Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish that consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. It involves coating slices of pork with panko, and then frying them in oil. The two main types are fillet and loin. Tonkatsu is also the basis of other dishes such as katsukarē and katsudon.
Wagashi is a traditional Japanese confection made of mochi, anko, and fruit. Wagashi is typically made from plant-based ingredients with an emphasis on seasonality, and generally making use of cooking methods that pre-date Western influence in Japan. It is often served with green tea.
Prostitution in Japan has existed throughout the country's history. While the Prostitution Prevention Law of 1956 states that "No person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it", loopholes, liberal interpretations and a loose enforcement of the law have allowed the Japanese sex industry to prosper and earn an estimated 2.3 trillion yen per year.
The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (日本国語大辞典), also known as the Nikkoku (日国) and in English as Shogakukan's Unabridged Dictionary of the Japanese Language, is the largest Japanese language dictionary published.
Otogi-zōshi (御伽草子) are a group of about 350 Japanese prose narratives written primarily in the Muromachi period (1392–1573). These illustrated short stories, which remain unattributed, together form one of the representative literary genres of the Japanese medieval era.
Many Japanese words of Portuguese origin entered the Japanese language when Portuguese Jesuit priests and traders introduced Christian ideas, Western science, medicine, technology and new products to the Japanese during the Muromachi period.
In Japanese, encyclopedias are known as hyakka jiten (百科事典), which literally means "book of a hundred subjects," and can trace their origins to the early Heian period, in the ninth century. Encyclopedic works were published in Japan for well over a thousand years before Japan's first modern encyclopedias were published after Japan's opening to the West, during the Meiji Period (1868–1912). Several encyclopedias have been published in Japan since World War II, including several children's encyclopedias, and two major titles are currently available: the Encyclopedia Nipponica, published by Shogakukan, and the Sekai Dai-Hyakka Jiten, compiled by the Heibonsha publishing company. A Japanese Wikipedia is also available.
Japanese dictionaries have a history that began over 1300 years ago when Japanese Buddhist priests, who wanted to understand Chinese sutras, adapted Chinese character dictionaries. Present-day Japanese lexicographers are exploring computerized editing and electronic dictionaries. According to Nakao Keisuke (中尾啓介):
It has often been said that dictionary publishing in Japan is active and prosperous, that Japanese people are well provided for with reference tools, and that lexicography here, in practice as well as in research, has produced a number of valuable reference books together with voluminous academic studies. (1998:35)
A hostess club is a type of night club found primarily in Japan which employs mostly female staff and caters to men seeking drinks and attentive conversation. Host clubs are a similar type of establishment where mostly male staff attend to women. Host and hostess clubs are considered part of mizu shōbai, the night-time entertainment business in Japan.
Nihon Kingendaishi Jiten is a dictionary of contemporary Japanese history published in 1978, as the revision of Nihon Kindaishi Jiten of 1958. Both editions were published by Tôyô Keizai Shinpôsha (東洋経済新報社) and were edited by a committee organized by the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University. The new edition: Nihon Kingendaishi Jiten has an extensive coverage of Japanese history from 1848 to 1975, with a particular focus on contemporary Japanese history.
Japanese words of Dutch origin started to develop when the Dutch East India Company initiated trading in Japan from the factory of Hirado in 1609. In 1640, the Dutch were transferred to Dejima, and from then on until 1854 remained the only Westerners allowed access to Japan, during Japan's sakoku seclusion period.
The School of Water Business is a manga series created by Shinobu Inokuma, the author of Salad Days. It is based on a novel by Hikaru Murozumi, and is set in a fictional trade-school—that focuses on the mizu shōbai—located in the Kabukichō district of Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Chiba is the capital city of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It sits about 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of the centre of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay. The city became a government-designated city in 1992. In June 2019, its population was 979,768, with a population density of 3,605 people per km2. The city has an area of 271.77 square kilometres (104.93 sq mi).
Jinmaku (陣幕) is a curtain used in setting up a military encampment commonly seen from the pre-modern era in Japan. The jinmaku were also historically known as a gunmaku (軍幕), or "military curtain".
Geisha (芸者), also known as geiko (芸子) or geigi (芸妓), are female Japanese performing artists and entertainers trained in traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as dance, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts. Their distinct appearance is characterised by long, trailing kimono, traditional hairstyles and oshiroi make-up. Geisha entertain at parties known as ozashiki, often for the entertainment of wealthy clientele, as well as performing on stage and at festivals.
The Bōsō Chiran-Ki (房総治乱記), or "Chronicle of Bōsō at War and Peace", is a minor Japanese medieval text of unknown authorship that chronicles events of the southern part of Kazusa Province of the Bōsō Peninsula in present-day Chiba Prefecture in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Japanese exonyms are the names of places in the Japanese language that differ from the name given in the place's dominant language.
Koshikibu (小式部) is a Japanese otogi-zōshi in two volumes, probably composed at the end of the Muromachi period. To distinguish it from a slightly earlier work, it is conventionally known as Koshikibu (beppon) (小式部（別本）) in Japanese. It is one of a number of medieval setsuwa-type works whose protagonist is the Heian-era waka poet Koshikibu no Naishi. It survives in a single copy held by Toyo University.
Yanagawa Domain was an intermittent and short-lived feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Mutsu Province, in Yanagawa, now the city of Date, Fukushima Prefecture.
The Soga clan was a samurai family from Sagami Province descending from the Taira clan. Best known for the Soga brothers and their participation in the Revenge of the Soga Brothers incident of the early Kamakura period, they later became high-ranking military officials under the Ashikaga Shogunate during the Muromachi period. During the Edo period, they continued their military service and served the Tokugawa Shogunate. The clan is not related to the Soga clan (蘇我氏) of the Yamato period.
