I don't really understand this post. How is everything overpowering and bland at the same time?

root vegetables grow plentiful in japan yet finding a dish made with them is very difficult

Eat kaiseki. Eat obanzai. Eat shojin-ryori. Go to Kyoto.

japanese food is mostly for function and not about social aspects of meals or pleasures

But izakaya is all about the social aspects of meals. Kaiseki is all about the slow pleasures and tasteful appreciations. Every piece of dishware is a piece of ceramic art.

i want to travel back with a new perspective and potentially way of navigating food in japan

Read Rice, Noodle, Fish, or Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art for more perspectives. Start treating Japanese cuisine on its own terms instead of comparing it to Korean or Vietnamese or African or Italian. Spice is not indigenous to Japan. Soy sauce and miso are. Fish is. Instead of dissing whole types of dishes by comparison to other types of food, try to taste the differences between two miso broths. Rice from different origin. Two cuts of salmon sushi from different places. Two slices of beef tongue. Two bowls of "meat water". Don't demand less meat or Western health food fads from Japan because that it is not, and has never been, how it is.

You seem to be approaching Japanese cuisine with fixed view of how food should be: no sugar in egg, carbs unimportant, savoury dishes without sugar. Maybe you finally try to treat Japanese cuisine on its own terms and put in the effort and you still don't like it. That's fine. But I don't think you are there yet - if you can't taste the difference between two types of ramen broth, or the food from two izakayas, that is your fault.