noun:

• driving off birds
• procession held at the New Year to chase away the birds for the year, with children singing songs as the villagers walked from house to house
• female street musician who wore a braided hat and carried a shamisen
• street entertainer who appeared on New Year's eve and performed with a fan

expression / godan ~む verb:

• never being satisfied with what one gets, and always wanting more; giving someone an inch and having them take a mile; taking Gansu only to want Sichuan [literal] - idiom

noun:

• Islamic State; IS; Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; ISIS; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; ISIL

noun:

• jitte; short truncheon with a hook made of metal or wood (used by policemen and private thief-takers in Edo Japan)

noun:

• (young) man adhering to a masculine version of gyaru fashion (usually marked by hair dyed brown or blond, gaudy clothes and accessories) ➜ ギャル

noun:

• system of Japanese provinces under the ritsuryo system; ancient provinces of Japan ➜ 律令【りつりょう】

noun / ~する noun / ~の noun:

• inflection of words (e.g. declension of nouns and conjugation of verbs) - Linguistics term

noun:

• western lands (China, India, etc.); the West

noun:

• Western Pure Land (Amitabha's Buddhist paradise) - Buddhism term

noun:

• spaghetti western (film) - From English "macaroni western"

noun:

• Western-inspired art (Edo period); oil painting - archaism ➜ 秋田蘭画【あきたらんが】

noun:

• using the Chinese-reading of kanji to represent native Japanese words (irrespective of the kanji's actual meaning) ➜ 万葉仮名

noun:

• a little more than usual; bribe money added to a regular fee; and then some - From English "plus alpha"

noun:

• principle of being fair and just; fair and unbiased policy (unbiassed)

noun:

• spring and autumn; spring and fall
• years; age
• The Spring and Autumn Annals; The Chronicles of Lu; Chunqiu; Ch'un Ch'iu ［しゅんじゅう］ ➜ 五経

noun:

• slicing a fish down its back
• slit in the back of a garment
• split in a piece of lumber (to prevent splitting when drying)

noun:

• Fifteen Years' War (starting with the Manchurian Incident in 1931 and ending with the Japanese surrender in 1945)

noun / ~する noun:

• shiatsu; acupressure; form of Japanese finger-pressure therapy

noun:

• style of Japanese folk song associated with Niigata Prefecture

noun:

• unit of old Japanese liquid measurement; 1800 cc

noun:

• Japanese amberjack (species of yellowtail, Seriola quinqueradiata)

noun:

• Engi-Shiki (set of ancient Japanese governmental regulations)

noun:

• square-shaped collar (of some traditional Japanese clothing)

noun:

• fourth degree (of the Japanese & Chinese pentatonic scale) ➜ 五音

noun:

• fifth degree (of the Japanese & Chinese pentatonic scale) ➜ 五音