This is a great thread! I could never get Japanese food to taste right until I watched my wife cook... I was very surprised at how simple a lot of it actually ended up being.
I was thinking of making some videos of it with my wife to put on youtube to help people cook Japanese food (particularly foreigners who are in Japan). You can save a ton of money if you can cook Japanese food from scratch instead of going out all the time or buying ready-made packaged goods.
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If you've noticed, all those sauces revolve around a central list of ingredients in differing ratios. They're all very basic recipes and many people have their own variations (such as adding a small amount of ginger to the teriyaki sauce or squeezing some yuzu into the zuke.)"
This is the key! Those small variations is what is so great about cooking on your own. They have so many citrus fruits that you can use to add all kinds of nuances to your food. Of course there are things like ginger as well (which I absolutely love!). Sprinkling a little bit of parsley on things is also a nice addition (even miso soup).
Those citrus fruits are also great to add to drinks! If you make lemonade (or CC lemon type stuff from the powder) it's nice to add a squeez or slice of a citrus fruit to make it taste better. They are also good for alcoholic drinks
