Massive Bluefin Tuna the Size of a Motorcycle Sells for $1.3 Million at a Japanese Fish Market

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Wow...now that's a lot of tuna.

Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent - 9 Jan 2025

"The fish weighed 608 pounds, which is also about the same size as an adult male grizzly bear. It garnered the second highest bid at the Toyosu Market since records began in 1999.

Tuna is big business in Japan, where highly skilled chefs transform the iridescent fish into mouth-watering sashimi, sushi and nigiri.

They’re willing to pay top dollar for the best and biggest fish at Tokyo’s Toyosu Market, which hosts live auctions before dawn. But the first one each year typically garners the most jaw-dropping bids.

On Sunday, a Pacific bluefin tuna sold for $1.3 million (207 million yen) at the market’s first auction of 2025. That’s the second-highest price recorded since the massive seafood wholesale market began keeping track in 1999. (The highest price on record was $3.1 million for a 612-pound tuna in 2019.) [WOW!!!]
Weighing in at 608 pounds, the behemoth fish was about the same size as a motorcycle or an adult male grizzly bear.

The Onodera Group, a Michelin-starred Japanese sushi restaurant chain, placed the winning bid for the massive fish.

It was snapped up by the Onodera Group, a Michelin-starred Japanese sushi restaurant chain, in partnership with tuna wholesaler Yamayuki. The company says it plans to serve the fish at 13 of its restaurant locations, according to a statement.

“The first tuna [of the year] is something meant to bring in good fortune,” Shinji Nagao, the president of the restaurant group, told reporters after the auction, per the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Our wish is that people will eat this and have a wonderful year.”

Onodera Group, which has eateries in Japan, China and the United States, says it has now won the prize tuna at Toyosu Market’s first auction five years in a row, as well as in 2018.

A 73-year-old fisherman named Masahiro Takeuchi caught the enormous fish on a longline on Saturday morning. He was fishing near the town of Oma in northern Japan’s Aomori prefecture, reports Kyodo News.

Works Cited: Massive Bluefin Tuna the size of a motorcycle sells for $1.3 million at a Japanese fish market

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"Bluefin tuna is sort of like the cheetah of the ocean". Popular Saying

 

[Wombat ESQ]

well, that going to make some nice shoe she, innit, but i hate shoe she, makes me gag to smell one them shops, fish stink on rice.
I was only thinkin the other day, if it moves, they eat it, lots of times raw, bleuch

 

[Lightcs1776]

Love spicy tuna sushi. That would provide enough for more than a few meals.

 

[Lockback]

It's better than spending $1.3 million on a motorcycle the size of a can of tuna fish.

 

[helicopter]

Reigning in good luck for the season is mostly done for show here. It is sort of like bidding a million dollars for symphony tickets at a charity auction. Of course, people will go to their restaurants to get some of the fish and share in the prestige of the expensive fish, so it is also good business for them. The other fish of the season go for less celestial prices.

 

[BigFoot]

Love spicy tuna sushi. That would provide enough for more than a few meals.

Now I want spicy tuna. I don't think they will recoup their investment though.

 

[losing]

To each their own, right?

I surf fished throughout my life and very seriously for about 5 years of my life in the Bays and Atlantic Ocean. A few fish were kept for food because they were wanted by my people or the fish got foul hooked and/or wasn't going to make it. But catch and release was my/our intentions. Crabs were/are caught as well because that was/is fun to do and a preferred food by my people.

People went and probably still go nuts about certain fish and sizes and records. During my serious surf fishing years fisy fights happened, internet fights and record breakers or believed record breakers got threats in their mail and i believe one guy for a Striper record moved out of NJ or had to move because threats of his life were a constant thing.

Is Japanese fishing barbaric like that? Or at all? I mean $1.3m for a big fish is a lot of money...

Fish is yucky it amazes me how people can eat somthing that smells like a lot of fish smell.

Only fish i eat are ones that are typically golden and crunchy and come in bags or boxes or are red and chewy and born in sweden possibly. There are different varieties of both these types of fish that are delicious but my reply has been too long already...

Tight lines everybody