There was no pre-departure drink offered, supposedly due to Japanese regulations. Apparently this was being treated as a domestic flight despite all passengers being international (no 9th freedom to carry solely domestic passengers).
If I'd known this I might have stayed in the lounge longer to have a drink - by now I was getting parched. Oh well.
We eventually pushed back 30 minutes late. While the time in the air is fairly short, it was still over 90 minutes and given the evening departure time I anticipated a meal and some decent drinks. Instead we got offered some Japanese snacks/crackers and a choice of tea, coffee, juice or water. I wasn't impressed and nor were other passengers. The crew said the catering storage was all messed up due to this extra hop and even if there weren't local rules to consider they wouldn't have time to sort it all out. We'd get our dinner on the next flight - ie right when we'd be wanting to sleep.
We had nice views of the lights of Tokyo, Osaka and other places in between. Upon arrival continuing passengers to Auckland where ushered directly from the airbridge into the gate lounge - ie we bypassed transfer security. This made sense to me as we'd all cleared security at another airport in the same country (ie NRT) and there was less risk of a passenger going missing and holding up the flight by going to the wrong place (eg immigration instead of transit security).
We were told to expect reboarding in 20 minutes - just long enough to visit the lounge. I'd known from a previous flight with Air New Zealand from Osaka that they use the Japan Airlines Sakura lounge, and conveniently this was close to our gate. Half the business class cabin followed me there as they seemed to realise I knew where I was going. There had not been any announcement or advice that we had the use of this lounge. It pays to know what is available and what you are eligible for. Much better to enjoy a snack and some drinks in comfort in a quiet lounge than milling around a crowded gate. It was just a shame that at this late hour of the night the lounge had no meals available - only snacks.