Reading: さくらぜんせん
This literally means ‘cherry blossom front’ (as in ‘front line’). It refers to the way that the cherry blossoms bloom first in the south of Japan, and then bloom in succession across the country, moving further and further north. The line of places where the cherry blossoms have bloomed on a particular day, a little like the isobars on a weather map, is the 桜前線.
Reading: にのうで
This word means ‘upper arm’.
This word is a shortened form of 土壇場キャンセル（どたんばきゃんせる）. It means ‘cancelling (or going back on a commitment or promise) at the last minute’.
土壇場 itself means ‘at the last monent’ or ‘at the eleventh hour’.
This word, sometimes written ヅラ, is slang for ‘a wig’.
Reading: へそをまげる
This literally means ‘bend your belly button’, but it comes to mean ‘get cross’, or ’sulk’.
Reading: つぶやき
This word means ‘a murmur’. However, of late it is used as the Japanese term for a tweet- that is, a posting to Twitter.
Reading: りそうきょう
This word means ‘Utopia’.
Reading: ひづけへんこうせん
This compound means ‘International Date Line’.
Reading: しょうそくつう
This word means ‘a person in the know’. If you want to talk about well-informed sources, as opposed to a specific person, the word is 消息筋（しょうそくすじ）.
Reading: こうしゅう
This word means ‘takings’- in other words, the money spent by people on entrance fees. It applies especially to money spent at the cinema: ‘box office takings’.