Fireworks, written with the characters for “flower” and “fire.” Summer fireworks displays are huge events in Japan. People dress in yukata and gather by the thousands – sometimes the hundreds of thousands – along riverbanks to see rival fireworks firms compete.

Refers to someone who stays in his or her home or room to an excessive degree. Similar in meaning to recluse. The word became popular in the late 1990s as some young people, mostly male, secluded themselves in their rooms and became modern-day hermits. While some journalists and doctors say as many as one million young people qualify as hikikomori, others argue that these estimates are inflated by people who have a vested interest in seeing the phenomenon flourish. Definitions of the term tend to be vague. For example, young people who aren’t going to school and don’t have a job sometimes refer to themselves as hikikomori even though they are not shutting themselves in their rooms. For those who are serious shut-ins, parents often leave food by the door and are reluctant to intervene with the child, doctors say. The worst of the cases lead to domestic violence, but more often, young people live quietly in their rooms, only coming out after dark, if at all.

In acting, this is a take or a live performance, not a rehearsal. In the sex industry, it’s a euphemism for having sex.

One’s true intentions. Often used in contrast to tatemae.