Publisher Jiyu Kokuminsha has announced this year’s 60 words and expressions nominated for “Japanese Buzzword of the Year, according to Pink Tentacle. They provide an interesting look at some of the events, people and trends that had an impact on Japan in 2007. A panel of judges will choose this year’s grand prize winner and 10 runners-up. The final results will be announced on December 3. Here are some specimens but the whole list can be browsed on the Pink Tentacle site.

• Monster parents. The term refers to Japan’s growing ranks of annoying parents who make extravagant and unreasonable demands of their children’s schools.
• Factory moe. This year saw a mini-boom in the off-the-wall genre of factory moe (koujou moe) photo books focusing on the functional beauty of large-scale industrial plants.
• Dark website. Yami sites are online networking sites where people can take out hit contracts on others, make illegal transactions (drugs, fake bank accounts, hacked cellphones, prostitution, etc.), and meet suicide partners. Japan has seen a recent rise in the number of murders arranged through these web-based hotbeds of criminal activity.
• Net cafe refugees. An expression used by the Japanese media to refer to the growing number of day laborers who spend their nights in 24-hour internet cafe booths. The Japan Cafe Complex Association (JCCA) opposes the media’s use of the word “refugee” to describe these important customers. A government survey this year estimates there are about 5,400 net cafe refugees in Japan.