Vegetarianism in Japan

I'm not vegetarian myself, and whilst I've had a few vegetarian (non-Japanese) friends living here in Japan, it's not something I had to seriously consider until my girlfriend came to visit over the summer. She's been vegetarian for over half her life, so, as you can probably guess, it's a matter she takes quite seriously.

It's not such a big issue if you have your own residence with a kitchen in which you can make your own meals, although travelling around and frequently eating at restaurants presents a significant problem unless you're willing to frequently eat white rice, edamame, and convenience store snacks. Saying "vegetarian" (or even 菜食主義者) didn't quite suffice - I also had to specify that fish or any other form of seafood is also off-limits, as are animal-based stocks/broths/sauces, which immediately eliminates almost any soup dish and other seemingly innocuous dishes such as agedashi tōfu.

It turned out that places such as kushikatsu restaurants were a good option, where we were able to choose individual items to be cooked. On top of that, the strictly vegetarian meals at the Mt Koya temple in which we stayed were absolutely stunning, and also very filling.

Anyway, I find it curious and also somewhat inexplicable that whilst I have a large number of vegetarian and vegan friends in Australia, I've never met any Japanese people with such dietary habits despite the common notion of Buddhist-based vegetarianism. Most of those aforementioned friends tend to base their vegetarianism on their strong regard for animal rights, and often equal to that, the environmental impact of meat consumption. Whilst the West has a long way to go (and being omnivorous myself, I can only criticise to a certain extent) I feel that the welfare of animals isn't given much consideration in Japan, even when it comes to domestic pets.