Hey, thanks Steve, those diagrams are a helpful and along with Toyodiy searches I think I can better describe things. I’ve found a picture of the joint as described, hopefully I can more accurately describe where the leak is coming from.
In the picture the red circle is where the leak is, and from what I can tell from the diagram, there is no gasket for the join. It seems similar to the thermostat housing, the gasket there fits around the thermostat, rather than to seal the join. So please tell me if I’m wrong to conclude that there is no gasket there!
The blue circles are where the gaskets, 16355A (pn. 16341-50020) reside, which is the coolant bypass.
Final thing, if somebody has access to Fig 16-01 which refers to the water pump assembly, that would be really handy for more answers.