How does a Claymore move up in rank within the Organization?

It is worth bearing in mind that the TV show only covers the first 7/8 books, and it might be addressed later on in the story.

As far as I could find however, the ranking system seems to be done by generation rather than reallocating ranks when someone dies.
You can see claymore occasionally contest someone's position in the manga, but it doesn't seem to be an official thing.

Ranks by Generation

  Claymore warriors No. 1 through 47 are ranked on their baseline Yoki potential, strength, agility, intelligence, sensing and leadership. A warrior's rank rises and falls according to the warrior's strength in relation to other warriors.
  Claymores are known to belong in different eras/generations, marking the time they joined the Organization, but not all Claymores who are active at the same time belong to the same generation. This is because Claymores never age beyond their physical prime.

It's unclear as to when a generation changes, as some claymore survive more than one.

We can see on the linked site that one generation's order has changed.

The old generation (旧世代) (Teresa era テレサ時代).

No. 1        - Teresa
No. 1 and 2  - Rosemary
No. 2  - Priscilla
No. 2 and 3 - Ilena
No. 3 and 4 - Sophia
No. 4 and 5 - Noel
No. 5 and 6 - Elda

Recalling Priscilla who was a newly created claymore who shot up through the ranks to become number 2, I would imagine that in exceptional cases such as these, the organization would alter the ranks, but mostly it would be left as is until the next generation comes around and new claymores are assessed


What differentiates manga from other comics?

One thing I noted for sure is that Manga usually is not drawn in the same style they use for X-Men, Batman, Superman (DC Comics or Marvel).

Muscles
They tend to be drawn slimmer & less muscular. When they are drawn muscularly, the muscles tends to have more packs (not sure what's that called) than that in American comics. A simple comparison is between Goku of Dragon Ball and Superman. Goku has more packs than Superman.

Hair
Also, Manga character hair tends to be spikey, while American comics are not. For example Tony Stark of Iron Man and Natsu Dragneel of Fairy Tail.

Eyes
Manga tends to draw the characters with big, round eyes. This is especially true in girls manga (shoujo manga).

Expressions
Well, American manga don't draw jaw-dripping expressions like manga do, or panic character having >.< eyes.

Sound Effects
Another this is that effects in American comics are usually drawn inside a spikey bubble, while in manga, they are usually just written in big hiragana or katakana letter.


Can Super Saiyan God (Red) Kaio-ken be made just like Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (Blue) Kaio-ken?

Your question is a tricky one, my friend. It hasn't been covered in the anime or the manga as to whether or not that is possible, but theoretically it should NOT be.

Why? Because in the anime which has already been declared canon ("somewhat..."), it has been stated that Kaioken on top of SSB is allowable because it is used on god-ki under perfect ki control.

SSR does not have perfect ki control which is why it can only be done via ritual, and also why Vegeta does not have SSR form.

Arguably since the manga and the anime deviate whereas spoilers below for anyone who isn't caught up...

   In the battle between Goku and Hit, two different outcomes are portrayed. In the anime, Goku uses Kaioken x10 while in SSB to enable him to overpower Hit's time-skip ability. Doing so makes him unable to control his ki for a period of time, forcing him to warp into the wrong places and leaving him unable to even fly correctly. Now in the manga, Goku transitions between SSR and SSB, throwing Hit's timing out of whack and eventually defeating him. So this brings in two hot topics:

 Is SSR still usable without the ritual due to the zenkai boost?
 Is Kaioken usable compounded with SSB? Which one is the canon here? One is true and the other has to be false, unless for some strange reason both are true.

Kaioken on SSB may not even "technically" be real due to the anime only being partially canon.

TLDR: Theoretically no, and with what has currently been seen in the anime and manga as of June 27, 2016, no. Is it possible? Yes.


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

With Madara quickly rushing to Izuna's aid, Hashirama pleaded with Madara to come to peaceful terms. Seeing his brother begin to consider this offer, Izuna told his brother not to listen to their lies, ultimately making Madara retreat with Izuna.

Madara later revealed that Izuna died from the injury. At the last moments of his life, the dying Izuna had given Madara his eyes so his brother could obtain the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan to protect their clan.

Because of the blindness caused by overuse of a Mangekyō Sharingan, many people came to believe that Madara took Izuna's eyes by force to regain his sight.

Source:

Izuna Uchiha | Narutopedia


What makes a village a "Hidden Village"?

It is stated on this wiki page, that

  Hidden Villages are parts of countries in which the country's ninja reside. Their leaders stand equally with the landlords ruling the countries they are a part of. A Hidden Village maintains its economy by training its citizens to be ninja from a young age and using them as manpower in various missions others would be willing to pay for, from weeding a garden for a single payment to receiving a constant budget from the country it resides in for being soldiers in case the country is involved in a war.

However, the same page lists Tsuchigumo Village and Tonika Village in the list of "hidden villages".

I would speculate that the largest ninja village in the country, the one directly responsible for it's defense, would be called a "hidden village" (i.e. have "village hidden in the " in the name), and the other smaller ones would probably be just "villages", even if they belong to a ninja clan or something.


Who finds the letter at the end of Gakkougurashi?

She appear only in manga. She's Touko Deguchi. She's an university student.

From Wiki:

  Touko made a cameo appearance in the anime, where she picked up Yuki's letter

She appear in manga (Chapter 37). After the School Life Club left the school, they decide to go to university and Touko is one of the main character in this arc. She's the leader of their group.

In manga the letter was found by someone else, not her.


Is the amount of chakra extracted equal to the size of the part that is cut off from the Bijuu?

I may be wrong on this one, but I think the answer is "no". Let's take a look at how chakra works in a human body.

Chakra system is much like the circulatory system of a human:

  Contained in the "chakra coils" that mainly surround and connect to each chakra-producing organ, the energy circulates throughout the body in a network called the "chakra circulatory system" (similar to the cardiovascular system). (1)

The chakra circulatory system, itself

  is enmeshed into the body and like blood vessels it touches and interacts with every single living cell and passes through every organ.(2)

Much like with blood vessels, chakra vessels not equally distributed in the body. There are more of them in some places, and less of them in others, which means the flow of chakra is more intense in some body parts, and is less intense in others.

Now, we don't know much about the Tailed Beasts' body structure , but if we assume that their physical bodies work in a similar way, we can say that the amount of chakra is also different for their body parts.

Also, obviously, the Tailed Beasts can regenerate their chakra (otherwise they'd have a limited amount of it), and for some reason I doubt that the cut part of the tail is capable of regenerating chakra on it's own.


Do the Yami Shibai horror stories have any background/reference?

ANN writes the following:

  A series of short horror stories based around Japanese myths and urban legends. The series is framed around an old man telling these tales to schoolchildren on a playground using kamishibai, a traditional Japanese storytelling method using paper scrolls.

The same goes for summaries on crunchyroll or other sites.

I guess that stories like "Hair" (the photocopier-one) are just urban-legends, so there isn't much to explain.


Where are the more powerful characters during the Tournament of Power?

Broly isn't canon and hence doesn't exist in the Dragon Ball anime series. He only exists in the movies, videogames, Dragon Ball Heroes etc.

Goten and Trunks were considered to be too inexperienced and young for the tournament of power and hence, were disregarded in favor of more experienced fighters such as Roshi, Tien, Krilin, etc. Currently, Goten and Trunks are looking after the island where Android 17 works as a park ranger.

Majin Buu was chosen to be part of the team, however, he fell asleep right before the tournament and didn't wake up and Goku decided to recruit Freiza to join their team for the tournament of power.


How do Demon Weapons work in Soul Eater?

What are the basic and upgraded Weapons called?

I'll start with this since i'll use these terms in my answers, in the Anime, weapons like Soul and Tsubaki are known as Death Weapons. After they collect the 100 souls they are refereed to as Death Scythes like Spirit and Justin, most likely a reference to how Lord Death is the Grim Reaper and in most works the Grim Reaper is portrayed to have a Scythe, these terms will be different depending on which version but for simplicity i'll use the anime terms.

It seems in the manga the 2 forms are Demon Weapon and Death scythes (デスサイズス desu saizusu) so I use the anime terms as Soul is refereed to as a demon scythe and using the anime terms avoid any confusion thinking Soul is somewhere in between.

  What does completing this 100-soul ritual do for Weapon and Meister?

First things first, you ask about the effects of the ritual, to answer this you need to know what does collecting souls do for the Death Weapon. When a Death Weapon consumes a soul they get more powerful, the amount of power depends on thew soul they consume, Bellow are the list from the weakest to the strongest.

Kishin Eggs (Red with a forming Shell) are the weakest however since they can give birth to a Kishin the DWMA seeks these out.
Human souls (Normally Blue) are used to refer to the souls of humans who are innocent, ie. have done no wrong. They give quite a bit of power compared to Kishin Eggs however the DWMA looks down on this as you'll be murdering innocent people to get them and beginning down the road of becoming a Kishin.
Witch Souls (Normally Purple) give the most because of the magic Witches use however a witch is "normally" very hard to kill (exception may possible be Angela Leon due to her age)

The 99-Kishin/1-Witch Ritual is used to train both the Death Weapon and Meister so they can handle the power slowly growing without loosing control, it's probably that by collecting 99 Kishin Eggs gives a Weapon/Meister pair the experience and power they need to tackle the witch, look at Blair who was a handful to Maka and Soul but wasn't even a witch and then to Maka's expression when she saw Medusa's soul for the first time in Italy.

The final Witch Soul must give enough power to the Death Weapon to rival a Death Scythe as Death Normally chooses the target Witches not only comparing against the Weapon/Meister pair's skill but probably also the amount of power the Death Weapon will need to be considered as a Death Scythe.

Death Scythes are then assigned an area to manage in Death's place (due to his soul being anchored to Death City) probably to replace the Great Old Ones AKA Death's Eight Guardians which were once commanded by Death himself (back when he had the more monstrous look). We know  the fate of 6 of the eight, Asura become a Kishin and killed 3 of them, one is in the Book of Eibon in the form of a black, amorphous blob and another is Eibon, the fate of the other 2 is unknown. Most likely before the DWMA Death's Eight Guardians managed the world so with their disappearance/fall Death created the DWMA (and became more funny looking to not scare children) and started training Death Scythes to replace them, so far there are 8:

Spirit Albarn - North America
Marie Mjolnir - Oceania
Azusa Yumi - Eastern Asia
Justin Law - Western Europe
Tezca Tlipoca - South America
Tsar Pushka - Eastern Europe
Deng Dinga and Djinn Galland - Africa and Western Asia (How Wikipedia list them, not sure which is which)

It's not sure what happens to new Death Scythes with all the regions now managed but in the manga Justin Law is killed so the Western Europe slot is open and in the Manga Soul Becomes a Death Scythe.

As for what happens to the Meister that's not entirely know (at least to me), hopefully this question will give the answer to that (will edit this part when it is answered)

  What about combos with 1 Weapon and >1 Meisters?

The Other way around (>1 Weapon and 1 Meisters) which is more common I only know of 2

Death the Kid: His weapons are Elizabeth and Patricia Thompson, the 2 were already guns using each other to mug people in Brooklyn and originally join Kid to exploit his wealth and authority as a Grim Reaper, but grow closer to Kid over time and outgrow their greed. Kid took an interest in them because of his crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder for symmetry however Kid wasn't a normal student.
Kilik Rung: his is Pot of Fire and Pot of Thunder, twin brother and sister, respectively, who never speak but have the ability to communicate with nature and sense danger.

I don't know of too many other Weapon/Meister pairs which have more that 1 Weapon but it's probably assumed that if a weapon has a sibling who they are very close too most likely the Meister will accept them as another weapon. I would assume these kind of weapons can be worked together but i haven't read up on too many.

As for Weapon/Meister only groups that would be very rare, in the Anime, there is a kid called Hero who didn't have a Death Weapon and was able to put up with Excalibur but ended up putting him back because of Excalibur's sniffling.

Meisters who work by themselves can manipulate their Soul Wavelength like Stein and Black Star however Stein originally was paired with Spirit, it's not known if he had a second partner (sympathy to the poor soul if there was). It's probably safe to assume that all students who do missions have a Death Weapon unless there is a very good reason for that, as it would go against one of the main reasons of the DWMA (Training Death Weapons to Death Scythes).

Death Weapons that work alone normally shapeshift part of their body into a weapon, almost every Death Weapon can do this, however Weapon duos like the Pot Twins or the Thompson Sisters can use one another; likewise with the Death Scythes.

However, pairs are normally stronger. In the Anime, Death explains how a Meister can use their Soul Wavelength alone, but it's amplified when they wield a Death Weapon (shown as Maka playing an acoustic guitar alone then plugging up an electric guitar rocking out as Soul sits on the Amplifier) so the stronger either are by themselves, the even stronger they are together − this is why Spirit and Stein are so strong together as Stein is already very powerful on his own.

As for the other away around in the Anime, Death Scythes seem to be used by others other than Lord Death; Spirit, Azusa Yumi and Marie Mjolnir mainly, however before becoming a Death Scythe Spirit was originally with Stein before partnering with Maka's mother Kami however Stein and Kami weren't his Meisters at the same time.

The other that i have heard of is Tsugumi Harudori from Not! however she befriends 2 Meisters and is indecisive about which one of them to choose as her partner which means she doesn't actually have a partner just yet. You might be able to count Excalibur having multiple Meisters, but you'd be hard press to find any who would actully admit to it.

Also there's Soul Wavelength Comparability to factor in, Black Star couldn't even wield Soul claiming he couldn't even pick him up. Tsubaki on the other hand is probably the only stated Death Weapon who could have multiple Meisters due to her accepting nature which allows for such a strong resonance with Black Star's seemingly polar opposite nature to Tsubaki, Stein mentions this when he is analyzing everyone's Soul Wavelengths during the 2nd part of the remedial class.

  Soul Eater Not! just started airing, possibly shedding more light on the mechanics of that world

Soul Eater Not! follows the daily lives of Tsugumi and her friends as they learn the ropes of the DWMA and have occasional encounters with the characters of the main series so it'll probably give more light on how the DWMA/Death City works and possibly link it to how the rest of the world works, but I think it'll mostly answer question about the DWMA.


What is the contract between Calcifer and Howl?

As stated on his MyAnimeList page:

Calcifer is a fallen star who was caught by Howl. He didn't want to
die, so he struck a deal with the wizard. Calcifer got Howl's heart
and a prolonged life, and Howl received full access to all of
Calcifer's considerable powers.
As it turns out, neither of them liked it after a while, but it
couldn't be broken by people who were part of the contract. When
Sophie Hatter comes to Howl's moving castle, Calcifer recognizes that
she is under a curse thanks to the Witch of Waste and that Sophie has
considerable powers of her own of which she is unaware. To break his
own curse, Calcifer offers to lift the curse placed on Sophie once she
manages to break Calcifer's contract with Howl.

Clacifer is also bound to the hearth, and cannot leave it because of the contract. He also can not explicitly talk about the contract, so he instead gives Sophie hints about it when she agrees to help him break the contract.


There are 3 main types of haki

Kenbunshoku: Allows prediction and to sense people hiding

Busoshoku: Armament strengthens attack and defense penetrates logia types

Haoshoku: King's haki, breaks the will of weaker people rendering them unable to function.

As for the limits of each we cannot judge that at this time. The concept of haki didn't become public knowledge until the new world came into the scene.

We do know 2 things so far. The first is from Zoro vs Pica and Tra vs Vergo. If one person's haki is stronger than another's it will allow you to penetrate it.

The second is from Luffy vs Doflamingo and that's that haki can run out and a user won't be able to use it for awhile once it does. How long and how much is still pretty unclear.


Why does Mikoto's Sword of Damocles break every time he uses it?

The Sword of Damocles is the direct manifestation of the Kings' powers and their state as a King. If they were to lose control of their powers due to personal emotions like Mikoto's rage of Tatara's death, the swords start crumbling. This is due to his Weismann levels raising as his compatibility as the Red King is falling. A similar thing is happening to Reisi Munakata, where due to him killing Mikoto, that burden of killing a king is causing his sword to start crumbling as well.


How was Heathcliff able to use the 'assist mod' mid-battle?

I think the reason why Heathcliff was able to do so lies in the fact that NerveGear works by scanning the brain wave. It receives input by reading the brain wave as the person equipping it thinks about something. For example, when we talk, the words are formed in our mind and the brain sends pulses to our mouth and voice cord to produce sound matching the words formed. This pulses is what the nerve gear receives as input, and at the same time, prevents the actual organ from receiving it.

It is possible that for his account, he has a feature where he can activate or deactivate game feature simply using his mind. That is, he can command the system by thinking about it. No need for him to think of moving his hands and access the control panel.


What is the logic behind Sephiroth's forms?

As you can remember (or according to this Wikia article), Sephiroth's goal is to become god-like being, gathering a lot of energy.

According to this article, actual name of Bizzaro Sephiroth is "Rebirth Sephiroth", and this is more like intermediate form in his transformation to something more powerful, than he was before. Initial stage of transformation can be seen, when Cloud's party visits Northern Crater for first time:

Safer Sephiroth is more like final form of his transformation (judging from this article, it is more correct to call it something like "Seraph Sephiroth"). It is unknown, if it is his desired form, but for sure it is closer to "god-like being", than Bizzaro Sephiroth, as it looks more like majestic angelic being.

As last resort in battle, Sephiroth tries to manipulate Cloud, and final, human form is embodiment of Sephiroth's impact on Cloud's mind, existing only in Cloud's head. And by defeating this image of Sephiroth, Cloud frees himself from this impact.


Obito was trying to revive all the people he killed in battle, the way same way as Nagato did.From here

  Obito attempts to amend his mistakes by using the Samsara of Heavenly
  Life Technique to revive those he killed, noting he had finally
  understand why Nagato betrayed him.

For your question why Nagato didn't revive Jiraiya... My guess is the dead people will
 be revived from where their dead body is,

  Since Jiraiya's body was far too deep in ocean that even Kabuto can't reach to
  collect his DNA, it would be waste to revive him. Even after reviving
  he will die because of water pressure. So Nagato didn't try to revive
  Jiraiya.

It is also mentioned in Jiraiya's wikia page

  Later on, Kabuto revealed that he attempted to retrieve Jiraiya's body
  to bring him back through Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation, but
  it was far too deep in the ocean for him to reach without being
  crushed by the water pressure.


What happens to Zoro's scabbards when he's in a fight?

I would call this a "mistake" or something similar, but I don't think that would do it justice. Not to take away from the time, effort, and skill of One Piece's artists or Oda-sensei himself, but you'll find in many of Oda's SBS columns (a section of the manga in which Oda, OP's creator, answers questions from his fans), that these kinds of questions are typically answered in a somewhat silly way. Although there's a clear effort to minimize such "mistakes," their importance is obviously not the most important thing to Oda. You'll find a favorite example of such an answer on the top answer of this thread. Not so satisfying for everyone, but if you'll excuse the speculation, I'd imagine Oda would give you an answer with the spirit of "Sometimes he doesn't like to wear them. He'll pick them up later."


Even though they looks like a she it's still debatable.

If we look at official tumblr account of Kodansha (Publisher of AoT) we can find an answer:

  I’ve said everything I intend to say on Hange (the short version: Hange’s gender is open to whatever interpretation you care to have)

Here the link of the whole question.


Did Yato cut Hiyori's ties to the Far-Shore in episode 6 of Aragoto?

I found the perfect answer to this question on Reddit:

It's supposed to look ambiguous, but if he had, Hiyori probably wouldn't have even seen him in the first place, let alone remember who he is. Plus, she runs away from him in her spirit form and even has a conversation with him afterwards when she looks for him to tell him to back off. Tenjin also confirms that he didn't go through with it.
I think that part is better played in the manga - we really had to wait for the answer, since they changed some of the order of what happens in the anime and the reason Hiyori gets annoyed with Yato as well. If you'd like to see how it goes in the manga: Ch.22 P.31 - P.33, then Ch.22 P.38 - P.42, and finally Ch.23 P.43 - Ch.24 P.7.

I haven't read the manga myself but based on the anime, I can say that Tenjin allowed Yato to break his promise since it was Hiyori's own wish to remain with him.
The last and foremost evidence of her ties not being cut to the far shore is the fact that she can still turn into her spirit form (with the tail).
In conclusion: If he had indeed cut the ties, she would have returned to being a normal human who:

Would have been unable to convert to her spirit form
Would have lost all her memories of Yato
Would not have been able to see Yato

None of the above happened, so luckily, Tenjin let the promise slide.


A song played on episode 487 when Trafalgar Law turns up at Marineford

The track when law appears is called "Luffy vs Ratchet, Round 1".


Why are there so many "in Wonderland" episodes?

I guess this is because of it's overall popularity. According here,

  Alices Adventures In Wonderland is a pretty well-known work: it can be
  associated with world-crossing fantasy, drug imagery, lolita fashion
  and other aspects of Victorian England, political satire, and who
  knows what else. No wonder it shows up a lot in anime, shock horror
  (it's a frequent target of Grimmification, usually with lots of
  blood), and emo teen novels. (You know the kind — usually involving
  vampires, eating disorders, or vampires with eating disorders.)


Manga where a daughter pays off her father's debt?

The manga you ask about is Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet.


What song plays in Code Geass R2 Episode 14: Geass Hunter?

Answer separated from question

I FOUND IT ON YOUTUBE! Sadly, it is unreleased and it's not the best quality. If there's a clean version anywhere that'd be awesome too. While I do have the actual audio of the track, it still has the voices and everything.

Heres the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVWyHqlTDDI&list=PLClDieKmym5Df7m7B3cF9z6ot1yNiq7X0&index=6


How can CP9 members and Sanji run in the air?

Actually this technique that Sanji uses is called
Sky Walk   it doe not use any haki, he just learned it by training while running everyday increasing his speed making him run in the air.

Wiki states:

  This is the aerial version of Blue Walk. Sanji kicks the air to jump higher, giving the appearance of flight. Sanji created this technique during his ordeal in "hell" to escape from the okamas. It was first seen used to escape after being surrounded by the Sea Urchin-Armor Spine Squad, making them hurt themselves. (Vol. 64 Chapter 635 and Episode 555)

As you can see he developed and learned this technique because of his ordeal during the time skip while training in Kamabakka Kingdom. giving him immense speed.


Are there any other uses for a Pokeball besides capturing and storing Pokemon?

They were made for storing pokémon, only. It can be seen, that some trainers play with them (at least in the games, there are jugglers and some psychics who make the balls float in the air). It can happen, that there are different things than a Pokémon in it, like when Ash found a riceball (?) in his Pokéball after the tries to catch a Mankey, which throws the riceball at the Pokéball, but besides from that, Pokéballs aren't used for anything else than catching and storing Pokémon.

In the anime, it was also shown that a Pokéball can't catch trainers, the beam that would transform the Pokémon to energy (to store it in the ball) just doesn't have any effect.

In the games, however, items which can be found in the world are shown as a red Pokéball. Whether it's for the sake of simplicity or whether they are really stored in Pokéballs is unclear (but you don't get a Pokéball with every item you find).


There's no explicit explanation on who or what he is.

  Does Shounen Bat exist in the mind?

Not so much in the imagination, as other people can obviously see Lil' Slugger. It's possible that he could exist in the minds of everyone. Whether or not he exists in reality is a matter of debate; when he attacks people, is it physical or are his victims simply manifesting the injury?

Regardless,

   it seems he's been manifested by Tsukiko, the character designer and first "victim". Except she reveals she was never attacked by Lil' Slugger and that Lil' Slugger was her manifestation when she was a child to take the blame of all the bad things that she did, like letting her dog die. She eventually believed the delusion and somehow the delusion manifested into either reality or within the minds of everyone, growing in strength from people believing in his existence.


No explanation is ever given as to why the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (also know as Horsemen of John) attack humans.

a quote -

  Horsemen only attack humans. Almost as if they were sent to cull the
  world's bloated human population.

Source --Shinoa, Chapter 8, "Mitsuba's Squad

All of them attack humans and only humans, while they ignore every single other entity, they do not attack vampires or animals, with the exception of one Horseman of John, namely -

Spoiler alert -

   The special Horseman of John, summoned by Abaddon to destroy the army of vampires and humans


The anime the cats are watching is Black Butler

(Extract from the linked wikipedia page)

The series follows Ciel Phantomhive, the thirteen-year-old head of the Phantomhive noble family and the business-savvy owner of the Funtom company, a toy manufacturer.
Ciel has formed a demonic contract with Sebastian Michaelis. In return, when Sebastian has helped Ciel finish all of his tasks, including avenging his parents' deaths, Sebastian will be allowed to consume Ciel's soul.
It was announced in July 2008 that an anime adaption, directed by Toshiya Shinohara and produced by A-1 Pictures, was expected.
It premiered in October 2008, and has since ended with 24 episodes. The second season aired in 2010 spanning 12 episodes with two new main characters, Alois Trancy and Claude Faustus.
The series has been licensed by Yen Press in North America and published in Yen Plus' August 2009 issue for the magazine's first anniversary.


Is the proverb "When a man steps out of the gate, he faces seven enemies" a real one?

The proverb is real, although spoken differently.
In episode 5 of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Miu said the following proverb,

男子門口を出れば七人の敵あり (danshi kadoguchi wo dereba shichinin no teki ari)
A young man, if he steps out of the gateway, there are seven enemies (lit.)

The more known proverbs are:

男は敷居を跨げば七人の敵あり (otoko wa shiki'i wo matageba shichinin no teki ari)
男子家を出ずれば七人の敵あり (danshi ie wo izureba shichinin no teki ari)
男子門を出ずれば七人の敵あり (danshi mon wo izureba shichinin no teki ari)

which its interpretation is more about

A man has many competitors, if man comes out to society.

This can refer to education, career, and similar situations (basically: people are competing with each other outside; always be on your guard and do not open a chance to be used by others)
One of the earliest references is on Kunio Kishida's essay Nihonjin to wa? (1951) (Japanese), but no specific origin is known.

昔から、「人を見たら泥棒と思え」だの、「男子外にいずれば七人の敵あり」だの、とにかく、人間と人間との関係を、おのずから相親しむべきものとせず、かえって、互いに心の許せぬもの、油断をすれば隙に乗ぜられるもの、という風に教えているのである
Since a long time ago, there were sayings like "if you see a man, think of him as a robber", "if a young man goes outside, there are seven enemies", anyway, it is told that people should not be familiar with each other naturally, rather, they are unforgivable to each other, and if they are not careful, an opportunity can be taken.


No, she didn't die in the manga. However, in order to defeat General Budo, she used all her power in the final attack with Pumpkin and fell in a vegetative state as a result.

This happened in Chapter 56:

In the last chapter (Chapter 78),

   she's shown to regain consciousness after Tatsumi's return from the battlefield. It is also mentioned that they had children and lived a gentle and peaceful life.


Who is said to be stronger future trunks or cell saga gohan

Cell was supposed to be the perfect being in terms of abilities and power. At the time he was the strongest villian. The god of destruction and the universe hierachy was introduced in DBS with Zen, Beerus, Whis etc. So therefor it is pretty difficult to tell if Cell would've had a chance against Beerus; a god of destruction.

It was said in DBS that Zamasu killed ALL the gods of destruction in the future timeline. Cell was defeated by Saiyans, from which they are in DBS still weaker than a god of destruction. Keep in mind that during DBZ they were significantly weaker (apart from Gohan since he was still training a lot), but he was never close to the strength of Goku; not to mention Beerus. Beerus was defeated by Zamasu in the future timeline which means that cell is weaker than Beerus and therefor weaker than Zamasu.

Zamasu being beaten by someone means that that certain someone is stronger than all that Zamasu was able to beat (going by logic). But we know from experience between son and father; Vegeta and future Trunks, that future Trunks is still way too weak for that level of strength.

From what I recall during the arc of Zamasu, Trunks didn't beat him. He simply survived a brawl so now and then. As shown in the battles against Goku and Vegeta compared to that with Trunks he was never serious towards Trunks, so Trunks never really beat him. If he did he wouldn't go through so much sacrifices and trouble in order to get Goku and Vegeta.

For all I remember, Zamasu was so far the most powerful villian. Goku had to call Zen-Oh in order for Zamasu to be eradicated. Hence the reason why there are 2 Zen-Oh's in the current timeline.

So all in short, Zamasu was only ever defeated and properly beaten by Zamasu. Therefor it is unknown how "actually" powerful DBS future Trunks is compared to DBZ Gohan from Cell-saga. Due to major differences in plots and storyline it is also hard to guess. There is lack of information about Trunk's full strength in effect in DBS.

Dont quote me on this, but I'd call DBS future Trunks stronger than DBZ Gohan if it was based on opinion. Let me explain why. First of all, age difference essentially means difference in experience for combat. Trunks has been fighting for several years in the timeline where there is no Goku meaning he had a lot more time to train. Gohan was still young in DBZ and therefor lacked the years of experience Trunks has. As for Saiyan states during cell-saga Gohan attained ssj2. His ultimate saiyan form is basically ssj2 with more power at the cost of speed. So as for saiyans both are equally strong. But due to experience I'd say that Trunks would win. As shown in the most recent dbs episode (114), Goku ssj1 was able to withstand ssj2 due to his fighting experiences and Trunks is no fool while gohan still was at that age, that's why my vote goes to Trunks.


How much of the Berserk storyline do the anime and OVA cover?

I'm not entirely sure as I haven't read all of the manga as of yet but everyone who has recommended the OVAs to me has assured me that it follows the manga a lot better than the original anime.

I know they've also got a long way to go with the OVAs though, it's a while off reaching the end of the manga.


Shouldn't Pain's head have melted off during the fight with Naruto as 9-tails?

That's probably just because Pain needed to appear stronger than Orochimaru, but we can try to make it work.
First we should note that it wasn't Orochimaru's body that touched Naruto, but his snake. Which we can try to understand as being a product of some jutsu, not just a flesh-and-bone snake. Orochimaru could just be so good at chakra shape transformation that he could give an actual physical appearance to his chakra, and not just a generic shape like in most jutsu, and the plot does give him this level of talent.

Now, with Pain, we know that the Rinnegan has some very strong chakra absortion and manipulation techniques, and the fact that the bodies weren't really alive, but rather being controlled remotely, could reduce the "rotting" and "melting" effect, after all, Naruto is touching dirt, grass and rocks and none of those are melting on contact.


According to this Wiki:

Lala states his current appearance is due to him using too much power
during the "Galaxy Unification Wars", which desized his body.

If I recall correctly, It was mentioned on the anime by Lala.


What happens in the end of The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi?

You are exactly right. Thats what happens in future novels. Why didn't he save himself? Because Kyon is dangerously genre-savy. And he know that breaking the stable time loop might lead to more and worse problems. So he doesn't do anything other than what he himself saw doing himself.


What is theme music that plays in episode 181 at 07:37 minutes?

The soundtrack name is Nervous.

You can listen it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRyohGCjdVU


The hole in the ocean from your image is from the first One Piece special.

As for the reason why it was there, this is what I could find:

  She opens it only to find just a skull inside. Usopp reads the back of
  the skull, which engraves about a treasure that can make anyone's
  dream come true. It lies deep in the ocean's naval. Then a large hole
  begins to form near the crater they crashed into, so Usopp, Nami, and
  Sanji prepare themselves in a diving barrel to explore the cavity in
  the sea.

So far we have seen two other "holes" in the anime.
The first of them being the whirlpool that is formed by the Knock Up Stream.

The second one is seen in the Maubeugemour Sea in episode 575 (this is a filler for the One Piece Film Z).


Which characters survive and make it to UQ Holder?

Ku Fei and Yue are not known to be alive during the time of UQ Holder.  What you are referring to is a flashback scene regarding a tournament that the main characters are now training for.  It shows that Yue and Ku Fei competed as a duo in a previous running of the tournament, some time after Negima but, by their appearances, long before UQ Holder.

Evangeline is alive, and serves as one of the driving foci of UQ Holder.  She's not quite a main character, but she is a major character that motivates the primary main character.

Fate Averruncus is alive, and currently serves as the primary main character's antagonistic rival.  He does not appear to be an active villain; the main character just wants to be stronger than him.

The cat girl you reference may be related to Koyomi, as suggested by Torisuda.  Their personalities don't seem to match, so she may be a descendant of Koyomi, or simply another member of the same race of demi-humans.  Maybe Fate just likes cat girls, or it's a bit of nostalgia, or it's a coincidence, or any number of things.  She hasn't been a significant enough character to be sure.

Also alive is Mana Tatsumiya, the half-demon gun user.  She is the one that introduces the main characters to the aforementioned tournament.  Since Mana does not appear to have aged significantly, one assumes that other half and full demon characters, such as Zazie, are also alive, but they have not appeared or been specifically referenced.

   Negi himself is confirmed as "alive".  We don't know his exact state, but he is in some state of needing help/rescue, but not one that is especially time sensitive.  This state is what drove Fate into an initial villain role, but eventually they held him off long enough for the protagonists to learn his aims and to negotiate a cease fire of sorts.  Since Fate's goal was not especially time sensitive, he did not actually need to press it as strongly as he could have.

No other characters from Negima! have made confirmed appearances.  We can conjecture a couple more, at least, in addition to demons such as Zazie.  Many fans think that UQ Holder occurs during the timeline where Asuna had not come back: if so, she is "alive", in the sense that she is serving whatever purpose it is that had her separated from the world for so long.  Asuna's lineage was also stated to be an exceptionally long-lived one; she was already quite old, technically speaking, when Nagi encountered her.  When Asuna did finally finish her task, she found out that her best friend Ayaka had lived well past 100, in hopes of meeting Asuna again.  Since UQ Holder is set approximately 80 years after the end of Negima, it is plausible that she is alive.

And we can get a little bit meta: UQ Holder is a society of immortals, several of which we know are well over one hundred years old.  Thus, though they may never have appeared in Negima, technically speaking they were alive during the course of its events.

EDIT (9/25/2015)

   At the end of chapter 95 we see an elderly Ayaka make an appearance, showing off her pactio card, and accompanied by her (presumed) granddaughter, as well someone who appears to be Chachamaru.  The fact that her pactio card is still functional tells us that Negi is in some sense alive.  This is in much the same way that we knew that Rakan's functioning pactio card meant that Nagi was alive.  We also see the granddaughters of Konoka Konoe.  I'd guess they are less than 10 years old, and they can recall stories of their grandmother about Negi, so it is possible that Konoka is also alive, or only recently deceased.  They specifically wonder why Tota shares their last name, which possibly foreshadows that we will learn about this, and that it is not simply a coincidence.

EDIT (2/16/2016)

   In Chapter 112, we see two more characters, both of which are immortal or have long lifespans: Sayo Aisaka, the ghost girl; and the demon Zazie Rainyday (in full jester get-up).  We also basically get full confirmation that Negi really is alive.  It is also confirmed that the Chachamaru-like character accompanying Ayaka (see the preceding spoiler) is, in fact, Chachamaru.


Where do the Angels get their names from?

Seele has knowledge of when the Angels will appear based on the Dead Sea Scrolls. (That they have knowledge of the order of Angels from the Scrolls is indicated in an ep. 23 conversation. In an earlier episode, there is also an indication that Seele is expecting an Angel to appear at a certain time; I do not have access to the anime right now and cannot find the exact reference.) With this in mind, it is not surprising that the Dead Sea Scrolls also probably contain the names of the Angels.

It is unlikely that Seele was only provided with knowledge of the order of Angels and not their names. Note that Kaworu speaks of the descendants of Lilith in one of his conversations with Shinji. Lilith is the name of one of the first Angels, and as  Kaworu is an Angel, his usage of the name indicates that it probably is not just a name that Seele assigned, but rather, a real one.


What does the symbol 油 on Jiraiya's headband mean?

The kanji for Oil 油 【あぶら】(Abura) is the symbol of Myobokuzan. Jiraiya wearing it on his forehead protector represents his affiliation to it. The symbol probably comes from their special sacred oil, which allows people to feel natural energy more easily, and evaporates outside Myobokuzan's atmosphere.


Why was Mustang's vision restored, when Izumi Curtis didn't get her organs back?

Let's take a look at the events at the end of FMA - I'm using the manga.

Hohenheim offers to use himself to get Alphonse back, out of paternal duty. Ed refuses because what happened to him and Alphonse was their own responsibility. Notice that in FMA, there's this sort of emphasis on personal responsibility for one's actions (e.g. Riza's comments about Ishbal, Ed's comments here, etc.). Consequently, it's possible to read Hohenheim's comments to Izumi Curtis as implying that he shouldn't - morally speaking - just give back to her everything she lost, given her own culpability. If I'm not mistaken, Ed has a similar attitude towards his automail leg at the end of the manga.
Ling also offers the philosopher's stone he has for the same purpose, but since Ed promised Al they wouldn't use it to get their bodies back, Ed refuses. This and Hohenheim's comments seem to imply that it is possible to recover what's lost from Truth if the appropriate toll is paid and what you're trying to recover actually exists.
Marcoh asks Mustang if he can use his philosopher's stone as payment in exchange for his sight, on the condition that the policies on Ishval are revised. It's not clear if Marcoh knows about Mustang having been forced to open the gate, but it is clear that Ishval is one of his motivations for putting forth this offer.

Given that it seems to be implied that Alphonse could have been retrieved with means other than Edward giving up alchemy, this seeming inconsistency is probably best interpreted as Hohenheim choosing not to completely restore Izumi Curtis in accordance with themes and ideas about personal responsibility in the series (since the state of Alphonse and Edward is also a result of their own actions).

While Hohenheim's offer to use himself to get Alphonse back may seem out of touch with his comments to Izumi, it's honestly not that inconsistent, particularly when he feels some responsibility for his sons' attempt at human transmutation and when this is an egregiously life-or-death scenario compared to Izumi Curtis'.

Moreover, just because there's some sort of emphasis on personal responsibility (and, at least judging from Riza's comments about Ishval, or those in the last episode of Brotherhood, the impossibility of atonement) in FMA doesn't mean that the characters don't try to improve on their own situation or that of others (e.g. Hohenheim's improvement of Izumi's blood flow, Ed and Al's pursuit of a means to get their bodies back, etc.). Rather, it seems more like a rejection of the attitude of "if I do X, I can make up for Y and forget about it". As thus, in the case of Roy, we should also note that Marcoh seems to have had fairly specific motives apart from restoring his sight in giving him the philosopher's stone.


Where and how does the Bleach anime diverge from the manga?

Bleach anime ended in March 2012, with the episode 366. It ends after (spoiler if you haven't finished the anime yet)

   Ginjo dies in his battle vs Ichigo

In manga, that arc ends with chapter 479, "Goodbye to our Xcution!!". The anime is not airing now, but the manga goes on, with the new arc starting with chapter 480 called "Final Arc - The Thousand Year Blood War".


Is Madara's Ten Tails Jinchuriki Mode a complete form?

Yes, Madara's Ten Tails Jinchuriki Mode is complete.

The Gedo Statue drew in all the beasts.

When a Tailed Beast is removed from its host, the host dies. To avoid this from happening, there should be enough chakra of the Tailed Beast left inside the jinchuriki. When Gyuki was being removed, he sectioned one of his tentacles, having chakra, to Bee. This was done so to ensure Bee survives without the majority of Gyuki.

  Struggling against its confines, Gyūki apologised to B as it was extracted and sealed within the statue along with the other tailed beasts, but not before cutting off one of its tentacles, letting B survive through the chakra within it.

Therefore, the majority of Gyuki was absorbed into the statue and only a portion of it was intact with Bee. That portion served as a source of life for Bee and it was negligible compared to the intake of Eight Tails chakra into the statue.

Therefore, since the statue contained most of the Eight Tails chakra, Madara was able to undergo the transformation.


As per One Piece Wiki:

So far, the CP agencies seen on the Grand Line are CP5, CP6, CP7, CP9 and CP-0.
There are eight official Cipher Pols that are numbered from CP1 to CP8 with two unofficial units, which are named CP9 and CP-0 . Cipher Pol No. 9 has the license to kill any citizen that does not cooperate with the World Government or acts in contrary to its interests. Because such a radical method of applying justice by the World Government should not be common knowledge, this group is a top secret organization. CP-0 is apparently more powerful than the CP9 as they are called the world's strongest intelligence.

-CP-0, more properly known as Cipher Pol Aigis Zero is the strongest intelligence organization among Cipher Pol, according to Nico Robin.
-None of the CP-0 members were turned into toys. Although, Doflamingo does have control over them.

Doflamingo revealed to Law that he was granted authority to command CP-0 because he holds secret information about Mariejois' 'national treasure', which will shake the world if its existence is revealed to the public.

You can read about them in detail here


Is there any special reason for the Donyatsu shoutout in Kogane's backpack?

The author/illustrator of Donyatsu, Kozaki Yuusuke, is also the lead character designer for Bubuki Buranki.


Although it's mostly based on speculation and it isn't really mentioned in the series that that he is definitely alive, when Kakuzu was reincarnated during the Fourth Shinobi World War, he took Hidan's absence as proof that he was still alive (Chapter 530, page 3).


Manga involving indirect kiss through icecream

Are you maybe looking for Anedoki? The question is a bit old, but this appears to be the one you're looking for.


What are recent innovations in animation techniques?

Due to the lack of time period in the question, here's a more blanket overview of anime innovation.

The Evolution of Animation Techniques

The Celluloid Shift

The first few animations were made by Winsor McCay in 1914. Unfortunately, there are not many copies of this animation remaining, but it sparked a movement that was known as the Celluloid Shift in animation history. This process involves drawing a background first, and then drawing different layers for characters on top of it.

This allowed for animators to make more complex scenes than just simple sketches. This is the method that Walt Disney used when he created Steamboat Willie (1929) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). While this isn't Japanese animation, or anime, this method of drawing layers is what was used in early animation projects from any country or origin {1}.

It wasn't for a while that the now regular episodic Japanese anime made an appearance. From this A&M SE question, people have largely agreed that おとぎマンガカレンダー, or Otogi Manga Calendar, was the first anime series ever created, which was published in 1961. However, there were other short clips, like Katsudo Shashin (1907) and なまくら刀 (An Obtuse Sword) (1917), which were each 3 seconds and 120 seconds, respectively. These first short animations and full anime series use the method brought on by McCay with the Celluloid Shift. It is interesting to note that McCay brought this method to the west in 1914, but it is seen being used in animations in the east as early as 1907.

Computer-Aided Frame-by-Frame Animation

After animation was gaining popularity as a medium of entertainment across the globe, the computer began aiding animators in their creation of new works. When the computer first entered the world of animation, it was used to make the process of redrawing parts of the scene much less arduous, by introducing the frame-by-frame method.

In the frame-by-frame method, an animator draws an initial scene on the computer. This can be done with a stylus on the computer screen, or it can be done with special external computer peripherals that will translate a drawing into an image on the computer screen. Then, the animator advances the screen by one frame (if the movie takes place at 60 fps or frames per second, then the animator advances the scene by 1/60th of a second). The drawing from the last frame stays slightly grayed out for the animator to reference, and the drawing from the current frame appears darker on the computer screen. These allows the animator to create reference points when animating. With the previous method in the Celluloid Shift, this method could be emulated with very thin tracing paper, where an artist would draw one frame, and then lay a thin sheet of paper over it so they could see it while drawing the next frame.

Here is a great video that shows exactly how frame-by-frame animation works (this is still largely used in the anime industry today), as it is hard to visualize from my description alone. It is important to note that in this method the animation is still largely drawn by hand; even though this method uses a computer, the computer doesn't actually do the drawing, the animator does.

Computer-Generated Imagery

However, the most modern innovation with anime and animation is CGI, or computer-generated imagery. Similar to frame-by-frame animation, CGI is accomplished with the use of a computer (thus the phrase computer in the name), but different to all previous animation methods, the computer draws the scene (as instructed by the animator), rather than the animator drawing the scene.

This method has become popular in the west with studios like Pixar and Dreamworks. Some of the most popular include Toy Story (1995) and The Incredibles (2004), as well as many, many others. However, this animation innovation has been used fairly regularly in other shows as well. More popular in mecha anime, at the dawn of the CGI era certain scenes would be completed with CGI while the majority of the work was done with computer-aided frame-by-frame animation. This is because often CGI allows animators to create and draw scenes that are incredibly complex or too hard to draw by hand. It was more popular as CGI was emerging to use this cross-method animation, where parts were animated with CGI and other sections were animated with the frame-by-frame method. There are many, many other examples of this, but the one I found that showcases this fusion of the two methods is this scene from the second season of Aldnoah.Zero (2014), which you can see CGI being used for the vehicles and mechs but regular frame-by-frame for the people and other scenes (beware, this clip contains spoilers). Another show that relied heavily on both frame-by-frame and CGI animation is Initial D. You can watch this first episode of Initial D and seen the stark contrast between the two animation methods. Whether this cross-method animation was an effective way of creating a show is primarily opinion-based, however, and is a whole different question for later.

In today's modern world, however, CGI is making the transfer from being used in conjunction with frame-by-frame animation to being used for the whole show. There have been a couple shows like this recently (and probably many more that I haven't watched), but the two that are in my mind right now are Ajin, whose trailer can be seen here, and the new sequel of Berserk, whose trailer can be seen here. As computers become more powerful and more available, it seems that CGI is taking over more shows, but I doubt it will fully replace frame-by-frame animation (on a personal note, if you haven't seen Ajin or Berserk, I HIGHLY suggest watching the anime or reading the manga for both of them) {2}.

Here is another great article that discusses the evolution of graphics in anime, from a more subjective lense:

  Those who watch older versions of anime movies will immediately notice the difference in graphics. First of all they were designed in 2D and the special effects were considerably simpler. It is amazing the special effects seen in new anime shows these days. There are even 3D versions of certain anime movies that delight their audience with incredible action and effects.

While this section stems from general animation techniques, you have to remember that anime is an animation, and its history has largely followed the same technique evolution as the animation industry as a whole.

The Evolution of Anime Trends/Styles

In addition to different innovations in animation techniques, there have also been different trends and innovations that have to do with style. This has less to do with the different techniques of drawing anime, and more with the different styles and trends that have emerged from anime over time. The full list can be read from here.

Gainax Stance

Shaft Angle

Dezaki Direction Style

Minagawa Fade

Sunrise Stance

While this section isn't the first thing you think of when asking "What innovations are there in anime techniques," I would argue that it is still relevant because it is how animators are changing trends and innovating in their animation styles. These are not styles that are done by just one or a few animators or shows, but rather trends that span across the whole anime industry {3} {4}.

Sources:

{1} (source)
{2} (source)
{3} (source)
{4} (source)


Why weren't Puck and Emilia surprised when Subaru called out Emillia's spirit to protect her in episode 3?

It is discuss by Emilia and Pack in the after event of the fight with Elsa (Chibi Short 3). Where Emilia ask Pack how come he respond to Subaru call and ask if they knew each other. Pack answer with a no but hearing his name being shouted upon cause him to be quickly summoned to aid Emilia.

Pack also answer that Subaru was sincerely just there to aid her noticing no sign of malevolent and ill intent on Subaru. and if he ever did, Pack will annihilate Subaru himself.


Has Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood always been the number 1 top anime on MyAnimeList?

On this reddit thread, you can see state of top anime list since 2007 until 2016. According to it, FMA: Brotherhood was outscored by Gintama at least for some period of time.

This history thread is not up to date, but at least it answers your question - yes, there was another top anime since FMA:B was released.


Where does "time patrol Goku" come from?

According to the wikipedia and some info i have stumbled upon, he comes from an alternative timeline but is pretty similar to the Goku we all know from the main series, although he is supposed to be much more mature the the original Goku.

On of the major differences is that he has not experienced the SSJB transformation unlike main line Goku. Well you can find a bit more info about his on the official wiki page:
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Goku:_Xeno


Is Sol Martra the Reinkernator for Metafalss?

The Second Tower doesn't have a Rinkernator due to the fact it was never completed and due to being completely dependent on the First Tower. Similarly, there is no need for one because Frelia was never intended to become a Tower Administrator on the same way Shurelia and Tilia were, which is also the same reason why she is the only one among the Origins that doesn't have a Linkage armor.


Is the old man from episode 2 the same person we see later?

I'm inclined to say that these are the same person. In episodes 2 and 24, Nishimura Taisuke is credited as "homeless man". Assuming conservation of detail, it probably makes sense for the guy in episode 24 to be the same person as the guy in episode 2.


Was Cloud and Tifa living together and raising kids in Advent Children?

According to the Wikia they do live together

  Concerned with this new development, Rufus attempts to make contact with the now retired members of AVALANCHE, specifically with Cloud Strife, who now lives in the newly built city of Edge with another AVALANCHE member, Tifa Lockhart, and two children, Marlene Wallace and Denzel, who is infected with Geostigma.

Source: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children > Story

as you can see Rufus was trying to reach Cloud when he called Tifa.

as for the kids. they aren't their own if that's what you are wondering. they are

Marlene Wallace: the daughter of Barret's friends Dyne and Eleanor who Barret adopted after Corel was burned down by Shina. Tifa has been looking after her since before Advent Children as Marlene was shown in 7th Heaven in Midgar Sector 7 Slums
Denzel: a boy who used to live on the Sector 7 Plate before Shinra blew up the pillar. after the game but before the movie Denzel found Cloud's bike and called the last number on his phone which was the number to 7th Heaven in Edge before succumbing to his Geostigma only for Cloud to find him. Tifa and Cloud take him in as they felt responsible for Sector 7's destruction (as they couldn't stop it)
(After the film)

   Shelke Rui: former member of Deepground who after helping Vincent fight Omega, started living out the 10 years she lost while in Deepground with Tifa and Cloud

^ added that because i did hear they make an appearance at the end of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete


Frieza is playing to win, simple as that.  And the prize here is both survival and the Super Dragonballs.  And using Frost helps accomplish that goal, along with being very much in-character for Frieza.

First, Frieza loves torture and just screwing with people.  As far as he is concerned, others are just tools for him to use.  And once the tool has lost it's usefulness, it can be discarded.  In DBZ, Frieza didn't need any of the races he enslaved to be able to conquer a planet.  He was more than capable of doing that on his own.  He did it for ease, simplicity and just being a sadist.  He enjoys it.

Second, in order to survive, the other universes need to lose more fighters than U7.  By allying, even temporarily with Frost, he effectively adds another fighter to their side.  This just makes it easier to ensure U7 can win.

Additionally, a theme we've seen come up quite a few times is the notion of conserving stamina.  Frieza has tremendous power, but using it drains stamina.  Using Frost doesn't.  So by getting Frost to do some of the dirty work lets Frieza conserve power for later when he needs it.

Also, having an out-of-team ally plays to the desire to get the Super Dragonballs.  While I can't find specifics on who from the winning team gets to make the wish on the Super Dragonballs, presumably if there is only one person left, they would get the wish.  Using Frost would allow Frieza to eliminate members of the U7 team without earning the wrath of Goku, Vegeta, etc, who could potentially eliminate him.  (Think about what happened when Frieza killed Krillin on Namek.)  And I am sure Frieza wants that wish.  Badly.  And this helps him to become the last man standing.

It all is simply a means to an end.  And a means that Frieza particularly enjoys.

From a story telling perspective, this also serves as a reminder of who Goku has been forced to ally with.  The stakes are high.  And when even Goku recognizes the need for Frieza's help and tolerates his brutality, it further shows the direness of the situation.  It also sets up a possibility of betrayal later, reminding the audience that Goku's only threats aren't just Jiren and losing the tournament.  He also has to watch out to avoid being back stabbed.  Imagine what could happen if Frieza were to win and get a wish on the Super Dragonballs.  That's a terrifying thought.


Is there a basis for the arm and leg wraps?

These originate from a similar practice in the real world, where they are used in boxing, combat sports, and martial arts (largely muay thai, one of the more brutal sports). They are mostly seen on the wrists, but can be used on the legs too for the same reasons. (Legs are sometimes wrapped around the hips and thighs, but can be wrapped lower down as well.)

There are different types of wraps: cloth/elastic, gauze, or a type of cast material which is much firmer.

Cloth wraps help protect from superficial cuts and other scrapes; you may have seen (or been in) situations where, after a punch, your knuckles can get worn down or bloodied up as the skin dries/breaks from the impact. Having a cover over them would obviously protect them from doing so.

Gauze and stronger cast materials (and even cloth, to a lesser extent) are for protecting the wrist and hand from damage sustained while punching. They help by holding the hand in its proper shape by wrapping around the fingers and the thumb and keeping the structure intact when an impact is sustained.

(Source: Wikipedia)

It is more than likely that Naruto adopted this to have their characters appear as (semi-)realistic, prepared martial artists.


From my recollection, the determinant seems to be the non-zodiac member's arms going around the zodiac member's body.  Intent doesn't seem to matter -- that's why you'll get tackles and bumps in there -- just the specificity of action.  So that's how Momiji can hug Tohru -- it's just that she can't hug him.


What exactly happens during a Captain's Exam?

It is indeed true that all captains have to master Bankai before they even become captains and Urahara is said to have mastered it in just 3 days.

We don't know what is going on in the Exam room, but the supervising captains along with Yamamoto could already know of his bankai mastery and subject Urahara to different tests, such as to evaluate his conviction, his ability to command others, his decision making and other traits a captain should have before taking up that role.

Also, Urahara isn't the only one who's bankai manifestation is very big, the same could be asked about Mayuri Kurotsuchi who's bankai is much bigger then Urahara's.

So to answer your question, probably the Captain Exam isn't only about power, but how a Shinigami can exert authority and responsibility over his subordinates in order to complete the task given to his squad.


@torisuda has it correct:

  It means a story that lacks an overarching narrative

For an example of a plotless show, see Lucky Star.

The characters are the same in each scene, but every scene is distinct from each other. In one scene they might be talking about how to eat a chocolate cornet, another they might be talking about video games.

There are jokes that are referred to again - for example how Kagami is a tsundere. But this isn't a narrative or simply put - a story.

Your definition of narrative is correct:

  the chain of events which are linked to each other

but, it fails to contextualize the links. the links are items that further the plot's progression - for example: a hero beats a villain who was blocking the path, the girls perform in a concert that raises their fame, etc.

Links like reusing jokes, same characters - or generally things of no overall consequence do not contribute to the story/plot.

If we have no links like we described, the show can be called plotless.

Feel free to comment if you want me to expand on something.


What is the reason behind the law that toys and humans must not visit each others' house?

It would create chaos and it might even ruin Doflamingo's scheme. Civilians don't remember their lost loved ones, but the toys remember everything. So you would expect the toys to try and remind their loved ones of who they are as we have seen in chapter 717 when the toy supposedly malfunctioned suffering of  human disease.

Humans might remember their loved ones or might start to dislike the toys, which would disrupt the peaceful kingdom Doflamingo had built. Now imagine if the toys would be able to spend intimate alone time with regular humans, this would mean situations like these would happen more often. This could then go either of two ways, none of which would be beneficial for Doflamingo. Either the human would not recognize their lost loved one and freak out as in chapter 717, creating chaos. Humans might start to loath the toys and possible retaliation might happen. The other possibility is that the human in some way might even remember who the toy was and Doflamingo's schemes would be discovered. So the more control Doflamingo holds on the toys, the less chances he has of being found out.

If toys would be able to visit houses, they would be able to plot schemes to overthrow Doflamingo and possibly kill or harm Sugar, which they would have a real hard time doing if they would be watched constantly. Doflamingo could have trusted Violet's ability to oversee any strange activity, but how would you be able to trust the daughter of the former king with such a big responsibility. And even if he would, she wouldn't be able to oversee every toy at every second of the day. Her powers should be used more usefully elsewhere anyway.

Additionally, if toys were free to go about as they liked, they could travel to other islands and expose Doflamingo's scheme. Keep in mind that they were the only ones aware of Sugar's ability apart from the Donquixote Pirates. I doubt the government would ignore the cry of help of a bunch of toys who claim Doflamingo had made them like this. Especially since coincidentally Doflamingo's island is the only one having living toys. Don't forget that among the toys there are also Government officials, who would know too much about the inner workings of the World Government for it to be just a strange malfunctioning toy, who just happens to know too much.

Toy Soldier

As mentioned by OP in a comment, Toy Soldier has been seen in the private companionship of Rebecca. He was seen training her for the hard future to come to prevent her from being harmed once again. Since this is a special case and since it was only possible by plot armor a great deal of luck, I will make this a separate part of the answer. I want to point out that Doflamingo's level of dictatorial control is so high (and quite praiseworthy to be honest), that it really needed this much of luck for it to work. So now how was the toy soldier possible to break the law?

As we know, every toy is put to a contract by Sugar, right after transformations. The contract states only two simple rules, which can be see in chapter 737 when Cavendish became a soldier.

  I will not bring harm to humans.
  I will bow to the orders of the (Donquixote Pirates') family.

Two simple rules that make the toys unable to disobey any law put out by Doflamingo, which include not entering houses, and going to the toy factory every night. Toy Soldier on the other hand, was the first and only person to become a contract-less toy as Sugar had forgotten to establish the contract as mentioned by Leo in chapter 739. Therefore he could disobey the laws as he pleased. This didn't bring him out of the woods just yet though. He knew Viola had the giro-giro (aka glare-glare) fruit, and he knew she had forgotten about who he was. If he would disobey the law at this point, he would have been caught regardless. That's why in order not to stand out to other humans and especially Viola, he obeyed the laws with the other toys and went to the toy house every night as he mentions in chapter 721. This all lasted until Rebecca was kidnapped.

At this point (still chapter 721) he couldn't just sit back and let it all happen, so he rescued her regardless of the laws. This made him a criminal and a fugitive from that point onwards. Even if he would obey the laws now, he would be hunted down by the police as we have seen when the Strawhats first arrive at the Colosseum in chapter 703. Yet he is too badass to be caught by mere mortals. Doflamingo could have tracked him down, but he probably didn't care or might not even have been aware of the situation. Viola on the other hand, knew well about everything that had gone down, but by now she trusted Toy Soldier and wanted him to keep looking out for her niece Rebecca. She mentioned in chapter 740 that she knew all about him and Rebecca, but that Viola kept it a secret for Doflamingo. It was also from this point onwards that he was seen in the private companionship of Rebecca. It was only after he became a fugitive that he started breaking the laws. He didn't have much choice.

To conclude, Toy Soldier confirms what I wrote as the original answer. Doflamingo wanted to keep his peaceful regime as long as possible and he needed laws for that. The negative effect that made Doflamingo implement that law, was to prevent what Toy Soldier had done from happening. Remember that if it wasn't for Toy Soldier, nobody would have known about Sugar's ability and the toys would never have been freed, because nobody would have known about it. So by Sugar's neglectance her secret got out and he had gathered allies to overthrow Doflamingo.

  It took him 10 years to do so, but here he is back to his human form and riding towards Diamante and Doflamingo to avenge his wife and restore king Riku's honor.


Does this non-human have any significance?

The character in the pictures you've posted is Polt.
In this Wikipedia link, she's listed under the supporting characters of the manga Monster Musume.

  Polt is a kobold. She is the leader of the local gym,
  the "Sports Club Kobold", and seems to be rather hyperactive.
  Sport is her life (any and all sports, including fishing) and she
  strives to provide the best possible experience for her customers. She
  is depicted as a fur-clad humanoid with tail and ears like a dog—she
  even wears a leather collar—but with a more flat, human-like face. She
  usually wear shorts, T-shirt and track shoes. Polt seems to be trusted
  to a higher degree than other liminals: she has her own business and
  is allowed to go out on her own. When Draco and Lilith
  are placed on parole for being out without host family supervision,
  Polt is placed in charge of them.

The Wikia link for Polt gives detailed information about the character. Her appearance is described as:

  While her species is a Kobold, a Germanic sprite that can take many
  forms, she appears as an almost human woman with a wolfen face,
  including a muzzle instead of a nose, and a wolf's tail and ears. Her
  body, in accordance with her occupation, is very athletic; having
  muscular arms and legs and a trim abdomen. Her breasts are of average
  size, in comparison to other characters more prodigious breast sizes.
  In her debut, she wears a midriff revealing black shirt with the
  sports club's name on it and an unzipped track coat on top; jean hot
  pants; thigh straps and wristbands; a dog collar and athletic
  sneakers.

This is the link for the Google Image Search for Polt.


There are several opinions on this matter discussed in the anime, and I believe one of them makes the most sense. The fact that the society living under the law of Sybil has already formed certain behavioral patterns makes it very hard to safely oppose the system.

Remember how people start freaking out at the very thought that their criminal rating could go up? How they become extremely nervous at the sight of a criminal activity or something that may look like it. Imagine if they learned that somebody is trying to oppose Sybil, how they would react. This would certainly cause a lot of trouble and quite possibly lots of people killed because of how the Sybil system works.

So the safer solution is to change the way it works gradually from within, by changing the basic principles of how it judges people. Akane can't single-handedly destroy the Sybil system, and because she has such a strong sense of justice, she knows it would not be right to risk more innocent people's lives than she has to, so she doesn't really have a lot of choice.


Why did the Marleyans go after the Founding Titan if they were aware of King Fritz' warning to organize the rumbling?

I believe Marleyans are in dire situation - theyve created a strong Empire, but other countries learned how to deal with their main weapon - titans :)
But with launching full-scale attack, they would risk the rumbling happening.
So their plans was to send "spies" and retake Founding Titan "quaintly".
About the Founding Titan power itself, it needs royal blood as you mentioned. If someone with Royal Blood inherits Founding Titan, they become pacifist. But Marleyans are probably aware there's an other possibility.
Eren activated Fouding Titan by getting in contact with titan with Royal Blood. So he came to the realization that if Historia would become a Titan, she could be used to activate his Founding Power (apparently human form isnt enough, you need titan with royal blood).
Marleyans have a titan with royal blood. So if they capture Foudning Titan, they can give it to someone without royal blood.
Then Marleyans can use the titans inside the walls and many other assets. That would mean dominating entire world for good.
Anyway, i think that's you're right that breaching the wall was very risky. King Fritz could've start rumbling at this point, but maybe Marleyans assume he wont do it, because it's his last resort.
Also they've been playing it safe, sending mindless titans to Paradis for very long time and King did nothing to stop them. They probably realized King Fritz will try to avoid conflict and won't fight back.
Also lot of time have pass and i believe there's many doubts about what's about Paradis true and what's not.No one have seem an army of colosal titans, so maybe Marleyans started doubting it even exhists?
Its also not so rare for ruling class to do something reckless to keep the status quo x)


Can a Rinnegan user use Mangekyou abilities?

To put it bluntly, no, the rinnegan cannot use mangekyou abilities. As you can watch in the anime, Madara can switch between Rinnegan and Sharingan because he awakened both.
Nagato only had the Rinnegan.

Basically, the Rinnegan isn't an upgraded Sharingan, it's what comes next, but it's a completely different eye.


What is relationship with Megami Tensei franchises

They are all spin-offs of Digital Devil Story, an old horror novel series about a guy who develops a computer program that can summon demons. The original Megami Tensei game was based on the story told in the novels, then came Shin Megami Tensei as a spin-off of this, with no relation whatsoever to the original story aside from the demon summoning program, and then the other games got produced with that premise in mind but all with stories of their own. So the only point in common they have is the fact that you can summon demons through a technological device.


Is there a difference in terms of story etc when watching a dubbed anime over a subbed?

Short answer, it depends.

Long answer, some change a lot more than others. The major thing is whether you are watching just a dubbed version of a show or whether you are watching an Americanized version of a show (assuming you're talking about English dubs). Some shows are changed because of censorship, and some of it is because of other changes. You can check out the censorship for at least some of the shows at this website. A lot of that ends up being differences in blood, violence, and sexual content. Sometimes the changes are based on the animation, including making colors brighter or slightly changing positions of things.

On the other hand, you get shows like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors. In Sailor Moon, for example, entire relationships are changed, such as making characters cousins instead of being in a relationship (which ends up just looking like incest). That's done because the relationship was between two women, something which wasn't really accepted in the US when it aired. They also skipped entire episodes.

Sometimes you also just lose subtleties because English is a less subtle language than Japanese. That ends up happening with subs, too, so it's pretty much unavoidable unless you know Japanese.

Some shows don't really change anything at all.

The major changes tend to be related to nudity, violence, sex, and homosexuality, though there are other changes. If you want to check out the differences, you can look at websites like the one I linked too, as well as this for Sailor Moon, this for Pokemon, this for Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. You have to be careful if you're worried about spoilers, but for most popular shows you can find someone talking about the differences.

For Magi- Labyrinth of Magic, which you mentioned, I can't find anything talking about the differences, though only the first season has been released in English, so that might change later.


When will the Naruto: Shippuden English dubbed version resume production?

Excellent question. I was wondering the same thing for a long time. I searched on Wikipedia for the list of Shippuden episodes and saw that all episodes after Episode 312 are to be released on January 26, 2016 on DVD, which will eventually go online. Still, I love the series, too. I've been a fan of the original since I was a kid and Shippuden is great. I only watch it in English dub, but your guess is as good as mine when they'll come out on a good site. Possibly because the new episodes still need to be voiced.


Nop. There is no evidence to support Gon has feelings for Retz. Killua is jealous of the fact that Gon and Retz hit it off as good friends that quickly. But later its revealed Retz is infact

   Just a Puppet!

The Wikia entry for Retz summarises it in the trivia

   - It is hinted that she harbors feelings towards Gon. When Omokage cynically asks her whether she is in love with Gon or not, she remains silent.  - Given that she herself is a puppet, it is safe to say that instead of deceased, she simply ceased to be.

You should watch the movie to know more. HxH : Phantom Rouge


Why did Naruto and Sasuke hit Tobi with Rasenshuriken directly?

The first time Naruto was shown using the Rasenshuriken, it was during the fight with Kakuzu. At the time, Naruto had not mastered the Rasen Shuriken completely. He had to hit the target in point blank range. Since he was in the blast range of the jutsu he was heavily impacted by the corrosive power of the jutsu.

But during his training in Mount Myoboku he mastered the Rasen Shuriken in a secretive manner, enabling him to throw the Rasen Shuriken over a distance. This allowed Naruto to stay off the blast range and also control the area covered by the blast from the Rasen Shuriken. But, even in his Sage mode, Naruto could use only two Rasen Shurikens, but he no longer sustained damage from his own jutsu.

Later, when he took control of the Kyuubi he had access to a huge amount of chakra previously unavailable to him, giving him the capability to use Rasen Shurikens more than two times.

Sasuke's Amaterasu is a fire technique, and Naruto's Rasenshuriken is a Wind technique, it is known that wind techniques increase the effectiveness of a fire technique. Thus Naruto and Sasuke combined their jutsus to make a far powerful jutsu. And since both of them were out of the blast radius, none of them were hurt from it.

Image taken from Manga chapter 634.

Regarding the recent usage of the combination of Rasenshuriken and Amaterasu, I can only assume as to why it did not affect Naruto and Sasuke. The second hokage swapped Minato and Obito just before the attack landed, so similarly with the same jutsu he may redirect the aftershock of the attack away from Naruto and Sasuke.

The second possibility is, since Naruto can himself control the area of effect of the Rasen Shuriken, as we have seen him perform earlier (mainly during the fight with Pain where he increases the area covered by the rasen shuriken as Pain was escaping). Due to which he himself may be able to minimize the are of impact of the jutsu and concentrate it only on Obito thereby saving both sasuke and himself.


What relation does Image Synthesis from the third game, have to Grathmelding from the first game?

They have no relationship: Grathmelding was developed in Sol Ciel long after the Grathnode Inferia, so there is no way it could have spread to the other regons. Image Synthesis is just typical synthesis, and the synthesis music for it only has these titles as a callback to AT1, similarly to how the world map themes ("Green Lands" and "Azure Lands") from both games sound quite similar to each other.


They have not yet indicated in the anime or manga exactly what happened at Year 0.

However, please note that the link to the "question close to yours" is almost 6 months outdated, and there is quite a bit of confusion and speculation there which was shown to be erroneous by the manga volumes released since then.

There has been a significant amount of evidence to suggest that Shingeki no Kyojin actually does take place in our universe, in the distant future. Every question of "how could X be like that in our future?" has been explained at this point.

Spoilers from the manga:

   The method used to create the walls involved having sentient colossal titans stand shoulder-to-shoulder and encase themselves in a hard crystalline material which they're capable of producing on the outside of their bodies. This explains how they were able to build the walls fast enough to protect themselves from the titan outbreak, and offers one of several explanations as to why much of the technology in their day-to-day lives seems medieval (never mind the certainty of government involvement). The world seen inside the walls is not in any way representative of the outside world which existed before that, since the government has outlawed all information regarding the outside world and its history.

 It has also been demonstrated that the titans are all transformed human beings, with one titan being seen later appearing to be a transformed monkey (potentially one of the first experimental subjects). It's also been indicated that Eren's ability to transform into a titan at will was catalyzed by an injection of some chemical from his father. These are a few of the things which show that the titans are almost certainly a result of our own creation, developed through some advanced future technology.

What very few historical facts have managed to be preserved (through the rare informative book which has been successfully hidden from the government) match up perfectly with our own history. Their legends are our legends, their history is our history, and their world is our world.

As for when this takes place, the earliest it could hypothetically be (at the time Eren is in training) is 2116 AD, since the manga was released in 2009, and it was stated when Eren was in training that the titans were created 107 years earlier. This naturally assumes that the government hasn't used their "world history blackout" to fabricate the details of the titan's appearance.

(Writing it out, I just noticed this setting has a few similarities to The Village.)

Continuing that line of thought, where we assume the new government didn't arbitrarily change the dating system just because they could, the "Year 850" would mean that we began using a new dating system at some point in the future, starting at 0 or 1. Maybe another World War? (that's just pure speculation, but it's yet another of the many possible explanations as to why the technology of the common peasants is so underwhelming).

Since that would make this at least 850 years from some unknown point in the future, and "the future" is any time after the manga began releasing in 2009, that would mean the earliest that Year 850 could be is 2859 AD.

However, one last thing to consider is that the first chapter of the manga is titled "To you, 2000 years from now." This shows that a 2000 year gap of time is relevant to the storyline somehow. There are a few interpretations about what this could be referencing, but one of the more popular ones is that this chapter title is addressed to the reader, meaning the storyline starts 2000 years from now.

That would put the beginning of the series in the year 4009 AD. It also means that the new world's dating system would begin in 3164 AD.

Considering the advanced level of technology it's suggested was used to engineer the titans, this appears to have a significant chance of being correct.

It would also give the author an infinite number of ways to explain every aspect of the setting, since literally anything could happen over 2000 years. Especially when something so significant happened halfway through that they felt the need to reset the calendar back to Year 0.

At any rate, I hope this up-to-date information was useful to you.


Points For Miki:

Having reread the first volume, Miki's claim actually does have a great deal of credence. She is often seen helping Shoko, informing her on page 80 when the teacher calls on Shoko, and showing her which question the teacher asked on page 69. Bonus points for copying the homework assignment for Naoka when Shoko's questioning caused her to miss what the teacher said (this helps Shoko, albeit indirectly). Additionally Miki does, in fact, tell Shoya to knock it off several times:

  Stop goofing off, boys! (Volume 1, page 100, after Shoya dumps a dustpan on Shoko outside)

This happens after Shoya dumps a dustpan on Shoko, who is outside the window.

  See? I told you to knock it off! (Volume 1, Page 106)

Miki says this after Shoya injures Shoko by pulling on her hearing aid apparatus. Notably, her alleged first call to "knock it off" is suspiciously missing from the narrative.

Miki also attempts to shield Shoko from harm in several instances. First, when Naoka rudely asks Shoko whether she can speak Japanese, Miki says,

  Haha... That's not a nice way to put it. (Volume 1, page 73)

When Shoko asks for clarification for what Naoka said, Miki writes in Shoko's notebook, changing the question to "Do you have a nickname?"

Second, Miki is present when Shoko sees the mean messages written on the chalkboard by Shoya and friends. It's unclear if the message is actually communicated to Shoko since she's deaf, but Miki says,

  It's awful, isn't it? I mean, really...(Volume 1, page 97)

In cases where her friends are badmouthing Shoko, it is actually true that Miki does not participate. Rather, she gives diplomatic replies, such as "I know, right?" and "I know what you mean." (Volume 1, pages 105 and 80). She acknowledges her friends' grievances against Shoko, but does not levy any of her own.

Shoya is also shown to be, to a degree, oblivious to the people around him, lending credence to the idea that he might not be the most reliable narrator. When he's doing his daredevil stunts, his two friends show a declining interest in continuing, but Shoya doesn't notice, and it hits him like a brick wall when they outright tell him they don't want to keep jumping off bridges. In high school, he puts mental X's over everyone's faces, further showing that he doesn't pay attention to other people. Since the first volume is almost entirely told from Shoya's perspective, a case might be made that any memories in the narrative he has of Miki being mean to Shoko are fabricated or exaggerated. Thus one wonders whether Shoya's claim on Volume 1, page 124 can be trusted:

  And if you count insults, the girls badmouthed her more than anyone! Especially Miki and Naoka!

Naoka, certainly. But Shoya may just be lumping Miki in because she was part of the conversation.

Points Against Miki:

Probably the most damaging point against Miki is her friendship with Naoka, who is definitively known to have bullied Shoko. In spite of this, Miki defends Naoka to the teacher, saying Naoka did more than anyone to keep Shoya in line on page 123. It is possible that Miki just willfully looked the other way when Naoka was bullying Shoko, or, less likely, that she was unaware of the worse offenses Naoka perpetrated. But her strong association with Naoka does lead credence to the idea that she also badmouthed Shoko, even if there is no instance in the manga of this happening.

Secondly, Miki may have been present at the aforementioned blackboard incident when Shoya and friends were writing the messages. On page 95, there is a panel showing the legs of several characters. One pair of socks does resemble Miki's. If so, then this quote would be attributed to her:

  When you get in trouble, I had nothing to do with this! (Volume 1, page 95)

She seems to be trying to discourage them, so it's unlikely she took part directly. On the other hand, this means she could have erased the messages before Shoko saw them.

Thirdly, Miki laughed at the Shoya's joke on page 102 about Shoko being deaf because they forgot to write the sutras on her ears. Initially, she does give Shoya a disapproving look, but after the teacher laughs, she laughs too. She even contributes clarification on the joke, saying, "Hoichi the Earless?", and thus giving it her stamp of approval (in her defense, as an honor student, she likely couldn't resist classical/literary allusions).

Conclusion:

I suspect that Miki really was doing her best to help Shoko. Her classmates did have legitimate grievances against Shoko, so Miki likely didn't know what to do or who to side with as the class turned increasingly hostile. She didn't stick out her neck for Shoko, so as to keep a target from being put on her, but she did her best to moderate in an impossible situation that could not be handled by children. However, there is a great deal of ambiguity to the character in the story, and I invite everyone to review the character's words and actions and come to their own conclusion.


Why did Kazuki Takahashi stop creating manga after Yu-Gi-Oh?

Mangaka tend to be somewhat reserved about their personal life. Takahashi has said of himself that he is great at postponing, leaving work until the last moment.

As already mentioned, he created a one-shot called Drump in 2013. He continues to oversee the development of the sequels of Yu-Gi-Oh! since he finished the original series in 2004. He has also actively participated in the development of the card game. To date, derivative manga and the card game are still being published, so he must consume part of his time in that.

In February 2015, a new adaptation of Yu-Gi-Oh! was run in Japan. This was due to the production of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions, the most recent film of the franchise that celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the brand, and of which Takahashi is the author.

In short, I have no information for sure, but it seems that he is quite busy with his other activities to create something else.


In the 2003 anime FMA, what are the ingredients for making Homunculi?

I'd assume it be mostly the same with every homunculus since they are created from failed attempts at Human Transmutation which in most cases is bring someone back to life, that being said the Human Composition that can be brought with a child's allowance is probably the collection of ingredients that are used.

We can from the series confrim what was used as material for 2 of them, they are

Sloth (Ed's and Al's mother) - the human composition Ed and Al read up on which during the process we hear Ed rep.
Wrath (Izumi's child) - Izumi used her child's body as material and it was reborn as a homunculus (it was still wrapped in the sheets Izumi had it in)

as for the rest, i can only make these assumptions.

Gluttony was purposely created by Dante to use the Philosopher's Stone so he may have been created differently using different materials which would be compatible with the stone, in the movie he also shoots out Red Stones so Red Water may have been used.

Not sure about Pride or Greed on how they were made so it's not entirely sure what their Material was.

Lust was the lover of Scar's Brother and since he was a heretic already for doing Alchemy in the first place so he may have exhumed her body though it's never clear if he studied the same line of Alchemy Ed and Al used (Ishbal seems to have a similar thing to Alchemy which developed the Grand Arcanum to transmute a Philosopher's stone).

Envy was Dante's and Hohenhiem's son so we could assume the material for him was either his own remains or the same composition Ed and Al used for Sloth though there might have been something else in Envy which caused his transformation into a dragon when he passed though the gate (though this could have been because of his powers which he was using to try and get the game to take him to Hohenhiem)


Who is the guy on the left in this collage poster? And which anime is he from?

He is Juji Kabane from Gungrave: Overdose - That's the second game, not actually an anime.
The weapons are actually Gunblades, if you look at the hilts of the swords in your image you can kinda see the guns.


At least for Paramacia the sea only affects the user and not the effects of the fruit.  Example: Luffy's neck was still stretchable after being submerged in water during the Arlong Arc, while Luffy himself was not able to move. Vander Decken IX's tracking ability worked even while it went underwater, as well as Whitebeard's earthquake fruit got transmuted through the sea to the ocean floor.

So as long as Doflamingo's not in the water himself his powers or extension thereof shouldnt be affected.

@Rajven What is the basis for this? His clone could have ended due to the attack it sustained from the other revolters.


Does Minato Namikaze want to do everything on his own?

Minato did not want to do everything on his own - he was forced to do everything on his own. During the Konoha attack, Minato was performing his duties as:

A husband/father, who was protecting his family
The Hokage, who was protecting the village

Shortly after Minato teleported the Nine Tails away from the village, he wanted to contact Hiruzen to inform him what had happened, but he was interrupted by Obito before he had the chance. From that moment on, Minato had his hands full with protecting Kushina, fighting Obito, and defending the village.
As shown later in the series, Minato's Flying Thunder God Technique has the capability to teleport others with him.... as long as he provides them his chakra to do so. Had he had the opportunity, Minato probably would taken a few shinobi with him to aid him.
With that said, since the village no longer in immediate danger from the Nine Tails, Hiruzen and a group of shinobi pursed Minato in attempts to aide him. Unfortunately, they finally arrived at Minato location after everything had taken place.

He attempted to reach the Third Hokage so that he could inform him of what happened, but was interrupted by Tobi
[...]
No longer being controlled, the Nine-Tails began retreating from the village, though it continued to attack the Konoha ninja that pursued it
[...]
Seeing the Third Hokage nearby, Minato communicated to him a final request
(Emphasis my own)


What anime is this image of a girl taking off a headset from?

I looked at the original GIF and ran a Google Image search at a few points when the girl looks into the "camera". One of the results that came up suggested that this is from the anime adaptation of Rail Wars!, which follows a continuity where the Japanese national railway system was never privatised. (Here's the MyAnimeList link as well.) The anime just started airing, and is from a franchise based on a light novel series.

The protagonist is a boy named Takayama who wants to work for the railway, and who ends up having to work against a bunch of extremists (called RJ) who want privatisation.

The character in this image should be Aoi Sakurai (who seems to also be a high school student) - and she should be the same girl in this cover scan from Wikipedia.


How can Hyouma see and use Gennosuke's technique when he permits to do so?

Naturally, the answer contains spoilers.
Because Hyouma is actually the one who taught Gennosuke his eye technique. Gennosuke inherited the Dojutsu skill from his mother, and as his uncle, Hyouma also possesses the same Dojutsu skill. However, Hyouma's case is special as

In the anime,

Hyouma's Dojutsu is constantly activated, forcing him to keep his eyes shut at all times to avoid killing the wrong person at the wrong time.

In the original novel and manga,

[Hyouma] was born with light-sensitive eyes, [and therefore] is only able to open them at night or other low-light conditions.

Reference: Basilisk Wiki.