What steps did the Yotsuba family take to keep the Shiba siblings hidden from the other families? One thing I did not get at all is how the Yotsuba kept the siblings' very existence hidden right under the noses of the other families and the public.

I would expect all of Japan to be constantly buzzing about the Ten Clans' heirs, like the world gossips about the succession line of the British crown.

Some thoughts to consider about the Shiba siblings:

Their mother's wedding could not have been in secret. Even if it was a discreet event, it would be easy to find out that she married.
In their childhood, they were part of the Yotsuba family, who could not have erased their existence from public records.
Tatsuya's connection to FTL was never hidden. His shared surname with the company's CEO should have drawn some suspicion.
Who is the heir apparent to the Yotsuba at the time the siblings attended high school? The Yotsuba, a member of the Ten Clans, would have needed someone to fill the gap in order to keep their image.

I don't know if this was left unexplained in the light novels, but it is completely handwaved in the anime.

Juumonji Katsuto even seems suspicious of Tatsuya when he asks him if he has some connection to the Ten Clans (right before suggesting betrothal into one of them).

To an extent, this is also handwaved in the light novels as well - the specifics of how the siblings were/are protected are not disclosed. However, there are many references to the Yotsuba family's incredible power and influence, which allows us to infer - to a certain level - what's going on.

While the Japanese public may well have been interested in the heirs of the "10 families", the Yotsuba are a special case. More so than the other clans, (such as the Ichijou, Saegusa and Juumonji) the Yotsuba are an inherently secretive family, even before considering Tatsuya and Miyuki's special case:

  "Because the Yotsuba Family, who maintain a systematic policy of secrecy, would never invite a large number of outsiders as guests... the siblings had brought themselves to the mountain village that was not recorded on any map..."

  Volume 8 - Reminiscence, Chapter 1

And

  [...] not even Miyuki knew the number for the direct line. The information control surrounding the Yotsuba Family was several times more intense than the government, and that was no idle exaggeration by those in the know.

  Volume 9 - Visitor I, Chapter 6

Prior to the sibling's enrollment at First High, they too would have naturally been caught inside the familial policy of secrecy, meaning their chances of being discovered by outsiders was slim. Even during this time, Tatsuya is under strict instruction from his mother to remain inconspicuous:

  "Tatsuya, it’s as you heard. You’ll be accompanied by Miyuki san on your tour of the base."

  "Yes."

  "Just keep one thing in mind. In public, don’t go using honorifics or the like when addressing Miyuki-san. Rather than ‘Ojou-sama’, just ‘Miyuki’ is fine. Actions which could lead to the discovery that Miyuki-san is a Yotsuba Head successor are prohibited."

  Volume 8 - Reminiscence, Chapter 9

In addition, the military assists the Yotsuba in keeping Tatsuya's existence under wraps, as his power as a strategic-class magician is important for them to guard as well:

  "It is most likely some of them will link this with the annihilation of the fleet the Great Asian Alliance dispatched three years ago. It would be a very undesirable outcome for us to have Tatsuya-san's identity to come out."

  "I fully agree."

  Seeing Kazama's nod, Maya gave a broad smile indistinguishable between real and fake... Maya's negotiation with Kazama was steered to obtain the most satisfactory result for the Yotsuba.

  Volume 8 - Reminiscence, Chapter 15

Working in collaboration with the military by extension means working with the "Electron Sorceress" Fujibayashi Kyouko , who can manipulate electronic information to an unfathomable degree, creating an almost watertight seal around the siblings information.

This leaves a situation where even Kokonoe Yakumo, a renowned information broker, cannot uncover any of their background information:

  Tatsuya squinted his eyes.
  "Our situation as well?"

  Yakumo laughed heartily.
  "I've inquired into it, but wasn't able to unearth any noteworthy secrets.
  The intelligence manipulation surrounding the two of you is truly
  invincible. Or should I say, worthy of its high reputation."

  Volume 2 - Enrollment II, Chapter 9

The same is true for the information network available to the Kitayama family:

  In response, Tatsuya received it with a magnanimous look.

  “Who the devil are you? With Kitayama’s…… The information network from the “Corporate Alliance” couldn’t even find your Personal Data!”

  Volume 12 - Double Seven, Chapter 2

When it comes down to it though, the people that have the power, influence or luck to uncover the truth about the two would be too scared to both continue their investigation or disclose the information to anyone else after hearing the name 'Yotsuba':

  The Yotsuba name had even more impact than the Saegusa name. The political utility of the Saegusa name was higher, but the Yotsuba name incited much more fear in people with influence.

  Volume 12 - Double Seven, Chapter 6

This fear is also shown when Erika stumbles across Tatsuya's secret accidentally, and warns her brother against investigating him too much:

  “I see…… I understand. Then let’s proceed along these lines.”

  ……Fortunately, she was able to convince her brother without dropping the name “Yotsuba”.

  Volume 11 - Visitor III, Chapter 15

Even those not in the higher echelons of magicians should be rightfully wary of the Yotsuba family - after all, this is the clan that previously took down an entire nation in under 2 years! Furthermore, at present, they're quoted as being even stronger than then:

  [...it] was utterly incredible that they could have forgotten such a harsh reminder in the last 20 to 30 years. Not to say the might of the Yotsuba Family – “might” that hinted at influence but was more along the lines of violence – was far greater now than it was in the past.

  Volume 11 - Visitor III, Chapter 15

For the points you raised:

This isn't covered in the light novels, so I can't reference anything in particular, but given the other information, it's safe to assume that anything the Yotsuba wanted to keep secret (like children from a marriage) could be kept secret.
Their existence isn't erased, but all the data relating to them has been heavily modified, to the point where only the bare essentials are available, and there's nothing that could link them to the Yotsuba:

  "After all, I can’t attend high school without Personal Data.”

  Tatsuya’s answer made perfect sense. However, Benio felt that this was the rub.

  “Please don’t underestimate adults. It is true that your PD has the lowest level of information, interlaced with extra information that complicated the picture and a few negative reviews, so it wasn't overly perfect."

  Volume 12 - Double Seven, Chapter 2

When involved with FLT, Tatsuya goes by the alias 'Silver', and not his family name 'Shiba', which would help against identification from most staff or customers. In addition, while FLT is "owned" by Tatsuya's father, it's actually under Yotsuba jurisdiction, meaning they would have a careful eye on the situation, especially Tatsuya's colleagues who would be more likely to accidentally uncover sensitive information.

  Like FLT, this hotel was one of the dummy corporations that was controlled by the Yotsuba Family in the background.

  Volume 10 - Visitor II, Chapter 9

At the time the siblings are entering high school, there is currently no selected Yotsuba heir. If you recall back to episode 9 of the anime, Tatsuya chastises Aoki for calling Miyuki the next head, even though there has been no announcement regarding that position. Given Yotsuba Maya is also regarded as one of the world's most powerful magicians, I doubt anyone would be pressuring her too much for a decision. Additionally, as referenced earlier in the answer (quote 3), it seems they want to keep Miyuki's position a secret to outsiders for the time being.


What's this edited image with a man lying in bed and a spectre haunting him from? I was looking at this Buzzfeed page and have been trying to figure out the series some of these screencaps belong to. I managed to find a lot of them by a combination of reverse image search and looking up the quoted text, but I'm not sure about this one. (Note: some offensive language that I edited out.)

I didn't have much success with a reverse Google image search, although I did find out from one of the results that the text was probably edited in by someone. (The link here also contains the original profanity, which I blacked out in the image in the first link.) Since I can't remove the text without also editing the rest of the image (at least with my rather limited image editing tools), I don't think I'll have much success finding what this is originally from by simply erasing the text (e.g. by making it grey) and searching with that either.

From the Imgur link, it's clear that this is originally probably from a horror manga.

Update: I found an unedited version of the image, which is below. Still haven't had any luck with reverse image searches, so I'll probably try looking at lists of horror manga and possible TV Tropes pages later. As such I removed the earlier image from the post so as to avoid redundancy (and added a link to it).

With some google research I found that it comes from a manhwa whose chinese name is
万人夜话: I don't know if there is an English translation of that. Maybe someone who understand Chinese knows the translated title (if it exists).

This is the link to the scan from which the picture is taken (vol. 5).


How did Galfa make Maria temporarily lose her powers? In episode 9 of Maria the Virgin Witch, Maria temporarily lost her powers after she was beaten by Galfa.

How did he make them go away for only a slight amount of time without taking her virginity?

When I watched the anime long ago, I also had the same question and discussed it in online forums. There were mainly 2 opinions regarding this.

First was that Galfa only beats her up and pretends to sexually assault Maria, and combined with the smoke drug it makes Maria think that she has lost her virginity, sort of like a mental block.

The second, more crude theory was that he actually did violate her, but uhh..only with the finger of his artificial metal hand so it did not count as losing her virginity.

I prefer to believe that it was the first.


In the Berserk anime, what was Guts's interpretation of Casca's "woman issue" in episode 11? Back in Episode 11 of the Berserk anime, Casca and Guts fell from a high cliff into a river. Later, Guts found Casca suffering from high fever, so he decided to warm her body. While undressing her, he saw something (as I saw) like blood flowing down (I couldn't understand from where), then he said:

  Now I understand. Must be hard, being a woman

What did Guts mean when he said that?

I don't think she was having periods, but then what else could it be specific only to a woman.

If you read the manga and watch the second film it's much clearer that she has her period and that it's menstrual blood.

The anime couldn't show sexual organs which is why it's so vague. I didn't understand when I first watched the anime either.

Hope that helps!


Can Vegeta go to Beyond SSJ Blue/ Ultra Blue at will Or is vegeta's new transformation, a temporary form just like Ultra Instinct, which seemed to be not possible to attain at will?

We don't know the definite answer with regard to the same but I personally believe he can't and this is my argumentWhen Vegeta and Goku fought at the end, they both turned Super Saiyan Blue. Considering Vegeta expected Goku to use Ultra Instinct, we don't see him transforming into that form.Vegeta unlike Goku, doesn't like to fool around with an opponent(Who he knows is strong) and goes all out. He turned SSJB right off the bat against Weakened Golden Freiza, Hit, Goku Black, Jiren, Toppo(First Fight). So it would only make sense for Vegeta to fight at full power right off the bat considering even he knows Ultra Instinct Goku is incredibly strong after witnessing his fight against Jiren.Ultra Instinct was referred to as Goku's limit breaking power. Super Saiyan Blue Evolution would be Vegeta's limit breaking power(Based on comments made in Episode 123 by the Grand Priest and Universe 7 spectators). Considering Goku needs to be pushed to the edge to activate his Limit Breaking Power, the same would apply to Vegeta. The same also applied to Jiren considering it was only after him getting overwhelmed by Goku, he managed to awaken his hidden power.Unlike the first time Goku used Ultra Instinct Omen against Jiren, Goku was fully conscious when he turned Mastered Ultra Instinct considering the fact that he was conversing with Jiren during the course of battle. So that puts away the Vegeta was conscious when he transformed and Goku wasn't argument.A lot of Vegeta fans might argue that Vegeta's transformation is necessary to make him relative to SSJB + Kaioken Goku. However, Kaioken is a technique. It isn't a transformation. Just like Hit's timeskip gave him the edge over Goku, Goku is going to have the edge over Vegeta with Instant transmission and KaiokenI believe Vegeta's new transformation has the potential to Rival Ultra Instinct Goku in the future. Jiren's Raw power was strong enough to Rival Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku. So it is definitely possible for Vegeta to become stronger with that transformation and Rival Ultra Instinct Goku in terms of power. I believe Vegeta needs to be pushed to the limit for him to release every bit of energy he has(Based on his comments in Episode 123), which allows him to surpass the level of power of Super Saiyan Blue. Hence, I would conclude by saying Vegeta and Goku both have access to only Super Saiyan Blue. However, when pushed to the edge, they have access to their limit breaking powers. Or perhaps with further training, they might be able to tap into that power by will.


Can Lucy still call her Celestial Spirits? After the time skip, Lucy gained the new magic "Star Dress" that allows Lucy to have the power of her Celestial Spirits.

But is she still able to call her Celestial Spirits as she did before?

I haven't watched the entire anime series, I just read the manga. Did I forget or miss something about Lucy's Celestial Spirits?

Yes you forgot about a few events. She summoned both Virgo and the Star Dress, Virgo Form in chapter 427 for example.

Other examples are:

Chapter 422 where she summoned both Leo and his dress
Chapter 431 where she summoned both Taurus and his dress

It seems that she always summons a dress and doesn't want to rely on the spirits alone any more, but she can still summon them. Seeing as she can summon two spirits at the same time (maybe more by now), she can also summon both the dress and a spirit and I'm assuming she can even summon both the dress of one spirit and another spirit at the same time. I don't think they must be related.


How does a Hidden Mist ninja have the Byakugan? We know that the Byakugan is the dōjutsu kekkei genkai of the Hyūga clan of the Hidden Leaf. And each village does its best to try and keep such coveted powers to themselves.

But in a recent filler episode of Shippuden, Episode 358 to be exact, a ninja from the Hidden Mist was shown to have used the Byakugan and could locate Uchicha Shisui, thereby asking his team to retreat. How does a ninja from a village other than the Hidden Leaf and not of the Hyūga bloodline have the Byakugan?

Is this for real or is it just another mistake by the animators? Is there a mention of such a ninja in the manga(I follow only the anime and not the manga)?

Yes, there is a mention of such a ninja in the manga as well as in the earlier episodes of the anime.

The ninja that you are referring to is Ao.

  He has clashed several times with Konoha shinobi. At one point he
  defeated an unknown Hyūga, taking one of the Hyūga's Byakugan and
  implanting it into his own right eye socket. Later, he had a
  confrontation with Shisui Uchiha, which left enough of an impact on Ao
  for him to clearly remember Shisui's abilities and his chakra colour
  long after the event.

He first appeared in the manga chapter 454 and Naruto Shippuden anime episode 199 (the five kage summit arc)


Why did Madara have Rinnegan before activating it and nobody noticed? While I was watching Episode 322 of Naruto Shippuden, I found what I guess is a mistake:

First look at the picture:

Since Madara came, he was using only Sharingan, and this can be seen until 07:43 in the picture, while he was dodging Gaara's sand attacks. However, when Naruto was above him with an Odama Rasengan, Madara suddenly could be seen with the Rinnegan on his eyes (07:45), and nobody noticed it like if it was a mistake. It should have been normal Sharingan.

Then, at 08:17, Madara was using the Mangekyou Sharingan, since he activated it after Naruto's attack to invoke the Susanoo.

And after that, at around 10:04, Madara was targeted by a Rasenshuriken, hence he had to activate the Rinnegan, and that was at 10:06. It was the first time that he did it since he came to life with Edo Tensei, and that could be confirmed from everybody's reaction when they saw his Rinnegan at around 10:56 ("Why does he have the Rinnegan?").

Was it a mistake that they drew Madara with the Rinnegan at 07:45?

Yes, it was a mistake (and yes, I noticed it before you did, ask the regulars at chat =P), nice job spotting it!

In the manga, that specific scene doesn't exist (the part where he looks up at the Rasengan), so apparently the animators or the editors simply made him with the Rinnegan for some reason.


Why did English dubbing anime companies stop dubbing anime songs? Long time ago the English anime dubbing companies used to dub anime songs. But now they don't dub them. Is there a reason?

My guess is to save themselves money. Dubbing a song in English always seemed to be a rare thing anyway. Anime licensing/dubbing companies here in the US are always trying to skimp as much as they can, to keep themselves in the black.

It takes them extra time and money to find a singer to sing the song in English, get access to the instrumental version of the song (unless they decide to create their own instrumental, which is even more expensive), give the singer time to learn and practice the song, and then get them in to record said song.

The alternative is just leaving the song as it is, in Japanese, and slapping on subtitles for the lyrics.

For these companies, it just isn't worth the hassle. When they do it, it's because they believe the show will sell better this way.


What chapter of the manga does Snow White with the Red Hair anime leave off at? I wanted to read the manga because I really like this anime. It’s one of the best romance anime I’ve watch.

According to Mangaupdates,

  Season 1 ended at Vol. 4 Chapter 17 while Season 2 ended at Vol. 8 Chapter 32 with an alternate ending.

Since Season 2 has an alternate ending, it might be best to start where Season 1 ended.


What was the swarm of moths in the final episode of The Tatami Galaxy? In the final episode of Tatami Galaxy, when the protagonist escapes from Shimogamo Yuusuisou, a giant swarm of moths is also let out. That same swarm distracts the crowd that was pursuing Ozu at Kamo-oohashi.

The protagonist himself says (in his role as narrator) that the viewer probably knows what the swarm is, but I could not figure it out. What is the swarm of moths, and why did they protect Ozu?

It seems we're led to believe that the moths represent Watashi, the protagonist, in a metaphorical sense. Unfortunately, this is never officially explained.
With regard to The Tatami Galaxy, reviewers and analyzers seem to pull out the fact that moths are meant to symbolize humans. One reviewer[1] called them pitiful (due to the fact that they are nocturnal, yet rely on light to survive). Another blogger[2] pointed out the metamorphosis cycle of a moth.
In both cases, these were drawn to parallels with human beings and, in particular, Watashi:

People too can be pitiful sometimes. When life gets tough and one starts losing his rose-tinted visions of life, he blinds himself from the truth and begins to see what he only wants to see.

After all, moths undergo complete metamorphosis. Something Watashi goes through.

This helps us somewhat to determine the origin of the moths. Every tatami mat room contained a moth (which usually frightened Atashi); upon Watashi's escape from Shimogamo Yuusuisou, the moths escape as well, linking them somewhat to Watashi and representing his escape.

[T]he protagonist's jailbreak out of his endlessly continuing cell of individual rooms is accompanied by a mysterious swarm of moths that overwhelm the city of Kyoto. Officially unexplained, this massive swarm of moths is the simultaneous outpouring of Individual moths from the infinite number of 4.5 tatami mat rooms, each of which contained a single moth.[3]

Why did the moths help Ozu? Hard to say for sure; again, officially unexplained. One viewer I mentioned[2] suggested them as a spirit animal, though:

Then at the end, the moths come down in force as a benevolent instrument to make him possibly the only thing that could stand out more than Ozu. Why are the moths benevolent, and is there some reason why they are chosen? Is it because moths, like him undergo a complete metamorphosis and as such are sort of like his spirit animal?

I believe that in general, The Tatami Galaxy likes to leave some things for the viewer to consider upon finishing the series. There likely is not one single, genuine answer to the question you've posed, but the symbolism of the moth seems to be a good explanation for how and why they appear in the swarm.
(Sorry that reference #3 is a cached version. Its source is this page but it's not fully searchable in the "normal" format.)


What is the color of a manga paper? The background color of a manga paper when scanned online is changed by the scanlators to white (#FFFFFF).

However, this is not the background color in an actual manga book. the color in the manga book looks little grayer in the paper.

What I am trying to do, is to publish a manga online with the same real background color.

What is the best estimation of that white-gray color?
What are the manga papers made of? They are not the same as a normal white printer paper.

The color varies widely based on multiple factors:

Lighting
Paper type (I'll get there in a minute)
Scanner type and quality

Therefore, I can't 100% give you a color estimate (it could be anything from very light yellowish-gray to very dark gray).

As for paper types. There are also several types of paper that could be used for printing manga:

Newspaper-like paper, which is thin and has a slight gray shade.
Recycled paper, which is yellowish in composure and often has little "grains" in it.

There are probably a whole lot more, but that's the prominent two I know of.


Why weren't the people underground affected by the nation-wide transmutation? In chapter 104 of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, we see people collapsing after the nationwide transmutation circle has been activated by Father. However, on page 8 or so of chapter 105, it seems that (at least some of) the people who were still in the tunnels underneath Central are still conscious before Hohenheim reverses the absorption of the souls of the country's citizens - Scar, Darius, Zampano, Jerso, and Hawkeye still seem "fine". Why is this the case?

It could be because of how close they were to the center of the array, not just being in Central but being close to the actual point where the array was being activated from.

Remember in Xerxes Von Hohenheim didn't collapse when the nation wide array was activated because he was at the center of the array, not to mention the Amestris array must have been much larger than the Xerxes array so the "dead zone" of sorts was much larger.


How does Natalia get from the baggage compartment to the cockpit? In Episode 19 of Fate Zero, Natalia is in the baggage compartment when the ghoul (bees) take over the cabin.

How does she manage to safely get into the cockpit?

AFAIK, there is no way to get directly into the cockpit without going through the cabin. Thus it would be next to impossible for her to get into the cockpit without being overwhelmed by the bees.

Does the Manga shed any light on this?

The plane that they were in is an Airbus A300-B2 which has a seal-tight cockpit door, it should have been able to keep the bees out but didn't, which could mean that it was open during the incident. It still doesn't explain how she managed to dodge the bees through the cabin, which she would have had to traverse in order to reach the cockpit. It's possible that, unlike real bees, these magic ghoul ones are slow and you can easily dodge them if you knew where they were. Or maybe, she's just got crazy skills.

The Manga doesn't shed any light on how she got through the cabin, though the original light novels may.


Is Monkey D. Luffy named after Sun Wukong? Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century is regarded as one of the 4 great classical novels of China (at least according to Wikipedia).  I have read that Son Goku (Dragon Ball) is directly inspired by Sun Wukong as Dragon Ball was originally supposed to mirror Journey to the West (and of course deviated from this).  While I don't know if that is true, I know Oda lists the Dragon Ball series as a major inspiration.

Is Monkey D. Luffy the man aiming to become the King of the Pirates named after Sun Wukong: the Monkey King?

Update: I apparently overlooked that Sun Wukong (Chinese) is referred to as Son Goku (Japanese).

I don't think so. The novel is called Journey to the West, and Monkey is the name of a translation into English that became popular that shifted more of the focus onto the Monkey King, Sun Wukong.

It is possible, but Goku was literally given the Japanese name of the Monkey King and had the ability to change into a Giant Ape and the magical staff of the Monkey King, whereas for Luffy it is just his family name, that he shares with Garp and Dragon.

I don't think he is named after this story, there are many stories in the Far East about a handful of animals such as monkeys, dragons and tigers, often the monkeys in the stories will have similar traits, like being playful and strong.

Many characters in One Piece have animal themes, notably the original Shichibukai and Admirals, and they all act/appear in a way that suits their animal to some extent, Mihawk hunting Krieg in his first appearance, Doflamingo being flamboyant.

I think Luffy was just given the name Monkey to highlight his monkeyish characteristics.


What was the first time when Krillin witnessed Kamehameha wave? I remember watching the episode featuring the World Martial Arts tournament. In this particular episode Krillin was against Jackie Chan (Master Roshi). At a time Krillin kicks off Roshi out of the ring, but he flies back using Kamehameha and Krillin still shocked mutters that according of his knowledge only Goku and Master Roshi know this technique.

But I don't recall any incident in which he saw them performing this technique (or even mentioning).

Is there something I missing?

No, you have not missed anything, after recently re-watching this saga in Dragonball and re-reading the manga, it does not show Krillin witnessing the Kamehameha before this point.

For Master Roshi, it seems to be relatively common knowledge amongst enthusiastic martial artists in Dragonball that he can perform the Technique, with comments such as "It was thought that only Master Roshi was capable of this technique" from the commentator during the fight, and so it is reasonable to believe that Krillin knew about this as well, particularly knowing enough about Master Roshi to seek him out for training.

For Goku, I can only guess that Goku demonstrated this technique at some point during the months of training that he had together with Krillin under Master Roshi before the competition; in the anime/manga it doesn't show much of this period other than the beginning and the end of the training, as well as a short montage of the daily training activities in the middle, so there is a lot we don't see.

It's also interesting to note that Krillin doesn't make this comment in the manga.


Where are the more powerful characters during the Tournament of Power? In the Tournament of Power, why does Goku's team have Roshi, Krillin, Tien, etc. in it, even though most characters are much more powerful?

Where are Broly, Goten, Trunks, Majin Buu?

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 is Kakashi able to get Mangekyou Sharingan? I read what happened with Rin.

If Kakashi is a copy ninja, how is he able to get the Mangekyou Sharingan without the Uchiha bloodline?

Short answer.

Sharingan wielders don't really have to be part of the Uchiha clan to activate the Mangekyou Sharingan.

  It is initially awakened by the trauma suffered from witnessing the death of someone close to the user.

So you just have to have a Sharingan and witness the death of someone close to you.

Sources:

Mangekyou Sharingan


Is Law stronger than Zoro in sword technique? In episode 616, you can see Law cutting the entire island and Vergo with his Haki on full power in half, using only 'room' which is his Devil Fruit power, and it doesn't seem like Law was using Haki because his sword didn't turn black. But Zoro had to use Santoryu Ogi Three Thousand Worlds to cut Pica in half with Haki on all of his swords. Does that mean that Law is stronger than Zoro skill-wise?

Well, this is rather an odd question as your are comparing apples with oranges. Let's recapitulate.

Law is using his Devil fruit power to cut through anything which reside inside his room. On the other hand, Zorro uses only his skill.

  In episode 616, you can see Law cutting the entire island and vergo with his haki on full power in half only using 'room' which is his devil fruit power and it doesn't seem like Law was using Haki because his sword didn't turn black.

If you are asking whether Zorro could cut the entire Island like Law did, with his current set of skills, the answer is probably NO. As the OP already pointed out, Zorro had to gather a great amount of concentration in order to cut Pica in half, a feat which would be a piece of cake for someone able to cut an entire island in half.

Now for the speculation and deduction from what we've seen in the manga/anime. As it has been pointed out in the comments, Zorro is solely relying on his skills while Law on his devil fruit power. Zorro's goal is to become the greatest swordman in the world. He has dedicated his life to the sword in order to refine his skills indefinitely.He also has previously refused any tools or cheats in order to upgrade his sword technique, as seen in Chapter 301:

However, Law never shown such ambition or dedication to the sword. Therefore, it is safe to assume that in terms of skills alone, Zorro is far better than Law.

EDIT:

In the fight between Law and Vergo, Law seems to cut through Vergo's Haki with his DF powers alone, as his sword is not black as we have seen when Zorro uses it for example. Intuitively, one would think that a DF power is useless against Haki, which does not seem to be the case. Maybe Law's DF powers overpowers Vergo Haki?

This reminds me of when Luffy was using Buggy to protect himself from Mihawk's sword during the Whitebeard vs Marine war. Mihawk, being the best swordsman in the world, is an expert in Haki. Yet, he does not yield any damage to Buggy. Is this because he was not using it (Haki was not painted back then) or because Buggy's actual power is that he cannot be cut?


What is the piece played when Luffy uses Gear Third in Episode 288? In Episode 288 ("Fukuro's Miscalculation - My Cola is the Water of Life!"), Luffy's Gear Third is introduced when he uses it to break down a closed steel door, and proceeds to pursue Robin. What is the background piece playing at the time?

The piece is Luffy vs Ratchet Round 1, composed by Kohei Tanaka.

It was first used in Movie 7: Giant Mecha Soldier of Karakuri Castle, which was released on March 4, 2006.

Youtube Link


Did Shouko kill people to make the Setsugetsuka dolls? It's hinted that in order to make a banned doll, you have to use human parts. In the manga, Charlotte is struck with how much bio parts Yaya has.

Did Shouko actually kill people to make the Setsugetsuka dolls?

Yes, she did (Yaya is a banned doll, as Charlotte discovers Manga, anime). Banned Dolls are created using living parts or a whole living organism, human or otherwise (like Frey's dogs). The best banned dolls use human parts, and the machine dolls (Yaya supposedly is one) are made from living humans altogether.

Anime episode 12, talk between Magnus and the teacher.

Shouko is shown in a flashback bargaining for Raishin's body (part of the reason she left Yaya with him to begin with) so she could make more automata also episode 12.

So all Magnus' dolls, Elf Speeder's butler ep12, Setsugestuka, and probably cannibal candyshe could use magic independently inside the vault. were once living people (or parts of) turned into automata.

Let's not even go into the ethics discussion... XD


Can other people see Misaki? So, I'm on episode 4, without spoilers, can you tell me if others can see her? It's kinda confusing to me.

Yes.

   In episode 5, you (the viewer) learn that the class is ignoring Misaki as part of a "countermeasure" to ward off the calamity that affects class 3-3 (which is what causes all the paranormal phenomena you see in episodes 1-4, e.g. the girl nearly getting crushed by the falling glass pane; the nurse in the crashing elevator; etc). The basic idea is that the class has one more person than it should (you find out why in episode 6, I believe), and so by pretending that one of the people in the class doesn't exist, they bring the number of people in the class down to the correct number.


In Terra Formars, why did the German squad have few combat ready crew members? In episode 8, The squadron stated that their abilities were useless in battle with Adolf Reinhardt and Isabella R. Leon shown to be the only ones with combative creatures from their surgery.
It's weird that they're being sent to Mars to fight mutated humanoid cockroaches and there are only 2 members of the German squad that are battle ready.

A possible explanation would be Adolf's ability himself. Adolf's ability was that of an electric eel. He can shoot electricity around with the help of his throwing knives. By fighting alone he won't have to worry about friendly fire or accidentally injures his subordinates from the spark. That's why his squad requires only a few combatants.


The audience scene in End Of Evangelion There are clips in EoE that look like this. I wonder where these clips come from. What are they watching/listening to?

The theater is a shot from one of the screenings of Death and Rebirth. I vaguely recall someone somewhere identifying which theater it was, but I can't find the post. This was part of an entire sequence of live-action shots near the end of the instrumentality portion of "End of Evangelion", the panning shot of the inside of the theater is both kind of a 4th wall as well as fitting in with the motif of the theater within instrumentality. Recall also from the last two episodes of the TV Series where instrumentality is heavily depicted as part of a theatrical set, like on a stage. Likewise, in EoE, we have a few shots, including a sequence in a sandbox, where there are those folding chairs seen from the end of the TV series.

Another related note is that the "Death Threats" sequence during a similar live-action portion of instrumentality has some of the letters mention seeing Death and Rebirth at the theater.


Do all the D' girls have dragon "mates"? Some of Yuu's classmates are shown to have dragon "partners"/"suitors" (to avoid a more heavy term), and the plot runs around avoiding having the dragon meet the designated girl.

I am talking about when a dragon comes for a girl and her Ryuumon glows.

Examples are Iris and Leviathan, Tear and Basilisk, the girl Mitsuki killed (she turned into a dragon in the backstory).

But the school has dozens of D girls. Are there that much dragon beasts rampaging around?

Probably not, as I cannot imagine that Yggdrasil is in the same realm as mankind, I would imagine there are multiple or perhaps even an infinite amount of realms. That would also explain the sudden appearance of the Dragons.

Unfortunately I have no real evidence of this being the case. My comment is based on mere assumptions after watching the aired episodes of the anime series.


Where or how can I watch "Heidi: Girl of the Alps"? Does anybody know how or where I can watch the anime "Heidi: Girl of the Alps" legally? I remember watching this as a kid, and loving it, but I am unable to find any links to it now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

As of right now there is no legal online source where you can watch Heidi girl of the alps.

Your best bet would be to buy the dvd box like Alex-sama mentioned in his comment.


What is the origin of the curling-up tongue trope? I've seen this curled-up tongue trope pop its head up every once in a while and I was wondering: Which trope is it, and where does it originate from?

This might be completely wrong, but I think this face/trope is more about the wide-mouthed grin rather than the curling tongue.

Compare it to the emoticon ":V", which is usually used online after saying something that will annoy the reader. Which is what is also happening in the panel given in the question.

Example:

Person A: You should watch Avatar, It's one of my favourite anime second only to Lucky Star.

Person B: I'll check it out, but technically Avatar is a cartoon :V

They seem similar enough both in what they represent and how they look to be connected.

Urban Dictionary entry for ":V"

You'll often see the smiley referred to as the 'pacman smiley', but this term has risen from Facebook's popularity - The smiley has been around on forums and other community groups (albeit less mainstream) for many years and tracing its origins is near impossible due to the vast nature of the internet.

The wide mouthed grin is also a noticeable feature of the famous troll face, albeit at a different angle. Its usage is similar to the above.


Why didn't the other dragons help Igneel in defeating Acnologia? In the Tartaros arc of Fairy Tail, when Igneel appeared to fight or defeat Acnologia, why didn't the other dragons help?

Fear acnologia was so dangerous that even if many dragons joined most would die Igneel was just extremely courageous


What is the language of the lyrics in "Replica" from Ghost in the Shell? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtqMOKuUNHs

I couldn't find an answer on google or wikipedia. Copy pasting the lyrics into google translate didn't detect the language either.

I was puzzled by this question as well and I asked Ilaria Graziano herself if the song's language was real or made up, and she told me it's made up.

Check out the screenshot for proof.


Kakuzu's way of getting all the five chakra elements So I went back and started reading, or just looking at, really old questions about Naruto, including Shippuden. I read this question, but this answer got my attention. After looking at the answer, I started to wonder how exactly Kakuzu's methods of getting the chakra natures work.

We know that he gets all the chakra natures by stealing people's hearts throughout the years but once the hearts he has on are damaged or just get too old he has to get new ones. But how does that work? I always thought the nature of the chakra was in the body not exactly the heart. Or do both, body and heart, have the chakra nature, so when Kakuzu gets the hearts he gets part of the chakra nature?

Also, since we also know that Kakuzu has been living for a while, until Kakashi killed him, exactly how old is he? I know he has been living since the First Hokage was alive, which I guess was about 100 years ago, so I think he was at least a little more than 100 years old.

This is just the theory, but I always assumed that since the blood vessels and the chakra network are intricately related, if you take one the other also follows.

Thus when Kakuzu takes the heart of the shinobi he also takes the chakra vessels tied in and around the heart. Thus he would push his own chakra into the heart while his unique body mimics the nature of the chakra vessels of the original body.

Thus he builds his own chakra, uses the handsigns to concentrate/accumulate it, but when nature transforming the chakra he passes it through the heart which acts like a processor to change the chakra nature to the type needed.


What are the notable differences between Hunter x Hunter in 1999 vs 2011? Hunter × Hunter is quite a large series which has an anime starting in 1999 and one starting in 2011. The latter is longer (currently at 80 episodes versus 62 from the original), and is said to follow the manga more faithfully.

I have not read the manga, nor seen either series. What are the major differences* in these two adaptations?

* - Minor differences need not be stated, only ones which affect plot or character development significantly.

I'm a Japanese, so please excuse my English.

I ignore a lot of small changes, and want to talk about the cause.

Speaking from the conclusion, the notable differences are the following, I think:

Original Manga's Progress
Broadcasting Station
Main Target

1. Original Manga's Progress

Togashi is working now. That's all.

2. Broadcasting Station

Fuji TV is following One Piece, Toriko and Dragon Ball.
It is the HxH 2009's station, and faithful to the original.
Fuji's slogan is "NO FUN, NO TV", and is known as the most vulgar TV station in Japan.
But I really, really love Fuji's "noitaminA".

The 2011's Nippon TV is the most traditional commercial broadcasting station.
This oldest station is known as the most aggressive technical pioneer.
Maybe the original fans hate their editing, and the children's parents like it.
I think that the 140 times same OP songs is their attempt, too.

3. Main Target

In Japan, HxH 2009 was the "Saturday Golden Time Anime"; then from episode 62 onward, it became OVA. HxH 2011 was the "Sunday Morning Anime"; then from episode 99 onward, it became "Midnight Anime". Both began broadcasting in time slots meant for "Children's Anime" in Japan,
and OVA and "Midnight Anime" were the "Adults' Anime".

The nature of the children's time slot is slightly different between the two continuities. "Saturday Golden Time Anime" means that children watch the anime with their parents at dinnertime.
"Golden Time TV Program" is the TV Program that airs between 18:00 ~ 20:00 in Japan.
If the Golden Time Anime airs on Saturdays, TV station is expecting the conversation with the children.
In other words, children logical conversation with the parent is satisfied are eligible.
This is why HxH 2009 did not refrain from grotesque representations, in contrast to HxH 2011.
The reason why the TV broadcast was finished is because the original stock was gone.
By the way, there is no relation to the animation named "Golden Time".

On Sunday mornings, I think you are still sleeping, right?
In this time slot, most young children are watching TV, so a more wholesome animation is required.
Japanese parents do not like their children watching torn heads or hearts or fingers without supervision.
I think the reason of the change in time slot is that there are few parents who like their children watching torn organs in anime.
Then I wonder what kind of adult gets up in the early Sunday mornings, but I do not have the answer. I think they are probably also the type that does not turn on the TV during dinnertime.

Anyway, I do not write in detail because spoilers, but HxH 2011 thoroughly ignored the content of the original manga.
I'll never forgive the corruption related to Kite, the worst difference for me:

   In the original manga and the 2009 anime, the reason why Gon aimed to become a hunter is because Kite told him that Gon's father is a superior hunter. Gon thought his father was dead.
 First appearance: Kite gave Gon a scolding "you should not come near the territory of dangerous organisms".

 In the 2011 anime, Gon has forgotten the existence of Kite, and they don't know each other, not even the names.
 First appearance: Kite had been fishing on the side of the nests of chimera ants.

For more information, you can read this wiki.


Whose hands are these in Assassination Classroom chapter 179? In chapter 179 of Assassination Classroom, there are 2 panels showing hands holding each other:

My hunch is that there's no distinctive evidence (unless there is some from the anime or movie or something) as to leave it perhaps to the reader to interpret as they like to avoid backlash. Though I feel there have been a fair amount of hints pointing towards Kayano and Nagisa if I got the names right (Kiss, valentines, the poster in the top left panel is of her). Though there could be evidence against it as well that I am not aware of.

Whose hands are these?

The poster and the scene afterward featuring Kayano strongly implies the female hand is hers.

It would sense that the person she was holding hands with someone that wasn't present at the old classroom building at the time, assuming that all the vignettes were happening more or less in real time.

The most likely conclusion would be that the male hand belongs to Nagisa.

After being questioned by Hara, Kayano didn't deny that they weren't together, and only mentions that he's focusing on his teaching career.

The anime skips this scene so there is no decisive conclusion, only speculation.


Can Death Note be used to indirectly kill more than one person by killing the driver of a train/bus/plane? If you state "Jack Hare" will die at precisely 15:00 12/03/14 without stating the location, and you write this without knowing where they will be at the time, and the person goes to work as per normal, can this be used to kill more than one person?

Rule X states:

  Suicide is a valid cause of death. Basically, all humans are thought to possess the possibility to commit suicide. It is, therefore, not something unbelievable to think of.
  Whether the cause of the individual's death is either a suicide or accident, if the death leads to the death of more than the intended, the person will simply die of a heart attack. This is to ensure that other lives are not influenced.

Rule XXVI states:

  If you just write, "die of accident" for the cause of death, the victim will die from a natural accident after 6 minutes and 40 seconds from the time of writing it.
  Even though only one name is written in the Death Note, if it influences and causes other humans that are not written in it to die, the victim's cause of death will be a heart attack.

It is clear that the Death Note cannot be used to indirectly kill other humans.

However, according to Rule XLII it is possible to shorten other lifespans.

  The use of the Death Note in the human world sometimes affects other humans' lives or shortens their original life span, even though their names are not actually written in the Death Note itself. In these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the original lifespan and not the shortened lifespan.


Why do the Celestial Spirits work for their wizard? What is the reason why the Celestial Spirits work for their wizards (such as Lucy)? I understand that they have a contract, but why do they get into the contract at all? I could not think of anything they gain from the contract.

I didn't manage to find any sources that answer this question exactly, but I'm going to speculate about it a little.

My opinion is that the spirits are forced to appear once the wizard acquires the key. The key, as we know, is usually required to open the gate though which the spirit comes from the spirit world. When the gates are opened in the first time, the wizard and the spirit make an agreement (e.g. on which days should the spirit be summoned).

Now, if you look at how do the spirits react when Lucy calls them, you may notice some interesting things. For example, when she summons Aquarius, Aquarius is often disappointed with Lucy, and shortly returns to the spirit word, sometimes refusing to do what Lucy asks for.

One might ask: why in that case would the spirit even appear? If Aquarius is not in the mood, she could as well not appear at all, rather than be summoned and almost instantly go back (after a few insults towards Lucy, that is). That leads us to an assumption that the spirits can not actually refuse to be summoned, and possessing the key almost equals possessing the spirit's contract (they just have no other options).

Some spirits, however, find benefits in working with the wizards, for example, Taurus enjoys being summoned because that way he can observe Lucy's body, which he admires.

In general, most of the spirits become very loyal to Lucy once she acquires their keys, so that is another argument for the assumption that possessing the key forces the spirit to make the contract and work for the wizard.


What's the story behind the Altair fanart in episode 20? Episode 20 of Re:Creators features something marvelous: real-world fanart of Altair from Pixiv appears in the show-world as fanart of Altair on "Piclive". For example, this screencap...

...depicts this piece of fanart uploaded to pixiv back in May by artist Mochizuki Kei (望月けい).

A few seconds prior, a number of other pieces of fanart are shown:

These, too, are actual pieces of fanart from Pixiv (e.g. #6 by itsia, #9 by TOH, etc).

(Note that while all the linked images are SFW, Pixiv itself contains heaps of NSFW content.)

My question: how did these pieces of fanart come to be integrated into the anime? Were they "planted" ahead of time (i.e. did the artists have a prior arrangement with the producers to draw and release this art earlier in anticipation of episode 20)? Or was this art drawn "organically", with the artists only later being contacted about using it in the anime?

I just found an interview with Tomoyuki Arima, a member of the art direction team of the show on Pixivision.

Relevant part:

  "--By the way, I heard some illustrations that appear on Piclive were actually posted on pixiv. Is it true?

  Arima: it's true. We commissioned those pictures in order to add them to Piclive. I don't know much about those commissions, but the original illustrators were allowed to post their work on pixiv, I think"

So, to answer the actual question: The pictures weren't planted and the they didn't contact the owners of existing artworks either. They simply asked a bunch of pixiv artists to create some artwork for them which they could put in the anime to give Piclive a more realistic Pixiv feeling, and the artists were allowed to upload these onto their own Pixiv.


What's with the taped over speech-bubbles in the preview? I just finished episode 24 of EVA, and I noticed that the last two previews I'd seen looked a lot "rougher".

The preview after episode 24 consists of a series of what seem to be rough drawings or sketchs over a voiceover.

The preview after episode 23 was animated (in that there were some "moving" frames), but looked unfinished - the colouring and lining looks incomplete. Moreover, some of the images look like they come from a manga (in terms of, for instance, speech bubbles, or hiragana/katakana given for some kanji - although it seems possible to me that the bubbles might just have been taped on so as to give people involved in production some idea of the dialogue in each scene). For example:

Comparatively, the artwork in prior episode previews seemed somewhat more "finished", and, at least in my memory, was usually animated. This I presume is probably because of the fact that EVA had production issues toward the end of the anime run.
But less obvious to me is this: what are these speech bubbles that show up in the episode preview for episode 24 actually for? Are they something that feature in preliminary anime sketches?

The shots from the episode 25 preview seem to be shots from the storyboard, an artifact created in an early phase of animation production.

After writing the script for a scene, the next step in the production of an animated work (and sometimes also in live-action movies) is the creation of a storyboard. A storyboard shows the scene similar to a comic. The purpose is to give the animators instructions how the individual shots of the scene are going to be arranged (during this line close-up on character A, this line reaction-shot from character B, this showing both in a wide-angle shot etc). For dialog scenes it is not uncommon to add speech bubbles so the animators know which line from the script corresponds to each shot (although it is more common to place the dialog below the panel and focus more on the visual arangement).

The "barely animated" pictures from the episode 24 preview seemed to be from one step further in the animation production process: The keyframing phase. During this phase the animators only draw the most important frames of the animations in a very rough manner.

What follows then is the inbetweening phase where animators draw the frames between the keyframes to create fluent animations, and then the inking and coloring where the rough scetches are redrawn properly to production quality.

During the last episodes of EVA, the production drastically fell behind their schedule. When the last episodes finished, some WIP artifacts seemed to be the only parts of the next episode which were ready to be shown.


Do I need to catch up on anything before watching Dragon Ball GT Do I need to catch up on anything before watching Dragon Ball GT
or is it necessary to watch dragon ball Z before GT

Yes, you need to watch Dragon Ball Z to understand GT. Watching the original Dragon Ball is also helpful, but not strictly necessary. If you want to skip the filler, you can watch Dragon Ball Z Kai instead.


OST in the 2nd season of Magi episode 19 around 4:43 I have been wondering what the song at 4:43 episode 19 is in Magi season 2, Magi: The Kingdom of Magic. It plays when

   the Leam and the Fanalis broke through the first barrier of Magnostadt and the Fanalis group leader did his little pep-talk to attack the mages of Magnostadt.

It sounds really nice but I cannot seem to find this one.

I've been going around some OST lists but can't seem to find this one specifically.

What is this OST called? Where could it be found?

It is most definitely a mix of music but I definitely heard "Cast to Damnation" (YouTube) in there at around 7:20 .


Are Ainz and his servants still leveling in the New World? Are Ainz and his servants still leveling up the same way they were when they were killing monster to get exp in Yggdrasil?

Hmmm... To my understanding, Ainz and the high-tier minions (read those that are level 100) don't level up any further, as they are maximum level already. It's never mentioned that they 'get stronger' while others like the lizardmen and that weird hamster indeed do (the narrative comments several times that they are training to get stronger). Now, it is possible the New World has a higher level cap but insofar it hasn't been mentioned at all in the nine LN, the WNs nor the anime and manga.
So Ainz ain't levelling nor are the floor guardians, but some of his minions do.


What were the first anime and manga based on real idols? AKB0048 (anime) and AKB49 (manga) are based on popular Japanese idol group AKB48.

What were the first manga and anime based on real idols instead of fictional characters?

As far as I know, 『アイドルコミックス・実録まんが岡田有希子』 Idol Comics: Documentary Manga Yukiko Okada (published by Gakken in 1984) featuring the story of Yukiko Okada's early life until her debut could be the first of its kind.

Update: Idol Comics was a series of manga based on the real lives of not only idols, but also famous baseball players and pro wrestlers ("idol" in a wider sense). As far as I can find on Amazon.co.jp, it appears that the first volumes came out in January, 1983. One of the volumes featured 堀ちえみ Chiemi Hori (idol born in 1967, debut 1982), so that would make this the earliest one I can find.  The other three volumes that came out in the same month featured Tatsunori Hara (baseball player), Daisuke Araki (baseball player), and Tiger Mask (pro wrestler).

As for the anime, 『ピンク・レディー物語 栄光の天使たち』Pink Lady Monogatari: Eiko no Tenshitachi (TV anime aired from 1978 to 1979) featuring Pink Lady would most likely be the first. There seems to be some made-up episodes inserted (like intensive training to dance with their limbs bound), but most of what was depicted was based on real-life stories.


Do the symbols that appear in the OP of Sasami-san@Ganbaranai mean anything? The OP starts out with this list of symbols that look like a table of kanas, except that some of those symbols are used more than once:

Many later scenes in the opening sequence can also be found to have a single, repeated symbol accompanying them:

Does the first image spell out an intelligible sentence in any language? And do the single, repeated symbols accompanying the later scenes signify anything?

The characters look very similar to Jindai moji (Encyclopedia of Shinto link) (Japanese Wikipedia link).

(Image taken from Talk:Jindai moji page on Wikipedia)

These characters are theorized to have been Japan's character system before Chinese characters were introduced.

If I go through that table for the first image you show and match the characters (with help from the matching done by the article that @senshin posted), that gives me

ツ(tsu) ヰ(wi)  ヲ(wo)  ソ(so) マ(ma) ？     カ(ka) 〜      エ(e)
ノ(no)  ゴ(go)  ト(to)  ハ(ha) ア(a)  ク(ku) テ(te) ロ(ro)  コ(ko)
エ(r)   タ(ta)  ナ(na)  ソ(so) ル(ru) イ(i)  ア(a)  シ(shi) サ(sa)
サ(sa)  メ(me)  ゴ(go)  ハ(ha) ク(ku) ロ(ro) フ(fu) ツ(tsu) ヲ(wo)
リ(ri)  ヰ(wi)  ソ(so)  ？     〜     ミ(mi) ス(su) ウ(u)   ガ(gu)

My Japanese is not very strong, but I don't get any relevant results when looking any consecutive substrings of those characters up on Jisho (a Japanese-English online dictionary) or Google Translate.

I don't believe that the characters have any special meaning here.


What is the meaning behind Mana Ryougi's name? During the Type-Moon Fes 10th Anniversary, there was this question:

Q: Who named Ryougi Mana? Was it Shiki, or Kokuto? Or was it someone else?
A: The one who named Mana was Mikiya. Mikiya himself came up with the name without a second thought, but Shiki knew its meaning. She said with a sour look on her face, "Ah, so that's what it is." and accepted anyways

What was the meaning behind her name? Why did Shiki make a sour face?

The kanji in Mana's name, 未那, can be read "Mina" or "Mana" depending on how you read the characters (on'yomi vs kun'yomi, or any combination of the two).

The meaning that makes sense to me is that her name is derived from 末那識 (manashiki), Manas-vijnana:

  is the seventh of the eight consciousnesses as taught in Yogacara and Zen Buddhism, the higher consciousness or intuitive consciousness that on the one hand localizes experience through thinking and on the other hand universalizes experience through intuitive perception of the universal mind of alayavijnana. Manas-vijnana, also known as klista-manas-vijnana or simply manas, is not to be confused with manovijnana which is the sixth consciousness.

To put it simply, the name is self-referencing. The meaning of the name implies the ironic pun of the action (thinking). Much like an earnest person named "Ernest", which is an aptronym.

Edit: It has come to my attention that there's another bit of wordplay involved.

The 未 in Mana's name, 未那, refers to things that have yet to happen. The 末那識 uses a different kanji, 末, note that the top and bottom strokes are swapped around. While pronounced the same, their meanings differ significantly.

The latter kanji, 末, refers to the end of something, be it the edges or the end result.

The former is the same character used in the word for future, 未来, while the latter is the same kanji as in 期末, meaning the end of a term or semester.

So it would seem that Kokuto replaced the latter with the former in Mana's name. In other words, replacing a "conclusion" with a "beginning." When you think about it, the double-meaning in itself is pretty clever. Now I know how Shiki (式) felt.


Why do sick anime characters often are said to have a "weak body"? In anime when a character is chronically sick, they are said to have a "weak body".

The first and most obvious example that comes to my mind is Clannad, but I've seen this in other animes as well.

Is this something out of japanese culture? Or maybe a quirk of translation?

Maybe I'm looking too far into it and it's really just a plot device, and nobody really cares about what the illness really is.

Thanks to those who reply!

It's more than likely that this so-called mysterious "weakness syndrome" is really just as a plot device to drive the story/characters along. This particular aim to draw sympathies to the particular character and is more often than not, a popular way to have character die before their time, if that's what the story demands.

So why is this mysterious weakness trope so popular, you ask? Why not always using a real illness? Typically it's because this "weakness" is a "clean" and "cute" illness, when compared to actual chronic medical conditions. Even in its lethal form the symptoms are: you are weak, you're getting weaker, you die. (coughing up blood every now and then is optional)

In contrast, an actual conditions like stomach cancer on the other hand is not "cute" at all. As soon as you specify a real-life disease/conditions a lot of questions pop up, something that might shift the perspective away from the tragic fate of a character.

Additionally, there might be some actual conditions that inspired the "weakness syndrome" since Japanese did have a lot of sick people for a long time in certain areas. Having been a country that's been devastated twice by an atomic bomb, the effects of radiation exposure was not well researched or documented back then by scientists, so a lot of the long-term from direct and indirect radiation exposure side-effects like birth defects, leukemia, anemia, cancers, thyroid disease, liver and bone marrow degeneration, and overall severely compromised immune systems, might have been attributed to other things.


Alternative super saiyan transformation of Kale, what's it supposed to be? (warning: content of recent episode 101) In Dragon Ball Super episode 101, we've seen another transformation of Kale. Instead of having her eyes blank and her muscles inflated, the called "berserker mode", in the alternative transformation she has the regular form of a super saiyan but apparently she keeps a little of her greenish hair/aura (a little more yellowish maybe), and she's weaker than in berserker mode.

Kale in super saiyan Berserker mode:

Kale alternative super saiyan transformation:

Kale and Caulifla super saiyan transformations together for comparision:

What is this transformation supposed to be? Is it a regular super saiyan, or is it a different super saiyan transformation with a different level of power?

This transformation is the same as Broly, and it's called The Legendary Saiyan transformation. It is very rare for a Saiyan to have this ability as we only know two (currently) Saiyan that achieve this Broly and Kale. PS the second image shows the normal SSJ1 as Broly


Is there a name for the abbreviated (usually three syllable) title? Surely the act of abbreviating an anime title to three syllables has a name...? And what is that name? (some of these will show my age)

╔═════════════════════════════════════════════╦═══════════╗
║                  Full Name                  ║ Shortened ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════╬═══════════╣
║ Kodomo no Omocha                            ║ Kodocha   ║
║ Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu             ║ Hareguu   ║
║ Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai ║ Oreimo    ║
║ Fruits Basket                               ║ Furuba    ║
║ Japanese Animation                          ║ Anime     ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════╩═══════════╝

For what it's worth, in Japanese, you would call this particular sort of abbreviation a 略称 ryakushou or 略語 ryakugo, both of which basically just mean "abbreviation". There isn't an anime-specific term for this sort of thing or anything.

I should mention that abbreviated names of anime are more commonly four syllables than three-syllables, at least in recent years. "Hareguu" is Ha-re-gu-u (actually, these are morae rather than syllables, which is why this may not be obvious if you're unfamiliar with Japanese); "Oreimo" is O-re-i-mo; and Fruits Basket is frequently "Furubasu" Fu-ru-ba-su in Japanese. There is a nice table of these on Nicopedia (JP).

As a side point of interest, this blog (JP) collates abbreviated names for anime of recent seasons - for example, 2015 winter, spring, summer, and fall. (Obviously, machine translation is going to fail spectacularly for this sort of thing, so this is only relevant if you can read some Japanese.)


Where can I find Durarara!! Vol 1 novel in Japanese language? After watching the anime, I just wanted to read the novels for a better understanding of characters and of course, it had to be in Japanese language since I am learning it.

I tried searching for it, but couldn't find. Instead, I found those in translated version.

Can anyone please tell me where I can find it?

If you want to purchase the Japanese version of a light novel volume, manga volume, or anime disc that was released relatively recently, Amazon Japan is almost sure to have what you're looking for.

Since you know at least some Japanese, you can just search the site for it. Unless you want to use a proxy-shipping service, you will want to find products that ship internationally, which you can do by filtering your search down to "AmazonGlobal対象" products. Upon doing so, you will find that a print version is available here, and also that a Kindle version is available here, which may be cheaper overall. (But note that I've had issues with Kindle purchases from Amazon Japan - the various country-specific versions of Amazon don't share information about your Kindle purchases with each other, which seems to cause problems with some Kindle devices/apps.)

Depending on what country you live in, there may be other options that are cheaper, more convenient, or both. For example, if you reside in the US, Kinokuniya USA will ship basically any anime-related thing to you (more convenient), but charges a fairly hefty markup for it (not cheaper).

Durarara!! and most other light novels are generally unlikely to be found for free from any legitimate vendor, though occasionally the publishers will upload the first chapter or two online for free as a sampler.


What is the song that plays in Sirius the Jaeger EP. 4 at 20 minutes 40 seconds? I just finished watching Episode 4 "Beginning of Trickery" of Sirius the Jaeger.
What is the song that plays when  they begin searching the train (starts at 20:40)?

It is Track 6 of the Original Sound Track: "Theme of Agatha".


Besides instant brain destruction, what would it take to kill Tatsuya? Tatsuya can cast Regrowth on himself as an instinctive and reflexive measure. He did it twice in the anime (the first time when he tuned his sister Miyuki's CAD and enraged the brocon girl by not gawking at her semi-nude body, the second time when he received a lethal blast during the Monolith Code final at the Nine Schools Competition).

The wiki states (probably sourced from the novel) that his Regrowth was fast enough to be imperceptible to everyone watching the match, including Retsu Kudou, the patriarch of the 10 clans (who is probably the most perceptive and experienced magician of Japan, and the guy that could see with bare-eyed the Chinese virus Golden Electron Silkworms injected into Miyuki's CAD).

The time required to cast Regrowth into another subject using his Taurus Silver CAD (confirmed by Miyuki during the third arc) is 0.2 seconds.

Instantaneous brain destruction (like a nuclear blast primary zone, or dipping the head in lava, etc), should be enough to kill him because his magical processor would go down with it.

What else could kill him?

What this comes down to is essentially the following:
Aside from instant brain destruction you mentioned, or instant entire-body destruction (which is essentially the same thing), Tatsuya can repair whatever damage has been dealt to him and survive.

The only sure way to take him down is to hit him with something that there's definitely no recovery from, such as Ichijou Masaki's Rupture. An attack like this would all but annihilate the body (including the brain, and therefore magic calculation area), meaning Tatsuya would certainly die. However, this is far easier said than done, as we know he is especially skilled at using counter-magic derived from his Decomposition ability.

Having said that, he isn't impervious to assault - he's struck by a sniper's bullet in episode 19 of the anime, and is overwhelmed by Masaki's uncontrolled Air Bullet (albeit while being under limitations) in the Monolith Code final, meaning it is potentially possible to land a lethal attack. And if the right kind of attack does hit, he's just as mortal as the next guy.

Tatsuya's Regrowth can heal major and minor wounds alike in a fraction of a second, meaning that he can maintain combat effectiveness through almost any injury he sustains. Lacerations, broken bones, and even the removal of one of his arms can be repaired without diverting his full magic calculation area to the matter at hand:

  "A thin ray of light was squeezed out and grazed Tatsuya’s right arm.

  Despite it only being grazed - Tatsuya’s right arm from the elbow down was carbonized and blown away.

  [...]

  Into that gun barrel, Tatsuya thrust his gun shaped CAD, the custom Silver Horn, Trident.
  With the right arm that was supposed to be blown away.

  “That arm!?” Lina shrieked."

  Volume 11 - Visitor III, Chapter 13

He does, however, reflexively heal any would-be fatal wounds that occur - and that can be exploited:
When used intentionally, as in the above quote, Tatsuya can control the magic he's wielding. When used reflexively on major wounds, that control is lost and the casting of Regrowth uses his entire magic calculation area, meaning he's left in a vulnerable state during the regeneration process. While only a short period, during this time he's completely open to attacks. Those mentioned in the first half of the answer would have no resistance, and even conventional attacks that strike the brain would be enough to kill him.

This essentially amounts to the point that Tatsuya has only two major weak spots - his brain, and his heart. This is proven during his fight with the Parasite Dolls in volume 12, where he only focuses on protecting those two points from any attacks.

  "Amid the incoming superpower [...] attacks coming from all directions, Tatsuya charged forward while only protecting the vital areas of the head and heart and swiftly came into contact with the first Parasite doll.

  [...]

  Utilizing a full backup of Restoration could block the pain, but under those circumstances, Restoration would temporarily monopolize the entire Magic Calculation Area, crucially delaying any counterattack.

  It was precisely for this reason why Tatsuya shielded the vitals that impacted life and death. So long as his Psions were not exhausted, he wouldn’t die even if suffered a fatal injury. However, if he did suffer a life threatening blow, then his survival instincts would automatically initiate a full backup and put every other magic ability on hold.

  Volume 13 - Steeplechase, Chapter 7

If you can destroy the brain, that's enough to put him out permanently. If you can severely damage his heart, that would force him into automatic regeneration and therefore potentially provide enough of an opening to perform the first action.

The only other way to take down Tatsuya is mentioned briefly in that previous quote:

  "So long as his Psions were not exhausted, he wouldn’t die even if suffered a fatal injury."

As all magic requires Psions to cast, if his supply was empty, he would be unable to restore himself, reflexively or otherwise. Therefore, if it was possible to completely drain Tatsuya's supply of Psions, a fatal wound (even one not targeting the brain) would be enough to kill him.

Of course, this is practically nearly impossible, as he has such a huge Psion count - even Mayumi Saegusa comments on this after he uses Gram Demolition during the Nine Schools Competition:

  "But there are very few people capable of performing this feat. I cannot do it either. Since this isn't an interference ability but a true dispersion, I am unable to create that kind of force with my psion count.

  In summation, it's a super heavyweight!

  [...]

  There were at least ten overlapping Magic Sequences during the incident, but they were all dispelled instantly... Exactly how
  high is his psion count..?"

  Volume 4 - Nine Schools Competition II, Chapter 10

If nothing else, you could always wait for him to die from old age. While he can repair any injury, he still ages, and will therefore die like anyone else after so long.


Who was the child of the first Hokage? We all knew that Tsunade is the granddaughter of the First Hokage, but who are her parents? What are their whereabouts?

The wiki said that "Despite the seal's strength, it almost broke at some later point when she (Mito Uzumaki) was going through childbirth."

Who is this child?

The name was never mentioned, nor it was ever discussed about Tsunade's parents or origins, other than she being the granddaughter of the First.

In short, we don't know. It's also likely to not be revealed anytime soon, unless the author would include it in a databook or something similar.


Does "Seton" have any particular meaning? Does the name "Seton", of Seton Academy, have any particular meaning, particularly referring to wild animals? I tried looking up whether it was the name of a famous zoologist, or biologist, or taxonomist, or something similar, and came up blank.

It's likely named after a wildlife illustrator/writer and naturalist named Ernest Thompson Seton. His animal stories works such as, Wildlife I Know, Biography of the Gray Bear, and The Life of Hunted Things are collectively referred to as "Seton Animal Stories" in Japan.


What was the first English-speaking anime fangroup? When anime and manga first came over to English-speaking areas, I presume it was treated more like traditional national comics were, and that manga fans were still primarily comic fans - rather than there being a distinction like today.

What was the first public group that had an anime/manga fandom that was distinct from western comic fandom?

According to interviews with co-founder Fred Patten, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (C/FO) was the first anime/manga fanclub set up in 1977. Based in Los Angeles, the group started expanding into several spin-off groups in the 80s, including another major group in New York:

  1980s C/FO New York meeting.

Most ways of accessing anime & manga were limited back then. You either had to know someone over in Japan, or visit one of very few Japanese bookshops. Nearly none of which having English translations.

(src)

Whilst there may have been some small gatherings of friends before the C/FO, it was the first group to be open to the general public.

Many of the early members of the C/FO became prominent figures in the emergence of furry fandom.

Unfortunately, due to political in-fighting the splinter groups gradually ceased to exist, leaving only the original L.A. branch active. Their current website was last updated in 2013.

Even today, Los Angeles is one of the most important places in english-speaking territory for anime, hosting one of the largest conventions - Anime Expo


Does the size of a person matter when Devil Fruit powers are involved? As seen in the anime, Lily Enstomach grew herself into the size of a giant inside Luffy thus giving Luffy immense power.  He was strong with a weakness of becoming slower.  However, when he went into 2nd gear, the sheer power of turning into 2nd gear caused everything around him to be thrown back.

So does the size determine the amount of initial power the person has?

-The reason why I said initial was because power really matters on the training rather than the power of the devil fruit

Example:

Luffy, when he got bigger, the effect of 2nd Gear was stronger.
Let's say that Buggy's devil fruit (section-section) gives Buggy the ability to split and fly a range 25 meters around his feet.  If Buggy was the size of a giant or the size of Whitebeard, would the range increase?

This is not about how much the devil fruit is eaten.

It's not about devil fruits, it's just that bigger things have bigger impact.

Let's say that a normal giant, without any devil fruit powers, can crush a warship into pieces. However a normal sized person would need some powers (haki, devil fruit, whatever else) no matter how strong he is otherwise, only because his body is smaller and his fist wouldn't make such an impact. He could break through the ship but the damage would remain local. A small hole on the ship, and that's it.

In the special case of devil fruit's powers the only information we have (while seeing numerous occasions of bigger attacks being more powerful, like Luffy's Gear 3rd and Ace's Supernova) what Crocodile said in the desert while fighting Luffy: a devil fruit power can be stronger based on how the user trains and uses it. That implies that indeed, size matters for devil fruit powers too, if the user trains himself and uses it that way. Not because of any devil fruit specific reasons, just because of the facts mentioned above.


Was "UTA III - Reincarnation" in the original Ghost in the Shell movie? We all know the iconic opening song of the original Ghost in the Shell 1995 movie. A haunting chorus of singers singing a traditional wedding prayer (from what I gather). Titled "UTA I - Making of Cyborg" ("UTA" means "song"), it is again heard later on as "UTA II - Ghost City" just before the puppet master is introduced.

Apparently, there's "UTA III - Reincarnation" that was never played in full in the movie. It's heard yes, at the end you hear the gongs at the beginning of UTA III, but it abruptly cuts to another song, which is a pity considering UTA III is awesome.

Did the original in-theatre movie play "UTA III - Reincarnation" but was later changed in the public releases?

I do believe so, Kenji Kawai's soundtrack was released on November 22, 1995, and it does contain the track "UTA III - Reincarnation".

All three contain the track:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/ghost-in-the-shell-koukaku-kidoutai-original-soundtrack/910532068
http://wrwtfww.com/album/ghost-in-the-shell-original-soundtrack
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Shell-Kidoutai-Original-Soundtrack/dp/B00MVNA8F6

When Ghost in the Shell 2.0 was released, an updated version of the soundtrack was released on December 17, 2008. This also contained "UTA III - Reincarnation"


What episode of fairy tail are these screenshots from? I found these in an amv online and I wanted to know what episode(s) they're from. It looks like Natsu is losing control of his fire or something related to that.

This is from a special OVA from the very first season of Fairy Tail, I believe it is Welcome to Fairy Hills. It was after Wendy just joined. The scenes are from when Natsu accidentally saw the old man swimming naked, and is spitting fire everywhere along with Gajil and Grey who also did the same thing and ended up destroying the basement.


Is getting hit by Perishables/Food worse? In Nichijou episode one, Yuuko gets hit by a Kokeshi, and then by an Akabeko on her head. She says that it could've been worse if she were struck by a Perishable, before actually getting hit on the head with a piece of Salmon.

I'm not sure if I get this. Why would it be worse? Why would she even say that? Is this some cultural reference, or am I just reading too much into this?

  I should be glad nothing perishable struck me. It could have been worse.

Perishables are worse because kokeshi is a solid wooden item and does not stain or make your hair dirty, whereas salmon would smell, and soil the hair. The joke is in the fact that she mentions the possibility of something like salmon falling on her head right before it happens. She mentions that because it is very unlikely that any object would fall from the sky and hit one's head, and it happens twice in a row, which is supposed to add to comic effect.


What drinks are SURELY known to affect and/or differ Franky's behaviour? It is known that Franky is powered by cola in his stomach fridge, so if other liquids are used, his behaviour goes through drastic changes.

So far, I'm aware of two cases in Enies Lobby and one in the Future Kingdom, right before the Impel Down events.

Is someone able to provide a complete list?

Though Cola is the known drink used to power franky himself and his body it is shown that other drinks can also affect his personality. Used as a trope by Chopper in Enies Lobby, it was used as a plot point in his stay in the Future(?) Kingdom where he becomes gentleman like when tea is used. And reverts when it fizzes.

From the wiki

  It was shown during Franky's fight with Fukuro that depending on what kind of drink Franky has, it can change his hair style and attitude when Chopper accidentally hands him vegetable juice and tea. It also shows that Franky's strength is many times greater when he has more bottles of cola in his stomach fridge, and he needs it as a fuel for certain attacks. His hair acts as a kind of meter to the amount of cola in his stomach, being tall if he is full and sagging if empty. Franky's stomach compartment can hold up to three bottles, or six liters, of cola.

So Canonically only three drinks are known through which Franky's personality alters viz. Vegetable Juice and two kinds of tea.

http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Franky/Abilities_and_Powers


How does Conan know the names of Vodka and Gin in the anime? I watched the anime many times but in the first episode of Detective Conan, both Vodka and Gin never mentioned their names. But later as the series continues, it looks like he knows their names even before Haibara appeared in the series.

Conan never learned about their codenames in the anime due to the plot modification, which makes a big plothole.
Detective Conan World's Wiki stated:

The first season of Detective Conan rarely featured the Black Organization because the anime writers wanted to downplay their presence. Two of the episodes at least, were altered heavily in light of this:

Episode 5, The Shinkansen's Bomb Case: The episode replaces the two men who shrunk Conan with lookalikes unrelated to the Black Organization. In the manga version of this case, Conan runs into the real pair and learns their code names (Gin/Vodka in the Japanese Version, Melkior and Kaspar in the English Version). Their replacement creates a continuity error in Episode 54, Game Company Murder Case. Conan recognizes their code names when Tequila speaks to them, yet Conan never learned their code names in the anime version of events.

[...]

As already mentioned, in the manga version, Conan first learned about their codenames in "The Shinkansen's Bomb Case" (vol 4, files 4-6) where he ran into them inside the train.

There, using the microphone bug gadget by Professor Agasa, he eavesdropped on their conversation and learned about Gin and Vodka, their codenames.


Who is this person in Naruto Ch. 678 (spoiler)? Who is this person that the current Mizukage is marrying?

The character is unnamed and it really doesn't matter too.

The Fourth Mizukage's dream is to get married, and that's exactly what she got in her infinite dream.

She didn't really seem to have a preference of who to marry, but just to marry.


What is the background story of Hatsune Miku? I do understand it is a fictional character, and so I feel there must be a story behind this virtual Diva. I am interested in learning "how" Hatsune Miku became interested in singing.

As is the case with most vocaloids, the company that invented 初音ミク (Hatsune Miku), Crypton Future Media, released an official personal data sheet for Miku; however, this contains her physical and technical traits rather than personality or back story, which intentionally allows the fans to take a role in developing the characterization of the character.  She is referred to as a "beloved collaboratively constructed cyber celebrity with a growing user community across the world." Some fans have been allowed to create officially-sponsored costumes for Miku through a design competition for the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival).  It could be said that the clothing design becomes a part of the character's personality (i.e. this is the sort of fashion that Miku would wear).

『メーカー非公式 初音みっくす』 (Meekaa Hikoushiki Hatsune Mikkusu) is a manga about Hatsune Miku which ran in『月刊コミックラッシュ』(Gekkan Comic Rush) magaizine published by ジャイブ株式会社 (JIVE Ltd.). It is licensed in North America by Dark Horse Comics under the title Hatsune Miku: Unofficial Hatsune Mix.

『週刊はじめての初音ミク』 (Shuukan Hajimete no Hatsune Miku) is a yonkoma gag manga that ran in 『週刊ヤングジャンプ』(Shuukan Young Jump) magazine published by 集英社 (Shuueisha).

Additionally, some mangaka of 『りぼん』(Ribon) shoujo manga magazine published by Shuueisha have drawn illustrations of Miku that were included in a 付録 (furoku = freebie) included with an issue of the magazine, and on some special pages printed in the magazine.

Each of these portrayals have different aspects and storylines for Miku, in keeping with the collaborative, undefined nature of vacaloid characters. There is no one background story for Miku. Crypton intentionally encourages fans to create their own songs, music videos, visual novels, doujinshi, fanfiction, fanart, etc. and basically anything is fair game; portrayals that strike a chord with many fans rise in popularity, where fans adopt another fan creator's rendition of Miku into their own image of her character. Miku is who each person wants her to be, which includes limitless options for coming up with her backstory.


How do I read manga with multiple panels? Taking this double-page spread for example. There are total of 8 panels, but it's divided into three different segments from the top to the bottom.

I've tried reading from the top-right, to the bottom-right, then starting with the next pane downwards. I know Japanese manga is read right-to-left, and I'm having some trouble reading this particular part.

As a rule of thumb, how do I properly read manga with multiple panels like this?

You would typically read it in a S shape from one row to the next, always returning far right panel when you start a new row.

+-------------------+
|    2    |   1     |
+-------------------+
|  6  | 5 | 4 |  3  |
+-------------------+
|    8    |    7    |
+-------------------+

So on the first row, start from the far right and you hit the far left panel of the first row, move to the far right panel of the second row. Then at the far left panel of the second row, move onto the far right of third row and finish the page.

However because of the flow of action in this particular page the order of panels goes more like this:

+-------------------+
|    2    |   1     |
+-------------------+
|  3  | 4 | 4 |  3  |  <-- the 2nd and the 4th Hokage are acting simultaneously
+-------------------+
|    6    |    5    |
+-------------------+


Do Gods and Goddesses regain their power inside dungeon? In episode 12, when Hestia walked up to Bell who was battling with the envious adventurer, she was glowing while angrily saying something like "I said stop!" - referring to the battle. Meanwhile, Hermes, overlooking them from a cliff, said that Hestia released her power.

I'm aware of the rule that Gods and Goddesses are not allowed inside dungeon. But at this point, I'm confused whether the Gods and Goddesses regain their power inside dungeons, or they possess it all the time (even outside dungeon) but they just don't use it? I don't mind if the answer contain spoilers.

They never lost it. Aside from the rule of them not being allowed in the Dungeon, it is also stated at the beginning of all three forms of the series (anime, manga and LN) that the Deities are not allowed to use their power while they reside in the human world.


Does the AGV drug give permanent or temporary superhuman healing habilities? In a battle with Kagetane, when Rentaro is about to die, he uses the AGV drugs to get superhuman habilities, heal himself, and finally be able to defeat Kagetane. Does this superhuman healing hability he got lasts or is it a one time thing?

It is once off, the effect doesn't last very long.
In the 1st light novel when Sumire gives him the drug it is stated that there are five vials, if it didn't wear off then there would have been no need to give him more than a single vial (or even inject him ahead of time, although there is the minor side effect of the drug turning users into Gastrea)

He instantly caught what she threw into his chest. There were five small syringes connected together like bells. Inside each was a red liquid, and a cap was on each needle. "That’s my going away present," she said. "It’s something I made while researching Gastrea. You know what I’m talking about when I say it’s the AGV test drug?"
Kanzaki, Shiden. Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods (p. 132). Yen Press. Kindle Edition.

.

It was the AGV test drug, a drug Sumire created while studying Gastrea that made a human’s regenerative abilities go through the roof. This dramatic effect could even overcome the inhibiting effect of Varanium. If it weren’t for the side effect that twenty percent of the test subjects became Gastrea, Sumire would be so famous that her name would be in textbooks.
Kanzaki, Shiden. Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods (p. 180). Yen Press. Kindle Edition.

Below is an extract from the 5th Light novel after Rentaro was injured, which clearly indicate that the quick healing capabilities had long ago worn off, otherwise he would have simply healed on his own several pages before

 The gruesome sight almost made him groan. It was no longer bleeding, but the wound was still a blaze of pain.
 "Hey, how did you stop the blood?"
 "I stuck a hot frying pan against it."

 Kanzaki, Shiden. Black Bullet, Vol. 5 (light novel): Rentaro Satomi, Fugitive (Kindle Locations 2128-2129). Yen Press. Kindle Edition.


The divergence points for each of the routes? Each of three routes has a different series of events and endings. I’ve read that the first few days are the same but then they all diverge. What causes them to diverge exactly? For example, why is Shiro with Saber in "Fate" route and not with Rin? Why does Archer not enact his "kill Shiro" plan in "Fate" and "HF"? likewise, the HF events are vastly different from the first two. Why?

Botton line: What event or lack therof causes the storyline/plot to branch off into three seperate ones: Fate, UBW and HF

What event or lack therof causes the storyline/plot to branch off into three seperate ones: Fate, UBW and HF

In UBW, Shirou commands Saber not to attack Archer on the first night; in Fate, he doesn't do that. In HF, Shirou accompanies Sakura to her home on the first night; in UBW and Fate, he doesn't do that. Broadly speaking, UBW diverges against Fate because Archer does not suffer injury, allowing him to maintain a more active role in the early stages of the war. HF diverges against Fate/UBW because (spoilered because it sounds like you haven't read it)

   this puts Sakura into a more active role in the war, causing that whole mess with the shadow. Also, Zouken.

How does this lead to the vastly different outcomes in each of the three routes? We can posit some explanations, but it's important to keep in mind that any explanation is likely to be somewhat contrived, simply because it's unlikely that Nasu wrote F/SN from the perspective of "if I change this one small thing, what would the logical outcomes be?". That is, the routes are presumably the fundamental things that Nasu wanted to write, and the divergence points exist to make them plausible. (The alternative would be that the divergence points are the fundamental thing in the narrative, and the routes are just logical consequences thereof. See footnote 1 for an example of what I mean.)

Anyway, let's posit a bit.

  For example, why is Shiro with Saber in "Fate" route and not with Rin?

Let me reverse the question: why is Shirou with Rin in UBW, and not with Saber? Well, in UBW, Shirou spends relatively little time with Saber, initially because of her abduction by Caster, and later because Saber re-contracts with Rin through the end of the route.

In Fate, Shirou isn't deprived of interaction with Saber, and so he develops a relationship with her (and hence not with Rin). I think it's uncontroversial to say that Saber is the "main heroine" of F/SN (given Last Episode, if nothing else); in the absence of barriers to them developing a relationship, I figure they would, in fact, get together. Note that in HF, the barrier is that

   the shadow ganks Saber on day 3.

  Why does Archer not enact his "kill Shiro" plan in "Fate" and "HF"?

In HF,

   Archer subordinates his desire to get rid of Shirou to the need to deal with the shadow, which poses an existential threat. The shadow existing is an indirect consequence of the divergence point for HF - Shirou walks Sakura home; Zouken sees this and thrusts Sakura into a more active role in the war; the shadow is the result of that.

I don't have any good explanation for why Archer doesn't do that in Fate. Maybe we can write it off as Archer being injured (because of Saber on the first night) and not really in a position to deal with Shirou.

1 Well, this is a spoiler for a non-F/SN thing, and telling you what it's for is would be a spoiler too, so hover if you dare.

   The various timelines of Madoka Magica do quite a good job of exploring the outcomes that result from Homura effectively causing divergences by changing the way she acts after she wakes up in the hospital on day one. It's not a perfect analogy to F/SN, since the timelines don't all start from exactly the same place (Homura gains additional knowledge in each successive timeline), but it's close.


Was the Earth in the Gurren Lagann universe destroyed before? In Gurren Lagann, when they are about to start the fight with the Anti-Spirals, they mention that the Spirals have tried to attack them before but lost. Then, in the episode when the fight is about to begin, you can see many destroyed battleships. Does this mean that the Earth was destroyed and rebuilt before? Or was humanity not completely wiped out?

It's important to note that Anti-Spirals were originally Spiral lifeforms. However:

 The Anti-Spirals realized the truth about the event called "Spiral Nemesis", an event in which the entire universe would be destroyed by an excess of Spiral power. Because of this, they purged themselves of Spiral power and became a collective consciousness (the black creature known as the Anti-Spiral).

The Anti-Spirals then made it their mission to ensure that no Spirals could contribute to this cataclysmic event; this included attacking Earth, where the Spiral lifeforms continued to live. However, they were unsuccessful:

The Anti-Spirals found heavy resistance on Earth, since this was the home of the native Spiral warriors. The Spiral warriors held off the Anti-Spirals, driving them back into space, before pushing further into Anti-Spiral territory.
   -- Anti-Spirals at the Gurren Lagann Wiki

Lordgenome, a powerful warrior, was the one who led the resistance against the Anti-Spirals and ultimately protected the Earth from destruction. However:

 Utterly immersed in the despair the Anti-Spiral had instilled within him, Lordgenome activated his most powerful weapon, the Cathedral Lazengann, and pushed humanity back to Planet Earth, determined to preserve the remaining spiral population by conceding to any demands the Anti-Spiral had. He constructed an imposing castle fortress called Teppelin, and created the Beastmen as enforcers to slaughter human beings living on the planet surface, driving them underground in hope their fear would keep them there along with burying the Lagann in the depths of the Earth's crust.
    -- Lordgenome at the Gurren Lagann Wiki

So, no, the Earth itself was never destroyed. The Anti-Spirals tried to obliterate the Spiral lifeforms, but they were not destroyed; they were only suppressed by Lordgenome in an effort to further the Anti-Spirals' protection of the universe.