expression / noun / ~する noun:

• eating the food of the dead (which prevents return from the underworld) ➜ 黄泉国【よもつくに】

noun:

• earthenware toy portraying a monkey sitting on top of a deer (often a bell)

expression / noun:

• lost decade; decade of economic stagnation
• decade in Japan from 1992 to 2002

noun / ~する noun:

• notification; official notice; directive (e.g. from higher to lower levels of the administration)
• being well versed (in something) ➜ 精通

noun:

• origin; source; authority
• birthplace ［しゅっしょ］

noun / ~する noun:

• release (discharge) from prison ［しゅっしょ］

noun:

• exit; point of departure ［でどころ・でどこ］
• time to take action ［でどころ・でどこ］

noun:

• parenthood; parent or someone with children on the way (esp. an expecting mother)
• (of a fish) containing roe (eggs)

noun / ~する noun / ~の noun:

• outrider (person riding horseback in the lead position of a cavalcade); outriding
• harbinger; herald; precursor; forerunner; foretoken
• anticipation

proper noun:

• Hachiko; Akita dog that waited every day at Shibuya station for the return of his owner (1923-1935) ➜ 忠犬ハチ公【ちゅうけんハチこう】

~の noun / ~たる adjective / ~と adverb:

• gasping for breath; at one's last gasp; breathing feebly; on the brink of death; more dead than alive - four character idiom

noun:

• Lyophyllum shimeji (species of edible mushroom) ➜ 本占地
• euagaric fungus (in grocery stores, usu. refers to cultivated field mushrooms, etc.) ➜ 平茸

expression:

• being fast asleep (and totally unaware of what is going on around one) - four character idiom
• know-it-all manner

noun / ~する noun:

• cultivation (esp. character, virtue, moral sentiment); fostering; training
• penetration (e.g. surface water into an aquifer); recharging (of groundwater)

noun:

• kalpa (eon, aeon) ［こう・ごう］ - Buddhism term
• ko (in go); position that allows for eternal capture and recapture of the same stones - usu. コウ - usually written using kana alone

noun:

• recipient; receiver; acceptor; taker
• skilled practitioner (of judo, sumo, etc.) - Martial Arts, Sumo term
• person who picks up the cards (in karuta games) ➜ 読み手

noun:

• one's course of action; deciding what to do with oneself, whether staying in the present position or leaving it - four character idiom

noun:

• foil; someone to look as if he's putting up a fight but actually have no chance of winning

noun:

• plane with a blade at ninety degrees to its base used for maintaining the bases of other wooden planes

noun:

• clausula rebus sic stantibus (legal principle that agreements become non-binding if there is a major, unforeseeable change of circumstances)

noun:

• tao-tie (mythological Chinese creature engraved on bronzeware during the Shang & Zhou dynasties) - archaism
• brutal person - idiom
• coveting of wealth (property, etc.)

noun:

• Nivkh (ethnic minority group of Russia, living near the Amur river and on Sakhalin)

noun:

• bai ze (mythical chinese animal able to understand human speech, having the body of a lion and eight eyes)

noun:

• universal life force (the source of animation for all things)
• free spirit (i.e. a mindset unencumbered with worldly concerns)

noun:

• nursehound (Scyliorhinus stellaris, species of catshark in the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean)

noun:

• black-barred surgeonfish (Acanthurus polyzona, species of tang known only from Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar, and the Comoro Islands)

expression:

• something so difficult that one doesn't know if there's even a 1 in 1000 chance of success - obscure term