Oishinbo Style Ramen

So I suppose an argument could be made for comic books not being the best source of reliable recipes, but I've built my life on blindly believing virtually everything I read so I doubt I could be convinced.
I trust the research that goes into producing the incredibly detailed dish descriptions in the Oishinbo series, and just thinking about it now is making me hungry.

A couple of days ago I started re reading the series, and it's impossible not to get inspired. Luckily every issue has a recipe or two at the beginning of the book, and for the Ramen and Gyoza volume it was for Osihinbo Style Ramen.
The book follows, in a few separate episodes, the protagonists dissection on the ramen scene in Japan. Ramen is seen as a low class, fast food, and as such has fallen foul of the short cuts and questionable practices that famously plague the food industry in the West. This was quite a surprise to me, I'm sure a lot of people see Japan as some kind of mythical culture where everyone is nice and everything is above the dodgy standards we live with, but apparently not so. The prevalent use of MSG and kansui is criticized, which I found particularly interesting as I thought both of those were typical ingredients in noodle dishes.
Kansui is also known as lye water and is a strong alkaline that is substituted for expensive protein such as eggs in cheap noodle recipes. It gives a distinctive 'tingly' taste to the noodles - here's an interesting post about how to make normal dry pasta taste like ramen by adding baking soda to the water (it works).
Anyway, the point is that I assumed that this was an integral taste and texture element authentic noodle making, but apparently using it is just a short cut, and flavor is developed by aging dough. God love comic books, if you were looking at the pictures right now, instead of my boring synopsis, it would all stick. If only all educational materials were available in comic book format, everyone would know everything! Just imagine!!

Here's the Oishinbo Style Ramen, pork mince fried with onions, garlic, miso and sake, on top of shop bough noodles in dashi. It was... ok, nothing to write about.