Japanese cooking is more about presentation than anything else, and the main focus is to make things look 'natural' and thrown together, even though there are strict rules for arranging food (盛り付け). For example, things should be presented in odd numbers and should be arranged slightly to the back of the dish, you use pottery in winter and ceramics in summer, a dish should face the direction that the signature on the bottom faces, etc. The most difficult thing is making a presentation looks like it was blown together elegantly by the wind and not touched by human hands. There is one dish I just can't get right; dark red fish is fanned out on one side of the plate and I have to make a little pile of sliced myoga (a kind of mild ginger) and soba no me (buckwheat sprouts) on the side. Both of these are slippery and tend to fall over. Then Fugu Senpai applies his chopsticks of power and suddenly the plates look great. Hmm.
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