nishimark

74.2 million yen ($636,000) for a single fish. Everyone needs to go to one of his shops to help support this expense!

https://www.japantoday.com/category/...-for-y74-2-mil

LapLap

I was curious to know the going rate for a global awareness campaign.

Seems reasonable - and you even get some top grade tuna thrown in - sweet!

Doc Savage

Or maybe everyone should stay away so he stops doing such expensive stunts.

AlwaysAisle

The story was on Japanese news everywhere. According to the news, to make a profit out of this tuna Sushizanmai had to sell sushi for a price of 10,000 yen (US$ 86.55) for Oo-toro (大トロ) and 5,000 yen (US$ 43.27) for chu-toro(中トロ). But Sushizenmai sold sushi made from this tuna under regular price of 429 yen (US$ 3.71) for Oo-toro (大トロ) and 321 yen (US$ 2.78) for chu-toro (中トロ). Yes, big time loss for Sushizenmai, doing it for pure publicity, hope it was worth it for Sushizenmai. Since Sushizenmai can afford to do this every year, guess this stunt is worth it for Sushizenmai.

One part I liked about this story was that the fish market only takes fees for selling fish. Most of sales goes to actual fishermen who caught the fish. After all fees were taken from the fish market for sales of this tuna, a fisherman at Ooma, Aomori will get approximately 60,000,000 yen (US$ 518,731.19) for the sales of this tuna.

I am glad that money goes to the fisherman, not greedy corporate.

^

MattEvan

I know Zanmai gets a lot of snark from the Jiro groupie set, but I've had plenty of great meals at their many locations. Great, cheap sushi. Never understood the four hour waits for Dai and Daiwa when eighty Zanmai locations are right around the corner.

LCUF

It's a great stunt haha.

shuigao

I beg to differ. I'm not part of the Jiro groupie set, and have only tried Zanmai once (the outlet near, but not in, the tsukiji market), but it was disappointing enough even given the low prices that I never bothered trying it again.

RichardInSF

I am not so sure about that, a 20% commission on a tuna selling at that price seems quite high. Bear in mind that they sell a LOT of fish every day the market is open. I would expect a sliding fee that lowered the commission percentage as the price rose.

AlwaysAisle

It is not just one fee from Tsukiji Fish Market alone. There are fees associated with local port at Aomori, and local fish market at Aomori. Also, transport fee from Aomori to Tsukiji Fish Market. Total fees deducted from the sales of this tuna involves fees from several different functions involved from the time the tuna was caught by the fisherman to the time the tuna was on the auction floor at Tsukiji Fish Market.

Also, it is no secret that first tuna auction of the year at Tsukiji Fish Market receives very unusually high bids, so I will not be surprised that there were some other additional “fees” paid behind the scene to make sure which tuna get to go as the first auction of the year…

KPT

To each their own. Zanmai serves locals, and goes out of their way to provide English menus. Clearly they are popular or they wouldn't have grown this large and stayed this large.

I'm kind of curious to see what you think of Sushiro, which is so large they have an app on the App Store.

nishimark

I'm in Kansai area. IMHO Sushiro is better than most cheap kaitenzushi places where you order from a touch panel. However, I really don't think that it's that great, plus it's always noisy. Much better sushi can be obtained for just a bit more money, places that actually have good fresh fish, and take a moment to cut it well and prepare the dish. They might have a kaiten layout, but you can order directly from the guy in front of you. Unfortunately for tourists, those places aren't as easy to access and don't have English menus (at least around here), but the experience is clearly superior. My wife (whose father is retired from the fish wholesale business and picky about fish) and I go to one near our house a couple of times a month that is quite good, and generally spend about 3500 yen or so for the two of us.

bocastephen

As a member of both the Jiro groupie set and the affordable sushi groupie set, I would also add that I've been disappointed by Zanmai's offerings and I've been there a few times.

The Ginza location - I would never go back. Way too crowded and full of drunken foreigners screaming at the top of their lungs. What a miserable experience.

The Shibuya location - we go here more frequently and always sit downstairs at a table. Much quieter and more relaxed, however the problem was consistent with both locations - whoever they hired to cut the fish doesn't really know what they are doing so we've modified our expectations accordingly.

I shouldn't be pulling strands of gristle out of my teeth from chu-toro or o-toro or any tuna for that matter. They took a beautiful piece of fish and ruined it with incorrect, rushed cutting that left it too thick and grainy so half of my mouth was enjoying the delicious, flavorful fattiness and the other half was gnawing through the rest of it....and the problem occurred with different cuts of tuna and other types of fish at both locations, and has also occurred at a couple very highly rated kaiten places that served mostly locals.

Thicker is not always better. I hope more skilled hands are able to carve this poor soul correctly given that he/she sold for the price of an actual house.

LapLap

Obviously everyone did. He paid out 3 million dollars this year.

Still doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable considering the worldwide - and very prominent - high quality publicity this stunt consistently generates.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46767370

Am wondering if there is a cartel in there making furious empty bids with the certain knowledge that Kimura San is going to negate them.

LCUF

Haha I saw that news on BBC too. There could indeed be a hidden group trying to bid up the price. I mean, tuna prices, even for the best tunas caught, don't just go up 100% year over year? They are not like the stock markets with speculations lol.

evergrn

I don't know if I'm doing the math right.
But kuromaguro is supposed to be ~3500yen/kg.
That translates to 1million yen for this fish that went for 3.3oku (330million).
Which means Sushizanmai is paying 3.29oku for publicity.

Thought that was crazy. Then today I'm seeing new stories that there're now long queues at Sushi Zanmai.
Why one would feel compelled to flock to Sushi Zanmai just because of this is beyond me, but perhaps this is 3.29oku well spent.