Motorcycle-sized tuna sold to Tokyo sushi restaurants for $1.3 million

Sushi restaurateurs in Tokyo say they have paid 207 million yen ($1.3 million; £1 million) for a bluefin tuna that is about the size and weight of a motorcycle.

The sale is the second-highest price ever paid at the annual New Year’s auction at the Toyosu fish market in the Japanese capital.

Onodera Group, which secured the winning bid, said the tuna, which weighs 276kg (608lb), would be served at its Michelin-starred Ginza Onodera restaurants as well as Nadaman restaurants nationwide.

“The first tuna is something meant to bring good luck,” Shinji Nagao, an Onodera official, told reporters after the auction, the AFP news agency reported.

Nagao added that he hoped people would eat the tuna, caught in the Aomori region of northern Japan, and “have a wonderful year.”

The group has paid the highest price at the Ichiban Tuna auction for five years in a row.

Last year, he shelled out 114 million yen for the best tuna.

The highest auction price since comparable records began in 1999 was 333.6 million yen in 2019 for a 278kg bluefin tuna.

was paid by self-proclaimed Japanese “Tuna King” and sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.

The Toyosu Fish Market, opened in 1935, claims to be the largest fish market in the world and is known for its daily pre-dawn tuna auctions.

But tuna wasn’t the only catch on offer Sunday: Hokkaido sea urchins also fetched a record price of 7 million yen, according to the Japan Times.