough to\ncompensate for whatever the Ichinomiya group was chipping in for the\nminister), but he somehow chose to seclude himself from the society.\n\nHe does not have a particular tone besides random kappa related statements,\nseems not to have been raised in a particular way, and is well accustomed to\nthe society when required to. He is well respected in the under bridge and\nregarded by everyone, especially sister, as a dependable person. The two times\nwe've seen him in his usual self, however, he seemed particularly skillful in\ninfiltration (coming in behind Shimazaki in a supposedly off limit office\nwithout her realising) and intimidation (threatened to kill). Threaten to kill\nis a peculiar trait as it is vastly different from Ichinomiya's way of\nintimidation via social and financial impact. It shows that he does things\ndifferently from politicians and businessmen. At final speech of Minister of\nDevelopment, when asked by his subordinate who is he, he answered, \"It's\nbetter for you not to know\". Of both the time he appears, he wears a kimono.\nDuring season 2, we also gain insight that he is about the same age group\n(middle age) as Shiro (discussion about health and argument) and he is bad\nwith group work (refuse to stay a week with the team, not a team player, more\nof leader or someone who simply gives orders rather than receiving them).\n\nSo there, Village Chief is/was a wealthy, influential person. He has great\nleadership, is mostly a lone wolf and does not shy away from intimidation by\ndeath. He also does not have speech traits, is well accustomed to society and\nwears mostly a kimono.\n\nRemember Jacqueline when Billy did not come for their anniversary? She changed\ninto a kimono when decided to head back and kill the head of the bird gang\nleader if something were to come to Billy. Kimono is something that Japanese\nmafia are obsessed with.\n\nIf I am to guess, he is/was the head of a big, dangerous mafia gang which has\nlots of financial background and ties on different background. Its influence\nand financial ground is at least on par with Ichinomiya group. I couldn't\npredict why he left, there is just too many possibilities without any ground\nto go on. He could be retired, betrayed, still on a relatively hands-off\nbusiness with the gang, mafia dissolved, etc etc....\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-01-04T15:30:28.810", "id": "28667", "last_activity_date": "2016-12-16T14:06:36.467", "last_edit_date": "2016-12-16T14:06:36.467", "last_editor_user_id": "8486", "owner_user_id": "20216", "parent_id": "5305", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nSpoiler:\n\n> he is the leader of the Yakuza.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-04-12T11:15:55.253", "id": "39820", "last_activity_date": "2017-04-12T13:15:24.027", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-12T13:15:24.027", "last_editor_user_id": "14883", "owner_user_id": "31937", "parent_id": "5305", "post_type": "answer", "score": -2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThere is an Arakawa Under the Bridge manga, and it has a lot of chapters. At\nthe time of writing, the following tankobon volumes exist:\n\n[code]\n\n Volume Chapters\n 1 1- 23 (+X)\n 2 24- 47 (+X-2)\n 3 48- 77 (+X-3)\n 4 78-107 (+X-4)\n 5 108-136 (+X-5)\n 6 137-166 (+X-6)\n 7 167-196 (+X-7)\n 8 197-225 (+Nakamura Koubou Shutchou-ban, X-8)\n 9 226-255 (+X-9)\n 10 256-280 (+Shuushoku no Yuusha Recruit, Hige mo Seifuku no Uchi, X-10)\n 11 281-301 (+Riku-chan Kinsei Nikki 1, 2, Meikyuu Labyrinth, Tokimeke!! Arakawa Memorial, X-11)\n 12 302-325 (+X-12)\n 13 326-356 (+Joshi-ryoku Sentai Love East, X-13)\n \n[/code]\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-26T06:22:39.857", "id": "5316", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-26T06:22:39.857", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5306", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "\n\nOne does not need to use Henge no Jutsu in order to graduate the ninja\nacademy. Promotion throughout the entire series is never dependent upon a\ncertain technique, but rather the capabilities of that shinobi determined by\nthe Hokage and village elders.\n\nTake a look at the Chuunin selection exam. Shikamaru received the only\npromotion yet there was no way he could have won the entire tournament.\n\nWhile Lee could never use ninjutsu nor genjutsu, he was able to have very good\ntechnique with taijutsu and that allowed him to graduate. Lee just uses his\nchakra in a different way, but that doesn't make him any less of a ninja.\n\nSame with Shino for that matter. Shino lets his bugs eat his chakra and then\nhe can command them. So instead of making a kage bunshin, Shino uses a lot of\nbugs to form a clone.\n\nBecause every shinobi specializes in different areas, there is no set\nrequirements in order to be promoted. The decision comes from the Hokage and\nthe elders for Chuunin and above. For the academy, the instructor decides when\nthe child is ready to be a Genin.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-26T06:08:04.223", "id": "5315", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-26T06:08:04.223", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5312", "post_type": "answer", "score": 20 }, { "body": "\n\nAlthough the final exams of the Ninja Academy do include a demonstration of\nHenge no Jutsu, that is almost certainly not the whole test. There should at\nleast be demonstrations of Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, and probably a written exam\nand some sparring matches (not unlike what appear in the Chunin Exam, but\nscaled down). Rock Lee couldn't have gotten much more than a zero on his\nGenjutsu and Ninjutsu demonstrations, to be sure. But depending on the Ninja\nAcademy's grading rubrics, he might have done well enough on the other parts\nof the exam to pass _even with_ those zeroes.\n\nIt is also possible that Guy got these sections of the exam waived for him,\ndue to special circumstances. But from a literary standpoint, it makes more\nsense for Rock Lee -a character who stands for achievement through ludicrously\nhard work- to have passed the exam even with the zeroes in place. Indeed, I'd\nargue that the most likely scenario is that Guy probably tried to get those\nparts waived, but Rock insisted on taking them anyway.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-26T16:39:48.200", "id": "5323", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-26T16:39:48.200", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2403", "parent_id": "5312", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nnot all students had to be able to make shadow clones in order to graduate.\nNaruto was failed for not being able to make a shadow clone simply because he\nwas worst in his class and had no skill in order to become a genin. Rock lee\nbeing exceptionally skilled in taijutsu had no reason to be failed while he\nhad many skills in taijutsu\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-04-12T22:19:37.573", "id": "39830", "last_activity_date": "2017-04-12T22:19:37.573", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "31946", "parent_id": "5312", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAlmost certainly based on the [_Rule of\nCool_](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool). Manga and anime\nfrequently contain specialized jargon, names of attacks and locations in\nforeign languages simply because it sounds 'cool' and different to the\nJapanese ear: e.g. Spanish ( _Bleach_ ), German ( _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ ),\nEnglish (most of them) or multiple ( _Full Metal Panic_ ).\n\nIn _Gatchaman_ , there may be an additional reason for using French for\nIchinose's attacks specifically: to emphasize her femininity and artistic\nside. French is often associated with delicacy, grace, and the arts (e.g.\nballet, couture, visual design, performance art, etc), and so may be a hint\ntowards her \"gentler nature\" (chauvanism does still appear in anime). Her\nartistic side is also referenced by attacks related to her crafts hobbies, as\nyou've mentioned.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-08-16T01:47:31.843", "id": "24116", "last_activity_date": "2015-08-16T01:47:31.843", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "16253", "parent_id": "5314", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIn an interview with Animenewsnetwork, he said that he was inspired by a Grimm\nfairy tale:\n\n> **What were your chief inspirations when creating Blue Exorcist?**\n>\n> **Kato:** It originally was inspired by a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, where\n> brothers combat monsters. Then, I tried to make the story flip several\n> times, and settled down into a simple structure of demons versus an\n> exorcist.\n\n[Source](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2011-04-08/interview-blue-\nexorcist-mangaka-kazue-kato)\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-26T11:25:55.720", "id": "5320", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-26T11:25:55.720", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "122", "parent_id": "5319", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n# Overview\n\nAh, the Monogatari **[color] Scenes**. Before we talk about what they mean,\nlet's look at some of them.\n\nFirst, you've got the two classics: **Red Scene**... \n\n...and **Black Scene**. \n\nBut wait, there's more! You've got various kinds of **White Scene**...\n\n\n\n...different kinds of **Yellow Scene** (the second of which is kind of\nabnormal, with vertical text and a non-[color] background)...\n\n\n\n\n... **Lilac Scene**... \n\n... **Blue Scene**... \n\n... **Peach Scene**... \n\n... **Light Green Scene**... \n\n...and even **Purple Scene**. \n\nNote: this collection is not exhaustive - I haven't gotten around to taking\nscreencaps for most of Bake, or for any of Neko Black or Neko White.\n\n* * *\n\nSo, what do they mean? They aren't present in the light novel series (which\nisn't surprising - this wouldn't really make sense in running text), so we\ncan't turn to that for information. And unlike all of the text-heavy 2~3-frame\nscreens that Monogatari is so fond of (cf.\n[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yZyPO.jpg \"Bakemonogatari BD ep01 00:17\"),\n[2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkBHn.jpg \"Bakemonogatari BD ep01 01:06\"),\n[3](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5T8XW.png \"Nisemonogatari TV ep08 02:25\")),\nthese screens aren't really being used to compress a lot of information into a\nsmall amount of time, either.\n\nInstead, I think it behooves us to examine what is going through Araragi's\nhead (at least for arcs in which he is the narrator) to understand why these\nscenes appear.\n\n* * *\n\n# Red and Black Scenes\n\nLet's look at **Red Scenes** first. The first one is at Bakemonogatari ep01 at\n01:49, when Araragi, late for school, is rushing up that huge spiral\nstaircase, right as he first glimpses Senjougahara falling. That's the only\none in this episode.\n\nWe find a lot more in Nisemonogatari ep11 - when Araragi talks about how he'd\ndie over and over for his sisters; when he first tries to attack Kagenui\n(while yelling about how having an non-blood-related sister is super-moe); an\nfour times when Kagenui hits him.\n\nIn Second Season ep09 (Kabuki ep03), we get another **Red Scene** when Araragi\nyells at Oshino (not present) for having given jiangshi-timeline him a\ndifferent talisman. There's also one when Araragi realizes he must have been\nkilled by Black Hanekawa in that timeline. At the end of the episode, when the\nrealize they're surrounded by jiangshi, there's one more **Red Scene**. In\nSecond Season ep10 (Kabuki ep03), there's a **Red Scene** when jiangshi-\ntimeline Kiss-shot appears, and one shortly after that when Araragi is\nterrified by the way Kiss-shot laughs.\n\n* * *\n\nNow, let's look at **Black Scenes**.\n\nThe first appearance of **Black Scene** occurs at 02:02 of Bakemonogatari\nep01, when Araragi notices Senjougahara falling, stops in his tracks, and\n_blinks_. We see another **Black Scene** at 02:05, and again at 02:06 (this\ntime accompanied by that \"shutter\" sound). After that, we don't see too many\n**Black Scenes** in that episode - one when Senjougahara staples him, one a\nbit after he tells Senjougahara to give him her stationery, and one right\nafter they walk into the ruined cram school.\n\nIn general, you see **Black Scenes** fairly often, typically accompanied by a\nchange in \"gaze\" \\- that is, Araragi's focus shifts to a different part of a\ngiven scene. It is worth noting that (to the best of my recollection), **Black\nScenes** never separate different scenes.\n\n* * *\n\nBased on this evidence, a common inference is that **Red** or **Black Scenes**\ncorrespond to Araragi blinking. Since the Monogatari series is largely told in\nthe first person (albeit that person is not always Araragi), the idea is that\nwe see what he sees - when he blinks, we see nothing but darkness, since _he_\nsees nothing but darkness. This isn't strictly the case (because, of course,\nAraragi's eyes aren't _always_ the camera), but it generally seems like a good\nperspective to adopt.\n\nIn this framework, then, **Black Scenes** are just what happens when Araragi\nblinks (sometimes). What about the **Red Scenes** , then? Well, pay attention\nto the fact that they seem to appear when Araragi is excited or under stress\nor in danger or angry, or whatnot. In other words, we see **Red Scene** when\nAraragi blinks while he is under the influence of some strong emotion. So, in\nthat sense, **Red Scene** is just a particular type of **Black Scene**.\n\n* * *\n\n**Red** and **Black Scenes** seem to serve the same purpose even in parts not\nnarrated by Araragi. In Second Season ep12 (Otori ep01), narrated by Nadeko,\nwe see **Black Scenes** in the first five minutes mostly corresponding to\nAraragi blinking (with an especially nice one at 04:29). Once we move back to\nthe \"present\" from the initial flash-forward, we get a number of **Black\nScenes** corresponding to Nadeko blinking.\n\nWe also get a **Red Scene** at 12:04 when she first sees the medusa, startling\nher, and again at 19:35 when the medusa presents her with an exaggerated\nversion of the horrific things she did to the snakes at the shrine. There\ndoesn't seem to be much of a difference between **Red Scenes** for Nadeko vs.\nfor Araragi.\n\n* * *\n\n# Other [color] Scenes\n\nWhat about the other **[color] Scenes**? It's difficult to generalize about\nthese since they're so rare. Let me just identify a few examples (from Nise\nand Kabuki, since those are the only parts I have a full screencap collection\nof) and put up a few hypotheses.\n\nThere are two **Yellow Scenes** in Nisemonogatari - one in ep10 at 17:32, when\nShinobu says something, and one in ep11 at 12:05 while Kagenui is talking (at\nthe beginning of her fight with Araragi). There's also one in Second Season\nep08 (Kabuki ep02) during a narration about Hachikuji by Araragi. I'm not\nseeing any common features here.\n\nThere are three **White Scenes** in Nisemonogatari - one in ep03 at 22:37,\nwhen Senjougahara says that Hanekawa called her (this one has cat ears in it);\none in ep09 at 22:37 during some throwaway line to Hachikuji; and one in ep11\nat 06:00 during a conversation between Koyomi and Tsukihi (right before she\nsays \"platinum mad\"). In Second Season ep08 (Kabuki ep02), there's one at\n16:20, right when Araragi is molesting still-alive Hachikuji in the past.\nThere's also a **White Scene** in Second Season ep12 (Otori ep01) right after\na shot of the medusa.\n\nHere, we do have Hanekawa being \"white\" (as we learn much about in Neko\nWhite), \"platinum\" being generally \"white\", and the medusa is \"white\", too, I\nguess. I'm not sure how the Hachikuji ones fits in, though.\n\n * There are **Peach Scenes** at 01:53 in Second Season ep08 (Kabuki ep02), when Shinobu is excited to see mini-Araragi; and another one at 21:52 in Second Season ep12 (Otori ep01), when Nadeko agrees to do the medusa a favor.\n * There are **Lilac Scenes** at 12:41 in Second Season ep08 (Kabuki ep02), when Araragi responds to Shinobu's question about whether or not he understands what saving Hachikuji means for her; and at 11:05 in Second Season ep12 (Otori ep01), during Nadeko's conversation with Ougi. No idea what the deal is with these two.\n * We get a **Light Green Scene** ( _moegi_ 1 \\- it's a sort of yellowish-green, sort of like some kinds of freshly-sprouted plants, apparently) at 03:15 in Second Season ep17 (Oni ep01), during a conversation between Hachikuji and Araragi, when Araragi points out that Hachikuji stands out less without her backpack. There's another one at 06:44 in Second Season ep19 (Oni ep03), while Hachikuji is telling Araragi how she was surprised that Araragi didn't abandon her when the darkness came upon them the first time. This might be because the color _moegi_ is associated with youthfulness (mostly of plants, albeit), and Hachikuji is the youngest character in the cast (past-Hanekawa/etc. notwithstanding)\n * There's a **Purple Scene** at 02:03 in Second Season ep19 (Oni ep03) shortly after Ononoki walks in on Araragi and Shinobu's conversation. There's another one (accompanied by a \"popping\" sound) at 11:40 in Second Season ep19 (Oni ep03) just before Araragi starts feeling Hachikuji up while she's asleep. Why are they there? Beats me.\n\nSummary: aside from **Red** and **Black** , the other **[color] Scenes** don't\nreally seem to have much in the way of consistency. They see very little use,\nespecially in Bakemonogatari.\n\n* * *\n\n# Notes\n\n1 The _moe_ in _moegi_ is the same word as the _moe_ that serves as the origin\nof [the otaku-jargon word \"moe\" meaning\ncute/etc](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/894/what-does-moe-mean).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-27T10:44:49.447", "id": "5328", "last_activity_date": "2013-11-17T05:49:47.097", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5325", "post_type": "answer", "score": 45 }, { "body": "\n\nBasically this anime heavily focuses on the so called character lenses. This\nterm means in general that the whole story is viewed from the eye of one\nsingle character.\n\nNow, the Studio Shaft took this to another level, making us literally viewing\nit from their eyes. In real life, when we see our environment, we start\nblinking. During the blinking, we see a \"black frame\" or \"red frame\" depending\non the light.\n\nThe focus on the character lenses is shown in some specific scenes:\n\n * The scene when Kanbaru beats with the devils arm the crap out of Araragi. The background and blood color constantly changes, showing us the pain and surrealism the MC (main character) has to deal with. Notice it all disappears when Gahara suddenly enters the room, forcibly pulling his attention back to reality.\n\n * The scene when he phones to Hanekawa (I think also in Suruga monkey arc). The thing here is, that he only hears her voices. If you are wondering how suddenly she got surrounded by cars, well it is simply because she was walking down a street with lots of cars passing by.\n\n * The reason why every single car, every single bike looks exactly the same. To understand this, let's take another look at Araragi's personal bike. For him this one bike is special, therefore it has its own design, unique in the whole anime (you won't see any other mountain bike in the whole anime). He doesn't care about things which don't belong to him. This is why everything not special to him, like other bikes, other cars, other houses, Kanbaru's ero books, looks all the same to him (though the last item might be a different reason).\n\n * The focus on some female body parts it is because Araragi as the character whom we see is a teenager. All teenage boys are somewhat affected by female body parts.\n\n", "comment_count": 3, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-12-21T14:36:14.413", "id": "37990", "last_activity_date": "2017-07-29T15:09:26.540", "last_edit_date": "2017-07-29T15:09:26.540", "last_editor_user_id": "8486", "owner_user_id": "29881", "parent_id": "5325", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nTo me, it looks like [Baumkuchen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumkuchen), a\ngerman cake.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-27T09:49:50.337", "id": "5327", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-27T09:49:50.337", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "122", "parent_id": "5326", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIt seems that several of the other characters and key story points are based\nupon Greek mythology. All though this has not been confirmed by the author\nhimself yet.\n\nThere is no actual figure in Greek mythology called\nEdermask/Ethermask/Nenomius, the antagonist\n[Janus](http://magicianethermask.wikia.com/wiki/Janus) does seem to have a\nGreek counter part. [janus, the god of beginnings and\npassages.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus#God_of_beginnings_and_passages)\nIs said to be a 2 faced god. One facing the future, and one facing the past.\n\nThis god would fit the image of both the characters as their looks are\nidentical, and behaviour matching that of this particular god. One can not let\ngo of the past, and one only wishes to move forward (very, very roughly\ntranscribed).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2016-03-04T12:00:23.063", "id": "30211", "last_activity_date": "2016-03-04T12:00:23.063", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1458", "parent_id": "5330", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFrom my understanding it's based off the Manga which is canon and it combines\nthe first Manga which focuses on Jun having wound and the second manga in\nwhich Jun didn't wind and grew up but is contacted by his younger \"wound\" self\nto help stop Kirakishou.\n\nThe original anime isn't canon since it has Barasuishou who was created by\nEnju, Rozen's apprentice as a means to prove his superiority as a doll maker\nover Rozen by having Barasuishou beat the other Maidens and becoming the\nstrongest doll rather than becoming Alice. At the end, the Rozen Maidens\ndefeated by Barasuishou are taken to Kirakishou by Laplace's Demon, Suigintou\ncomes back to life but keeps the Rozen Mysticas she won while Hina Ichigo\nremains inside Shinku and Shinku is told by Rozen that there is a way to bring\nher back and another way to become Alice without the Alice Game.\n\nThis is different to the manga as Kirakishou devours Hina Ichigo from the\ninside to assume her physical form and there is no Barasuishou.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-29T23:45:34.920", "id": "5356", "last_activity_date": "2016-01-20T23:50:41.877", "last_edit_date": "2016-01-20T23:50:41.877", "last_editor_user_id": "13532", "owner_user_id": "1587", "parent_id": "5336", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nYes, that's Katze.\n\nMost of the time, Katze talks with a high pitch, especially when bullying\npeople. However, when Katze is not in control of the situation, his/her voice\ndrops. This can be heard several times in the battle between O.D. and Katze\nthat starts at 6:05 in the same episode. It's the same voice.\n\nBesides, at the end of the series everybody else likes Hajime; who except\nKatze would claim to be sickened by her? :-)\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-30T05:49:47.263", "id": "5360", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-30T05:49:47.263", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1848", "parent_id": "5339", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nShe isn't actually tapping her chest. She is gesturing/playing with the new\nred ribbon she is wearing. Given how she is talking to Katze, and he seems to\nbe with her, and she has just gotten the red ribbon, and how Katze's signature\ncolor is red/pink, I think the logical conclusion is that he has been sealed\ninside the ribbon.\n\nThat said, a lot of loose ends are still around, and many people have\nspeculated that an extended ending will be on the blu-ray detailing what\nhappened at the end of the series\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-02T05:08:52.363", "id": "5384", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-02T05:08:52.363", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2110", "parent_id": "5339", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nEverything surrounding the ending was clarified in an extended cut of the\nfinal episode called [Gatchaman Crowds:\nEmbrace](http://myanimelist.net/anime/23703/Gatchaman_Crowds:_Embrace).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-10-08T20:39:27.370", "id": "26503", "last_activity_date": "2015-10-08T20:39:27.370", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1745", "parent_id": "5339", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFirst things first - no, it is not a form of hypnosis. Hyouka is entirely\ndevoid of supernatural elements. The notion is absurd on its face.\n\nAnyway, why can't Houtarou refuse Chitanda? There are a few reasons for this,\nand they change over the course of the show.\n\n* * *\n\n## Chitanda's force of personality\n\nLet's take a look at episode **1**. When Chitanda asks Houtarou to help her\nfind out why she got locked in the room, we get that scene where Chitanda's\nhair captures Houtarou. This is, of course, a representation of how Houtarou\nviews the situation at hand, and suggests that there was something very\npersuasive about the way Chitanda asked him. If we turn to the novel's version\nof this scene, we find that:\n\n> 千反田のその眼差《まなざ》しには、いい加減な返事は許さないというような一種異様な力があった。それに圧倒されて、俺の声は間抜けになった。\n>\n> Chitanda's eyes held some sort of strange power, one that forbade me from\n> giving her an offhand response. Her gaze overwhelmed me, and left me\n> sounding like a fool.\n\nAs this suggests, at the very beginning of the story, Houtarou is spurred to\naction not out of love for Chitanda or anything, but rather by Chitanda's\nimmense force of personality.\n\nIn episode **15** , we see that Chitanda has more or less the same effect on\nMasashi Tohgaito when she's trying to get him to include the Classics Club in\nthe next issue of the wall newspaper. (Irisu suggested that she use her\nfeminine wiles, but Chitanda didn't really manage to pull that off.)\n\n## Houtarou is a pragmatic person\n\nIn the second half of episode **1** , Houtarou has Satoshi help him fabricate\nthe story of the secret club. Why? Because, as he himself notes, if he hadn't,\nChitanda would have dragged him off to the music room to investigate the so-\ncalled ghost that supposedly appeared there. In a sense, he chose the better\nof two bad options.\n\nWhile they wait for the librarian in episode **2** , Chitanda becomes curious\nabout why the school history book gets loaned out every day. At first, he\ntries to get Chitanda to stop pestering him, but soon realizes that refusing\nher any more would actually be _more costly_ than just acceding to her\ndemands.\n\nHoutarou, being a very pragmatic sort of person, will sometimes do a small\namount of work in order to avoid having to do even more work.\n\n## Chitanda is pretty pushy\n\nIn episode **2** , Chitanda actually grabs Houtarou and drags him to the\nlibrary to search for the club's archived anthologies, thus justifying his\nfear in the second half of episode **1** of being forced to go all the way to\nthe music room. Later in the episode, with the mystery of the frequently-\nreturned book, Chitanda shoves the book in Houtarou's face until he finally\ngives in.\n\nPoint here is, Chitanda can be a pushy kind of person.\n\n## Sometimes, Houtarou just doesn't have anything better to do\n\nAs his sister notes in her letter from Varanasi, Houtarou should join the\nClassics Club because (if for no other reason) he isn't doing anything better\nwith his time. In episode **3** , when Houtarou agrees to help Chitanda out\n(to a certain degree) with the matter of her uncle, he thinks back to his\nsister's letter and figures that indeed, there's not really any good reason\nfor him to say no - as long as it doesn't involve going too far out of his\nway.\n\nIn episode **20** , when Chitanda invites Houtarou to visit the Arekusu shrine\non New Years', he again agrees, mostly because he doesn't have anything better\nto do. (His thought process is elucidated upon a bit more in the novels,\nmaking it clear that this was mostly why he agreed to go.)\n\n* * *\n\nThese are more or less the reasons why Houtarou does anything towards the\nbeginning of the show. As Houtarou develops, though, he starts developing\nother motivations.\n\n* * *\n\n## Houtarou actually starts wanting to do things\n\nIn episode **18** , Houtarou decides he wants to look into Mr. Ogi and why he\nwas struck by lightning thrice, and hence goes out of his way (all the way to\nthe public library) to learn more about the matter.\n\nThis is presumably a result of Chitanda's influence on him over the preceding\nmonths (not that Satoshi, Ibara, and others didn't play a part either). He's\ndifferent now than he was at the beginning, when he was wholly devoted to his\ntenets of energy conservation.\n\n## Houtarou probably develops feelings for Chitanda\n\nIn episode **21** , we see Houtarou flustered when when Chitanda tells him\nthat, in her family, it is customary not to give gifts to people who they are\ntruly close to. Later in the same episode, Houtarou's anger with Satoshi over\nthe stolen chocolate incident by and large is due to the fact that Chitanda\nwas hurt by the incident.\n\nAnd, of course, in episode **22** , Houtarou imagines telling Chitanda that\nhe'd be willing to take on the business side of things to help her out. He\nthen realizes that the way he felt as he thought about that might have been\nhow Satoshi felt when he chose to break Ibara's chocolate in the previous\nepisode. This can be interpreted in various ways; one possible (and common)\ninterpretation is that he realizes he's fallen for Chitanda.\n\n* * *\n\nSo yes, towards the end of the story, it's possible that Houtarou is motivated\nby love for Chitanda, but towards the beginning, he's more pragmatically-\nmotivated than anything.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-28T15:17:54.273", "id": "5350", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-28T15:17:54.273", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5340", "post_type": "answer", "score": 15 }, { "body": "\n\nChitanda possesses a pure and almost childlike curiosity which helps to unlock\nOreki's, which he suppresses.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-29T05:45:19.833", "id": "5635", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-29T05:45:19.833", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2631", "parent_id": "5340", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 }, { "body": "\n\nSenshin's answer is great and covers all the basics very well, but I think\nthere is a more subtle element in Oreki's mind that doesn't allow him to\nrefuse Chitanda's adventurous nature.\n\n_Note: I haven't read the novel, and my point of view is based solely on the\nanime adaptation._\n\nThroughout the series we see how Oreki starts out as a passive chill guy who\nseemingly doesn't waste his talents on anything bothersome, although he\nactually often does some things that are evidence to the opposite.\n\nWhenever Chitanda says she's interested in something, it looks like she is\nvoicing Oreki's own thoughts. She does it so avidly, in fact, that he is\nunable to resist his own will boosted by Chitanda's personality.\n\nAt the beginning, Oreki doesn't try to do anything, and suppresses his inner\nvoice calling out for him to go on an interesting investigation. But as the\nseries progresses, he learns to listen to that voice (or rather through\nlistening to Chitanda's voice, he learns to listen to his own).\n\nIn my opinion, Oreki never was that much opposed to interesting things. Look\nat him read stuff all the time. And he's pretty knowledgeable, too. How could\na person disinterested in everything know that much? And with Chitanda's help\nhe could finally unshackle from his chains of passivity, become who he was\ntruly meant to be − a detective. Of course he couldn't resist Chitanda after\nshe helped him through all that.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-08-09T17:21:29.447", "id": "13331", "last_activity_date": "2014-08-09T17:21:29.447", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "191", "parent_id": "5340", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI did a similar list back in 2003 when I was watching the series for the\nsecond time through. I had read the manga before that, though I don't remember\nwhether I took it into consideration when making the list. In general the\nanime follows the manga very accurately - if we ignore some blatant filler\nsuch as episode 32 (Yotsuya's egg; IIRC even its drawing style differs, so\nmaybe the animators were using it for practice).\n\nYour list corresponds to the B and C ratings in my list; B doesn't advance the\nmain story but still e.g. develops the characters, whereas C is a pure filler\nepisode. Except for a couple of episodes, our lists are similar.\n\nIt's interesting to notice that after episode 70 there are no filler episodes,\nand also on average the ratio of content to filler episodes is much better\nthan in many other anime series. :)\n\n[code]\n\n A: Important part of the story\n B: Could be skipped but is still worth watching\n C: Totally irrevelant\n \n 01 A + + +\n 02 A + + +\n 03 A + + +\n 04 A + + +\n 05 A + + +\n 06 A + + +\n 07 A + + +\n 08 A + + +\n 09 A + + +\n 10 A + + +\n 11 B + +\n 12 A + + +\n 13 A + + +\n 14 A + + +\n 15 A + + +\n 16 A + + +\n 17 A + + +\n 18 A + + +\n 19 A + + +\n 20 B + +\n 21 B + +\n 22 A + + +\n 23 A + + +\n 24 A + + +\n 25 A + + +\n 26 A + + +\n 27 A + + +\n 28 B + +\n 29 C +\n 30 A + + +\n 31 A + + +\n 32 C + not in manga\n 33 B + +\n 34 A + + +\n 35 A + + +\n 36 C +\n 37 C +\n 38 A + + +\n 39 A + + +\n 40 A + + +\n 41 B + +\n 42 A + + +\n 43 A + + +\n 44 C +\n 45 A + + +\n 46 C + not in manga\n 47 B + +\n 48 A + + +\n 49 A + + +\n 50 C +\n 51 C +\n 52 A + + +\n 53 A + + +\n 54 A + + +\n 55 A + + +\n 56 A + + +\n 57 A + + +\n 58 A + + +\n 59 A + + +\n 60 A + + +\n 61 A + + +\n 62 A + + +\n 63 A + + +\n 64 A + + +\n 65 A + + +\n 66 A + + +\n 67 A + + +\n 68 C +\n 69 B + +\n 70 A + + +\n 71 A + + +\n 72 A + + +\n 73 A + + +\n 74 A + + +\n 75 A + + +\n 76 A + + +\n 77 A + + +\n 78 A + + +\n 79 A + + +\n 80 A + + +\n 81 A + + +\n 82 A + + +\n 83 A + + +\n 84 A + + +\n 85 A + + +\n 86 A + + +\n 87 A + + +\n 88 A + + +\n 89 A + + +\n 90 A + + +\n 91 A + + +\n 92 A + + +\n 93 A + + +\n 94 A + + +\n 95 A + + +\n 96 A + + +\n \n[/code]\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2015-02-04T21:57:43.160", "id": "19129", "last_activity_date": "2015-02-05T07:40:31.050", "last_edit_date": "2015-02-05T07:40:31.050", "last_editor_user_id": "11549", "owner_user_id": "11549", "parent_id": "5352", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "\n\nFirstly, it's worth noting that the difference in their strength is perhaps\nnot as drastic as it appears. Though Al's body has essentially wasted away,\nyou can see that Ed's right arm is significantly weaker than his left arm as\nhe did not have it during during the series (or for several years before), in\nwhich he had a lot of physical improvement.\n\n\n\n\nHowever, as you mentioned, we can still notice that there is a difference.\nEd's looks normal, though somewhat skinny, while Al's looks like complete skin\nand bone.\n\nUnfortunately, I can only offer speculation as to why this is. Ed realizes\nthat it's possible that he and Al were somehow interconnected within the gate,\nwhich allowed him to provide nourishment to Al's body through some kind of\nconnection.\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nuHZW.png)\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w5Nt2.png)\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wKxFw.png)\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZibz.png)\n\nHowever, assuming this is true, it's easy to observe that Ed remains fully\nnourished and Al is significantly more starved. By this logic, if we assume\nthat Ed's arm, too, is connected to his body in the \"real world\", he could be\nnourishing that at the same rate as his regular body, while Al's body would\nonly have received partial nourishment. Unfortunately, this is never stated in\nthe series, so it's just a guess.\n\nSo, while it's not a complete or necessarily canon answer, the best I can\nsurmise is that while Ed's nutrients are feeding both his own body and Al's,\nhe is receiving the lion's share of those nutrients, allowing his arm to\ndegrade at a slower rate (or not at all).\n\n", "comment_count": 4, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-30T22:12:11.593", "id": "5369", "last_activity_date": "2013-09-30T22:12:11.593", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5365", "post_type": "answer", "score": 24 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThat's from Episode 15 of the second season of Hayate no Gotoku where Hayate,\nMaria and Nagi all make a trip to the [Shimoda Onsen](http://www.japan-\nryokan.net/wp/izu-shimoda-onsen). When they arrive at \"Nai\" station, somewhere\nbefore Shimoda station, Nagi gets off the train to get food, thinking that\nshe'd be able to get back on because of the ticket, but the train leaves.\n\nNo idea where \"Nai\" station is or if it's real. Google maps doesn't appear to\nlist any stations called \"ない\" anywhere near the vicinity.\n\n* * *\n\nJust to clarify, the station's entire name that's listed is simply \"Nai\".\nThough as [senshin](https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/1908/senshin)\nsuggested, it may be related to one of the two existing stations on the\nShimoda line.\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-09-30T20:55:22.740", "id": "5367", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-01T13:41:24.770", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5366", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\n名胃駅 (Nai Station) is located in the city of Odawara, in the Kanagawa\nPrefecture and part of the Tokaido Main Line of JR East.\n\nIt would seem you can get to it by taking the 東海道線 (Tokaido Line) [High Speed\nActy](http://wiki.chakuriki.net/index.php/%E5%BF%AB%E9%80%9F%E3%82%A2%E3%82%AF%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC).\nIt's between Hayakawa (早川駅) Station and Nebukawa (根府川駅) Station, and is\napparently one of those [stations few people\nuse](http://ja.uncyclopedia.info/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E6%B5%B7%E9%81%93%E6%9C%AC%E7%B7%9A#.E5.B0.8F.E7.94.B0.E5.8E.9F.E9.A7.85.EF.BD.9E.E7.86.B1.E6.B5.B7.E9.A7.85).\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-01T14:35:12.457", "id": "5374", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-01T14:35:12.457", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5366", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n[кяαzєя's comment](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/5370/is-the-\nmanga-in-episode-3-of-the-everyday-tales-of-a-cat-god-based-off-a-\nreal#comment7536_5370) is right on the spot: **Yes, it's from 大凶ちゃんとしあわせな世界**\n( _Daikyo-chan to Shiawase na Sekai_ , Misfortune Girl and the Lucky World), a\n2-chapter ~~special~~ spiritual one-shot by FLIPFLOPs on _Champion RED_\nmagazine edition 2007-12 ~ 2008-01. It's also included in the 1st volume of\n_The Everyday Tales of Cat God_ manga (Source:\n[MyAnimeList](https://myanimelist.net/manga/10617/Nekogami_Yaoyorozu/moreinfo)).\n\n> \n>\n> [Image\n> source](http://blog.xuite.net/dk.miki/trans/21084422-%E5%A4%A7%E5%87%B6%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%97%E3%81%82%E3%82%8F%E3%81%9B%E3%81%AA%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C)\n\nThe story, as it has been mentioned in the question, is about\n\n> Kyouko, a test-taker who came to Tokyo and is living alone. \n> Shinigami Karin, Kyouko's roommate. \n> The story about their certain Sunday life.\n>\n> [Source (Japanese)](http://miruto.org/archives/1120.htm)\n\n* * *\n\nHere, we can see Shamo reading the _RED_ magazine,\n\n> \n>\n> [Image source](http://nikkananilog.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-23.html)\n\nAnd here is the scanned page of the last picture in the question,\n\n> \n>\n> [Image source](http://miruto.org/archives/1120.htm)\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2017-09-24T06:35:22.760", "id": "42452", "last_activity_date": "2017-09-24T06:35:22.760", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "2516", "parent_id": "5370", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n> The premise of Toshokan Sensō involves the Japanese government passing the\n> Media Betterment Act (MBA) as law in 1989 which allows the censorship of any\n> media deemed to be potentially harmful to Japanese society by deploying\n> agents in the Media Betterment Committee (MBC) with the mandate to go after\n> individuals and organizations that are trying to exercise the act of\n> conducting freedom of expression activities in the media. -\n> [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshokan_Sens%C5%8D)\n\nMy interpretation is that the censorship is for everything you mentioned and\nanything else anyone can think of that would be \"harmful to society\". Just\nlook at [the list of frequently challenged\nbooks](http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks).\n\nThis is the top 10 list for 2012:\n\n[code]\n\n Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey.\n Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group\n \n The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.\n Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group\n \n Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher.\n Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group\n \n Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James.\n Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit\n \n And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.\n Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group\n \n The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.\n Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit\n \n Looking for Alaska, by John Green.\n Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group\n \n Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz\n Reasons: Unsuited for age group, violence\n \n The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls\n Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit\n \n Beloved, by Toni Morrison\n Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence\n \n[/code]\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-01T13:57:17.670", "id": "5373", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-01T14:08:15.927", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-01T14:08:15.927", "last_editor_user_id": "2044", "owner_user_id": "2044", "parent_id": "5372", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThey're ninjas! They're so sneaky that they can sneak away and leave a log or\nsome object behind and it only looks like they've teleported.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-01T16:48:44.673", "id": "5376", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-01T16:48:44.673", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "260", "parent_id": "5375", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nFrom what I understand, there are only actually a few ways to teleport. Those\ninclude Tobirama/Minato's Flying Thunder God technique, reverse summoning, and\nObito's space/time Sharingan based technique.\n\nMost of the time, when shinobi just poof, that means it was either a clone or\nthey travel at a high speed such that one can not detect their movements. If\nit was a clone, then it was always a clone to begin and the person did not\njust substitute himself for a clone.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-01T17:36:38.153", "id": "5377", "last_activity_date": "2015-06-12T11:59:36.440", "last_edit_date": "2015-06-12T11:59:36.440", "last_editor_user_id": "11083", "owner_user_id": "2178", "parent_id": "5375", "post_type": "answer", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThe use of colored pencils and related mediums vary depending on the artist or\nproduction that does them.\n\nThe yellow is typically seen being used to highlight shadows or break up\nobject in the background (like clouds), because shading with a regular pencil\nmight drown out the details especially in a elaborate or darkly lit scene.\nTake this storyboard from _Arrietty_ :\n\n\n\nCompare it to this uncolored storyboard from _Evangelion 2.0_ :\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kvM9Z.jpg)\n\nAnd the _Steamboy_ :\n\n\n\nOther times the yellow can be used to highlight an active foreground object\nlike a person, take a look at this example from _Mushishi_ :\n\n\n\n\n\nThe color blue is typically used as a secondary color, do add more detail and\ndepth to the storyboards. Here is an example from _5 Centimeters Per Second_ :\n\n\n\n\n\nNotice the blue is being used to highlight additional shadows for a better\nsense of the atmosphere of the shots. Here's an example of how it's used to\nseparate objects in _Gundam UC_.\n\n\n\nNone of these guidelines are set an stone and can vary greatly depending the\nbudget and needs of the production and/or director(s).\n\nThe opening storyboards for _Ponyo_ are in watercolor:\n\n\n\nThe main scenes too:\n\n\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-04T14:56:23.740", "id": "5401", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-06T16:52:22.143", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-06T16:52:22.143", "last_editor_user_id": "63", "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5378", "post_type": "answer", "score": 18 }, { "body": "\n\nA typical Japanese animation can have up to 3 levels of shadows plus a\nhighlight. Different colored lines specifies boundaries of different shadows\nand the highlight. Traditionally, these are traced in the front of the cel and\nthen the cel is flipped and using these traced lines as a guide, the\nappropriate color is applied at the back. - I used to work in traditional\nanimation and that is how we use those lines\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-09-17T09:30:38.003", "id": "48813", "last_activity_date": "2018-09-17T09:30:38.003", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "42518", "parent_id": "5378", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nYes I think he do. According to interview with\n[ANN](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2011-08-16/interview-makoto-\nshinkai), He would like to emphasize on losing someone and may be the\ninfluence of Miyazaki's work\n\n> Question: Your previous films have had simple themes and complex emotions;\n> what would you say is the overarching theme of Hoshi o Ou Kodomo?\n>\n> MS: It's very difficult to put the theme into one word— if it wasn't I\n> wouldn't have made a two-hour movie! But if you want me to just say it, I\n> guess that would be how to overcome a sense of deep loss, the loss of\n> another person.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-02T00:31:45.983", "id": "5381", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-02T00:31:45.983", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "2185", "parent_id": "5380", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nGoing counter clockwise from the top left:\n\n * Kinkaku (upper, older brother) \n * Ginkaku (lower, younger brother)\n * Suzuki Satomi (Benten, as a schoolgirl she wears the blue blazer and has [her hair up](https://i.stack.imgur.com/enbOc.jpg))\n * Yaichiro (tiger ver.)\n * The Mom (of the four Shimogamo brothers, house mother ver.)\n * Yasaburo ([cross-dress](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lU5P4.jpg) ver.)\n\nKouji Kumeta, best known for the _Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei_ manga, did the\noriginal character design for the series.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-02T04:38:09.463", "id": "5383", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-02T04:43:10.050", "last_edit_date": "2013-10-02T04:43:10.050", "last_editor_user_id": "63", "owner_user_id": "63", "parent_id": "5382", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\n> In Kyoukai no Kanata, are youmu the same as youkai?\n\nThere is no such thing as _youkai_ (妖怪) in the world of Kyoukai no Kanata.\nThere are only _youmu_ (妖夢).\n\nKeep in mind that _youkai_ is a very loosely-defined term in Japanese, and is\ngenerally used to refer to a rather motley collection of supernatural\ncreatures, so it isn't even really all that meaningful to ask whether some\nterm is \"the same as\" _youkai_.\n\n(Aside: note that _youkai_ and _youmu_ share the character 妖, which means\nsomething along the lines of \"strange or bizarre\".)\n\n> However, if they are, then why are they called youmu instead of youkai?\n\nThis is a question of authorial intent, basically. If I had to guess, the\nauthor chose to use _youmu_ instead of _youkai_ in order to avoid bringing\nalong the semantic baggage that the word _youkai_ carries. Every Japanese\nperson has an idea of what a _youkai_ looks like, but _youmu_ is an original\ncoining, so you don't really have the same preconceptions in that case.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-03T06:34:13.953", "id": "5391", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-03T06:34:13.953", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "1908", "parent_id": "5387", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nAt the main story, the movies are never mentioned because they are like\nfillers and not canon to the main story. But it's possible to verify when they\noccur by some facts, by some situations that we saw in the movie:\n\n * The first movie, _Memories of Nobody_ : Ichigo is able to use his bankai in the World of the Living, so it happens after the Bount Invasion arc and before the Arrancar one as he's still unable to use his hollow form. So, it is between **episode 109 & 110**.\n\n * The second movie, _The DiamondDust Rebellion_ : Ikkaku use his bankai, so maybe it happens after the first invasion of Arrancars (the one defeated by Toshiro team) and before they entering in Hueco Mundo. In episodes, **something near 138**.\n\n * The third movie, _Fade to Black_ : I think it happens nearly to _The DiamondDust Rebellion_ during the Arrancar's fight, but before they entering in Hueco Mundo because Ichigo still uses the first form of his hollow mask:\n\n\n\n * The fourth movie, _Hell Verse_ : In this movie, Ichigo uses the second form of his mask and transforms into his full hollow form, so he already fought Ulquiorra in Hueco Mundo and returned. Repeating, it's like a filler, **after episode 299**.\n\n", "comment_count": 6, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-04T18:32:28.170", "id": "5402", "last_activity_date": "2020-06-01T17:39:37.177", "last_edit_date": "2020-06-17T09:17:53.303", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "2251", "parent_id": "5388", "post_type": "answer", "score": 10 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nIt's never specified exactly who they are other than than the fact that\nthey're hollows but based on the fact that they appeared to be more humanoid\nthan most hollows it's safe to assume they were Vasto Lorde (strongest form of\nnatural hollow). They also could be some of the Espada pre-arrancar since\nHarribel (#3) was revield to have been a Vasto Lorde it would make sense for\nother high level Espada to Vasto Lorde as well.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-31T19:35:19.617", "id": "5665", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-31T19:35:19.617", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2648", "parent_id": "5389", "post_type": "answer", "score": 1 }, { "body": "\n\nI'm pretty sure the Arrancar were created using Aizen's Hogyoku, a long time\nbefore the series started. I think the two that we see there are Aisslinger\nWernar and Tier Harribel. Harribel is the one that looks like Sheik, wrapped\nup in bandages, though her hollow hole being on the outside of her body rather\nthan in her womb leads me to believe that it was an initial design.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2018-11-11T16:09:24.490", "id": "49616", "last_activity_date": "2018-11-11T16:09:24.490", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "43368", "parent_id": "5389", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nI personally feel that these are just certain events in the manga which make\nthe reader feel that its happened. \nBut mangaka's are such beings that they can create their own logic and make\ndead people alive! \nLogically if you think, then Killing the main person of a story which is going\nso great, can have a highly positive or negative impact on the sales of a\nmanga. \nThe writer is just creating such events that generate these kind of thoughts\nin the readers mind! \n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-03T16:26:14.250", "id": "5395", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-03T16:26:14.250", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2416", "parent_id": "5390", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\n\nI would say yes.\n\nIt does not interfere with the \"not letting the main character die\" rule,\nbecause the main part of the story plays in the world of the dead (soul\nsociety).\n\nSo I ask if the concept of \"death and alive\" even does apply to bleach? He\nmight be dead ever since he first became a Shinigami or, as you described, as\nsoon as his chain got destroyed.\n\nAs for the time he is in his body and interacts with the world of the living,\nhe might just go back into his body or as other Shinigami enter a Gigai\n(artificial body).\n\nI sadly have no prove for this claim, it is my theory.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-04T14:21:42.793", "id": "5400", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-04T14:21:42.793", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "47", "parent_id": "5390", "post_type": "answer", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\n\nLooking at it in the most basic way: the answer should be no. Remember, many\npeople can see Ichigo (not just the special ones who can see the dead). They\ndon't show Ichigo getting into a fake body for his day to day life at any\npoint. Only leaving it for Kon in the earlier parts of the series.\n\nRecall the 17 months after Ichigo did not have powers (around the Fullbringer\nArc) that everyone could see and interact with him. If that could happen, he\nshould not be viewed as dead.\n\nTake it with a grain of salt, remember that the author/creator Kubo Tite has\nbeen inconsistent with some things in the past and gets sloppy with his\nwriting from time to time.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-05T22:31:35.230", "id": "5408", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-05T22:31:35.230", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2504", "parent_id": "5390", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nThis was a comment first, but converted to an answer.\n\nThe hole idea is called [Simulacra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra)\nand was investigated by [Jean\nBaudrillard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard#Simulacra_and_Simulation).\nThe original inspiration was [Salingers short story \"The laughing\nMan\"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laughing_Man_\\(Salinger\\)).\n\nThe concept is now also known as \"Stand Alone Complex\", but it's not\nfrequently used, except (for example) for the group\n[Anonymous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_\\(group\\)).\n\nAlso, [this question](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/3323/122) may have\nsome additional information.\n\n", "comment_count": 0, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-04T06:22:46.863", "id": "5399", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-04T06:22:46.863", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-13T12:54:48.523", "last_editor_user_id": "-1", "owner_user_id": "122", "parent_id": "5394", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nFrom the [Type-Moon\nWiki](http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Kara_no_Kyoukai#Novels) the chapters of\nthe light novel are:\n\n * Chapter 1 – Overlooking the Scenery (俯瞰風景, **Fukan Fuukei** ) Thanatos\n * Chapter 2 – Murder Speculation (Part 1) (殺人考察(前), **Satsujin Kousatsu (Zen)** ) …and nothing heart.\n * Chapter 3 – Remaining Sense of Pain (痛覚残留, **Tsuukaku Zanryuu** ) ever cry, never life.\n * Chapter 4 – The Hollow Shrine (伽藍の洞, **Garan no Dou** ) garan-no-dou.\n * Intermission - Kirie/Fujino (境界式, **Kyoukai Shiki** )\n * Chapter 5 – Paradox Spiral (矛盾螺旋, **Mujun Rasen** ) Paradox Paradigm.\n * Chapter 6 – Oblivion Recorder (忘却録音, **Boukyaku Rokuon** ) Fairy Tale.\n * Intermission - Lio (境界式, Kyoukai Shiki)\n * Chapter 7 – Murder Speculation (Part 2) (殺人考察(後), **Satsujin Kousatsu (Go)** ) …not nothing heart.\n * Boundary of Emptiness (空の境界, Kara no Kyoukai)\n * Future Gospel (未来福音, Mirai Fukuin) recalled out summer\n * Final Record (終末録音, Shuumatsu Rokuon) the Garden of Oblivion \n\nAnd the [animated\nfilms](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7472):\n\n * 2007-12-01 (Japan, Part 1 - **Fukan Fuukei** ) (same as Chapter 1 of novel)\n * 2007-12-29 (Japan, Part 2 - **Satsujin Kousatsu** ) (same as Chapter 2 of novel)\n * 2008-01-26 (Japan, Part 3 - **Tsuukaku Zanryuu** ) (same as Chapter 3 of novel)\n * 2008-05-24 (Japan, Part 4 - **Garan no Dou** ) (same as Chapter 4 of novel)\n * 2008-08-16 (Japan, Part 5 - **Mujun Rasen** ) (same as Chapter 5 of novel)\n * 2008-12-20 (Japan, Part 6 - **Boukyaku Rokuon** ) (same as Chapter 6 of novel)\n * 2009-08-08 (Japan, Part 7 - **Satsujin Kousatsu** [conclusion]) (same as Chapter 7 of novel)\n\nSo the movies' chapters refer to the same chapters from the light novel.\n\n", "comment_count": 7, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-03T23:50:41.063", "id": "5397", "last_activity_date": "2017-04-09T07:20:10.190", "last_edit_date": "2017-04-09T07:20:10.190", "last_editor_user_id": "8486", "owner_user_id": "91", "parent_id": "5396", "post_type": "answer", "score": 2 } ]

[]

[ { "body": "\n\nIts the shock to the nerves. The connection activates a lot of nerves at once;\ncausing a quick shock of pain to the user\n\n> Linked directly to the nervous system, an automail prosthesis does not\n> usually require an external energy source, and can be moved at will like a\n> natural appendage, taking electrical pulses from the nerves to power and\n> regulate the various electric motors and pneumatic actuators inside\n\n[Source (Second Paragraph)](http://fma.wikia.com/wiki/Automail)\n\nThe reason people can feel things (like pain) physically is due to nerves.\nWhen the automail is connected; the nerves \"turn on\" all at once.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-05T22:17:28.593", "id": "5405", "last_activity_date": "2014-12-04T00:53:32.110", "last_edit_date": "2014-12-04T00:53:32.110", "last_editor_user_id": "1587", "owner_user_id": "2504", "parent_id": "5404", "post_type": "answer", "score": 8 }, { "body": "\n\nEssentially, after the completion of the loss of an arm or other limb, there\nis a raw set of nerves poking out (not literally, but you know what I mean).\nThese are [what connect to the automail's\ncircuits](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/3839/274). As stated by Vic, _all_\nof these nerves are stimulated simultaneously, causing a severe, severe shock\nto the person.\n\nThis pain is shown to be more obvious in the 2003 anime, lasting for quite\nsome time after the connection. In the 2009 anime ( _Brotherhood_ ), the\nrepercussions of the event are significantly tamer.\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zqTXy.jpg)\n\nUnfortunately, it's hard to pin this down exactly to something you might feel\nin real life. One common example would be hitting your \"funny bone\" which is\nactually a group of nerves in the elbow. However, this still does not do\njustice, as the nerves are not exposed and there are not _that_ many of them.\n\nThe only thing biologically similar in our world is that of an exposed nerve\nunder a tooth. If you've ever lost a tooth, and touched or injured the exposed\nnerve, you'll know that this pain pretty much brings you to your knees. And\nthat's a tooth-area worth of nerves; expand that to your entire shoulder and\nyou've got a HUGE amount of pain.\n\n[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pxTbH.jpg)\n\nGiven that the pain is akin to something few humans can ever even experience,\nit is no surprise that even the characters in the show (like Armstrong, shown\nabove) cannot comprehend the pain behind the process.\n\n", "comment_count": 2, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-05T22:29:13.377", "id": "5407", "last_activity_date": "2023-04-25T23:52:20.923", "last_edit_date": "2023-04-25T23:52:20.923", "last_editor_user_id": "1587", "owner_user_id": "274", "parent_id": "5404", "post_type": "answer", "score": 13 }, { "body": "\n\nIt's stated in both the animes and the manga. You're connecting STEEL WIRES to\nevery nerve one a time. Then sending huge amount of electric charges and heat\nin order to have those already damaged nerves function to control the\nprostatic. Add that to the fact you might have to add further amputation to\nthe damage in order to even fit the automail.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2014-06-05T13:21:20.920", "id": "10120", "last_activity_date": "2014-06-05T13:21:20.920", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "5129", "parent_id": "5404", "post_type": "answer", "score": 0 } ]

[ { "body": "\n\nTaken from the [Naruto wiki](http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Darui), 'he\ninadvertently uttered the word when he admonished the brothers and stated,\n\"Ore wa Bosu no migiude **da. Ru** ijihin janē! (「オレはボスの右腕だ。類似品じゃねェ!」, I'm the\nBoss' right arm. I'm no imitation!)\"'. \"Daru\" sounds like his most said word,\n\"darui.\" This is why he was sealed.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "creation_date": "2013-10-06T00:37:57.233", "id": "5410", "last_activity_date": "2013-10-06T00:37:57.233", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "2100", "parent_id": "5409", "post_type": "answer", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\n\nIn the English version he says \" I am not a timid rabbit\", his word was\n\"Drab\". Thus when he utters timi **D RAB** bit, the word drab is said.\n\n", "comment_count": 1, "content_license": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "creation_date": "2019-03-26T02:01:45.720", "id": "51278", "last_activity_date": "2019-03-26T02:01:45.720", "last_edit_date": null, "last_editor_user_id": null, "owner_user_id": "45584", "parent_id": "5409", "post_type": "answer", "score": 3 } ]