What is in the Japanese kitchen and pantry?!
Answers: what is needed in the Japanese kitchen or pantry, or what is usually found inside?
In no particular order:
Bonito flakes, miso (fermented soy paste), Tamari (better than plain ol' soy sauce), Wakame (kelp, usually find it garnishing miso soup), rice vinegar, Nori (toasted seaweed), short grain rice, sesame seeds (black and white), sesame paste (like tahini, except from toasted sesame seeds), tofu, ginger (fresh, pickled), wasabi, soba noodles (buckwheat), udon noodles (thick wheat noodles).
Skinny little eggplants, kabocha squash, daikon radish, yam, spinach, carrots, sweet and hot peppers, mushrooms, especially shittake (dried and fresh), citrus, shrimp and a variety of fish (fresh and dried), kamaboko (fish cake or loaf)
A rice steamer, pot for soup, pan for stir-frying, chopsticks, square plates, deep bowls, small side dishes for items like ponzu, ceremonial tea set, green tea
Since your avatar looks Asian this must be a trick question...Im game! here goes.
Rice
Kombu
Nori
rice cooker
Green tea
Mochiko
shoyu
ginger
pickled and or sweet plums
guest wine or spirits
soba
wasabi
list goes on...
The other answers are great but ramen noodles are great and we always like udon.
There's an interesting book out there called Hungry Planet-What the World Eats. It profiles (in one picture) what a family in different parts of the world eats for one week. Click on the link to see the Japanese family.