A bluefin around 250 kilograms of tuna has fetched record breaking amount at the Tokyo’s first auction of the 2026.
According to TBS News, a Japanese sushi entrepreneur paid a record $3.2 million for a giant bluefin tuna on Monday, January 5, at an annual prestigious new year auction in Tokyo's main fish market, smashing the previous all-time high.
Self-styled "Tuna King" Kiyoshi Kimura's sushi restaurant chain paid the top price for the 243-kilogramme (536-pound) fish that was caught off Japan's northern coast.
Kimura told reporters after the pre-dawn auction, “I'd thought we would be able to buy a little cheaper, but the price soared before you knew it. I was surprised at the price...I hope that by eating auspicious tuna, as many people as possible will feel energized.”
The frenetic energy at fish markets during such pre-dawn auctions has become a popular tourist attraction in Tokyo.
The million-dollar tuna was sliced up for customers at Kimura's sushi restaurants shortly after it was auctioned off.
The 510.3-million-yen price at the new year's auction was the highest since comparable data started being collected in 1999.
The previous high was 333.6 million yen for a 278 kilogramme bluefin in 2019, after the fish market moved from its traditional Tsukiji area in central Tokyo to a more modern facility.
The top bidder last year paid 207 million yen for a 276-kilogramme bluefin.
