The Shinkansen (新幹線, new main line), also known as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group companies. The popular English name bullet train is a literal translation of the Japanese term dangan ressha (弾丸列車), a nickname given to the project while it was initially being discussed in the 1930s.

The Tōhoku Shinkansen (東北新幹線) is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line, connecting Tokyo with Aomori in Aomori Prefecture for a total length of 674 km, Japan’s longest Shinkansen line. [On] December 4, 2010 the extension from Hachinohe to Shin-Aomori opens.

Aomori (青森市, Aomori-shi) is the capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the northern Tōhoku region of Japan. Aomori literally means blue forest. The name is generally considered to refer to a small forest on a hill which existed near the town.

The Tōkyū Den-en-toshi Line (東急田園都市線, Tōkyū Den’entoshi-sen) is a major commuter line operated by Tokyu Corporation and connecting south-western suburbs of Tokyo and neighbouring Kanagawa, with its western terminus of Chūō-Rinkan, to a major railway junction of western downtown Tokyo, Shibuya.

The term oshiya (押し屋) [English: railway station attendant] is derived from the verb “osu” (押す), meaning “push”, and the suffix “-ya” (屋), indicating “line of work.”

A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest.

Oshiya (押し屋), or “pusher”, is an informal Japanese term for a worker who stands on the platform of a railway station during the morning and evening rush hours, and pushes people onto the train. It becomes difficult to shut the doors when the number of passengers is over 200% of the capacity, but oshiyas are often stationed on platforms when trains are at around 120% capacity, as they also help to organize passengers.

There are 27,268 km of rail crisscrossing [Japan]. JR (a group of companies formed after privatization of JNR) controlled 20,135 km of these lines as of March 31, 1996, with the remaining 7,133 km in the hands of private enterprized local railway companies. Japan’s railways carried 22.24 billion passengers (395.9 billion passenger-kilometres) in fiscal 2006. In comparison, Germany has over 40,000 km of railways, but travels only 2.2 billion passengers per year.

The 500 Series Shinkansen are the fastest, most powerful and most expensive trainsets yet to run on Japan’s Shinkansen high-speed rail network. They are designed to be capable of 320 km/h (200 mph) although they currently operate at a maximum of 300 km/h (186 mph) in service. The first set was delivered for testing in 1995, entering passenger service in March 1997. The entire fleet of nine sets was delivered by 1998. They are normally used only on the premium Nozomi services, but are also used on Hikari Rail Star services during the busy holiday periods.

West Japan Railway Company (西日本旅客鉄道株式会社, Nishi-Nihon Ryokaku Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) , also referred to as JR West (JR西日本, Jeiāru Nishi-Nihon), is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshū.

Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd. (東京地下鉄株式会社, Tōkyō Chikatetsu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a private company jointly owned by the Japanese government and the Tokyo metropolitan government. It replaced the Teito Rapid Transit Authority (帝都高速度交通営団, Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan), commonly Eidan or TRTA, on April 1, 2004. TRTA was administered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and jointly funded by the national and metropolitan governments. It was formed in 1941, although its oldest lines date back to 1927. [It] forms part of one of the most complex public transportation systems in the world. It is extremely well maintained and clean, although some stations on older lines are beginning to show their age.

Yu Yamada (山田優 Yamada Yū, born July 5, 1984 in Okinawa, Japan) is a model, actress, singer. Yamada also appears in advertising for instant spaghetti, yogurt, Vodafone mobile phones, Kanebo’s T’estimo line of cosmetics and most recently Canon Ink Jet Picture “PIXUS”.

Kelly Michelle Lee Osbourne, (born October 27, 1984 in London) is an English television personality, sometime singer, actress and fashion designer. Osbourne first rose to fame in The Osbournes, a reality TV series about her famous father and his family.

The current state of the art for Western-style toilets is the bidet toilet, which, as of 2004, are installed in more than half of Japanese households. In Japan, these bidets are commonly called Washlets (ウォシュレット, Woshuretto), a brand name of TOTO Ltd., and include many advanced features rarely seen outside of Asia. Depending on the exact model, these bidets are designed to open the lid when they sense a user nearby, wash the anus or vulva of the user (including a number of pulsating and massaging functions), dry afterwards with warm air, flush automatically and close the lid after use. These toilets may be the most advanced toilets in the world.

The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line (東京地下鉄銀座線, Tōkyō Chikatetsu Ginza-sen) is a metro line in Tokyo, Japan, administered by the Tokyo Metro. It is 14.3 km long, and serves the wards of Shibuya, Minato, Chūō, Chiyoda and Taito.

On maps, its color is orange and its stations are denoted by the letter G followed by a number. Its planning line number is Line 3.

Cosplay restaurants (コスプレ系飲食店), are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the year 2000. They include maid cafés (メイドカフェ) and butler cafés, where the service staff dresses in cosplay, as elegant maids, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared to the service at normal café, the service at maid cafés invoke a slightly different atmosphere. The maids treat the customers as their master his or her home, rather than merely a customer at a café. The popularity of the cosplay restaurants and maid cafes has spread to other regions in Japan such as Osaka’s Den Den Town as well as other Asian countries, such as South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and recently, Singapore.

A love hotel (ラブホテル, rabu hoteru) is an originally Japanese type of hotel offering privacy for a couple to have sex. Alternative names include romance hotel, fashion hotel, leisure hotel and boutique hotel. Love hotels are often used by young couples, since many young Japanese people live with their parents. They are also commonly used for prostitution. The areas around love hotels are often littered with posters advertising “delivery health” (a euphemism for call girls).

The Yamanote Line (山手線, Yamanote-sen) is one of Tokyo’s busiest and most important commuter lines. Running as a circle, it connects most of Tokyo’s major stations and urban centres including the Ginza area, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro with all but six of its 29 stations connecting with other railway or underground (subway) lines. It is operated by JR East.

Samurai (侍, Samurai) was a term for the military nobility in pre-industrial Japan. The word “samurai” is derived from the archaic Japanese verb “samorau”, changed to “saburau”, meaning “to serve”; a samurai is the servant of a lord.

Katana (刀:かたな, Katana) is a type of Japanese backsword or longsword (大刀:だいとう, daitō); the term is also frequently mis-used as general name for Japanese swords. In use after the 1400s, the Katana is a curved, single-edged sword traditionally used by the samurai. Pronounced [kah-tah-nah] in the kun’yomi (Japanese reading) of the kanji 刀, the word has been adopted as a loan word by the English language; as Japanese does not have separate plural and singular forms, both “katanas” and “katana” are considered acceptable plural forms in English.